When they arrived at their destination, the same place Mark had met the council previously, he practically dove from the car with a flying leap. He felt either Zhou Mi or Jackson on his heels as he tore past stationed guards, being recognized by them to get by just fast enough.

He was out of breath, sweating heavily, and more than a little panicked by the time he burst into the chamber the council was housed within. There were dozes and dozens of other vampires, all of them purebloods, scattered around, and they all seemed to freeze the moment Mark shouted at them to stop everything.

There could have been a million people in the room for all Mark cared. A million, incredibly important people, and all he would have cared about was his uncle at the front of the room, and the shocked expression on his face.

“This,” the head of the first family remarked, standing slowly, “is unexpected, Prince Mark.”

Mark pushed through the masses of people, making his way to the front. “Let me guess, you were informed that I was on death’s door, the poor victim from yet another attack by the humans?”

Kyuhyun stood quickly, stating, “We were told that. Some of us were, however, doubtful that a prince of your pedigree would be in such a position.”

“I was attacked,” Mark growled out, stalking close to his uncle, “but not by any humans. I was attacked by vampires, on my way back to the one place I was the safest, and they were under orders by my uncle, Marcus, to subdue me.”

“Preposterous!” his uncle shouted, his voice echoing. “Council members, my nephew is suffering from a concussion, severe injuries, and is clearly confuted. In fact, he shouldn’t even be on his feet.”

Mark rounded on him, “That’s what you tried to do, isn’t it? Keep me off my feet. You kept me sedated, against my will, prolonging my condition, forcing the council to send a representative, rather than let me come here for a vote. All because you wanted to control exactly what that vote was. You wanted to control me. That’s been your goal from the very beginning. From the start of all this, when you were willing to kill your family to get what you wanted.”

A fury of voices rose up and several council members were calling for order.

“You kill my parents!” Mark shouted, feeling the beast in him stir. “You killed my sisters and my brother! You killed Kyuhyun’s sister, and when he tried to speak up, you killed Siwon. You killed everyone who even had the possibility of standing in your way, and you were so arrogant about it that you never thought you’d get caught. You never though anyone would ever catch on!”

“Prince Mark,” another council member stated, “these are severe accusations for a child to be making.”

Mark looked behind him, to the confident face of Zhou Mi, the encouraging one of Jackson, and all the vampires who’d come with him to support him. They believed in him. They knew he could end this.

He only had to believe in himself.

“I am not a child!” he shouted, louder than he had ever been in his life. “I am the head of the fourth family, descendant from the first vampire himself, and I am a member of this council. You will not disrespect me or this institution by implying that I am anything less. I am your equal, and this is not a frivolous accusation I’m making.”

“You--” his uncle stated.

“Get out of the way!” a voice shouted. There was some pushing, a lot more yelling, and soon enough Mark could see Henry. He looked older, like someone who was destined and more determined to be a father early in the next year, and he’d dyed his hair a darker color than before. But he was alive, healthy, and even if he was unexpected, he was certainly wanted. Dongwoo, Hoya, and then Changmin and Minho were flanking him, closing in on him in a protective way that Mark couldn’t help feeling relieved about.

“Henry!” It didn’t make sense at all why Henry was there, Henry who was in danger every second Mark’s uncle was free to do as he pleased. But Mark would have been lying if he tried to claim he wasn’t glad to see Henry. Seeing Henry meant Henry was safe, and he only would have left Amber and their baby if they were safe, too.

“Enough!” the first councilman shouted again. “This is not--”

“Proof!” Henry shouted. Knowing Henry, Mark suggested he was still yelling just to annoy the council member. “I have proof of everything Prince Mark has claimed. … or will claim …” He trailed off a little sheepishly. “I’m not sure how much you’ve said yet, Mark.”

“Henry,” Mark’s uncle growled. Mark could see his fangs peeking, a hint of the rage he was likely feeling. “You do not--”

“I’m the proof, actually. I …” Henry turned to Mark, absolute pain and remorse on his face. “I suspected--maybe even really knew, that my father was responsible for what happened to Mark’s family--our family. I saw the signs, I heard the conversations, and deep down, I knew. And I will explain everything, proving that my father is responsible. If justice means anything to this council that represents us, you will listen.”

“This is a mockery!” Mark’s uncle shouted, veins budging on his neck. “I will not stand here and be accused of such treason!”

Mark looked desperately back to the council, demanding, “Have you voted yet?”

Kyuhyun gave a somber nod. “Your vote was officially tallied in with the rest several minutes ago. We’ve reached our decision.”

Mark regretted a lot of things in his life. Many things that were too late to take back, or make right. Things related to his family were a great deal of those regrets. He felt all the time now how he should have said how much he loved the more, and spent more time with them and just been a better son. But not even those regrets compared to the one he was feeling over the vote. But despite how guilty he felt for the way he’d voted, and who had the potential to be hurt by it, he knew it had been ultimately the only way he could vote. There hadn’t been a choice in the end, only the illusion of it.

“Then let’s hear it!” Mark’s uncle called out.

The head of the first family, a vampire that Mark was beginning to expect reason and rationale from, stated, “We will deal with the accusations that have been levied by one of our own after the vote is revealed.”

Mark’s uncle turned to look at him and the icy anger that he saw staring back at him was nothing that Mark had ever seen from him before in his life. And also … there was also the hint of something else. Disappointment? Fear? Mark couldn’t pin it down, but the look was certainly one that promised they’d never repair their relationship. They’d never be close, and they’d likely never really love each other again.

“I’ll make the announcement,” Kyuhyun said, giving nothing away as he stepped forward with a rolled parchment in hand.

Mark took a deep breath. This was it. The moment of truth. Had his vote counted for as much as he’d been hoping it had? They’d all been so sure that with the numbers, his was going to be the tipping point. It had to be.

Kyuhyun unrolled the paper and scanned it for a second before speaking. “After careful deliberation, all matters considered, and having reached a majority agreement,” Kyuhyun said strongly, giving nothing away on his face, “this council, on the matter of revoking the boundaries set forth by the human and vampire treaty, has voted not to retract the current incarnation of the treaty--”

The rest of the words were stolen away from Mark’s ears by the swell of the noise from the vampires surrounding him and the sweet, impossible realization that he’d prevented a war. He’d potentially scarified the last of the people he truly loved, but he’d stopped a war.

No matter what Henry and Amber meant to him, no matter that their baby’s innocent life hung in the balance, he couldn’t have allowed the start of a war that would kill potentially millions. He was, as heartbreaking and devastating the idea was, prepared to sacrifice Jackson, Zhou Mi and each and every vampire he cared the most for the stop the war from happening. Because it was the right thing to do, and because he’d long since learned that being the head of his family meant putting aside personal feelings and doing what was best for the majority.

It wouldn’t have mattered what kind of threat his uncle made, or what was implied. Mark could have forfeited his own life over the vote, and he still would have cast it in the same way.

No new war between the vampires and humans was starting on Mark’s watch, not until he did absolutely everything in his power to try and prevent it.

The mind numbing bliss he was feeling was absolutely shattered by the wave of chaos that followed.

The massive crowd of vampires gave a terrible lurch as a roar of noise started up. Something heavy and excruciatingly painful slammed into Mark, taking him off his feet, and all he could hear were the screams of the people around him intermixed by the sound of gunfire. With a second bone crushing shove, Mark realized that it wasn’t just the vampires around him turning on each other. Someone was deliberately aiming for him, and in the rush of warm bodies that kept streaming into the huge room, Mark couldn’t get a handle on the threat.

Mark rolled up and away from his attacker after what felt like an eternity, and he’d just gotten his feet under him when he was slammed into again, this time clearly by his uncle who was twice as unforgiving as any hit before.

Mark stumbled, crashing into someone else before his uncle was wrenching him up and nearly throwing him a good distance. Mark immediately lost track of the council, his allies, and almost everyone else. He could only see a sway of faces blurring together in front of him as he was spun again, and then finally he was crashing through a far set of double doors.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done!” his uncle thundered. He shoved Mark again and again, pushing at him more like a frustrated toddler than a man hunting for blood.

The fighting behind them was growing more and more distant as his uncle herded him away and Mark fought to get his bearings.

“You ungrateful child!”

“You murderous traitor!” Mark screamed back, though he could barely draw in enough air to breathe, and speaking was even more difficult. His injuries were catching up with quickly and his exhaustion was making it difficult to dig up the beast that had been resting in his chest for so long. It was a scary thought, for once that the beast was so far away. He was going to need his more primal instincts just to survive.

Mark wasn’t stupid. He’d long since figured out that his uncle had purposely separated him from the others. They probably still thought he was out in the chaos, they were likely looking for him, and by the time they realized he wasn’t there …

“You foolish ingrate!”

Mark pushed on, as if this were the of a great battle he hadn’t known he’d been fighting until just now. He gave a declaring hiss, clawed towards the beast in him and this time he was the one rocketing forward, swinging madly at his uncle, calling upon all of his vampire strength and endurance.

His uncle was older, stronger, and more tested. Yet Mark refused to be defeated. He refused to let his family’s killer win. And if necessary, he would die to make it happen. It would be worth it, he realized it, to put everything to rest.

“I sacrificed everything for this!” his uncle bellowed, elbow slamming into Mark’s chest, making him stumble back, and through another set of dividing doubt doors to the next room over. “I ruined myself and this family for something you’ve undone so easily!”

“You killed my parents! Your sister! How could you?”

“I sacrificed!” his uncle corrected. “I made an impossible decision to pay my debts!”

“Debts!” Mark raged back.

“Do you think I made that decision easily?” his uncle gasped out, his face straining with emotions. “But I did what I had to! I did what was necessary to protect Henry, and to save you!”

Where was Zhou Mi? Where was Jackson? Mark’s head was spinning and he needed backup.

Mark could hear the continued discharge of weapons and even more screaming, but it was distant now as he lurched forward and traded blows with his uncle, gaining the upper hand, then losing it, then gaining it again. The push and pull between them was monstrous.

“I got lucky,” Mark snapped back. “I got lucky that you needed me!”

“Are you serious?” His uncle bit out a hiss of a laugh. “You were supposed to die with them!”

Mark’s body locked up at the sound. “What? But … I …”

“I saved you,” his uncle ground back in a terrible way. “I convinced Her. I said you would be an invaluable resource. I saved your life because I love you. Because you’re my favorite, and because you were the only one I could save.”

Her. There it was again. This Her.

Eyes narrowed Mark demanded, “Who’s been telling you to do these things?” Who could possibly be controlling someone like Mark’s uncle? “Who is--”

“You know nothing,” the older man cut back suddenly. “You have no idea who truly holds all the power. We’re mere fodder Mark, but everything I have done has been for you. For you and for Henry.”

Mark dragged in a ragged breath, and planted his feet more squarely on the ground in front of him. “You killed your family and you won‘t even take responsibility for it. You took out nearly everyone that I love and you were supposed to. To start a war, which would have killed even more people.”

His uncle’s hair was flying wild around his face, his clothing torn, lip bleeding, looking more like an animal than a vampire. “This war is coming, Mark, whether you want it to or not. Whether you managed to stop it this day or otherwise. Today means nothing. It’s a mere roadblock, and it won’t be an immovable one. This is nothing for Her, and you’ve just ruined all I’ve done to keep you safe. I can’t keep you that way anymore, Mark. I can’t even protect Henry now.”

“You’re crazy,” Mark huffed out. “You killed your sister--your own sister. Your twin and the other half of your soul. You were supposed to love her more than anyone else on this planet. But you killed her to try and start a war that would have great casualties on both sides. You killed her for power and to get what you wanted, so don’t feed me this bull about trying to protect people.”

“I did love her,” his uncle spat out viciously. “I loved her more than you will ever love anyone in your life!” And against all expectations, Mark could see the tears in his uncle’s eyes as he spoke. “I ripped out my own heart when I played my part in her death! But unlike you, Mark, I understand when by debtor comes to collect!”

Mark shook his head slowly. “She would have been so disgusted with you. Her beloved brother, that she fought so hard to defend whenever my father had something terrible to say. She would hate you right now, if she was alive.”

The tears were still coming, but angrily now as his uncle returned, “No, Mark, you child, she would be thankful. Because I saved her child. I saved her bloodline.”

“You tried to have me killed after I voted!”

Piercing laugher cut through the air. “It was a rouse!”

Mark’s heart seized up in his chest. “A … rouse …” But …

“I didn’t fight this hard to keep you alive to have you die in the end,” his uncle said. “You, for all intents and purposes, would have appeared dead. But you would not have been. Instead you’d have been safely escorted out of the country by the very few vampires I trust with my life and yours, and away from the danger until I could properly handle what the situation had dissolved into. You and Henry would have been out of harm’s way, and all you had to do was play dead for a bit. But you couldn’t even do that.”

No. That couldn’t be right. None of that sounded right, so Mark argued back, “You had a death certificate prepared.”

“To hide you from Her! To make Her think you were dead! To keep you safe until my debt was cleared!”

Mark in deep, heavy breaths.

“Who is this Her?”

Head cocking a little, his uncle laughed out bitterly, “Your executioner now.”

There was a nearby chair and Mark reached for it without warning, thinking of his lost family and his uncle’s admission of guilt. He swung it up catching his uncle off guard.

When he was six he’d started marital arts training. It had been karate first, then muy thai, and finally mixed martial arts. He never professed to be a master at any of them, and his interested in going to lessons had fallen away as high school had progressed, but he still remembered enough. He remembered enough to get his revenge.

“You are a monster!” Mark screamed, laying into the older man as much as he could. “You willingly let your closest family members die! You are the one responsible. It’s your hand that did this. It was you! My mom is dead because of you! Grace is dead! Joey and Tammy, too!”

His beast, his most primal instincts, was banging wildly in his chest, screaming to be let out, and Mark pulled it free. He wanted to be of complete sound mind when he killed his uncle. He wanted to remember his actions for the rest of his life. But it was more important that justice was served and less important that he was sane when it happened.

“I did what was necessary!” his uncle argued back. “I killed them! I killed them all, and I’d do it again! And if you get in my way, Mark, if you persist, I’ll kill you too! You can’t stop this Mark, and you have no idea what you’re doing!”

His uncle swung high and hard, and Mark barely dodged in time.

He saw his opening.

When Mark had been four, before Joey had been born, when Tammy had still wanted to hang out with him, and Grace hadn’t been introduced just yet, he’d thought that his uncle was the sun and the moon. That’s when it had started. They’d had a seemingly unbreakable bond from the beginning, and it only flourished and grew from that point.

Then his uncle’s wife, his Aunt Sam had died, and instead of growing distant, Mark and his uncle had only grown closer.

His uncle had always been the one Mark confided in. He loved his parents, loved them so much, but his uncle was more like a best friend than anything else. They talked about all the things that Mark didn’t think he could talk to his parents about, and from that came absolute loyalty.

When the attack had happened, when Mark had lost everyone and everything, he had thought he would fall apart. He’d thought he’d wither and die too. He wanted to.

But his uncle had kept him going. He’d reminded Mark that there were things still worth living for, family still left to cherish, and Mark had survived because of him.

The irony was disgusting.

His uncle threw a slow but brutally powerful fist in his direction, the kind that intended to end the fight, but Mark was agile and quick enough to dart around him, knock his feet out from under him and slam the blunt side of his hand into his uncle’s throat. His uncle was so old he no longer breathed, but it must had been terribly painful, and Mark enjoyed every bit of the howl his uncle gave.

A quick spinning kick had the man slamming down to his knees.

“I am sick to my stomach!” Mark shouted, curling one hand around his uncle’s neck. His nails, a pureblood vampire’s first line of physical defense and offense, wouldn’t pop for another few years, but his nails were naturally long enough to cut in and draw blood. “Sick, uncle. To be related to you. To have loved you.” The beast flared up and for the first time, Mark felt in control of it. He felt like it was him, and not just something controlling him.

“Mark,” his uncle choked out.

“I am named after you,” Mark edged out. “My mom loved you so much she fought my dad for almost nine months to name me after you, and she hardly ever fought him on anything.”

“I loved her,” his uncle rasped. “I scarified her for you.”

Mark cut his fingers deeper into the man’s skin, feeling the flesh tear beneath his grip. “You didn’t. Because if that were the case, you would have done anything to protect her. Anything. Instead you had her killed. You had her life stolen away, along with everyone else in the family, and that makes you a vile, pathetic excuse of a man. You don’t deserve to live, not when she didn’t get to, and I am going to see justice done.”

“Mark. Please. You don’t understand. You don’t understand the debt.”

“Please?” Mark demanded, chest heaving. “Did you actually just say that?”

His uncle squeezed his eyes shut. “Mercy.”

In the distance the gunfire was dying down, even if the screams weren’t.

“You think you deserve mercy?”

Just a few more pounds of pressure. He only had to squeeze a bit tighter, then twist and pull, and he’d have his vengeance.

“I …” his uncle tried. “I ask for--”

“There was no mercy for Grace, who was supposed to get married soon. No mercy for my parents who wanted to try for another baby, or Tammy who had just started college, or Joey who was just a damn kid! They didn’t get mercy, so why should you think you deserve it? Is it because you think you’re so much more superior than anyone else?”

It was time. Mark had had enough of listening to the sniveling and the pleading and just the mere sight of the vampire in front of him. He wasn’t going to be stalled by lies, by the plea for mercy, by anything else. Instead he looked at his uncle with absolution and said his own goodbyes silently.

But the sight of him …

His uncle looked so much like his mother. They were fraternal twins, both blond as babies, lean and tall as adults, and so beautiful. His uncle was, as least facially speaking, the most beautiful man Mark had ever seen, and his mother had been the most beautiful woman. Looking at him was like looking at her.

And the look he was giving Mark right now …

It wasn’t too far off from the look his mother would give him when she desperately wanted him to make the right choice. To act like an adult, his age, and not give into childish or petty urges. She made a specific face when she wanted something from him that would require a great deal of self control.

If she could see him now, if she knew what he was about to do …

She’d be so disappointed.

She might never forgive him.

Because to her, loyalty to family was immeasurable.

Family was everything.

Even the ty, murderous, not deserving of life, family members.

Slowly, against every instinct bouncing around inside him like a hurricane, Mark released his grip on his uncle.

“You disgust me,” Mark hissed at him, delivering a swift kick to the man’s chest, forcing him down onto his back. “And I want to kill you so badly I think I might go mad with the want. But I’m not a murderer. I’m not like you. In this case, I am better than you. So I’m going to turn you over to the council. I’m going to let the council decide your fate, and afterwards I never want to see your face ever again. I’m going to go about my life, and it’ll be an amazing one, and I’ll pretend like I never had an uncle. He never existed. I never loved him. And that will be that.”

“Mark,” his uncle rasped out, reaching for him. “You don’t know … I can tell you … the debt …”

He expected to feel some sort of emptiness after his decision. He expected more anxiety, less ease, and a sense that he’d made a choice he didn’t personally agree with. A choice he’d made for someone else, and not for himself. The beast was settling down, content, if a little disappointed, and Mark was starting to retain complete control. It felt like a victory, to have bested the animal in him and not lost himself.

“I did all this for you. I did it to save you and Henry.”

Mark ignored him.

But as he turned away, meaning to go back for help in hauling his uncle in for judgment, he felt lighter. He felt like the choice he’d made even if it left him without personal justice, was what his family would have preferred. He felt like he’d given them justice by abiding by their preferences, and it was a good feeling.

He sensed movement behind him just a second too late, his knee being kicked in sharply and his body spinning down to the ground.

It was broken. Shattered. His knee. It was beyond painful, and his shouts for help as his uncle loomed over him were made in desperation.

“You never had a spine,” his uncle said, blood streaking down his neck from where Mark’s fingernails had dug in. “You were always too much like your father. Soft. Unworthy.”

“Everyone knows what you did,” Mark said, barely keeping from letting the agony of his ribs, and now his knee, overtake him. “Everyone knows you’re a murderer.”

“I did everything for you!” His uncle loomed above Mark like an angel of death, ready to strike. “I paid my debt and lowered myself to beg for your life in return! I killed my own sister, my beloved sister to do so, and prided myself on having saved the life of her most precious child. But I will not allow you to endanger Henry. I will kill you, Mark, to keep Henry safe from Her, and since you can’t keep your mouth shut, or listen to reason, you’ve gone and made my decision for me.”

Mark wanted to move, wanted to run, or even crawl away. But his leg was throbbing, breathing was hard, and he was spent. He was exhausted. “Someone is going to come looking for me. Someone is going to come any second.”

“Everyone is distracted at the moment,” his uncle said, fangs barred.

Mark tried to push himself away on the floor, but his knee was pulsing with debilitating pain, too much for him to concentrate on much, and certainly too much for him to move. He was stuck.

“Uncle,” Mark tried to plead.

“You did this to yourself,” his uncle returned, giving Mark’s shattered knee a particularly painful kick that had Mark screaming himself hoarse. “And no one is coming to save you now.”

“I wouldn‘t say that,” Kyuhyun announced, appearing behind Mark’s uncle. “He will always have me to watch his back, as he should have had you.”

The spray of blood across Mark’s face as Kyuhyun sunk his elongated nails into his uncle’s neck, and the ripped the flesh to pieces, was unexpected. It stunned him, blotting out the pain he was feeling for just a moment.

His uncle’s body hit the floor with a heavy thump, blood gushing from his body as his lifeless eyes bore into Mark’s own.

Mark felt anything but relieved. He felt … devastated at the loss, even if there’d been no other choice, and even though his traitorous uncle had deserved nothing short of death.

“Are you okay?” Kyuhyun asked him, kneeling down at Mark‘s side. He had a bloody shoulder and some swelling to the right side of his jaw, but he had the same presence as ever. The kind that Mark had begun to rely on.

“I …”

Mark looked to where his uncle was laying. He was curled onto his side in an undignified way, and there was a growing pool around him, creeping out around his head, like a red halo. Heartbeat or not heartbeat, no vampire could survive such trauma and severe blood less.

His uncle was dead.

It seemed as if Mark had gotten what he truly wanted all along. And he hadn’t had to get his hands dirty in the process.

“Mark?” Kyuhyun asked.

Instead of gunshots and screams he could now hear people shouting his name. Frantically.

Mark sat up as quickly as he could, which turned out to be excruciatingly slow. He drew in air, feeling like it was too thin, and wrapped is arms around himself, fighting the creeping chill.

“You killed him.”

“I did,” Kyuhyun said, voice devoid of emotion.

Mark felt like he couldn’t look away from his uncle. He couldn’t look away from the stain of blood and the lack of movement.

“For Grace?”

Kyuhyun offered a hand down to Mark. “For your entire family. And for mine. For everyone who has suffered. Everyone.”