The Vampire King's Pet-Chapter 359: Kill It

There was nothing more gut-wrenching than knowing that if the arrows went through her, she would die.

Quickly—and Zyren wouldn’t be able to save her.

Her heart thundered violently in her chest as she watched a shadow wrap itself around her, starting from her face and sliding down the rest of her body like living smoke. The world seemed to stall for a breathless second.

Then came the loud thwack—one after another—sharp, brutal sounds that echoed through the street and told her that whatever Liora had hurled at her had been stopped by whatever now covered her.

Zyren was already standing in front of her.

Aira raised both hands, clenching them over her chest as though holding her heart in place, leaning her head right against his back. His presence was solid, immovable—yet it did nothing to calm the frantic pounding in her chest.

Her heart thumped loud enough that she thought it might explode. Then came the tears. She tried to stop them. She truly did. But she failed, and they slid freely down her face, hot and uncontrollable.

Her hands trembled as the realization fully struck her—her blood sister had fully intended to crush her head into paste.

The thought alone was enough to summon more tears, her breath hitching as she continued to hide behind Zyren’s back. She didn’t want to peek from behind him. Didn’t want to fix her eyes on the monster her sister had become.

I can’t look at her. I can’t.

Tears silently poured from her blurred vision when she heard Zyren speak.

"...You need to look at her, Aira."

There was something in his calm tone that immediately unsettled her. A chill crept down her spine as he continued.

"...You need to look at it before I kill it!"

The words struck like a dagger straight to her skull—hacking, brutal, merciless. Her head jerked up so fast it nearly knocked back into his spine.

"What—"

She staggered backward, taking a couple of steps away from Zyren as if he had shown even the faintest inclination to harm her. Then, realizing how foolish that thought was, she took a few hesitant steps forward again, stopping beside him.

Her gaze was heavy as she looked up to meet his.

She hated how steady he appeared. How calm. Almost as if the chaos unraveling around them meant nothing at all—while she struggled desperately to keep more tears from blurring her sight.

Her eyes flicked to her sister.

Zyren had frozen Liora completely—his shadow power wrapping around her like a living prison, pinning her in place. The sight made Aira bite down hard on her lip.

She couldn’t reconcile it.

The monster before her bore only fragments of the sister she knew. In mere moments, Liora’s condition had degraded so horrifically that even the parts of her body that still looked human were failing. Half of her torso was gone entirely, replaced by churning blood tendrils that writhed like a congealed pool of living crimson.

There was no midsection anymore. Just blood—thick, swirling, crawling.

It was painfully clear that it was only a matter of time before the rest of her dissolved as well.

This isn’t real. This can’t be her.

"Kil... kill her?" Aira finally managed to bark out, her voice raw as she snapped her gaze back to Zyren.

"You’re joking."

Zyren didn’t hesitate to meet her eyes.

Most of the civilians were gone now. The guards had secured the area, pushing everyone back to ensure no foolish onlooker dared creep closer out of curiosity—especially now that the king himself had arrived.

Zyren’s height alone made him impossible to miss. His black clothes, lined with fine gold detailing, made him even harder to look away from. The evening wind whistled through his dark hair and tugged at his cloak as he stood there, shadows curling faintly at his feet.

"I’m not," he said simply.

He looked at her once more before turning his gaze back to Liora. "She almost injured you."

He didn’t know—couldn’t know—that the attack would have killed her outright.

"She doesn’t recognize you," Zyren continued. "And if she doesn’t recognize you... is she still your sister?"

His words dissolved into meaningless noise in Aira’s ears.

She snapped.

"That is my sister!" Aira shouted, fury bursting through her fear as she met his gaze head-on. "I forbid you from killing her!"

The words were an order—but her eyes betrayed her completely. They shimmered with terror as she practically pleaded for him not to touch Liora.

Zyren didn’t react right away.

His steady gaze remained fixed on Liora—on the way she twitched, growled, the blood beneath her shadow restraints churning restlessly. Aira could barely force herself to keep looking at her.

He had no idea what she had done to become this thing. But he knew one truth with chilling certainty—she was beyond help. Even Savira, with all her forbidden knowledge, would never be able to turn her back into a human.

Aira lowered her voice when Zyren didn’t respond.

"Ple... please," she begged.

She knew it—deep down. If Zyren chose to kill her sister, there was nothing she could do to stop him.

"We can—we can lock her up in a cell instead," she said, her voice breaking. "We can—"

Her head rang violently, her heart racing so fast it drowned out nearly everything except her own ragged breathing.

"I’m... I’m sure there are things we could do to stop her," Aira insisted, clinging to the thought desperately. There has to be something. There has to be.

Zyren continued to stare at Liora while Aira stared at him.

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the wet, animalistic growls that tore from Liora’s throat as her body continued its slow collapse into living blood. Half her head and her legs still looked human—for now.

Finally, Zyren spoke.

"She’s mostly made of blood," he said, turning to meet Aira’s gaze at last. "There’s no cell that can contain her."

"She’ll only kill more people."

Aira shook her head vigorously, tears spilling freely once more.

"No—no—"

Fear pooled thickly in her chest as the realization struck her fully—Zyren meant it. He was leaning toward killing her sister.

"Since when did you care about people?" Aira snapped, her voice breaking even as tears rolled down her cheeks.

She was ready—willing—to let others die if it meant Liora lived. It was selfish. She knew that.

But Liora was the only family she had left.

Her mother had only just died—so suddenly, so cruelly—and the wound was still raw, still bleeding.

"Liora can be healed," Aira said desperately. "She just needs time."

She turned away from Zyren then, unable to face him any longer, and looked toward her sister instead. Her legs trembled as she began to walk toward Liora.

Zyren frowned.

It was a small thing—something he almost never did. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

And yet it spoke volumes.