With time, I got comfortable in the Vampire Kingdom. Everyone, Lazarus included, was wary of me in the beginning, and made sure not to reveal insider secrets in front of me. Many times, Aiden and Lazarus had this silent communication thing going on between them and I realized Lazarus was probably asking time and again if I was really that worthy of trust.

Apart from that, they hid nothing from me and were quite when it came to discussing about the Kingdom. I was told that since I was the second in command's mate, I would be having certain responsibilities too, especially since Lazarus' wife was no longer alive.

All of that after my mating rituals with Aiden were complete.

Aiden was always the attentive gentleman and never left me alone. Since I had nothing to do in the huge castle, I had resorted to cooking for myself and then training with the other vampires to pass my time. It just made me more confident in my human form and Aiden was always there, encouraging me in every step of the way.

With what Liana had taught me and what I was learning from the Vampires, the fighting styles were quite different. While the Werewolves had certain rules while fighting, vampires were random with their fighting techniques.

All that mattered to me that I was learning to fight.

Everything felt better and I felt like I was moving on to a new life entirely, and that was all because of Aiden.

He really was earning my love, and I his. We spent a lot of time getting to know each other, and I knew I was glowing with happiness. We made out a lot, and he always managed to leave me a horny mess afterwards. He was being incredibly patient with me, even when I was the one who wanted to hurry things along, and he never brought up the topic of my other mate. Even his name was never spoken of between us and I liked it that way.

Since Aiden and I spent a lot of time together, it left me little time to ever think about Adrian.

But it was then I realised that I did miss him a little. Something always felt missing and I wondered that this feeling would only go away when I will have a hot threesome with both my mates.

My face burned hot as erotic images went through my mind with me being ravished by both of them at the same time.

I shivered with pleasure, and then sighed.

I knew that would never be possible; both the males weren't the ones to share. They would rather rip each other apart than be naked together with their woman; and another man who wanted to claim the woman at the same time.

And very obviously, a threesome wasn't what I really wanted. I just wanted someone to love me, and now that someone was Aiden.

Even though a part of me still wanted Adrian and there were time when I wanted to intrude in his dreams just like he had done in mine that day, I stopped myself remembering that it wasn't fair to the three of us.

And I was still hurt. I was lucky I found Aiden when I did - I couldn't think of how I would've been if he hadn't been here.

Whenever he kissed me, my insides would turn to mush and light up at the same time. The tingles that wreaked havoc on my body consumed me completely, and I could see fireworks every time. It was everything they describe in a hot, romantic novel, yet I couldn't put to words how hot he made me for him.

Every time.

And every time, I would be so close to having him love me the way I wanted him to. I would seduce him in every way possible, get him hard in seconds, make him almost come in his pants, but every time, he managed to get himself under control. It was unbelievable and sometimes I would think that there were other reasons that caused him to abstain but he always assured me that it was because he wanted to get in my heart first and then in my pants.

I always teased him about his blue balls, and pouted about how I'd never seen him shirtless.

Can you even believe that? My own mate, with whom I sleep in the same bed everyday, hasn't shown me his bare torso, yet.

And I was dying to get him naked.

I was such a slut. Just a few weeks ago, I was with another man.

I shook my head off before I could go into deeper details and get myself embarrassed in public. So I focused on other things that needed my attention at that time.

It had been over a month since I had come here, and I had realised that there were a lot of differences between both the Kingdoms and the way they lived.

And I was yet to decide which one suited me better.

There was a stronger bond between the Werewolves - it could be because of their tendencies to stay together in packs. The mind-links, mate bonds, and other bonds between wolves are much stronger than what I'd observed between Vampires. I could pick any two random wolves from the kingdom and they would definitely share a stronger bond than the vampires who were close to each other here.

The bonds between Vampires were more... human; based on choice. This bond didn't have that amount of intensity, which was why Vampires didn't take their mates for granted like Werewolves did. While Weres were assured that their mates won't leave them, that was not the case with Vampires.

Vampire mates could just get up and leave, or find someone better to choose and bond with. There were no restrictions, or gender roles they had to follow - except for birthing of children, among some other things, obviously - and life was actually more complicated here.

It is true - the more choices you have, the more complicated your life becomes.

I had a choice between the two, and while my bond with Adrian was strong, the same with Aiden could be rivaled if we put in enough efforts and time.

And this was the reason why Aiden tried his best that his attention towards me and the bond we were developing rivaled my marked bond with Adrian. Sometimes I wondered if what he did was for the mere sake of competing with my other mate, but then some of his heartfelt gestures made me feel otherwise. He was always genuine with me and I could see him emotions reflecting in his eyes and in his actions.

It was like a dream, having someone love me so much. It was too good to be true.

I had made friends here, too, and it was interesting interacting with them, learning more about how the people lived here. The women here loved their husbands to death, and their children were cute little bundles of joys with fangs.

Children.

Looking at children, I wondered if I was pregnant. But I had my period then, so there were really low chances of me being pregnant. Yet, I was cautious at every step because having a baby would pull the situation out of my grasps and that was something I didn't want. I have always wanted babies and I knew I would love mine no matter what, but this wasn't the ideal situation for my baby to be born in.

The people here were extremely accepting of me. Almost all of them knew that I had been marked by the rival Were King and was his mate, but they called him an asshole for missing out on such a great woman and not ditching the other woman.

Their words, not mine.

I knew he had his reasons, he had made me well aware of them on the date we had and he was right in what he said. But at the same time, it should have been him maintaining his distance from me if he didn't want his mate and pup to be hurt.

All this attention was flattering, and for someone who hadn't gotten what she deserved the past few months, both Celeste and Cynthia were basking in it. People often asked what I looked like when I shifted and I told them honestly that I didn't know the answer to that myself. All of them knew that I was a hybrid and this was something that even the Weres didn't know back when i was there. People here had a lot of questions that they wanted me to answer and unfortunately for them and me, I didn't know any answers to half of them.

The rest half were secrets that I didn't feel like divulging.

Out of all the people, there was one woman, who looked slightly older among these bunch of immortals. She always regarded me with her dark eyes, sometimes narrowing her eyes slightly as if she was trying to figure me out. At times she looked like she wished to approach me but never did because of the women around me all the time. She was always alone and there was a dark, negative vibe around her - as if she didn't fit in here and she didn't want to fit in. Her aura was strong, so was her physique but she didn't look like she like even a single person living here.

She sometimes scared me; I was not really used to getting a response from people that was not positive. The people here were greeting me warmly, all of them, except her.

She had black, raven hair and equally dark eyes. Her white, porcelain skin had slight wrinkles on it that were visible only if you looked closely. There was a certain wisdom in her eyes, as if she knew you more than you knew yourself.

I asked the women about her, and they said that she was a lonely woman who's mate had been killed in the war and was childless. She was some five-hundred years old, a great deal older than many of the people here and was slightly lunatic.

Most of the time, she was rebellious and held a dislike against the King, so I was to stay away from her if I wanted to remain untainted. No one really talked to her, and she had that air around her that said that it didn't bother her to be lonely at all. She was something fierce, mysterious, but I couldn't say that I liked mysteries.

I hated surprises with a passion; my entire life was now a huge surprise.

But something drew me to her, and I wanted to know why she kept staring at me like that. It was unnerving and I wanted to know what her motive was.

That was why I went towards her cottage one day. It was slightly away from the rest of the population and that was strange because the population of the Vampires was really low - approximately a little more than half of the people that were rebelling in that clearing that day.

"Looking for me?" A female voice called out, startling me.

She was right in front of me before I could blink, and I took a cautious step back.

Alright, she's not scary at all.

Then I smiled.

The woman was really gorgeous and looked happy to find me here, wanting to talk to her. Her eyes were warm this time, and I felt those grandmotherly vibes from her, making me feel comfortable with her being so close to me.

She smiled back at me too, and I swear she looked so gorgeous that I almost wanted to look like her when I got older.

"You shouldn't be here, darling." She said, her voice soft.

I frowned. Didn't she want me to be around her? Was that why she never came to even say a hello?

Then why the hell did she keep staring at me like that?

"Why? My brows furrowed deeply.

"I won't say much, dear," She sighed, and her eyes were warm again, her smile as bright as the sun, "But I'll warn you. Don't let illusions fool you, you are smarter than that and you'll find a way. I'm afraid I cannot say much."

"What do you mean - ?"

She immediately dismissed me and disappeared at the same moment and I was left standing alone, like a fool outside her cottage.

It reminded me of the time when Liana had mentioned a prophecy and I realised that I had completely forgotten about it. It was never brought up again so I didn't know what the prophecy was about. I hoped that she knew about the prophecy - well, even Aiden must be knowing about it.

Did it really have something to do with me?

Why wasn't anyone telling me about it?

That day I went back home worrying my head over the words she spoke. I was completely normal when Aiden came back to me, and we spent another evening just lying on the soft grass, looking up at the sky.

The other day, I was up and ready to demand the woman for some answers. Heck, I didn't even know her name! And then, because of her, I had my brains in a mess for an entire day. I knew that my life was nothing short of a novel right now, but I thought this was it - my life couldn't be any more complicated than this.

Then she had to say that I shouldn't let the illusions fool me. To be really honest, I was already tired of this supernatural yada yada shit. I relished the normalcy of Vampires' lives and that was why I liked it here. I desperately wanted to be a normal human being and lead a normal human life now.

What illusions? Maybe I was dreaming all of this and I would wake up in my home and continue being a human all my life.

I charged towards her cottage purposefully, only to find it locked. I frowned and stared at the door for a while, hoping she would materialise out of nowhere like yesterday.

But I kept waiting and she didn't come back.

A hand on my shoulder alerted me of someone's presence and my skin burned a little. I yelped and jumped away from the person, finding it was Shaina, the woman who was the closest to me out of the bunch.

"What are you doing here?" She asked, smiling at me. "And I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have touched you."

"It's alright." I smiled back at her, "I was actually here to find the woman that lived there." I pointed at the college, "It's locked."

She frowned at me and then pressed her lips together for a while.

"I thought we told you to avoid any kind of interaction with her at all costs." It sounded like she was scolding me slightly, but I didn't care. "Well, Cynthia...she died this morning."

"What?!" My jaw dropped in horror, "I just met that woman yesterday!"

She frowned at me again.

"I don't know much." She shrugged, as if the woman's death didn't affect her much, "The guards told us that she had wandered far outside the territory and the Werewolves killed her."

It was really difficult to believe that! She was definitely not a five-year old child to wander off so irresponsibly! She was five hundred years old for fuck's sake!

My heart broke little by little once that news sank in. I wanted to bawl. I couldn't even share my feelings about it with Aiden; I hadn't even told him about my visit to her yesterday and the cryptic words of wisdom she had given me. I definitely couldn't share with him how heartbroken I was over her death.

I walked back to the castle at human pace.

Things had to be complicated, right? After all, I lived twenty something years of my life in peace and all my problems had accumulated so that they could be solved now.

I wonder how Grandma had managed to keep me hidden all this time. Maybe no one knew that there was someone to be found.

Oh man, I dearly missed her and my days with her - simple and uncomplicated.

And then that night, I was deeper in the mess.

*************************

I woke up in a strange dark place. It was different from the dream I had of Adrian.

I thought I had told him to never contact me like that ever again. But here we are.

When he didn't turn up even after sometime, I realised this was definitely something different than what I had thought earlier.

I closed my eyes, hoping that the next time I opened them, I would be back in my bed, in Aiden's arms.

I was sorely wrong.

I stood up and started wandering around, hoping to find something or someone.

"Moon," A voice whispered from a distance.

I stopped in my tracks, resisting any kind of motion towards the voice.

"Is someone there?" I asked loudly, taking another step back from the direction of the voice.

"Come to me, Moon."

That voice was pulling me towards itself and I desperately wanted to resist the temptation to follow it.

As far as I knew, my human name, Moon, was not known by the vampires except for Aiden and Lazarus, and both of them didn't need to play such tricks on me.

The voice was only a whisper, and it was difficult to understand the gender of the voice.

"Is that you, Adrian? I told you to go away! Why are you playing such tricks on me?!" I yelled.

"I'm not Adrian," The whisper came back.

Was...was it the woman who died this morning? Was she haunting my dreams? Now my life was turning into a horror novel, eh?

"Cynthia," Aiden's voice reached my ears, "What's wrong, baby? Wake up."

My eyes opened again, and I was in Aiden's arms. He looked really worried and I wondered what I exactly did.

"It was a nightmare," I murmured, "Was I talking in my sleep?" I asked him.

"No," he said, "But I could feel that you were horrified. What was it? Do you want to talk about it?"

I shook my head and settled back in his arms, hoping I wouldn't dream about it again.

*********************

I was sitting at the dinner table besides Aiden, who sat right next to Lazarus. Across us were other high-ranking Vampires and I wondered what was the process for the selection of the Vampire King and his subordinates.

Aiden was, in a way, right about Lazarus being a sweetheart when he was comfortable. Once he had started trusting me, he was all goofy jokes and sometimes terrible pick up lines. Yet, he kept a straight face most of the time, just the way he was now.

"So, it's been more than a month, right?" He started, "Are you finally comfortable here?"

I stopped and looked up at him for a moment.

"Never mind." He shrugged, "I've heard you've made friends here." And then he gave me a small smile.

"Yes, I have." I smiled back at him, "I have a lot of spare time on my hands, so I'd rather indulge in some gossip." I giggled, definitely sounding like an airhead.

No one knew that I made my own food and somehow I had managed to keep the fact hidden till now. The other things I did in the entire day included training and roaming around the palace to search for clues.

"We are holding a meeting tomorrow, with Alpha King Adrian. I want you to be present." He commanded.

The spoon I was holding paused in mid-air. I gulped, "What is the agenda of the meeting?"

Oh, I knew what the agenda of the meeting was. To fuck me up by having Adrian show me his gorgeous face again. He was either going to have Delia by his side, or not, and no matter what he did, it was going to fuck up my mind even more.

Aiden and Lazarus were constantly testing my loyalty, and even though it was extremely annoying at times, I understood why they did that. After all, I could be a snitch and they would never know I was passing on insider information.

I had realised how easily I could betray all of them at once and create a huge war between both the Kingdoms again. At the same time, I had the power to create peace between both of them.

I was not interested in doing any of it.

At the thought of betraying, I always wondered if Liana, Mercy and Kia thought that I had betrayed them. My heart always sank to my gut when I realised that I had perhaps lost my best friends when I decided to seek refuge in the arms of my Vampire mate.

Even though I knew he loved me to death, he would never be able to take the place of my best friends whom I can never repay what they've done for me.

"You'll learn that tomorrow, Cynthia. For today, you should rest. Tomorrow will be a long day."

Aiden gave me a small peck on my mouth and smiled at me confidently.

I know, right? It's gonna be a long day.