[Viewer Discretion Is Advised]
"Mistress, you should not be out of bed until you have healed. You'll make yourself hemorrhage if you don't properly heal from childbirth. It's only been Eleven days!" one of the head maids panicked as she hustled over to help Zoey walk.
Zoey stubbornly argued. "Eleven days should be more than enough time to heal from childbirth."
"It can take weeks to heal. Longer if you keep getting out of bed. Here, let's get you a seat," lectured the maid as she helped Zoey to the seat.
"Ahh, I am done laying in my bed!" Zoey exclaimed as she gnashed her teeth from her pain.
The maid shook her head since she couldn't get her mistress to heed anything she said.
"Mistress, you have a visitor." A male servant bowed before he entered. Crystal stepped inside to see Zoey.
"Goodness, shouldn't you be in bed?" she exclaimed to find Zoey at the table instead of resting.
"Don't even start!" Zoey warned with a painful groan in her voice.
Ignoring her, Crystal sat in the chair across from her at the table before a maid served them wine. They chatted for a while, and Crystal treated her like how she used to treat me with the same kindness and understanding.
"Why won't you take my brother's offer?" Crystal poked before she took a bite out of the freshly baked bread.
"I'm not in love with him." Zoey clarified. "He takes one too many mistresses for my liking."
"He's a man." Crystal gave her justification to defend her older brother. "After he marries you, other women won't mean a thing to him anymore."
"I rather not chance it and lose my home and land to him after we get married," Zoey smartly declared.
"That could happen either way," Crystal warned. "I'd love for us to be sister-in-laws."
Zoey touched Crystal's hand from on top of the table as she smiled. "You're already my sister," she said warm-heartedly.
"And you are mine too." Crystal smiled as I clenched my fists.
Not too long ago, Crystal and I shared the same heartwarming moments. To catch her kindness was nothing more than a lie to her rort con, broiled the fury and pain in my battered heart.
"Uhm," the servant got their attention as CJ entered with a few of his men, or I should say, his advisors.
"Senator CJ is here to see you, my Mistress," he announced his arrival, and Zoey didn't seem thrilled.
"Please have a seat." Zoey bit her lip after she offered him a seat at the table beside Crystal.
"You look pale." CJ scanned her face since it was evident that she did look sick.
"I am fine. Now, is there something you need?" Zoey denied how she felt whenever she asked him instead.
"One last time, I came to ask for your hand?" CJ pleaded with his eyes, and Zoey sighed.
"My answer remains no. Now, please don't ask me again," she strongly asserted.
"Never say I didn't warn you." CJ wickedly grinned.
"Are you threatening me?" Zoey glared. "I shall take this matter to the court if you did."
CJ disparaged her. "Women aren't allowed at the court." He snapped his fingers. "Behead all her servants and slaves, including the children."
"NO!" Zoey shrieked as his one advisor unsheathed his sword, and then the male servant's head was severed from his neck before it bounced to the floor with a roll. In a forward direction, the servant's headless body tumbled to the floor with a loud thug.
"NOOO! Ahh—" the maids each shrieked before their heads were chopped off one after another.
"Senator CJ, stop this madness!" Zoey yelled, and he only laughed at her desperate plea while Crystal continued to eat the bread she had ripped into small pieces with a deceitful smirk on her lips.
More of CJ's clan burst in like a Roman army, and they began slaughtering every living person inside Zoey's home. Out the window, several vampires beheaded anybody who was working in the gardens. Having enough of it, Zoey tried to stand from her seat, but her knees could barely hold her weight as they wobbled weakly in her attempt to stand.
"How could you! Ahh!" Zoey clamored before she was pushed back into her chair from her shoulders by CJ's advisor. She had no idea she was up against vampires.
She cried in pain as Crystal said before she sucked her fingers clean from the bread crumbs. "I tried to warn you."
"Now that you lost your servants and slaves, are you ready to get married?" CJ mocked with a grin.
"No!"
"Burn down her house!" he ordered his iniquitous verdict since she refused.
"Don't you dare!" Zoey wailed.
Using torches, they began to light up the furniture, furs, and whatever else into flames.
"Now you have nothing, so it's either marry me or be a dirty harlot that sleeps around for food and shelter from the city's brutal nights." CJ grinned since he knew he had won.
"I'll marry you." Zoey sobbed as tears ran down her cheekbones.
"See now, it wasn't that hard to say, yes," CJ taunted. "Gently take my bride to the altar before he comes," he told his two guardians, and I knew he was talking about Chester in his last statement that Zoey didn't catch.
Up underneath her armpits, they hoisted her to her feet. Then, by her elbows, they began to lead her out as she painfully limped between them while her home was burning. Before they could leave the kitchen, Chester and his clan burst through, knocking down CJ's two advisors who stood by the kitchen entrance. Zoey's eyeballs popped from her eye sockets when she saw these red-eyed creatures come flooding into her home. Guardians from Chester's and CJ's clans began to fight with claws and fangs. Zoey screamed as these terrifying creatures fought around her. During the scuffle, she was knocked over by two guardians who were mutilating each other's muscles. On the floor, Zoey screeched in dire pain from landing on her butt.
"Crystal, go!" CJ yelled, and she was quick to vanish. "Finally, Zoey knows the truth about vampires!"
His eyes reversed red before his body launched and attacked Chester. Right on his bare chest, CJ dug his claws across Chester's ripped torso as he gritted his teeth. However, Chester was fast to extend his fangs, and he took a decent chunk out of CJ's neck. He bellowed as Chester gained the upper leverage, and he kicked CJ into the fire that was eating its way across the wall. CJ was yelling in pain as he rolled and tossed his body around like a fish out of water when his body combusted into flames. His guardians get distracted from the fight to help him. So Chester's clan starts to retreat when he scoops Zoey in his arms and vanishes with her.