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Vampire King Apollyon

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"Luna." Apollyon's expression was grave as he rubbed his stubble in thought, "She didn't kill our baby and replaced it with something else, right?"

"No!" Luna's eyes widened, and she slapped his shoulder.

It was stronger than expected.

"That's ridiculous, husband." Apollyon could hear Luna's heartbeat pound in his sensitive ears. "Don't even think about that."

***

Apollyon had asked Luna if she had slept with the other Archdemons she had mated with, but Luna changed the subject with much more shocking news.

Luna was pregnant, and he didn't know what to make of it.

Apollyon couldn't explain his feelings about being a father and having an heir/heiress to the Vampire Realm.

It was still a mix of positive and negative—numb, worried, happy, excited, yet anxious.

Luna wasn't ready to tell him everything about what happened to her in Hell.

As he gave her long sideways glances, which she had every intention to ignore, Apollyon hated how his wife had kept him in the dark whenever he pressed for more information.

She always changed the subject every time Apollyon referred to her other Archdemon husbands.

Apollyon just let her because he didn't want her to feel sad, uncomfortable or relive her memory of the traumas he experienced in the Realms of Hell.

He swore to himself he wouldn't push his wife when she wasn't ready to reveal her secrets.

The two of them were together for two hours, so he still had a lot of time to coax the truth out of his wife in the most creative of ways.

What Apollyon had in his creative mind involved touching, groaning, eating and riding--something.

The bed frame should shake, and their screams should penetrate the thick walls.

They wouldn't sleep tonight, and he wouldn't let the people in the rooms next to their rest, either.

The entire Lilac Manor shall hear his wife scream his name.

Luna didn't want to talk about when she was taken to prison and tormented by the Grand Torturer.

Apollyon's stomach rolled with dread, and his heartbeat turned sluggish.

Was Luna helpless and sexually abused by any of the Archdemons, or had she fought back and claimed victory over them?

Apollyon didn't want to imagine the worse just because her wife couldn't fill in the details.

His wife was an Amazon who had transitioned into a vampire, so she might have fought for her freedom just like how they had locked horns at the beginning of their marriage.

Apollyon couldn't remember the times were Luna was weak during a fight.

In his ancient mind, his memory of her was that Luna had enough strength to rise against her enemies.

She was always capable of finding ways of defeating them.

Luna didn't stay down for long, and that was one of the qualities he had admired and hated (in the past) about her.

He kept his reaction calm and serene, shoving his speculations under the rug and pretending to be blind.

Luna was a nervous wreck when Apollyon mentioned other Archdemons aside from Lilith, and it wasn't hard to miss.

What was Luna hiding behind her strange reactions?

Apollyon contented himself with skin-to-skin contact, extremely grateful for her physical presence.

She didn't protest when he played with her quim for a while, not for the sake of what will come next, but he just liked touching them, checking out if they can still produce the same copious amount of nectar as before.

All the diamonds in the world couldn't replace all their conversations and his wife's company.

As they cuddled face-to-face, Apollyon purred in satisfaction every time their chests deliciously rubbed against each other.

He just heaved a deep sigh and let everything slide for now.

It was either that, or Apollyon would jump out of bed and punch the walls repeatedly, escalating the power of his fists with every single smash to destroy Prince Aspen's Manor.

Prince Aspen would declare him a fugitive who had left his property in shambles, and his Faerie Sentinels would chase Apollyon, his wife and his Envoy.

He didn't want the Vampire Realm as an enemy of the Spring Courts.

Apollyon just wanted to figure out everything from Luna's point-of-view, damn it!

If Apollyon were the Vampire King he had used to be, it would be easy for him to reach into Luna's consciousness and probe into his wife's mind without permission—invade her precious privacy to seek answers that could satisfy him, but he was a changed man now.

He couldn't do that because he had respected his wife's privacy.

As he paid attention to his wife's words and expressions with narrowed eyes, Apollyon could sense something was terribly wrong.

He noticed that Luna started freezing out when he had specific queries when it came to her loyalty such as--if she ever had sexual congress with another in her time in Hell?

Luna couldn't look him in the eye and tell it to him straight.

Did she cheat on him, and she couldn't admit it because it might destroy their fragile relationship?

It wasn't like the years of separation had destroyed it.

If their love were a house, Apollyon would describe that it was made of glass.

One thing he had learned about being Luna's husband was patience.

He waited almost a decade to reunite with her, and now, he was obliged to wait another year to make his wife comfortable enough to tell him the truth.

Jaws clenching, Apollyon pinched his lips together as he stared at his wife.

The detail was akin to hundreds of tiny puzzle pieces Apollyon should put together to see Luna's bigger picture.

Shaking his head, Apollyon finally decided not to dwell on useless things, "How do you feel about our baby, Luna?"

I'm excited for it to grow in my stomach so that I could show her how handsome her dad was." Luna replied in a sing-song voice, and it was the most pleasant thing he had heard, making his stomach flutter.

"Now, you have finally agreed with me." Smirking, Apollyon peered at her beneath his lashes as he played with the hem of her nightgown. "You said it's a 'her'."

"What if it's a 'he', Apollyon?" Luna asked as she swatted his hand away, smoothing her skirts to cover her milky white thighs.

Luna claimed that she didn't want to have a sexual congress, but she wasn't averse to his sexual touches.

What did she want?

His wife was hard to read.

Did she desire him right now or not?

Was she playing hard to get, or was she trying to be modest? "If the baby turns out to be a male, he might have feminine traits when I birthed him into the world if we keep referring to him as a female."

He stroked her heart-shaped face with his fingers. "We should give the unborn baby a temporary name."

"Can we call it, Leo, for now?"

"Ah. That's a nice nickname for the baby." He sighed then smiled. "We can call her Leonore if she would be born as a girl."

Luna's green eyes darkened, chuckling with delight. "If he would turn out as a boy then, we shall call him as Leonard."