In Your Shadow

Kane

Lex is quiet as he listens to me talk. He sips from the bottle of blood as I tell him about my fears of losing Emory. I’m in an impossible situation where the laws of nature that govern our world are working against me. Yet, those same ruleshad bent themselves to make it possible for us to fall in love and then have a child. Could nature bend again to accommodate me?

Lex snorts. “Maybe you are selfish.”

I stare at him in disbelief. “Now you’re agreeing with me?”

“I’m not judging you. I’m actually kind of proud that for once you’re thinking about what you want and not what you think you should be content with.”

“Even if it affects our kingdom?”

“Everything you do affects our kingdom. You’re a king. Your existence affects our kingdom, so of course for the first time you actually selfishly want something, you want nature to give you a pass. Break the very foundations of our existence so you can be with the woman you love.”

When he puts it like that, I sound like a horrible self-indu