"Well at least you managed to control yourself." Lory said after Ren told him what he had done when he'd first woken up. "I bet she was terrified."

They were in the king's office, but Lory was the one seated behind the desk and Ren was laid out on the couch not allowed to get up on his own. He had insisted on being released from the hospital though he had failed to convince anyone that he was fine.

"I was so close to biting her. You should just take care of me now." Ren said hiding his face behind his hands.

"If you mean kill you then…"

"Spare me the lecture." Ren interrupted Lory.

Lory narrowed his eyes and raised his voice saying, "I'll spare you the lecture if you spare me your suicidal brooding."

"Fine." Ren agreed after a moment of irritated silence. Then after thinking for another moment, he snapped. "Why did you have us in the same room in the first place?"

"It was the only way we found to keep her calm. You gave her so much of your blood already and she's become attached." Lory said then with a mischievous smile he added, "I suppose it's a good thing. It'll help us in convincing the covens that you're getting married."

He had hoped that Ren could marry for love but here they were forcing a fledgling who had come from nowhere onto him. It was for the best though, since none of them wanted Morizumi to take over. Of the covens who had a child old enough to betrothed to the king, the Morizumi had the strongest claim after Takarada. The counsel would have no choice but to place Kimiko as Ren's bride once the covens forced them to oust Maria.

"Who's getting married?" Ren asked after processing Lory's.

"You and Kyoko-chan." Lory said piercing Ren with a serious look. "While you were asleep the covens descended upon us and in light of the recent attacks, they think it is time for you to marry someone of noble birth."

"The fledgling isn't of noble birth. She doesn't have any family." Ren pointed out. "Besides I already named Maria-chan my heir. They can't displace the Takarada bloodline."

"They can and they will. Unless we present them a Takarada old enough for you to marry. Unless you plan on marrying Kouki, I suggest you make peace with your fate and get to know the fledgling." Lory said. There was a bit of amusement in his voice as he thought of all his matchmaking schemes that Ren had thwarted.

That's what you get for refusing to date any of the young vampires I suggested. Airi-san, Itsumi-chan, and Honoka-san all would have been exemplary choices.

"I can't marry her." Ren said with finality.

"You don't have a choice." Lory countered.

"I'm king, I don't have to marry anyone if I don't want to."

"Yes, you are the king because the covens have agreed to follow the counsels decree. But the covens were in an uproar even then. It was only because you had made a name for yourself and could command their respect that the other covens allowed your appointment. They are now calling for a return to the old ways. They want a blood king." Lory said in his stern voice. He needed to impress on Ren that this was something they had to deal with.

"No, they want to put their heirs on the throne. They want to force me to marry one of their children so they can have influence and power. That was part of their plan all along and probably yours. You just have different reasons for wanting me to marry." Ren argued.

"Yes, and one of those reasons is your happiness." Lory sighed.

"Marrying some girl, I hardly know is not going to make me happy. In fact, getting married in at all will not make me happy." Ren said.

"So sorry that I want you to have someone in your life. I understand how much you love being miserable and alone. You need to understand though that Maria-chan has already been pushed out due to her age. If you don't do something about it the line of succession will switch to Morizumi. They have a legitimate claim since Mogami started their bloodline. Unless the Hizuri heir were to magically reappear we would have no choice but to place Kimiko on the throne."

"If it's really that dire, can't you take the throne back? Or force Kouki-san to take the throne until Maria-chan is of age?" Ren asked disregarding the comment about Kuon. "I mean you had no problem forcing me to take the throne."

"Kouki did his duty and married a noble woman from a strong vampire bloodline." Lory said hanging his head. "Now he is doing his duty by being an envoy for us to vampire covens outside of Japan. No one forced you to be king, you took the position that was offered to you. Now you must do your duty as king and marry the girl, or you can marry whomever the covens present to the counsel. It will most likely be Kimiko-chan. Will you be ok with her?"

"I'm not marrying anyone." Ren declared but he couldn't think of a solution. How did he get out of this scheme?

"That girl is too special for you not to marry her." Lory said.

"She isn't special. She is powerful, but all her powers so far are normal Upyr powers." Ren said.

He knew that Lory was up to more than he was letting on. The girl was powerful, but she was still an unknown. There was no way a king could marry someone with unknown origins. Not that it mattered because Ren was never going to marry anyone.

"She is special and needs to be protected." Lory stressed.

He didn't want to tell the king that he suspected she was somehow related to Jun'ichi. Then he would have to explain how he knew, and he couldn't do that. It was only a feeling he had. There was no vampire DNA test to compare her blood to one from the distant descendants of the Mogami bloodline. Even if there were the other covens would claim she was Takarada Tsubasa, Jun'ichi's sister and Lory's ancestor. Lory knew that Kyoko was Jun'chi's heir though. He didn't know how but the blood in his veins knew it was her. He also knew that eventually the other covens would sense it as well. If he didn't place her with someone like Ren, then she could fall victim to someone like Fuwa again. Someone who would use her ignorance of her own lineage against her.

"Placing her on the throne won't protect her. It would infuriate the other covens, Morizumi especially and put a target on her back. Not to mention she would be stuck with an asshole for a husband." Ren said.

"Are you saying you wouldn't be good to her?" Lory asked narrowing his eyes at the boy.

"No, I'm saying the other covens would attack her and I might…" he would revert to being a vukodlak one day.

No one deserved to have a spouse who would eventually go mad with bloodlust and devour themselves. Not even Morizumi deserved that. This young girl innocent of the deceptions and greed of the other covens certainly didn't deserve that fate.

"Besides I don't even like her. Why are you trying to force me to marry someone I don't even know? You barely even know her." Ren wondered.

Lory pouted. "I don't know. She seems nice enough. Nicer than Morizumi and Koenji at least. And you let her drink your blood. I've never known you to let anyone drink your blood so I thought you might at least think she's cute."

"I think she's a young vampire who has been abused by Fuwa and she deserves to have some peace. Now can we please focus our energy on fixing your home and oh yeah finding the vampire who possessed Kijima." Ren said siting up too fast and regretting it.

"You, should focus on drinking some more blood." Lory said motioning for Ruto to pour Ren some blood.

"No. I'm not hungry." Ren said refusing to take the cup.

"Drink." Ruto demanded shoving a cup in Ren's face.

Ren took the cup wrinkling his nose at the scent of chemicals. He hated blood most of all when it had been donated and stored in a freezer only to be heated up and served in a Styrofoam cup. What he hated even more was that the monster inside of him was growling. He took a slow sip of the blood and had to fight not to spit it out. Setting the cup down on the table he glared at it.

"Ren." Lory started to order him to eat but thought better of it. The boy could never be forced to eat. "It seems we'll need to use that girl anyway. We might not be able to protect her if this vampire is so strong that he was able to possess a Dhampir like Kijima-kun and a strigoi like the young Kotonami-san at the same time. He even brought forth some latent ability in Kotonami-san. Her family has been unable to transform into anything for over a century."

"We should train her as well. She and the fledgling will need to learn to use their powers quickly. In fact, I think we should all do some training." Ren said. "We've become lax due to things being mostly peaceful. A rouge vampire here or there. A couple Vukodlaks every once in a while. Now we have someone who is brave enough to attack an Upyr's palace. Probably because they have noted how complacent we have become. The nobles do nothing but vie for my attention and all I do is paperwork."

"You're mumbling to yourself right now and it's annoying." Lory said feeling left out of the king's plans.

"I'm saying that I will be training for a few weeks as well and you will handle the paperwork." Ren said standing up slowly.

"You mean you're going to train that girl yourself?" Lory asked not exactly hating the idea despite his worry for Ren's health. He smiled and looked Ren in the eyes, "You never denied it."

"What?"

"You think that girl is cute." Lory said smugly.

Ren's face fell and he groaned, "Can't you ever be serious? We have a rogue vampire out there but still all you think about is love."

"Love makes us stronger." Lory said unapologetically. Sitting up straighter he put on a more serious face and said, "What are you going to do though? We have hunters at both scenes combing for clues. Until we find some lead there is little chance of us finding the vampire. So that leaves us no choice but to deal with our other pressing problem."

"I could always just command them to accept Maria-chan. Problem solved. No more bickering covens." Ren said.

"Except then they will all resent you and it will create more discourse. You'll leave Maria-chan to deal with a mess you created. She doesn't have the power of command inducement. There will be an all-out war." Lory said truly worried for his granddaughter's safety. It was bad enough for her when she had declared herself Ren's future wife. The other vampire kids close to her age had been raised to secretly resent her while overtly sucking up to her.

"She'll have you by her side." Ren said sadly. He knew that her insistence on protecting him from other women had made for a solitary life for the child. One he wished he could have saved her from. "I hear she has a new big sister as well." He added with an almost smile.

Sawara had reported that Maria had taken to tending to Kyoko in her hospital bed. The little girl had insisted that it was gratitude. It seemed however that some sort of affection had grown towards the older girl. Jelly thought it might have been sparked by Kyoko's determination to protect both Maria and Sho. Kyoko had been the kind of strong and powerful vampire that Maria was training to become.

Ren said. "At the meeting with the covens today I will name the girl as my heir with Maria-chan as her heir. If the covens believe that she is your daughter tragically born with no vampirism then they should accept her. At least until we can train the girl. With any luck she'll make a decent hunter. Then we can find this rogue vampire and punish them."

Lory pondered this for a moment nodding his head then he said teasingly, "You know you never denied that you think she's cute."

Ren threw his hands up in frustration. "How did you ever manage to be king?"

"I married another Upyr. Then I married my son off to another Upyr as well. That is how nobility works. Unfortunately, most of us marry for power and not love." Lory said with a disheartened pout.

"You loved your wife and as far as I know Kouki adored Lena." Ren said.

"You could learn to love Kyoko-chan." Lory said.

"We're talking in circles. I am never getting married to anyone."

"Fine. Fine. Be miserable." Lory said but by the way he said Ren knew he wasn't going to let it go. "I will check in with Yashiro-san at my palace. You should go meet with your new pupils. But if you're really planning on helping to train them you should eat something first. She is young and full of energy, a starved vampire like you might get hungrier just by looking at Kyoko-chan."
"Not that it matters but I don't think she's cute." Ren finally said.

"Lies." Lory whispered on his way out the door.