CHAPTER 168: AN ARMY OF TURNED

***Author’s Note: So sorry for all the inconsistent updates and the excuses. I’m trying to be better. Love You! Thank you for understanding.

Violet walked with fierce determination. She could make obedient monsters, and army of them. Disposable, to stand ready and defend. She had already started plotting. She couldn’t wait to tell everyone.

"I thought they were banned?"

But Violets little monster was different from the others. It followed her, resisted its urges to devour the living beings around it. it moved like it was on autopilot, keeping Violet’s pace.

"Everyone, Silence!" Violet commanded with a voice that echoed deeply inside her, surprising even her. Immediately everyone went silent.

"It’s getting out of control here." The crowd was nervous stepping away from the two people losing their minds.

She was the Queen of Darkness and now she was backed by the God of Darkness. She followed no one’s rules.

Vlad hadn’t spoken, but his eyes were closed and he bit down hard hissing from the pain.

"Leave it to our incredible queen to tame a monster like a Turned."

The crowd started getting mad.

"How is she able to control it?"

"Father? Grandmother?" Ash sounded concerned, in all his years, he’s never seen either of them so distraught.

The brothers, and Rosa, make their way through the crowd to stand in the front.

She laid down the law, like she was the one who wrote it.

She felt like her hate and anger was swallowing her and replacing her with something else. But it didn’t matter, as long as she got her daughter back, no price was too high. She kept picturing the little white-haired princess that chased bats and picked flowers in the garden.

"My people, I have an announcement to make gather round." She projected her voice, making it echo through the camp drawing everyone in, almost as if they were compelled to do so by instinct more than curiosity.

After his third step, the creature turned to its head eyes black with red pupils, black veins pulsing under its eyes. Its grey flesh looked rough and withered like wet leather. Long fangs that protruded from its mouth. It was truly a disturbing thing to see. Its claws were long, jagged and sharp. It looked like a vampire, yet it wasn’t one.

Ash and the rest of her family heard the call and felt the same pull.

"What do we do King Asher, Queen Violet." the crowd asked.

She thought now would be as good a time as ever to let her warriors know, the witches betrayed them and pulled out.

"What’s happening?"

Lilith was getting hit with a sense of déjà vu, one that stirred heartache deep in her chest. Dragging hell through her, not the other way around.

Whispers started in the crowd.

What Violet still didn’t know was that the creation of them was forbidden. It’s how vampires live among humans peacefully in the open. By not drinking them dry and turning them into the same mindless bloodthirsty monsters in the movies.

But they halted in their run, slamming hard on their heels.

"These seem like bad omens."

Images of the past flashed before their eyes. They were jumbled, blurry, and too fast to process. However, one thing stuck out, they had seen and fought these beasts before.

"You speak out of turn, now shut your mouths and listen to your queen." She ordered the whole lot.

Her people roared with approval, but the brothers looked at one another shifting their gaze between them, the crowd, Violet, and that thing that stood behind her ready to strike at moment’s notice.

Vlad clutched his chest, his breathing heavy and shallow. Lilith had stumbled back, reaching around her head and grabbing a fist full of her hair. Shaking her head, trying to make sense of the memories that were fogged and replaying in her mind like a burnt film strip.

Violet’s mind was growing darker with its thoughts. More and more she felt clouded. Like a curtain of hate was being hung in her head.

Ash and his brothers and Rosa were utterly shocked by Violet’s words.

"Are you serious?"

Maybe witches too. Since they can’t be trusted to keep their words.

"Make it stop, make it stop." Lilith pleaded to no one in particular.

Nothing was making sense for either of them. When finally, the images stopped flooding their mind, they were both able to breathe again.

Guards had come running toward Violet because they were told a Turned was chasing their queen.

The echo her voice carried. It was different than the other times, this one was deep and darker, more malevolent.

She stood before them, reading them.

Vlad was getting a grip, now less effected by the sight of the Turned.

"They can’t do that!"

Ash took a step forward with the most caution he could manage. Ash didn’t understand what was happening, but he didn’t like how close the thing was to Violet, he wanted to get Violet away.

"I thought they were supposed to be savage blood crazed monsters. Yet this one seems compliant."

"I am lifting the ban on Turned and together we will make an army." Violet spoke with conviction and determination.

She looked to Ash, and he understood instantly, come stand next to her. He trusted her, he went to stand close to her, despite the monster’s growl and panting. The thing was salivating.

"And now, the witches withdraw leaving us vulnerable to daylight attacks!"

The crowd look between one another and nodded in agreement.

"Oh, but they can, the goddess has turned her backs on us. So the witches do too." Violet started to hate the goddess, how could she do this? Give Odette away to the very people who hurt her? She favored the shifters over them. Fine, she’d create and army of her own and remove them from the equation.

They stood frozen in bewilderment. Violet was actually walking with the monster, not being chased by it.

The whispers grew louder and the questions and comments more bold.

"Together, we shall end those miserable shifters and reshape the world!" Violet spoke with such certainty, it was unsettling to the brothers, and especially Rosa.

"For too long shifters have plagued us, they took me and now they took our princess, yet again! When is enough?" Violet yelled.

"Together, we will take our princess back, we will return my daughter to her rightful place by our side!" She hyped the crowd up.

"What?"

The closer Ash got to Violet, the worse the odor became. It smelled like death, but not like the rotting kind, but like musty kind. Stale, like cracking open a tomb and finding a mummy.

None of them have never seen a Turned, only knew about them, seen them in old photos in the history books. But not in person.

Something was wrong.

"Is that a Turned?"

They couldn’t understand. Confused and skeptical, they all stared.

The moment they reached the front of the circle and laid eyes on the creature.

None except, Lilith and Vlad. Who had the strongest pull with Violet’s request.

What did Violet do to draw them to her?

Foreign.

The people in the camp all gathered near.

Very, very, wrong.