Alright, Valphira lovers, thank you so much for your patience, here is chapter 40!

We have officially hit 108k reads and 5k+ votes! *throws confetti and candy*

Me: *cries* Take it all! You are all amazing!

Valentine: *flashes abs*

Me: Ahem, we did not discuss this...

Valentine: I know ;) *flashes more abs then just takes shirt off*

Me: Excuse me!

Valentine: Shh.... *shoves chocolate in Hannah's mouth* Just let it happen

Me: Why you little...

Leave me comments and votes! LOVE YOU, my babies! <3

***

When someone tells you to stay, you stay. But not in my case - when someone tells me to stay, I deviate from the order. I'm a half-vampire with years of training and he thinks he can just keep me here, like a fragile babe. I know his intentions are good, but I just can't sit here sulking while everyone goes off to get killed.

Trust is definitely hard to come by, especially when the person you trust is the same person that can ultimately hurt you the most. Valentine knows me well and when those words came out of his mouth I wanted to slap him into the next week. His eyes glowed with a fierce anger as I protested against his decision. We both look like we could kill each other at that moment, because of our conflicting interests.

"You know what I can do," I say, not wanting to listen to him. "and you know damn well that my skills are equivalent to a dozen of those vampires combined."

"I am well aware of what you can do, sweetheart," he replies through his teeth. "I just don't want Datura to get her hands on you again. With Lucius alive, we have little chance of winning - not only can he slow time, he can get into your mind and make you kill everyone around you.

"How were you able to kill him the first time?"

"I stuck a poison dipped stake into his heart while he was sleeping," he says with a dark expression, evidently not wanting to remember the night he killed his own flesh and blood. "I had Amaryllis help me get through the borders. I was going to kill Datura but she wasn't there, she was sleeping in a different room. Strange, really."

I narrow my eyes and tilt my head to the side. If Datura loved him so much, why sleep in different rooms? Why is Datura obsessed with killing off the Royal family if she was able to bring him back to life?

"Very strange." I give a short response not knowing what to say because I'm still trying to grasp everything that has happened. What more can happen in one day?

It is definitely strange and rather surprising. More and more secrets and the damn vampire waits till the last minute to tell me.

Maybe, if I bargain with him, he'll tell me more.

"I'll stay if you tell me exactly what happened that day. I know many died, but everything is still like a broken puzzle." If he cares about me he will tell me more of what happened. I can't be kept in the dark this long.

Valentine breathes in deeply and he exhales loudly. 

"Okay," he says. "I guess it's time you knew."

"It's long overdue," I say honestly. "but I'll take it."

Valentine steps away from me and he places his hands in his pockets. I study his body language intently, wanting to know why he's so nervous. What did happen that day that makes him so anxious? I cross my arms and lean back on the wall, waiting for him to speak. I'm all ears for what he has to say.

He watches me with soft, sorrowful eyes, admiring from a distance, as he is now by the window and I'm by the door, opposite of him. We are in a small room overlooking the rose garden. The sun is setting creating a myriad of warm colors that bounced off of every living and non-living thing, including Valentine. The orange light defines his features as it glides over his smooth skin.

"It didn't happen all in one day," he starts saying. "The length of the battle lasted three days - hundreds died - it was a dark time for everyone and we, Constantin's, are to blame."

I remain quiet and plan to stay that way until he finishes. A chill runs down my spine but I choose to ignore it, wanting to learn more about him and his hellacious past. A terrible feeling rises in my gut as he walks closer to me until he is an arms width away.

"I killed many people that day, Saphira. I was so distraught that I couldn't control my powers and it was strong enough that I killed my parents. I made them bleed from the inside and I made them cower for their lives until they couldn't breathe anymore," he says so low that I have to lean in close to hear it. "The battle started the night they died. Lucius and Datura took advantage of our vulnerable state and they unleashed all their fae's and they burned our cities to the ground. After the second day, it became a pointless war that could have been easily finished with forgiveness but Datura didn't want to stop."

"What about Scarlett, what was her role in all of this?" I ask, wanting to know why she has always been so special. Astor mentioned that she was the one who managed to alter their history, not Datura.

" Everyone thinks that vampires are monsters and demons and more often, they are right, but vampires are just like humans - we love and we take risks." Again, he breathes in deep, taking in his own words. For some reason, I'm grateful that she died, I would not have been alive if she had not died. "She died the day before. Scarlett's death impacted me the most and I couldn't accept that fact that she loved Augustine just as much as she loved me. Datura found out about her death and took her body to be resurrected and she knew that Scarlett was my greatest weakness. At the time, nothing else mattered to me except for my love for her. It was the witch's plan to have her kill me on the last night, but we got to her first."

"Amaryllis has always been a good friend of mine, she is the complete opposite of her sister but they are equivalent in power. She, along with a few of the Moorehaven witches helped us break the enchantments around Acacia and we attacked during your rebirth. We were convinced that she had died, but a few years later we discovered that she and a few of her followers were protected in the same circle she created you in. The magic was so strong that she couldn't be killed."

"Doesn't a witch's power fade over time?" I ask, remembering what the Witch King said during the Grand Council meeting. "She's not as powerful as she was."

"No, she's not. Your resurrection took a toll on her powers. She took the risk in creating you," he answers.

"That's why it took her a long time to resurrect Lucius from the dead," I conclude. "Then you can kill him again?"

He stops to look at me. The veins on his neck are angry, indicating his wrath. "I can but he's a darkling, it will take more than a stake to kill him."

"The kill Datura," I say without thinking.

I could hear Valentine's heart sink to the pit of his stomach as I said those words.

"We can't kill her." Those words strike me hard to the core as it traveled through my heart and stomach. He can't be serious, can he? After all, we have done and after sacrifices we've made, he's just going to let her be? We've wasted all this time.

"What do you mean?" I say in confusion. "We can't just stop here. Datura needs to die, she needs to suffer in Inferus for the things she has done."

"If I kill her, I kill you, Saphira. Darkling's are alive as long as their makers are. You've lived this long because she has."

"And why did you not tell me this before?"

My heart starts to race and pound behind my ribs and a sorrowful thought enters my mind. It pains me that there are so many secrets to him. He doesn't trust me enough to tell me anything.

"I'm selfish and I wanted you to myself."

"You could have told me," I say angrily. The pieces are slowly coming together but for some reason, I feel like there is still a big chunk of information he is not telling me - something he is ashamed of telling me. "This is what you've kept from me this whole time? No, you're keeping things from me. You told me you wouldn't lie to me."

"I'm not lying to you," he says gruffly, not even looking me in eyes.

I ball my hands into fists and step back from him. "No, there's something missing. You're not telling me how Scarlett died or why she couldn't choose between the two of you."

"I told you, she took her life," he growls, closing the distance between us in one stride.

I shake my head adamantly and brace myself against him. He's still keeping secrets from me and I am completely over it. Now is not the time to piss me off, especially with this much dark energy around us. He wants me to trust him but he can't even tell me the simplest and most important things about himself.

"No, the only thing I have ever heard about Scarlett, is that she died. Never did I hear how or when," I argue. This time I close the remaining room between us and I point my finger into his chest. My fangs threaten to come out because of the tension in my words. "I have her body, Valentine, I deserve to know how that part of me died."

Valentine growls and the glass in the room start to tinkle and the objects start to shake. I can see the storm brewing in his eyes as he silently pleads for me to drop the subject. I love him, maybe too much, but I won't be able to just let this go. This is my body is mine and it will mine forever, I need to know everything that happened to me even if it pains him to remember.

I can see his fangs elongate and glint under the light until they stop just over his lips. The feeling in the room is an unmistakable fury of pain, sorrow, and malice. I can feel emotions bounce off of the walls and regret swim in the air.

"Scarlett never killed herself, sweetheart," he starts to say, stopping abruptly as a loud noise erupts just outside the doors. The same dark feeling circulates my body, informing me of an invasion. I should have paid more attention earlier, but I was much too engrossed in getting my answers. 

The large door bursts open and it slams against the delicate wall making it crack. I jump up as a dark and ominous entity enters the room. A shrill voice cackles and my eyes widen as Lucian walks in with Datura in tow. They both move gracefully and eerily across the room and immediately, I can see their black soulless eyes meet with mine.

I cannot see it, but I can feel an invisible barrier separate us from them. Valentine has turned his concentration to his powers to keep us safe from them. His arm automatically snakes around my waist and he pulls me close to him. His body is cold, feeling very foreign to me and I slightly shiver as his fingers brush against the flesh of my waist. 

Datura laughs and she narrows her eyes straight at Valentine. A dark and ominous aura seeps off of her and the room darkens along with my thoughts. "Of course, Scarlett didn't kill herself. Would you kill yourself because you couldn't choose between two lovers?" She glides closer until she is at the edge of Valentine's force field. She heard the last bit of our conversation so she is answering for me. "Valentine killed her."

I couldn't say anything back to her or him and by the looks of it, what she said is true. Valentine did kill his lover and mate. 

This was his deepest secret. 

He killed her all because of her love for his brother. Why would Valentine kill the one person he loved the most? Is he really that selfish?

Lucius turns to me and he smiles like the devil himself. "The only two things Valentine is good at are killing and keeping secrets, that's why he was impeached as King. The deaths never stopped when Acacia burned down, Saphira, he was so enraged that he ended up killing half of the Kingdom."

"He never stopped looking for you either," Datura starts speaking again, opening yet another black hole of questions and doubts. "But look at you now. You're back together, which is perfect, because you can watch as we kill every single soul in Numidia, starting with your precious white witch." 

My heart dropped to the floor as Amaryllis is pulled into the room with a distressed look on her face.

***

Finally, after lots of writer's block, long walks and procrastination it's finally finished!! 

I hope you liked it. Shoutout @wretchedblues for coming up with Valphira. #unholysquad