Pale fingers were intertwined in a messily woven web of scarlet. Some of the crimson was passing through the spaces in between her fingers, appearing to be the frilly hem of her cotehardie. Some of it stuck to her hands, digging deep under her nailbeds, its consistency corresponding to that of a sticky liquid—blood.

The pale set of hands seemed unsure of their venture as they let go of the red velvet they’d been clutching onto for dear life, before travelling up to cross and reach their opposite arms.

She was scratching her skin vigorously with her nails. Like a drug addict, a nameless need was crawling underneath her flesh. She pressed herself harder and harder into the bark behind her back while continuing to dig holes into her arms.

The events of the last few moments all had become a big blur to her mind.

She had gotten out of Ruth’s shop, concealing the throbbing bite on her neck with her raven locks. She remembered seeing people on the cobbled street, their movements seemed to have slowed down quite a bit, every hushed whisper of theirs hit her like a loud cacophony. The more steps she took towards the hill, the more overloaded her senses became of her surroundings.

That’s when it happened. Her olfaction overpowered all of her other senses as a sweet, mouthwatering aroma made her whip her head to the side. A kid had accidentally grazed his knee on the asphalt while playing.

Every emotion coursing through her veins, every sound making her ears ring, every single thing disappeared the moment her eyes fell on the sticky liquid trickling down the little boy’s leg.

‘Blood.’

She felt thirsty. A thirst so strong it turned her throat more parched then the Sahara. She feared it to remain unquenchable even by the deepest darkest of the seas.

The boy too had noticed the weirdly dressed woman standing in the middle of street staring straight at him.

She was unsure about what happened after that. One moment she was stuck in the midst of a bustling street, the next she found herself deep in the forest, perching her back against a tree trunk as she continued peeling her skin off.

She had a slight hunch about her condition. Instead of slowly turning her into a vampire like Henry, Ares’ venom had triggered the already present vampire part inside her. She was rapidly transitioning, hence speed and enhanced senses.

Blinking back tears, her head lifted up to look at the colossal castle nestled on top of the hill. She wanted to part her lips to call out to him but her gums were aching too much. Her brain refused to cooperate to any of her commands. The creature inside her only had one thing on its mind.

Blood.

The need was far too strong to rein in. There was this new presence inside her brain, an animal that wanted nothing more to turn back and tear apart any human she could find in the town behind her.

That’s when her disorienting brain noticed her own blood on her fingers, making her pause in her tracks. It was part human, and it was calling out to her. Not having the ability to think or process any further, she put her fingers in our mouth, starting out by gingerly licking the side but soon turning frantic by almost putting her whole fist in her mouth.

She wanted more.

“That’s enough. Stop.”

“Uh...”

An incoherent sound escaped past her lips as she stared fearfully at the familiar man standing in front of her.

The venom spreading its roots inside of her seemed to have recognized its source, making her pause immediately.

The man was clad in black head to toe, making his pale skin pop out more against the clothes. The veins travelling haphazardly above his flesh made it appear like marble. Just like his eyes, a pair of dead emeralds staring square into her own.

“Take your hand out of your mouth.”

She didn’t feel any uncontrollable urge to obey him this time. He had caught her off-guard before but this time, she didn’t make much movement to follow his command. She remained as stoic as him.

A crunching sound resonated through the empty forest as he slowly lifted his foot to take a step towards her. He was neither concealing his presence behind bushes as a predator waiting for the right moment to pounce on his prey nor was he approaching her with the carefully guided steps of a savior. His gait, held the authority of a master.

He had birthed her vampire side. He was her master now.

“You’re defying me?”

He had asked the question to no one in particular. She was sure if he showed emotions like humans, she would’ve heard surprise in his tone.

“How?”

Her ears which hurt by the smallest of the whispers uttered by human lips were completely unaffected by his rich voice. His movements too didn’t seem to lag behind like other humans she had witnessed in the street. Their times seemed perfectly synched.

He was a creature belonging to her race. She could tell that from a mile’s distance.

“How are you able to fight against my word?”

Crouching down in front of her huddled figure, he tilted her jaw up to make their eyes meet.

“Uh…”

As she parted her lips to answer him back, nothing came out except for air. Her throat was getting drier by the second.

Her eyes widened when slowly his cold fingers snaked up to grab her wrist, trying to take her hand out of her mouth, but it seemed like her brain wasn’t ready to let her blood laced fingers go.

“Ugh!”

A growl emerged out of the back of her throat in protest as he once again tried removing her hand from her mouth, this time succeeding.

As he held her fisted hand with his bigger one, he barely had time to stop her from putting her other hand in her mouth.

“Stop it, Faith!”

His booming voice had no particular effect on her as she continued struggling in his grasp.

“Faith!”

Suddenly she found both of her wrists pinned above her head by one of his hands as his face came dangerously close to hers, peering into her wide eyes with his emotionless emeralds.

His proximity had scared the newly awoken animal inside her. It recognized the dominance oozing out of the creature pinning her down.

It recognized its king.

Continuing to peer inside her eyes for a moment or more, he backed down just a bit to allow his free hand to come between them. Right before her eyes, the centuries old vampire tore apart his own wrist making her eyes pop out of her skull.

“Drink.”

A memory from the past when he made her drink his blood to heal her wounds flashed before her, making her eyes water.

This time, it wasn’t to heal her. This time, it was to satiate her.

She silently watched as her blood crazed brain made her pounce on his wrist. Hands still captured in his hold, she arched her back, craning her neck as far as she could to let her lips reach his dripping wound.

Every burning fiber of her being calmed down almost immediately the moment her quivering lips made contact with his blood. Nothing made sense. Nothing mattered. She felt whole.

It didn’t come close to her past experiences with his blood. The metallic taste didn’t make her stomach churn nor did it make her want to turn away. She was willingly succumbing herself to this foreign feeling. It was her fountain of youth.

“Mm…”

Halfway through her euphoric experience her maddened gaze met his stoic one. She had gotten so used to him looking lovingly at her that now, when faced back with his lifeless eyes from present, even the animal side of hers seemed unable to handle it. Lowering her eyes instantly, she continued slurping down his blood hungrily.

“Enough.”

When a fair share had dripped down her throat, the vampire king detached his wrist away from her mouth at once. She didn’t protest this time. Her rationality was once again back in control of her mind, the vampire part fast asleep… for now.

“Ares.”

Not caring about her blood stained teeth on display, she gave him a heart-breaking grin.

With her disheveled hair, partially torn dress and half healed wounds, she appeared to be hysterical in that moment.

“Lord Ares,”

She had almost forgotten the passive tone he had always used with her in present. It almost sounded foreign to her ears.

“I am the same lord you betrayed. Lord Ares Alexandros King.”

“I didn’t betray yo-”

Before she could complete her sentence, he had already placed a finger on her lips as he once again leaned in, closing the distance between their faces.

“Shush…”

She felt like she was back in that basement where she had accidentally awoken him for the first time. He appeared to be just as menacing and threatening.

“You have no idea how much I thought about wringing this pretty little neck of yours while I was caged inside that never-ending hell,”

The cold sensation from his fingers on her mouth was now slowly travelling down towards her neck,

“I can do that now. One little twist and you’re dead. Just like that.”

Letting go of her wrists, his hand picked a small twig from the ground, easily breaking it in two halves to put emphasis on his words.

She could see it in his eyes. He meant it. He wanted to kill her.

His fingers on her neck were now dancing towards one side, stopping only as they reached his bite mark on her flesh. She watched his eyes turning soft for a slight moment as he glanced down towards her torso,

“The only reason you’re not dead right now is the child you’re unwillingly nurturing in your womb,”

‘My baby…’

The animal had numbed her senses to the point she had almost forgotten about her pregnancy. So much had happened since she discovered about the small life growing inside of her. So much, yet so little time had passed for her.

Merely a night.

“The same child you tried getting rid of.”

His eyes once again hardened as his fingers slightly grazed the torn skin of her neck making her flinch.

“Ruth had asked me to break my bond with you. If I hadn’t done that, the villagers would’ve staked you or worse, Cyrus would’ve found you. You were in no condition to fight him.”

“And whose fault is that?!”

His fingers had left her body to scrap the bark behind her back. The sound of his fingers digging into the wood was far more disturbing for her hearing than she could’ve imagined,

“Who came to the past pretending to be all lost? Who turned Henricus with my old venom without his or my consent? How did, just after you arrived, people in a peaceful town started getting killed left and right? How did Cyrus who had been unable to find me for years reached me the moment you stepped foot into my life? And how exactly did you already have a dormant vampire half?”

Out of nowhere, he buried his nose in her neck, starting to sniff it rapidly before stopping altogether to take a deep breath,

“I sense Cyrus’ lineage.”

A loud crunch startled her as he tore out a piece of chunk from the bark he had been scratching previously.

Mustering up as much courage as she could, she stared directly into his eyes while uttering her next words,

“That’s because Cyrus killed Gabriel and caged Eve. He turned her into a vampire. He wanted to present her to the King as the murderer of the queen!”

“Then why didn’t he?”

She didn’t know what was going inside his head. His face was blank.

“Because When Cyrus bit Eve, Ruth fed her your venom. She obtained it through the pendant I had given her before vanishing from the past.”

“Why would you give her my pendant?”

He had put emphasis on the word ‘my’.

“To send me back in time.”

She knew how wrong things were starting to sound but she had no other way of explaining the truth.

A scoff broke her out of her thoughts making her stare up at her husband’s face. It was full of disdain.

“You desired to be sent back in time. You had planned everything.”

“I did not! Cyrus was bound to find you in the past, my interruption or not. Even if you had succeeded in escaping from the villagers and Cyrus, Gabriel would’ve been caught. He would’ve died and Eve would’ve been presented to the Vampire king as the assassin who murdered your mother. In every such scenario, you would’ve died mateless.”

“So you only did it to save your mother.”

“You…”

Passing a hand through her hair with sheer frustration, she paused for a moment to let out a silent sigh.

Slowly as she lifted up her glassy gaze to meet his, her hand reached forward to gingerly touch the left part of his chest. She could feel unnaturally slow thumps vibrating the skin of her palm,

“I did it because I can’t afford to have never met you. I love you.”

She was heaving. Her pregnancy hormones and adrenaline from the venom was getting to her head.

He was staring unblinkingly into her gaze. His face was wiped of any emotion. Their proximity was driving her insane, but on the other hand it didn’t look like it was affecting him much.

“Hm.”

Her heart rate picked up as he subtly glanced towards her mouth for a second before tilting his head to the side to whisper in her ear.

“Let’s make it so you’ll deeply regret crossing my path, ever. I loathe you.”

His lips were tickling her ear with every word he let out, but the moment the meaning behind those words registered in her mind, the blood flowing inside her vessels froze with horror.