Breath-robbing sobs wracked her entire body as her soft arms wrapped themselves around her torso in a failed attempt to cocoon her incessantly shivering frame. Her long tresses, freed from the previously tied bun, swayed side by side in a rhythmic manner casting a jet black curtain in front of her tear stricken face. Muffled whimpers had turned her throat raw and sore, contorting a mere action of swallowing into an exceedingly painful task.

'Water...'

After a moment, she raised her head, her fingers gripping the back of her hair as she took in a deep breath though her nostrils. The air exhaled out of her parted mouth blurred the quarter glass of the carriage, deforming the image it painted of their surroundings. Through her bloodshot eyes, she could hazily see the carriage plunging through indefinite darkness.

Letting her hair loose, her hand delved inside the drawer beneath her seat, trying to find something to satiate her thirst.

Following a bit of fumbling around, her fingers finally made contact with a cold glass surface. Gripping the neck of the bottle hastily, she took it out, wasting no time in bringing it to her mouth.

Loud gulping sounds soon filled her ears as tiny colourless droplets dripped down the side of her mouth as she voraciously chugged down the cool liquid.

'I'm not his original beloved...'

A coughing fit overtook her as soon as the unwanted thought struck her mind, causing her to separate the bottle away from her lips immediately.

Despite her objection, another sob broke out of her lips before she covered her mouth with the back of her hand to suppress it. Hot tears once again started dripping down her eyes onto the pale skin of her hand as she bit on her ring finger to avoid producing any other sound.

'I can't let Henry know. I can't afford to worry him anymore.'

She couldn't forget the astounded look on his face as she emerged out of the church with empty eyes, asking him to fetch the carriage right away.

Her mind was able to vaguely register Gabriel's quiet remark whilst she was dragging her feet towards the doors of the church.

"The first female from our lineage who feeds the vampire her blood, turns into the beloved the vampire was robbed of."

Another whimper escaped out of her shivering lips, silenced by the assault caused to her finger by her clenched teeth.

Gabriel's words were haunting her. She couldn't shake the truth no matter how hard she tried to think about other things.

'I.. wasn't meant to be his. It only happened because the magic pulled me into a trance and convinced me to kiss him. He'd have never formed a bond with me otherwise.'

Her teeth were staring to chatter along with the wooden walls of the carriage that shook with every jerk produced by the horses' irrgeular movements.

Suddenly her mind went blank as a sharp pain shot up her spine, piercing numerous nerves on her back with small pricking needles, bringing out a strangled gasp out of her. She felt as if she were getting burnt and stabbed at the same time. Unbeknownst to her, her teeth had started digging deep inside the flesh of her finger, drawing blood that painted her trembling lips with a scarlet tinge.

'W-What's h-happening?'

Just as she thought it was getting better, another wave struck her, this time drawing a scream out of her.

"Milady?!"

She could roughly detect the carriage coming to a halt as a terrified Henry called out to her.

She wanted to answer him, reassure him that she was fine. She couldn't think of burdening him anymore. He had enough on his plate to last him a while, but the pain was turning unbearable with every passing moment and the only sound that she could let out of her throat was a mixture of choking gasps and bloodcurdling screams.

A small creaking sound made it to her ears through the haze of whooshing blood and her spine-chilling screams, before a sudden shifting of the carriage towards her right registered within her mind.

Someone had stepped inside with her.

Wet swollen eyes lifted to peer at the murky silhouette hanging over her head,

Her mind could only think of one individual at that moment. It only needed that one particular person.

"A-Ares.."

"This is Henry, Milady." His voice held a mixture of remorse and desperation.

"What is wrong? Why did Milady scream?" He continued when she didn't respond to his previous statement.

She could feel his eyes raking over her entire hunched form before they shifted to eye every corner of the carriage to find the source of her disturbance.

"B-Bac-ck."

She barely managed to stutter out a word through her quivering mouth. The screams had ceased but the moment she moved a bit, she pain intensified tenfolds, causing her to clench her teeth with much more force than before.

"But I do not see anything wrong with Milady's back."

Just as Henry stepped forward towards her curled form in order to observe her back, another voice joined in their conversation,

"Is this unfortunate woman a cheater as well? Stopping the carriage at a deserted place only to invite an unmarried man inside."

The unfamiliar voice was followed by a roar of laughter.

Her eyebrows furrowed as she lifted her dazed eyes to stare behind Henry. Through the parted gate of carriage, she could see a group of men encircling their vehicle with a hostile posture. They were about ten to tweleve in count and the one standing in the middle seemed to be their leader.

"Who dared to utter such foolish words?!"

Henricus was seething with anger as he turned around swiftly, drawing his sword from its sheath in the process.

"This has nothing to do with your likes, Sir Henricus. We only want the woman,"

The man standing in the middle came forward as he spoke,

"She has brought misfortune and death to our town. Everything had been going all fine and dandy before she set her foor in here,"

He glanced behind Henry for a mere second before shifting his gaze back at the furious man glaring daggers at him,

"Her presence is a sign of bad omen. We must get rid of her before another calamity strikes us."

"You have the audacity to voice out your disgusting thoughts before me? Such arrogant fellows!"

With a swift movement, Henry had jumped out of the carriage.

Sqauring his shoulders, he walked gallantly towards their leader, stopping only when a foot or less remained distancing them. His fingers tightened around the sword's hilt as he brought it up in front of him to draw a line on the ground between the group of assailants and their own carriage with its sharp tip.

After he was done, he slowly turned his head from one side to another, glaring in the eyes of each and every man present in there, sending out a silent warning,

"Cross this if you can."

"We do not consider you our enermy, Sir Henricus."

The leader spoke once again. His voice sounding less confident this time.

"But I do!"

With an abrupt move, Henry raised his sword to block out a blow from his right. It was a medium built man, seemingly a commoner. He had intended to catch Henry off gaurd.

"Coward."

Henry spit in his direction with disgust before throwing the man back with great force. The man, clearly a clumsy villager, lost his balance falling back on the ground with a loud thud. Just as Henry moved forward to slash the man on the ground with his sword, another man crept up from behind, almost injuring Henry's back with his sword. Henry merely avoided the attack by an inch as he ducked down in time causing the man behind him to slash the man in front of him.

"Attacking from behind!? You are no man!"

He seemed to have gone bersek at their audacious behaviour.

Through the semi parted door, she watched with half opened eye lids as Henry fought dozen of villagers on his own, not letting a single soul step over the line he had drawn on the ground.

A small warm droplet rolled down the side of her cheek as she watched an abandoned street turn into a bloodied battlefield,

'When does this nightmare end?'

Suddenly a man appeared at the carriage door, trying to crawl inside unnoticed. His unexpected appearance caused a scream to tear out of her throat.

"Ah!"

Hearing her shriek, Henry turned his head towards her, alarmed, providing the man he was fighting an opening. Time seemed to have slowed down as she watched Henry running swiftly towards the entrance of the carriage to get rid of the intruder. Prior to he was able to capture the man lurking at the carriage's entrance, a dagger was plunged deep inside his back.

"NO!"

Another scream broke out the back of her throat as Henry fell face first on the ground from the unexpected impact,

"Milady-"

Not allowing Henry's weak voice to completely let out the word, the man who had injured him previously struck him again. A moan escaped out of his as the man took the dagger out of his back forcefully, turning him around to slash his abdomen. In an effort to stop the man, Henry held the man's wrists tightly before the dagger could pierce the skin of his abdomen. The more the man pushed the dagger towards Henry's skin, the harder Henry held his wrists, almost cutting the villager's blood supply in the process.

When the man's hold continued to persist on the wooden handle, Henry gritted his teeth together before mustering all up his power to kick the man away from his figure.

Deviating all his attention towards his first assailant turned out to be his biggest mistake as all of a sudden he felt another shadow crawl up behind him. Before he could move out of the way, the second man delivered a hard blow to his head with a wooden block.

All resistance left Henry's body as his eyes turned wide with pain. The skin behind his head had split immediately, turning the ground beneath his head into a deep scarlet puddle.

"D-Do n-not h-harm h-her..."

Even in a barely conscious state, the loyal vassal kept his glassy eyes trained at the carriage's door, from where his drowsy mind could roughly register stormy eyes staring back at him.

The haze around her head cleared more and more as she kept gawking dumbfounded at a battered Henricus plummeted on the ground. The side of his tanned visage that touched the earth was smeared in a pool of dirt, tears and blood.

No words were able to escape past her lips as she witnessed his teary eyes gradually roll back into his skull.

"Seems like Sir Henricus is down. Now, let us wipe out the plague we originally came for."

The man standing at the entrance of carriage had remained deadly still till that point, but once he saw Henry's bloodied eyelids close on their own accord, a newfound courage found its way back to him as he sneered with disgust in her way before bending over to grab her by her hair.

'Is Henry dead?'

A scene flashed before her eyes, reminding her of the night Henry almost lost his life while guarding her.

At that time, Ares had come to save them. He had given Henry his blood to heal him quickly, but right now the chances of it happening all over again seemed slim to none. Henry was not even a vampire yet.

'What would I do if something happened to him?'

The moment the man's hand made contact with her scalp, something inside her mind snapped. A rage, she didn't know she was capable of, started building up inside her, scratching her inside out, trying to find a way out of her to escape somehow. She felt as if a red hot lava had filled her vessels, flowing deep down her core where fueled by the current situation, a great wildfire had been ignited.

Just as the man was about to tug her out of the door, her free hand shot out to grab the glass bottle resting beside her on the seat. Without giving it another thought, she let out an impossibly loud shriek, smashing the bottle on the man's head with as much force as she could muster.

Clear water droplets along with numerous warm scarlet beads splashed all across her face as the glass made contact with the side of his head. The man's hold on her scalp loosened instantly as he stepped away from her yelling out a string of profanities. Shards were sticking of his face and neck, painting one side of his head into a matted crimson mess.

In his hasty quest to move away from her, he forgot the carriage's door was already parted and fell straight out of it. A crunching followed the loud thud, soon accompanied by a deadly silence.

Right at that instant, unknown scenes started appearing before her eyes.

A woman.

Shovel.

Iron fence.

She felt like she was about to lose her senses any moment.

'Henry...'

Shaking her head to clear out any unwanted images, her eyes zeroed in on the vassal lying sprawled on the cobblestone, in a small puddle of his own blood. Her back was killing her but all she could foucs on was the scarlet liquid gushing furiously out of Henry's wounds.

The consequences of her actions was once again suppressed by another imminent breakdown pulling at her strings to concentrate on just one task at hand.

Saving Henricus.

Rage, once again, could be felt bubbling up inside of her as heaving like a mad bull, she jumped straight out of the carriage.

Long black tresses stuck to her sickly pale skin matted with the blood splattered all across her face in the form of small scarlet droplets. Blood dripping down her lips, from when she had subconsciously bit her finger, had long dried, forming haphazard patches around her mouth. Standing unnaturally still with a jet black curtain of hair swaying lightly with the breeze, she seemed every bit as petrifying as they considered her to be.

Slowly, her gaze lifted up to glare at the pair of fools standing near Henry's bloodied body who already had their horrified eyes trained on her.

"Meretrix, witch, bad omen..."

She was muttering words incoherent to them underneath her breath while keeping her bloodshot eyes glued to the astounded villagers in front of her.

"You bitch!"

All of a sudden, the man standing at her left, charged towards her at full speed. His hand gripped her throat as he dragged her along, slamming her hard against the carriage. His fingers were digging inside the soft flesh of her neck in order to crush her windpipe, but one thing that he had failed to notice in the dark was the small transparent shard of glass clutched tightly between her fingers.

'Now.'

With her newfound adrenaline rush, she didn't waste another second as she jabbed the pointed piece of glass in the side of his neck. She watched as a shocked look crossed his face, turning his eyes to saucers before he stumbled back letting go of her throat.

Crimson liquid was oozing out of the wound in bulk, tainting his white tunic with its omnious tinge in mere moments. His trembling hand found the heavily bleeding vessel, trying to stop it by pressing his fingers against it but the blood loss seemed to have taken its toll on him. Barely another minute had passed before his legs gave out beneath him, causing him to crumple into a heap on the ground.

As soon as she saw the man drop down, she tore her gaze away from him to fixate it at the other man staring wide eyed at her. Just as he caught her eye accidentally, he gulped loudly before starting to back away bit by bit. When he was sure she wasn't coming after him, he turned his back towards her and ran as if he were on fire.

'Useless.'

Sparing one last glance at the man sprinting with his tail tucked between his legs, she, herself, broke out in a run towards Henry.

Reaching his limp figure in mere seconds, she fell down on her knees, calling out his name,

"Henry.. Henricus?!"

There was no reply.

With trembling hands, she placed a finger under his nostrils and another at the side of his neck, searching for any sign of breathing or a pulse. Slow puffs of air hit her index finger which she had placed under his nose whilst the other one detected a dull throbbing beneath his cold and clammy skin, drawing a sigh of relief from her.

'Where do I take him?'

Her eyes travelled side to side hastily as she thought of a place to call for help in this unknown world. She knew she couldn't take him to the manor. There wasn't enough time nor did she know the way to operate a carriage.

Suddenly her eye stopped their rushed movment staring unblinking into the space before she uttered her next words,

"... The church."