Epilogue

“I half expected you'd not give me back my dagger,” King Xandros joked as soon as he stepped out of the forest, the way he had done two days before. 

Only Wayne and Olive were standing there to meet him. The others had mostly returned to Balendin Pack earlier. 

“I just finished one war with a vampire, I'm not quite ready to start another,” Alpha Knight joked in the same light.

The vampire king laughed. It was so soft and innocent a stranger could fall for it. If he didn't see the fangs that is.

“Wise of you. Very wise. Well, thank you for bringing it back.”

He lifted his hand and the dagger lying on the soil rose to meet it. King Xandros looked it over, examining every crystal on it and the way the moon's glow bounced off the sharp blade.

“It's not a fake. It's the very same knife,” Olive declared. 

King Xandros smirked.

“If it wasn't the same knife, I'd have known the moment I stepped foot on the ground. I'm just... won