At a particular place in the Dream Forest, amongst the many sky touching straight tall trees there was two exceptionally crooked trees. These two trees were completely devoid of any leaves. Their dry branches above the stem were deeply entangled with each other. If seen from afar, it would seem that two giants had bared their fangs and was engaged in a death feud. At night if someone suddenly flashed a dim light on them, the scene in front of them might gave them a heart attack out of fear. As these two trees were completely bald, there was a empty spot in the continuous shed created by the dense foliage of the surrounding tall mighty trees. The empty spot helped the sunlight directly to pass through the foliage and shine brightly above those crooked trees.
Scarlet leaned against one of these trees, staring blankly at the empty space in front of her. But inside her mind as if a tornado was blowing. Her thoughts were moving at such a speed that it even broke the speed record of the storm of the night before. The thoughts were riddled with unsolved questions such as,
' Gone?!! Just like that??! '
' My virginity was gone??? Just because I couldn't control my lust?? '
' Drinking blood will be like this every time?? '
Just the thought of it frightened her.
' No, I don't want to turn into a pleasure seeking demoness! '
' wait, it shouldn't be like this. Maybe it became like this because I drank human blood. Animal blood shouldn't cause this, right? Hmm.....ha ha..of course I am right. '
Thus just like that the black fogs of tornado inside her mind cleared completely and like the overflowing sunlight bathing her entire body, her mind was also filled with warm sun rays.
In her previous life when she was Aria, her strong point was she could quickly turn any negative emotions into positive ones. Otherwise coming from such a large aristocratic family where her straightforward and tomboyish personality had always attracted various negative criticisms, she might have drown into infinite depression sooner or later.
Scarlet took a deep breath and raised her head to feel the warm sunlight on her cold skin. Although her face was as cold as before, there was still a slight raise in the corner of her lips. Her blood red pupils shined brilliantly. Scarlet raised her right hand as if to touch the sunlight. All of sudden she noticed two unusual facts.
One, what was the unusual five petal shaped blue flower tattoo on her wrist? It wasn't there until the day before.
Two and the most important thing, that she hadn't noticed before was, how could a vampiress like her could bath in the sunlight? According to the TV shows she had seen before shouldn't she be burnt to ashes?
Scarlet thought and thought until she couldn't think anymore. She just blew the matter in the back of her head and thought, ' Ah..well, whatever, maybe i am some exceptional vampire....he he.. anyway, being able to stay in the sun is a good thing.'
Scarlet's irresponsible thinking was a sharp contrast against her serious super composed face. It was like behind her cold mask there were myriad of colourful emotions always making a ruckus, wanting to explode and tore away her facade but was restrained by some powerful force.
And thus Scarlet completely forgot about the tattoo on her wrist that would someday shake her whole world. As she was still emerged in the sweet thinking of being a exceptional vampire, her heightened sense of hearing suddenly picked up multiple sound of horse hooves from afar.
' Wild horses? No, in such dense forest wild horses wouldn't come unless ridden by humans....humans!!! '
Scarlet hurriedly hid herself behind the tree stem. She knew, whichever era or age it was, vampires were seen as a monster in the eye of human. Even if she didn't mean any harm, as a blood sucking monster they might still want to burn her. She became a little depressed. As a previous human being her frozen heart still demanded love, warmth of family, friends. She also wanted to fall in love, not driven by lust but driven by the pureness of emotions that would bind her beating heart with her partner. Scarlet sighed.
' How could a vampiress fall in love? ' she thought sadly, ' And even if i fall in love someday with someone, will he understand my feelings? After all my heart won't beat fast with every single touch of his hand. My body will be ice cold forever. And i won't be able to produce even a single smile for him. It will be like loving a corpse.....how depressing....well I have to get used to live alone..."
Scarlet was in deep thought when her gaze caught a small procession of armoured knights approaching towards her, riding prestigious horses. There was a luxurious carriage in middle of the procession. As the carriage drew near a alluring scent assaulted her nose and caught her off guard. It was the same scent which made her loose sense at night. She also smelled many other scents from those knights but comparing to the strong alluring scent those scents seemed disgusting. Only then she understood not every blood could made her loose control.
Scarlet tried to find the source of the alluring scent which happened to come from the luxurious carriage. As the procession came right across Scarlet, the small window of the carriage suddenly opened wide and a young man peeked through it. The young man had shining golden hair reaching his shoulder, deep ocean blue eyes, long nose, distinct curved jawline, sharp eyebrows. He was the epitome of perfection.
Scarlet was startled, then blushed furiously. This was exactly the man with whom she had done the deed. Before she only saw the parts of his face because her whole being concentrated first in lust, then in fleeing. At this moment as he saw his face again she honestly thought that she had never seen more handsome man in her life before. After, all the complains about loosing her virginity, disappeared completely. She thought in satisfaction, ' Not bad, to do it with such a handsome man for the first time...he..he...he.....not bad at all.'
After all everyone loves beautiful things.
Hundreds of thought passed through her brain but in reality not even a second had past. Scarlet became a little dazed and revealed her upper body slightly more from the trees to take a good look at her one night stand partner for the last time. Coincidentally, the young man at this very moment looked at her direction and their gazes met. Both of them froze and widened their eyes at the same time. The time as if had stopped. Then Scarlet heard the young man's loud voice.
"Stop the carriage!!! Stop it!!"
Then she saw, that the young man almost jumped out from the still running carriage and was running towards her. There was a deep longing in those deep ocean blue eyes. Staring at them Scarlet's ice cool blood became a little hot. The blue flower tattoo was also shining brightly.
Scarlet panicked at her sudden physiological change and ran in the opposite direction in the fastest speed she could muster up. She could hear the desperate running steps behind her which was fading further and further away with each second. After all how could a human compare with a Vampire in physical terms. Even using magic a human couldn't surpass their monstrous speed, strength and heightened senses.
Scarlet listened the pleading voice of the human behind her, telling her to stop desperately. But she didn't stop. There was no reason to stop. After a while of chasing and running Scarlet finally managed to cut off the sticky end. She looked around. This part of the forest gave a really weird feeling to her. But she couldn't put a finger on the exact part where it felt weird. Like the other part of the forest this part too contained sky high tall tress. The foliage were dense too. There were short shrubs here and there. But unlike other parts of the forest, thousands of long ivy like climber plants rose alongside with the tall tress spiralling them. Only exception was the ivy was without any leaves and quite smooth and thick. ' Maybe different world, so different plants ' Scarlet thought casually.
After a moment Scarlet discovered the strange thing in the common place. This seemingly common place was strangely quite. Not even a single noise of insects could be heard. Furthermore this place had a distinctive sweet aroma. Scarlet thought, ' maybe this distinctive sweet aroma has caused the nearby animals to stay away from here.' She didn't ponder over the matter for long and decided to spend the night here on a tree. Anyway her heart had already stopped. What more could happen to her? But later she really regretted her decision. This single night was engraved in her memory as the most frightening nightmare.
...
In a place far from where Scarlet was staying the second prince of Fye Empire, Edwyn Ashford was grasping for breath kneeling on the dry leaves, accumulated above the forest ground. His eyes contained despire. Never in his life he had run so fast but he still didn't manage to catch her. For the first time Edwyn thought, all this years' of training was not at all sufficient. He was too weak. At night he was suppressed by her in strength, at morning he was suppressed by her in speed. Truly depressing.
Edwyn didn't care about she being stronger than him. His only concern was ' Did she not like weaker boys than her? '
You say why was he so concerned about her? Because it took only one glance and one second for him to totally fall in love with her. Yes, it was love at first sight. At night he was already captured by those ruby red eyes but couldn't see her face clearly in the dark. In the morning he saw those unique red pupils again, but with that he also saw her face.
She was pure yet alluring, innocent yet seductive, her red gem like eyes engraved in her pale cold expressionless face. She was delicate but still exuded a domineering aura, like a heroic beauty.
As Edwyn recalled their brief encounter, his ears became red, " Ah...how can such a heroic beauty even exist? I must train hard to be able to stand in equal footing with her."
At this moment he heard butler Lu's worried voice from afar. Edwyn got up and retreated to meet up with him.
Butler Lu who was at his wit's end at the prince's sudden behaviour asked anxiously, " Second prince, what happened?"
Edwyn said excitedly, " Butler Lu, I have met up with my partner just now..." then his voice dimmed,"... although she escaped."
Butler Lu looked at Edwyn worryingly, " She didn't hurt you right?"
" Why would she hurt me?"
Suddenly butler Lu paused. He asked," Second Prince, are you sure it's the same girl?"
"Of course, she had those same blood red pupils and while chasing I also saw the blue flower tattoo on her wrist." Edwyn said shyly.
Butler Lu's gaze towards Edwyn became more and more sympathetic and complicated.
"Second prince, common vampires' eyes are not red in the morning. They convert into black colour. Also they cannot expose themselves in the sun. Among them those who can, are the elite of elite, the best, the royals. It seems that your partner, the young princess is someone carrying the bloodline of royalties.....sigh.....but the royal's moral integrity is very high. They are mostly human friendly. At least I can leave my worries now."
Then butler Lu sighed again. He looked at the second prince, his expression overflowing with sympathy.
" But Second prince, you have to work real hard. Even if you cannot reach 100 percent, at least try to reach fifty percent of her strength, that would be sufficient. Otherwise she will look down on you."
The second prince, "....."