And sure enough, Ri-ah came around the corner.

What?

Hold on, what?

It was hard to say who was more stunned.

Hye Jin who was gaping at Ri-ah as she came over ever-so-casually and dropped a kiss on Kai’s cheek – or Sehun whose face also expressed his own disbelief as he continued to guard his mother and sister.

‘Kai, what are you doing?’ Hye Jin asked calmly, as she continued to sit at the breakfast table.

There was a general fear in the room, that one sudden movement was all it would take to break the deadlock and all hell would break loose. So everyone stayed where there were, still pretending that they were playing happy-families-reunion.

‘Me?’ Kai asked casually, ‘I’m just getting my revenge.’

Hye Jin wasn't vain enough to think her rejection was enough for him to go absolutely psycho and go to the enemy - she knew it was deeper than that - but she just couldn’t figure it out. So she asked.

‘Uh… maybe it’s obvious to everyone else – but just for my own sake – what for?’

‘Do you want to tell them?’

Hye Jin looked confused. But before she could say "But I asked the question!", she realised he was talking over her shoulder – to Sehun’s father?

‘Or maybe you’d like to?’ this time he was addressing Sehun’s mother.

Neither replied.

‘Fine. Then why don’t we ask someone else…’ he gestured to someone from behind and Hye Jin recognised the lackey that had carried Luhan over his shoulder – this time carrying an unknown man. Wait a minute - he wasn’t unknown!

Hye Jin belated recognised him as a man she'd seen once a long time ago at Headquarters. She remembered him because he had a twitch in his left eye. Vampires usually lost their physical flaws when they transformed from being human, so that always stuck with her to have such a noticeable flaw. She could only guess that he was a defector of Superior who had been staying at the League’s safe house that they were targeting.

‘SPEAK!’ Kai screamed at the man, and Hye Jin flinched. Kai’s usual calm and cool demeanour was gone – she could see the hatred in his eyes. If she hadn’t been so used to seeing it in Sehun, she would have been scared.

‘Kai-sshi is from a family loyal to Dul,' the man began, 'Back at the start when the League had just started, families under Dul defected. They were kept in a safe house built on Set’s land – where Dul himself could not go. Kai-sshi's parents were sent to look for the safe house and retrieve these people.’

‘TRAITORS!!!’ Kai yelled, startled everyone in the room, perhaps with the exception of Ri-ah, 'They were nothing but traitor scum, like you.'

The man didn't feel like restarting, but after a kick from Ri-ah he continued, ‘But they came across Set’s family first – and there was a battle. Kai’s parents were killed.’

‘They were murdered,’ Kai ground out, ‘tell them all how my parents were murdered!!!!’

The man on the ground cowered, ‘They were murdered. No one from Set's family knew that a young child had been left behind in the place where they had stayed the night. But when they found the toddler, they couldn’t bring themselves to kill him. So they made the decision to keep him and raise him with Set’s heir… him.’

At the word "him" he stared directly, unmistakeably, at Sehun.

‘We tried to raise you like our own,’ Sehun’s mother spoke, ‘we loved you like our own. We hoped you would grow up filled with compassion and love for your fellow human. And love each other like brothers.’

Kai laughed manically.

‘Like our own?!? That makes two of us doesn’t it – how dare you stand there spreading lies – everything you’ve ever told us is a lie!!’

‘What do you mean “the two of us”?’ Sehun asked, suddenly still, ‘Mum?’

‘They’re not your parents!’ Kai cut off Sehun’s mother’s reply, ‘don’t you understand? They lied to us this whole time! They were raising you to protect the identity of Set’s heir, they’re just your caretakers. No one could trace you here.’

Hye Jin could see that it was a blow to Sehun, he shifted subconsciously away from his mother and was looking at Sera too.

Sehun… she tried to appeal to his mind.

Does she even look like me? he asked her through their mind connection, how can this all be a lie?

He looked so tortured that she wanted to go to him and reassure him, but she couldn’t move from where she was.

‘ – it was only when Dul started to be able to communicate with me when I was fifteen that I found out the truth.’

‘What??’ Sehun’s mum gasped.

All their attention was drawn again to Kai.

‘My family is loyal to Dul and from fifteen he had the ability to visit me in my dreams. He could never speak to me the way a vampire can speak with their direct master, but through his visits he convinced me to move to Seoul and receive the Third Mark. For six years he’s stayed in my mind, telling me everything your family has done to mine, growing the hunger within me to avenge my parents and guiding me every step of the way until I could join him.’

Kai’s eyes had turned so black it was disconcerting.

‘Kai, I’m sorry about what happened to your parents,’ Sehun said, ‘I didn’t know.’

‘No you didn’t,’ Kai conceded, and for a moment anyone could see the brotherly love that would have been with them since they were babies up until the age of fifteen, ‘I knew you didn’t because you never showed any guilt. You were just my brother, my friend. I love you.’

‘But… that doesn’t change the fact that your family murdered mine. Dul raised a good point. There’s no way we could keep our friendship, knowing everything that I knew.’

There was something ominous in his words.

‘I planned everything. I infiltrated the League in attempt to find your real parents – but they were so damn secretive about it. Even after three years they wouldn’t tell me where the safe house was let alone anything else! So I had to change my plan. I had to draw out Set by turning you into a vampire.’

Then he dropped a bombshell.

‘I tipped off Headquarters that the League was after you. I was the one who suggested Hye Jin tail you – knowing that she absolutely hated your guts and wouldn’t come to save you.’

‘It should’ve ended there – you were going to be a vampire of Dul and Set wouldn’t have let that stand. He would have to show his cowardly self. But to my surprise, Hye Jin actually came and I had to pretend that I had “saved” you after the second bite,’ Kai continued, ‘I couldn’t blow my cover yet so we laid low for awhile. Your Boss was a pain in my – he never fully trusted me,’ he threw at Hye Jin.

‘Rightly so, don’t you think?’ she bit out.

He ignored her.

‘But then Dul said we had to move so we captured Hye Jin to “draw you out”. But really it was going to be staged to look like an unavoidable accident, that we couldn’t prevent you from receiving the Third Mark from Ri-ah. But then Hye Jin went and messed it up for us.’

Hye Jin remembered that Kai had been brought in unconscious by the lackey while Sehun should’ve been kept protected at home, ‘You set us up.’

‘Of course!  Made it look like I was attacked too – sent Sehun a message that you were in trouble – too easy.’

‘But all was not lost just because you bound him to you. I pretended like we “lost” him anyway, very convenient when you passed out and had no recollection of Ji-sung here,’ he pointed at the lackey, ‘Two weeks was plenty of time to brainwash him.’

‘You bastard,’ Hye Jin spat at him. Never had she hated someone more in her entire life. To just play them like pawns, with seemingly no care… ‘Then what was that whole thing in my apartment where you were asking me to choose you?’

Kai shrugged, ‘Well… I can’t deny that you’re pretty strong. I think if you came around to my way of thinking, we could have been a powerful couple. Also don’t you think it would have been icing on the cake for me to take you from Sehun?’

Ri-ah coughed loudly, ‘Watch what you say,’ she warned him.

He turned to her only with half-interest, ‘My apologies.’

‘What do you want from me, Kai? What is it that you want me to do?’

Kai thought about it for a moment, ‘I kept on thinking and thinking – How do we go back to the way things were? But then I realised that the only way to do that is for you to lose the same as I did. I wanted you to kill your family. But I was so fixated on your real parents it completely escaped my mind that you had another family... one that you loved even more.'

He gestured at Sehun’s parents and little sister.

‘You’re crazy, I’d never do that,’ Sehun snarled at him.

‘Oh? Then I guess it’s lucky we brainwashed you huh…’

Sehun’s face paled. He only vaguely remembered what had happened in Hye Jin’s apartment less than  24 hours ago, but it didn't seem good.

Ri-ah stepped forward and looked at him with such malice, ‘Do you know the special word, Sehun? Do you remember from last night?’

‘No, NO!!!!’ he screamed, covering his ears in vain.

‘Where does your loyalty lie?’

Sehun’s eyes flashed green.

A/N: Yay, with this chapter we officially passed the contest's 25,000 word minimum limit! Thanks for the comments, the subs and the reads! xKei