Fang Seven

*If you look the right way, you can see that the whole world is a garden...*

It was foolish of me to have believed that his Majesty would storm into the tower and rescue me at my most desperate hour. From the beginning, I had always been cast aside and told to "deal" with it.

Now was no different.

This intruder sucked the living daylights out of me, up to the point that he had to hoist me off the floor because my knees had caved in from how much this hurt.

Fortunately, something I couldn't understand must have happened, because he pulled away suddenly, not caring that I fell hard on my ass.

"I'll be back for more another time." He flung his head over his shoulder and announced, before ceremoniously taking his leave out the window.

At the mention that he would be back, my heart tightened, and with what little strength left in me I staggered off the floor and made for the dresser. I pulled open a drawer and reached for a bottle of medicine Penelope had given me.

"Ouch." I yelped in pain, applying the medicine to my open flesh wound, tears flowed freely down my cheeks as I stared at my neck, it was a shell of what it used to be.

"I can't take this anymore, if this is my fate then why should I have to keep on living?" I stared at my reflection briefly, my skin had finally lost all its color and looked almost white. My neck had obvious purple bruises and veins that looked ready to pop out. The only thing about myself that I could recognize was my eyes, the ugliest part of my body.

"Should I just end it?"

*Four Days After*

"Ah... aah...ah..." I groaned in pain, barely able to hook my hands across the intruder's neck. He had my back against the tower door and his fangs deep in my neck.

For the past four days, he would visit me in the dead of night and demand for my blood, no longer caring to be civil enough to use words. During this period, Penelope had stopped coming to see me, in her place, was a pale woman who would only attend to me once a day, which was when I would bathe.

"Shh! Don't be so loud!" I heard him groan in anger, one of my hands instinctively found its way to my mouth, making sure a sound wouldn't escape.

Though, I doubt if after tonight I would be able to talk much.

"I'm tired... please...let me..."

"Shut up and behave! If you're obedient it'll end sooner." He said just like always, but in truth, this man had no intention of leaving till I had passed out.

Sometimes out of pity, he would stop and allow me to rest for a while, unfortunately, his pity never quite lasted long enough. In under five minutes, he would pounce on me again and feed off me.

During these hellish four days, his majesty had not once graced me with his presence, neither was there any word from my kingdom.

"Aaaah...." He abruptly pulled his fang out of my bruised neck and used his slippery tongue to carefully lick off the blood that spilled. Then, he sat me by the spinet, making sure I was balanced properly.

"Remember to eat plenty tomorrow so you'll recover faster, it's for your own good." He said straightening his shirt before turning to take his swift escape, his back facing me.

As he walked towards the window, my vision of his white shirt became blurry, I reached out to latch onto him, to let him know that something felt wrong. But before I could even cry out for help, every once of strength vanished from my body as I tumbled backward, with a mighty thud!

Haines.

*Darkness follows light.*

"Your Majesty, if it makes sense, I think we should send Princess Heather back to her kingdom, keeping her here is of no benefit," Darius informed me for the umpteenth time, his gaze trained strictly on the locket I was fondling with.

I instinctively tucked it into my breast pocket then deflected my gaze at the castle which we had just arrived at. It had been almost an entire week since I last laid eyes on the elder sister sleeping in my chamber.

"Ah, but there is a benefit." I corrected him, jumping out of the carriage, restless to see for myself how she was doing.

The meeting with our allying clan had taken longer than I anticipated, "is his Majesty just saying that as a cover-up? First, it was Daphne, now his Majesty wishes to covet another human princess?" Darius raised a brow at me.

I frowned at his choice of words, "don't compare my affection for Daphne to the pity I feel for Heather." I growled at him, reminding him never to speak ill of his soon-to-be queen.

Things with Heather were merely out of pity and nothing beyond that, the only reason I hadn't killed her was that it would upset Daphne.

However... that was truly no longer the case.

Darius and I strolled through the main hallway bare of portraits and antiques, aside from the paint and curtains, this place was just another plain old castle.

"Well, whenever his majesty is satisfied with his display of pity, do think about what you want to do about the older princess," Darius told me, as we reached my study, with an irritation in his voice that was impossible to miss.

I knew that Daphne was the woman who had my heart, which was why whenever I looked at Heather, I would uncontrollably get agitated and want to make her suffer. Just like me.

But then again, did I truly only pity her?

"Brother!" I heard a familiar voice cry out, without having to look behind me I could tell that it was Penelope in a frantic state, who had just come back from visiting Heather.

Something felt wrong here.

"What's the matter?" I demanded, my hand suspended on the door handle of my study.

"It's Heather." She informed me in a panicked tone, my fingers unconsciously clenched into a tight fists at the mention of Heather.

Darius rested a hand on Penelope's shoulder trying to calm her down, she was usually very level-headed during times of panic, which was why I felt uneasy.

"What happened to her?" At this time, my words came out in an uneven mix of anger and worry.

"Someone has been feeding off of her!" Penelope screeched in a tone that gave me a clear enough picture of just how gruesome the situation was.

"I found her passed out and bleeding before I could even begin treating the blood clot..."

I didn't stay to listen to what she said and instead marched down the hallway, ignoring Darius's beckons from behind me.

An image of someone else pinning her down and sinking his bloody fangs into her neck made my blood boil with rage. I bit hard on my lower lip as I tried hard not to imagine the frightful expression in her multi-colored eyes as she tried to fight back.

"What was the bloody point of staying away, if some bastard would just try to take over?!" I hissed under my breath, as blood trickled from my bleeding lower lip down to my chin.