Anger and defense were definitely the main things I was feeling right now. Yet there was also annoyance and a bit of happiness at seeing her again.

"I just saved your life, you're welcome."

Her thick, dark eyebrows pressed together now that she seemed to have caught up with the events. Her finger pointed at old iron spikes scattered around the place I had been standing not too long ago. That seemed incredibly dangerous and entirely not how you make a trap.

I grunted before standing up again and looking around me for more of those dangerous deathtraps. Not believing the sight in front of me, I squinted my eyes. The whole place was rigged with self-made traps made from old materials that were not at all reliable in these circumstances.

"They made them themselves." She shook her head, the same disbelief was written on her face.

With a scoff I turned around and stared down at the smaller girl. Today she wore clothes that told me exactly what her statute was. The finesse and expensiveness of her purple, blue and black clothes made her look entirely like a princess. She looked incredible and yet I missed the simplicity of her 'human' clothes.

"You're the vampire princess." I pointed out the obvious.

Her eyes bore into mine, her gaze sharp and attentive. Like she was taking in every detail of me.

"Yeah, and you are the Hunter that is killing my people like they're annoying flies." Her voice was sharp, her eyes unforgiving. She didn't look angry, but she wasn't gentle and friendly like last time.

"They are," I responded annoyed. I couldn't forget that she lied about her identity. "Your people have been murdering humans across these lands. We have been saving them from you."

She snorted. "Why are you here anyways?"

"I came to help."

The princess stepped sideways and shook her head while letting her eyes skip around the place. Yet again that same intelligence I'd seen last time shone in those brown orbs.

"You're too late."

Her voice was softer, regret was clear and again she cared more than I would expect from a vampire. But then again, that could easily just be my upbringing talking.

It annoyed me that she was exactly what I had hoped a vampire could be. Now that she was here, I didn't know what I needed to do with this information. It didn't seem to be so easy anymore now that reality was right in front of me. I couldn't just tell the Council that it was wrong to kill every vampire just because one of them was a decent person. They would laugh at my face. No, actually they would more likely kill me for treason.

I sighed, before pointing at the scene in front of me. "What happened here?"

She looked at me with guarded eyes. She didn't speak right away, the silence and her investigating eyes made me uncomfortable. It made me want to move away from her gaze. My feet shuffled backwards and made me hit something laying on the ground. The startle made me stumble a bit and she reached forward so quickly that I instinctively pushed her away.

"Stay away from me," I yelped in panic as I kept stumbling backwards. Her hand caught mine in a strong grip and she pulled me forward. My balance took a 180 degree turn and made me fall into the princess's arms. She would've caught me if it wasn't for the arrow slicing alongside the same cheek that I hit previously. It was still looking a bit red from before and now a thin line of blood joined it. Her hands dropped me and pushed me to the ground, while she jumped to the side. Another arrow missed her just barely and she hissed in anger.

"Truan!" She shouted, but her words were eaten by the heat of battle that had rapidly occured.

Ura ran towards me, she kept firing arrow after arrow. Not giving the other girl much chance to do anything but dodge them. With a final look at the princess, hoping she'd see how sorry I was for this, I got up. When her eyes met mine, there was no pleasantness to be found, her eyes were burning with anger and betrayal. She seemed so much older and it scared me to see such darkness inside of them. She didn't have compassion right now, she was being shot at and she would take out whoever stood against her. A shiver ran along my body at that realization.

Ura shot her last arrow towards the princess, it didn't graze her even slightly. The princess's eyes hardened even more and then she attacked. With a deadly speed, she ran towards us. I only had one dagger left in my hand, the other lay somewhere on the ground, too far out of reach. With a perfect rotation, my blade sliced along her arm, cutting through the fabric. She didn't seem to have noticed as her attack on Ura hit the darker girl right in the chest. The air left Ura's lungs with a loud huff. My friend's feet left the ground and ended up a few steps behind me. I didn't dare to look behind me, too scared that Ura hit one of the deadly traps surrounding the ground around us. Instead I focused on the killer everyone was so afraid of.

It was only now that I understood why she was feared so much, her eyes didn't show any trace of humanity, instead they were dark and cold. They were fully focused on Ura, her current enemy. My heart squeezed together and my breathing felt labored. It had been a long time that I had been truly afraid, but Kate looked so far gone, replaced by this hungry vampire monster.

A painful grunt sounded from behind me. Air released from my lungs in relief.

"Kate," I tried, my voice soft in the hope that I got through to her.

Her eyes shifted to me. A shiver ran along my spine and my hand instinctively tightened around my dagger.

Maybe it were my new instincts or my new reflexes that made it possible for me to see her neck muscles tighten. It didn't even matter what the reason was, it gave me the time to see her attack coming and deflect it in time.

Her hand passed me just barely, before I felt her foot hook behind my own and pull me off balance. My hand reached for her neck. We fell to the ground together, Kate on top of me. Our limbs fumbled and trashed against each other, trying to outwin the other person. Everything happened so quickly that I moved purely on instinct. An instinct that I still was getting used to. A few times, my hand hit her so hard, I heard a crack. In return I received a painful jab against my ribs and a nasty squeezing around my neck. It would leave a purple bruise for sure.

Almost certain that I would die today in the middle of a bloodbath, surrounded by terribly unsafe traps, Ura came to my rescue by throwing her only weapon left. Her dagger hit Kate right in the back. Her hiss was animalistic, so much so that it reminded me of a black cat that I once encountered in Holt. Her hands left my painful throbbing body and her eyes looked away with a burning anger that made me ignore all the pain in my body. I reached for her body and draped myself around her stomach. Not that my weight would matter for the princess, but I squeezed and pulled nonetheless.

Ura was holding herself up on her arm, her leg lay in an angle that made my eyes look away.

"Please," I whispered against the vampire's back. "Please, don't."

For a second, Kate's body tensed and her ruthless movements ceased. My heart heaped in surprise and hope, so much so that my own arms released some of its tension. That was my mistake. Kate took the opportunity and pulled herself from my embrace. She ran towards Ura, like a predator attacking its prey, my heart dropped in my throat.

"Kate, stop!" I screamed in fear. My arm stretched before me as if I could stop her from a distance away. My heart bounced inside my veins, making my skin tingle. It was ridiculous of course, yet it was the only thing I had left in my repertoire, the hope that somehow, for some insane reason, I would stop her by simply demanding.

Kate's foot caught behind an iron chain laying on the ground. She stumbled forward, her arms outstretched, but unnecessary. Ura had squeezed her eyes shut, but slowly opened them when the blow didn't come. Both girls were only a breath away, their eyes staring into each other's. All the while, my heart was beating like I had just run a marathon. All my training about keeping my heartbeat steady and calm was forgotten. It felt like the world paused for a single second, then Ura reached for the chain on the ground.

The chain got stuck around Kate's left foot. Before Ura could pull her off balance, the vampire kicked her right foot towards Ura's face. Both girls dropped to the ground with a simultaneous crash. It was only the small brunette that got back up.

Her eyes met mine so quickly that I wondered if I didn't simply imagine it. Yet the regret that crossed her face seemed to have gotten stuck on the inside of my eyelids. She was back. My heart skipped, and by the time I blinked my eyes again, she was gone and I was left to wonder if the regret I saw had truly been there.

My feet dragged me to Ura's still body. The side of her face was already bruising and a small red line left the corner of her mouth. My breath got stuck in my throat when I felt for her pulse.

Dadum dadum.

Her blood pushed my finger up and my own heart back into its normal rhythm. My breathing quickly followed, but my eyes remained fixed on my surroundings.

Kate didn't kill her. My heart danced around inside my chest and my facial muscles twitched.