Chapter five ▪ Queen

fter wandering around the forest, I completely forgot about my overly dramatic reaction to the new information I had just learnt about.

Now I was panicking for a completely new reason. This one was real.

I saw a pair of red eyes.

They were so bright, they almost looked livid. Livid but beautiful. I know, they are probably the scariest thing I've seen in my life, and I saw a lot of scary, angry vampires at the tavern.

But I did always find beauty in the most dangerous things.

The vampire walked out of the shadows and I was terrified. This wasn't any normal vampire. This was a newly turned, blood-thristy vampire. They were weaker and were completely out of control, letting their beast control their actions. They felt nothing and never thought about who their new prey was.

It's like their human side is asleep and the beast was out and without control. This is the stage where they are tehnically still dead, which explains why he wasn't breathing and why he was so pale and overall, dead-looking.

Thank God they don't rot.

After my momentary shock, I started running as far away from him as possible.

I ran while holding my heels in my hands. I have no idea why I didn't throw them away, it's not like they made me run any faster.

I ran for a bit more time, but the beast was catching up to me. He didn't have to breathe and he didn't get tired, whereas I was currently like a fish on dry land, so I wasn't really surprised by that.

I quickly climbed up some short tree branches and the beast stood at the bottom looking dumbly at me. He was 6 feet underneath me and I climbed a bit higher, just in case.

I got painful flashbacks of playing with Isaac in the woods next to our former home, but I pushed those back and focused on the hungry beast underneath me.

I don't think this guy was turned by someone strong, because he was more beastly than manly. The stronger the vampire that turned him, the stronger the human is going to stay through the transition.

I regained my breath and noticed that the beast was growling and trying to climb up to me more agressively than he used to. His fangs were on full display as his lip was curled up in a snarl.

I noticed I was bleeding. I probably didn't feel the pain because of the adrenaline pounding through me.

Running barefoot in a forest isn't too safe, as you may have guessed - I had multiple gashes dripping blood onto the ground because of it.

Thank God my feet are quite rough, since I work a lot.

I took out the splinters from my feet and my dress moved from covering my legs and covered the tree branch I was sitting on. I am grateful that I'm wearing that thing underneath this dress, or else I'd be completely exposed.

I have an idea how to get out of this mess. Vampires die when they are staked by wood through the heart. But they are almost immobile when staked anywhere else - the pain is too much for them to move.

At least the weak ones are like that. The stronger ones- I have no idea.

To think I was supposed to be dancing at this moment, I snickered.

I took my small pocket knife out of the black 'shorts' that I was wearing and cut off a small stick from the tree branch that I am sitting on. I checked if it could bend to an arch without breaking, and it could. I cut off a piece of cloth from my expensive dress and made a bow. I cut a less flexible piece of wood from the branch and sharpened the tip to a very sharp point.

The vampire had calmed down and hid in the dark parts, hoping I'd be naive enough to climb down and have him eat me alive.

All thoose years of training and lessons on how to always be prepared that I had with dad & Isaac have finally come useful.

I cut my left palm and dripped the blood on the ground underneath me. The beast couldn't resist and came out of his hiding spot. I quickly aimed the stake/arrow at his left shoulder and shot. The arrow shot right where I wanted it to and I jumped down from the tree as the beast screamed in agony. I fell down on my knees when I felt the sharp pain of the impact that my wounded feet made when I jumped from the tree.

I got up and ignored the pain as much as I could as I ran away from the beast. Tears pricked my eyes as I ran, I don't know if it was because of the pain or the fear. I felt eyes on me the whole time. After some time of running, I ran into something and fell down on the ground.

I grumbled something incoherent while holding my head.

I looked up to see a very handsome man with odd platinum hair that shone in the moonlight. It reminded me of the moon.

Am I in heaven?

Or is it a nightmare?

My feet would disagree with the last option.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not a tree." The man spoke. Amusement was written all over his handsome face. I have no idea why I wasn't scared out of my mind when I saw him, because it was clear that he was a vampire. A very rich one.

In this world, rich translates to powerful. Powerful translates to dangerous.

I should be running again.

"You certainly feel like one when someone runs into you." I grumbled as I took his large, oddly warm hand that he offered to help lift me up off the ground.

"What are is someone like you doing in the woods? Aren't you supposed to be at the ball?" I asked him as I dusted off my dress.

I don't think dust was the problem with my dress.

"I was looking for you." He replied and when I looked up at his face once again, while I was up, I noticed that his eyes were an electrifiying blue that shone brighter than any other pair of eyes I've ever seen. They looked like strange blue diamonds.

"Lord Hudson sent you?" I asked.

He thought about the question and answered, "I have been looking for you for 17 years, and no, he hasn't sent me. In fact he is currently having fun with a blonde while he forgot about you."

"He really had to find a blonde to replace me with?" I scrunched my face in disgust.

"What do you have against blondes?" He asked me with a frown on his gorgeous, but slightly confused face.

"My mom's a blonde and I hate my mom and anything that has something to do with her. " I explained.

He said he was looking for me for 17 years.

He didn't kill me when I clearly disrespected him and did a lot of things I wasn't supposed to do, even though I would have been killed if I did that to any other vampire.

"Oh shit." I looked up at him wide eyed. After my momentary freeze, I kneeled him in his manhood and ran as he groaned. I ran and soon, the palace came into view. I ran inside and found Lord Hudson. He was actually making out with a blonde, a fake one, and his hair was dishevelled and messy. Probably from their baby making- hopefully without any babies involved.

I tapped his shoulder and by now I had gotten a lot of strange looks, probably because I looked like I just came from the woods, which I conviniently did.

He turned around and looked at me strangely.

"What the hell happened to you?" He spoke after he broke the kiss with the blonde and turned around.

"I got lost and a vampire attacke-"

"Dahlia, this is my mate Vanessa. Vanessa, this is my friend, Dahlia." He cut me off. So, he found his mate.

That makes the two of us.

"Oh, she's pretty." I spoke to him once I actually saw her.

"Thank you." She spoke. She had green eyes and rosy, swollen lips. Probably from Hudson assaulting them so many times.

"Anytime. I'm some vampire's mate. " I spoke, ignoring her since I realised she was jealous. She probably thinks Hudson's more than a friend.

"What? Who? You're not his mate- are you?"

"I don't know how 'he' looks so I do not know but-"

"Strong jaw, tall, thick lashes and eyebrows, reffered to as 'the hottest man of all time', looks filthy rich, has platinum blonde hair, dull blue eyes, never smiles-"

"That'd be him but his eyes were anything but dull." I spoke. As soon as I said that, he came out of the crowd, looking pissed.

I don't even know his name. I'll call him Peter Pan.

'Angry is a good look on him', I thought.

"Lord Hudson." He nodded and put his hand around my waist. I stood there, awkwardly shimming my way out of his very firm and possesive grip.

I was still barefoot, with a lot of natural substances and things in my hair, and still holding my heels- again, I don't know why.

"King." He bowed down, and Vanessa just followed him.

"I'll go find Vanessa's parents." Lord Hudson spoke as he dragged Vanessa out by her small manicured hand.

"Way to go! Leave when I need you, but go and be a leech when I don't." I grumbled.

"How have you been?" He asked.

"How have I been? Seriously?" I calmly spoke to him, but anger was laced throughout my tone.

(A/n I'm trying to fix this book, but I hope I don't end up deleting it instead. This should be illegal.)