Minutes turned to hours, hours turned into days—days that were a hair’s breadth away from coalescing to form a week. Every single bit of her time spent in this small cell was drilled down into her mind. It was a monotonous routine of her waking up to find a blood bag in front of the bars. She’d glare at it from a distance, trying to burn a hole through the plastic. Once she had caused enough damaged to her eyes by straining it, she’d angrily grab the bag, tearing into it to indulge into her thirst shamelessly. Eventually she’d find herself going back to staring into the abyss of her miseries until sleep claimed her once again.

This day was no different than the others. She couldn’t tell what time it was outside, no ray of sunshine dared trespassing into the cells of the vampire-witch hybrid. It had been some time since the blood bag was placed outside the silver bars, ushering her to believe it to be nighttime now. She had just finished emptying her bladder into the small toiled in one corner of the cell. She had hesitated quite a bit while using it for the first time but she had gotten used to it by now.

‘At least it’s better than soiling the ground.’

The thought crossed her mind as she was washing her hands in the basin making her scoff.

There had been no signs of Ares.

‘Is he even coming to help me?’

Trying to support her weight against the wall, she slowly lowered herself down onto the floor. Her malicious thought-process had kicked into action. Staying cooped up in one place was far too deteriorating for her mental health than she had imagined.

Letting out a frustrated sigh, she leaned her head back on the wall trying to empty her head of any thoughts. Just as she felt the inviting embrace of sleep trying to engulf her in its embrace, a pair of silver eyes flashed before her making her peer her eyes open immediately,

‘What the? Why did he come to my mind?’

She hadn’t heard from him since the first day she was locked in there. The last she had seen of him was when he had stormed out of the basement,

His words were engraved in her brain.

She had thought about escaping on her own multiple times but the situation never allowed it. Neither did Felix appear before her after that day nor did he answer to any of her calls. She had tried awaking numerous times to see and talk to him when he brought blood bags for her yet he always managed to avoid her.

“Sly bastard.”

Mumbling the words under her breath, she was just about to slip into a deep slumber when a sudden rattling sound alerted her senses. The door of the basement was getting rotated around its hinges.

Felix had a distinct fragrance, somewhat resembling that of a musk, unlike the person who had just opened the gate to the basement. They smelled like rotten flesh.

‘It’s not Felix.’

Wrapping both of her arms protectively in front of her belly, she hid in a dark corner of the cell, awaiting the next move of the person who was coming down towards her.

There were no sounds of footsteps, but she could clearly hear a slowed heartbeat getting closer and closer to the cell where she was hiding. If it were a pureblood, she wouldn’t have been able to hear their heartbeat from the distance they shared between themselves. There was no doubt that it was a turned vampire.

A turned but highly skilled vampire that had stepped into the house of the vampire prince.

“Boo!”

She had been prepared beforehand yet the eerie voice didn’t fail to make her jump out of her skin.

A rugged voice suddenly burst into a fit of laughter making her clench her jaw as she glared at the man standing in front of the silver bars with her ruby eyes.

“Știam că prințul punea la cale ceva…”

She was unable to comprehend the words rolling off of his tongue.

“So this is where he hid you.”

Seeing the confused look in her eyes, the man switched languages but the thick Romanian accent still stayed dripping in his words.

“The prince never refuses his father. Never,”

Refusing to answer the man, she kept herself hidden in the corner, preparing herself to attack him if the need arose. The way he was looking at her, she could tell he was able to look clearly at her in the dark.

“Yet he kept delaying the matter of bringing you here from that wretched king’s castle. Who knew that you were already resting in our dear prince’s basement?”

‘Felix… was asked by Cyrus to bring me here yet he never informed Cyrus that he had kidnapped me and I was with him now?’

The thought made a deep frown appear on her face.

“Why? Is it because of his weakness against harming children?”

‘Harming... children? But wasn’t Felix about to kill Henry the night Ares saved him?’

“Henry…”

Unbeknownst to her, the name had already escaped her lips and it hadn’t gone unnoticed by the turned vampire.

“Ha! You really believe the stories? How gullible!”

She didn’t like the way the vampire kept laughing and mocking her expressions. The anger swelling in her veins made her turn her head to the side with disgust.

“A vampire can tear the neck of a human child sooner than they would be able to let out a single sound. You really thought Felix just let that vile child cry over his parents’ dead bodies without any attempt to silence him?”

‘Maybe because he liked the hunt more than he enjoyed killing his prey.’

She kept the thought crossing her head sealed behind her lips. Her head was still turned away from the man, staring blankly in space.

“The father of that child was going to sell him as a slave to pay off his debts. The mother tried stopping him and he ended up killing her in his rage. Felix who had gone there to talk about the money the parents had borrowed from the monarch, saw everything. Felix only intervened to help but the child saw Felix draining his father and misunderstood. You should ask Henry sometimes, why he was clutching only onto his mother’s dead body not his father’s.”

Her head slowly lifted as she gave an incredulous look to the vampire staring amusingly at her.

‘Is he telling the truth?’

“Felix being a hybrid was not allowed to show any weaknesses therefore he pretended to play the role of the bad guy so that Ares would take the child away from his hands. Ironic, considering how that child played and is still playing a big part in causing the prince’s downfall.”

“Why…”

She couldn’t help herself from asking this question out loud. The man had unleashed a sea of emotions inside her.

“Ruth wouldn’t have gone so far to save the second prince if she didn’t know that he died an unfair death. Would she?”

She didn’t know what to believe anymore. Everything the man saying was making complete sense yet the way he said these things didn’t sound sincere at all. It looked as if he was enjoying putting her through an emotional turmoil.

“But the history will not repeat this time.”

The arrogant smirk on the turned vampire’s face was suddenly wiped out as he uttered those words.

“If this child in your womb is the hindrance faced by His Highness, I’ll wipe it out with my own hands.”

All colour drained from her face as she watched the turned vampire take out a bundle of keys from his pocket, pushing one of it inside the lock hanging from the bars of the silver gates confining her into the cell.

Her eyes rapidly traveled around the cell, looking for something to hit the vampire with. Hearing the ‘click’ of the lock, her body slowly moved further back into the corner, placing itself just near to the small toilet seat. The vampire had now stepped inside the cell, taking small calculative steps towards her. He was looking to counter her reaction.

She knew she couldn’t win the fight with just strength. She was in no condition to fight a fully grown vampire. All she had up her sleeve was the art of deception.

“Don’t come near me.”

“Or what?”

Trying to deceive him with a weak front, she tried moving rapidly to the left as if she were going to run out of the cell while simultaneously letting the man hold her hand and yank her back towards the corner. Just in time, she snatched the lid of the toilet seat and broke the porcelain over his while he was pulling her back towards him.

The vampire let out a loud howl of pain as she pushed him away in the corner, trying to hurriedly move out of the cell in order to lock him behind her. Just as she was about to step outside the cell, the vampire gripped her neck from behind and bit her shoulder, hard.

“Ah!”

Her vampire instincts kicked into action immediately upon encountering the pain. On a sudden impulse, her hand went behind to punch the face latched onto her shoulder. A loud crack echoed inside the vast basement before the teeth digging into her shoulder let her go. She could tell she had broken the vampire’s nose.

Wasting no time, she clutched her wounded shoulder while swiftly moving out of the cell to place the lock back in its place. Her hands burnt as she touched the silver bars and the lock directly but she paid no attention to it. Her sole focus was to get rid of the vampire trying to harm her baby.

“Argh!”

She finally let out the painful moan she’d been holding inside since she got bit as she fell on her knees. Her dress had started sticking to her right breast, just beneath the bite wound. She was bleeding profusely.

Placing her hands on the ground, she tried applying force to support her weight and get up from the floor but she couldn’t. The wound healing wasn’t as fast as that of a pureblood, she knew she was losing too much blood.

“Faith!”

She didn’t know she had started falling face first on the ground until a strong pair of arms caught her midway. She could feel the person holding her touch her bleeding shoulder with his cold fingers before letting out a series of profanity under his breath. Not even a second later, something cold and sweet started flowing down her neck.

‘Is that blood? A pureblood’s blood…’

“Ares?”

As she blinked her eyes rapidly to focus clearly on her savior’s face, the first thing her mind registered was a pair of silver eyes looking hurt beyond words.