Chapter 25

It was nighttime and I was having no trouble sleeping since I had been on baby-sitting Raun duty to help let the guys pack up for school. Of course, I fell asleep with no problem.

The thing I had problem with? My nightmare.

This time, I was ready for him. The first tell-tale sign that I was lucid in my own unconsciousness was the fact that I knew exactly who had called me here. The past two times had been spent with me being scared and wanting to know why a vampire like Kenton wanted to change me into a vampire. This time, I was ready for him, and knew when he was about to appear. Sure enough, he did; in the same black trench coat, fedora and gloves. It was a strange outfit, but nothing about this vampire was normal. Kenton himself was a nut crack; with the way he grinned at me like a predator locked on to his prey.

Kenton seemed briefly surprised that I wasn’t the startled bunny he wanted me to be, and we actually made small conversation that had nothing to do with the danger of my, my friends and my family’s life. Of course, I was always guarded against him, but it really struck me amazed how we could actually talk normally with each other.

We sat at the Victorian-style table set in the middle of the forest which seemed to appear out of nowhere. Kenton explained to me, with a poker face and an almost-emotionless tone that he was the one controlling my mind, and controlling how my dream was turning out. It was an ability tied to mind-reading, and it meant that only vampires could do it. I asked him a little more about vampires, which seemed to surprise him at the shallowness of my understanding about them.

“You’re going to make me turn vampire, don’t you?” I asked after a short while of silence that Kenton took to give me a good look-over.

“Good question, Princes. I’m afraid the answer is yes. But don’t be afraid. I’m not going to do it now. Anything I do in your dream does not affect reality.” Kenton leaned forward, elbows placed on the table.

“Do you know your mother came to me?”

His eyes widened a little. “My mother? How do you know my mother?”

“She came to me, Kenton. She wants you to stop and return to the kingdom. She says that she will talk to your father about your exile and let you come back. All she wants is for you to stop making the wrong choices. You are destroying everything that they are working for, Kenton, by hunting me.”

There was a single moment of uncertainty that flitted across Kenton’s face before it was wiped off quickly.

“You lie.” He accused, slowly coming to his feet. “You don’t know my mother. You don’t know what she wants. She wants this. She says she doesn’t, but I know she does. That’s why she and Father taught us all about Cynus. They want us to hunt you guys down; each and every one of you. Starting you, princess.”

I knew I was dealing with a pissed off vampire, but somehow, I held on tight to nerves of steel and stared back at him dead in the eye.

“Your mother is Zephyra Johnson, queen to the vampires and Favian Darkness’s wife. She has straight black hair that reaches the middle of her back, red and double eyelid eyes and a defined chin contour. I’ve met your mother, Kenton. The words I say are hers.” I said carefully but firmly, glad that I was sitting down because he wouldn’t see the shaking of my jelly legs at the air of danger that Kenton was exuding.

“Fine.” His one word was punctuated so hard that it sounded like a gunshot. That and the fact that he had slammed his fist on the table with the word made me jump, looking at him fearfully and losing my calm instantly.

“Say you have met my mother somehow. But she will never say these things. Mother will never have a Faen talking to me, asking me to go back. She will come personally. The words you speak are words you put to her name.” Kenton insisted; in hard denial of the truth.

“You don’t believe me, Kenton?” I reached under my shirt, hoping that my dream-self was still carrying the one important thing that could just possibly save my life. It was there, but I didn’t sigh my relief –at least not before Kenton’s glare.

I drew out Zephyra’s ring that was threaded through a chain on my neck, showing it to him. “Trust this. Believe your mother’s ring. She lent this to me, knowing I needed to prove something to you.”

Kenton’s gasp in the silence was almost as if it were announced through loudspeakers. He sidestepped the round table, making towards me with his vampiric speed, taking the ring in his hands. It kept him eerily close to me, and I tried my best not to move to touch him. Feeling the weight of it in his palm, feeling the familiarity of the simple gold ring, Kenton’s stern exterior began to ebb away.

For the first time, I saw Kenton as a vampire prince. I saw Kenton, beneath the stern and murderous vampire that wanted to kill me, for the vampire prince he was before he was exiled out of his kingdom. I saw a child that wanted to please, a child that wanted very much to go back to his parents side, grown up and rebellious as he was.

I saw the Kenton that Zephyra first saw. The Kenton that was only a child.

“Mum… Zephyra…” He whispered, turning the ring within his fingers, as if it were the only relic left of her.

“Just hold on, Kenton. I promise you, Zephyra will come back. She will come back and tell you that you can go back to the kingdom; to your father and your brother.”

He looked up at my face, as if finally remembering that I was here. “Brother?”

I nodded. Didn’t he know he had a twin younger twin brother? Wasn’t he the one who warned me about his brother?

“Yes… yes, Treyon. I’ll see Treyon.” He nodded, speaking absently.

Then, without doing anything more, like his soul had left his body, he let the ring go and turned around, beginning to walk away towards the trees, into darkness.

“Treyon… I have to see Treyon. He’ll tell me what’s going on.” Kenton whispered with a haunted tone as he walked off. I struggled to chase after him or not, but before I could do anything, the moment he stepped into the darkness, everything was gone.

I woke up from my nightmare, jolting upright suddenly with a racing heart. My breathing was panicked somehow, and though my ‘nightmare’ hadn’t been that traumatizing, I still felt adrenaline pumping through me. I was in my comfortable tank top and shorts, but the sweat soaked my clothes. I didn’t remember running while in the dream, but I certainly felt as if I had gone through that.

“Nothing… Just nothing…” I panted to myself, trying to calm my racing heart and mind.

“Nothing, dear princess? How about a monster under the bed?” A familiar voice sounded in the darkness, and I jumped. How had he come in? He shouldn’t have made it through the wards…

“Wards are something my father taught me to watch out for, my lovely. Your wards are efficient and thorough, but with a little tweak of the charms and sacks of herbs placed outside your house, I can turn your wards off like flicking a fly off my finger. Now, before you try to scream, my dearest flower, I must warn you that I have my control over your mind, and any tries of raising your voice above my volume is not going to be allowed.” The voice continued, and I scrambled out of the bed away from the source of the bed, sure that he was at the other side of the room.

“I would think twice about that if I were you, Darling.” Someone’s breath brushed down my neck and the voice came right behind me. Without meaning to, I squeaked quietly as I jumped away from him, stumbling back on the bed.

“This is fun; watching you flounder in the darkness. Tell me, Darling. How does it feel like to see darkness? How does it feel like to be blind in darkness? I’m really curious. You see, my brother and I were both born vampires. We have no idea what life is like without night-vision. Pray tell.” I felt my bed sag under the weight of someone else, and felt the heat of someone else lying on the bed beside where I was sitting.

“It’s just being blind. What are you here for?” I scraped back what wits I had as I rose from the bed again, more calmly this time. If I didn’t calm down, I was going to die of a heart attack before anything else.

“Oh darling, even if you suffered a cardiac arrest, I would put enough vampires’ blood in you to keep you alive, don’t you worry. I am here for you, little flower. Who else? Little Raun sleeping peacefully across the hall? Noel, who’s having innocent, pleasant dreams about you, downstairs? Or Zane, who seems to be having a hard time with dealing with his feeling with you. Funny; funny. It seems like he’s getting erotic with you in his mind. Dirty dirty boy.” I heard slight distaste in the voice, and pictured the head shaking from side to side with a frown.

I didn’t understand why the style of speech was so different as compared to what I knew from him, but I was more preoccupied with the sudden change in him. The haunted look and walk away, and the sudden reappearance of his usual, crazy self.

“Crazy? Darling, you wound my heart! I am crazy, yes, but for the drink of your blood! I am crazy to see the ending to this painful story, to see the ending of a long, eternal story.”

I tried to stand, to get away from him, but a hand grabbed my wrist in a steel grip, forcing me to sit back down.

“Please… all that I said to you was the truth… I’m not lying… I really met your mother.” I tried to plead, but how could it possibly work with this guy? I was stupid to even think that I was halfway successful in convincing him to not hunt me. He had looked so distraught, so core-shocked when he saw his mother’s ring on my chain.

“Zephyra? My mother? A likely story!” He scoffed, letting go of my hand once it was clear that I wasn’t leaving the bed anytime soon to call for help.

“It’s true! Why can’t you just believe me?”

In the darkness, I saw the faint figure shift, and then red eyes stared at me in the darkness.

“Because you are a Faen. The princess of Darkness; the one my brother and I have been hunting.”

I tried to scramble away when I saw the figure looming over me, but my limbs wouldn’t answer me. He was controlling my mind, restricting my movements, and there was nothing I could do about it.

“Yes, darling princess. There is nothing you can do. I can change you vampire right here and now, but I guess you need a little more drama in your life, don’t you? I’ll be your perfect villain in the perfect sugarcoated life for you, Ashe.”

I had heard his dangerous voice before, while on the roof after Zane almost knocked him off. But this voice, this voice that promised to be the perfect caricature of my nightmare, this voice was different.

By a sudden turn of instincts, I pulled my power to me, forcing a fireball to provide light in record time as I spun around. The vampire didn’t move, but only smiled at me, knowing full well that I was trying to get a look at his face.

It was the same face. It was the same set of fangs. The same eyes, the same hair. He was dressed in a dark blue duster, with white gloves wrapping around his hands. But it wasn’t him.

“Isn’t this surprising? I never thought you would be one to figure it out, Ashe. Maybe you aren’t such a protected princess after all. What gave me away? The gloves? The clothes?” His eyes widened in the firelight, and he took a step back, flourishing as if to introduce the sight of his body to me again.

“The eyes.” I replied, glad that my voice wasn’t trembling in fear.

“My eyes?” In the fire light, I saw a confused expression on his face. “Our eyes are the same.”

I shook my head. “No. Kenton was right. You are more ruthless. You have a savage look in your eyes. A look that says you are used to killing and getting things your way. Kenton was out in the open for too long; he doesn’t have the air of command anymore.” I explained carefully, hoping and praying that it would somehow buy me more time to come up with a plan.

“He doesn’t? Poor brother! However does he survive out there?” The vampire before me gave a heavy sigh of regret as he turned his back on me, strolling to my window and feeling the night’s cold wind.

“He has subordinates.” I said, thinking about the other night where he crashed the school. “Another vampire called Roger. And there was Isaiah…”

The vampire nodded, looking out and not paying a single attention on me. I slowly stood up, hoping and praying that the floorboards wouldn’t creak.

“Right. They are the ones I sent to Kenton. Our parents don’t know, but I’ve been keeping contact with Kenton. Of course I have. How can anyone separate twins as close as us?”

Internally, I knew the answer, but I willed myself not to point it out. Holding my breath, I took a large step around the bed, carefully shifting my weight so that I made no sound at all. The vampire at the windowsill didn’t move.

“Yes, Father tried. But it’s not working. I’m still keeping contact with Kenton. Father just doesn’t see it. Kenton is not crazy. Kenton is ambitious. Kenton knows the path we have to walk. He took his first step, but I’m just hiding behind our parents’ skirt folds. I can’t do anything in the kingdom, so all I can do is to help him to it.”

“You’re helping Kenton?” I kept the conversation, trying to draw his attention to the conversation instead of listening to me treading lightly over to the door. If I could just turn the knob, I could delay him enough to run downstairs and get Zane and Noel.

“An exiled vampire prince should never have anyone to follow his orders, Ashe. Who else sent Roger, Isaiah and the other vampires to him? Who else helped him find your whereabouts? Who else kept him sane to carry out his heartfelt duty?”

“So you were the mastermind of it all?” I wrapped my fingers carefully around the doorknob, feeling the coldness of the metal bite my skin.

“No, no. Kenton and I had the same idea since long ago. To hunt down Cynus’s spirit, to hunt down all constellation Faens. That way, we could claim that, as sons of the High King Ruler Favian Darkness, we were successful doing something for the sake of the kingdom. We wanted that since young. But we grew up. No, I grew up. I forgot all about it. I grew up, wanting just to serve the kingdom. Kenton held on to that dream. He went out to search for his own way when he saw that I had forgotten everything. He got himself expelled from court. He came to me, he reminded me of everything I had forgotten. No, Ashe. Kenton is the one after this. I am the one who forgot it.”

Internally, I countdown quickly, turning the knob quickly. Wrenching the door open, I dashed outside, unbelieving of my stroke of luck. Calling my power to me, I blasted air behind me, forcing the door to slam close. I thundered down the stairs, hoping to wake up everyone; more importantly, my Guardians.

Noel! Zane! HELP! I sent desperately to them through our mental connection, but I got nothing from them.

I jumped down the stairs, trying to get to my Guardians, but in the hallway, something hit me hard.

With the momentum of my crazed running, I crashed into the wall with the force of a freight train. My shoulders cracked and my head slammed against the wall, blooming a large flower of pain behind my eyes. Before I could even groan, a warm hand closed over my throat, forcing me to stay by the wall. Another hand grabbed my hair, pulling and forcing my face to look up at him.

“Good girl, Ashe. Yes, be the perfect damsel in distress in this scene, will you not? Come on, screaming if you have to. We want you to get your Guardian’s attention, don’t we? Besides, we need to confirm that you are kidnapped, not escaping from home. I can’t have your Guardians thinking that you left them willingly.” He sneered, baring teeth at me while I did my best to hold on to my scream of terror and fear.

He seemed to take it with insult, since his eyes narrowed on me, an unimpressed look in his eyes.

“Scream. Or I’ll make you.”

I kept my mouth stubbornly shut, unwilling to rope in my dear friends and my family to the problem. Something was up, and I wasn’t going to back down.

“That’s a stupid thought, darling, not a noble one. But if you wish, then…”

Without warning, he continued pulling my head back, forcing my neck to bend backwards. The tension began to strain on my neck, pressing my windpipe against my skin. Slowly, I felt the bones close to breaking point, my breath running out short. Slowly, while my hair was almost pulled out by its roots, I felt myself choking off slowly.

Then, just as I began to think that maybe I was just as useful to him when I was dead as when alive, he let me go, throwing me against the coffee table with his vampiric force. The table splintered behind me, breaking wooden debris to my back.

Groaning, I rolled on the debris, feeling my back half breaking. Every part of me ached; the arms, the limbs and especially my neck.

Then, for the first time since I had been terrorized by this vampire before me, I felt someone lurking in my mind.

Noel! Don’t come out! I screamed with all my might, scrambling painfully over the pile of debris around me, trying to get away from the vampire before me. Upstairs, Raun began to cry. Doors began to open.

“Yes, darling. This is your perfect cue to start screaming, little princess. Come on. I know you want to.” He grabbed one of my hands, pinning me to the ground while he leaned over me, fangs bared over my neck. Quickly, I shook my head, keeping my mouth stubbornly shut.

“This is your last chance, Ashe.” His placating tone left his voice, leaving a cold, menacing void as his eyes narrowed upon me.

I spat on him, since it was the best thing to do. Damsel in distress? I liked to call myself the heroine rather than the one needing saving. I’d rather save myself, and save everyone the trouble.

“Wrong choice.”

He sank his fangs into my neck. Pain was like a fire breathing dragon constantly blowing on my neck, like a thousand needles pricking into my neck at the same time, like a crazed dingo biting on to my neck and never letting me go.

It was pain I had never felt before; pain I knew I never could ever take. Without realizing it, the scream had already left my lips, and he only bit in harder, forcing the shriek to continue. In my mind, I heard a low chuckle of victory, but I was more concerned with the fact that he was sucking my blood and I could actually die here.

“ASHE!” Zane called, breaking the vampire’s attention. Treyon brought his head up, releasing the fangs and the pain. But I was too shocked to move. Too crazed by the pain that it had brought me. How could anyone go through that without dying… I would never know.

“Come get her, Krien. The same invitation issues to the Cypher boy.”I saw through hazy vision as Treyon grinned at the boy standing at the far end of the corridor.

“No… Don’t…” I groaned, pain flaring against as I forced air through my throat. My head felt entirely detached from my body, and my neck was throbbing with waves and waves of extreme pain. The only thing that seemed to dull the true form of the pain within me was the shock that was settling in my nerves, dulling all my senses.

“There, there, darling. We’ve got to go now. But I’m sure your Guardians will come to you, won’t they?” I distantly felt a strong arm around my waist, pulling me up with no problem. I felt like a limp rag doll. I couldn’t believe it; one bite on my neck and I was going so weak. I should be better than this…

I drew my power to me, ignorant of the fact that Treyon could feel the change in the air perfectly well. I took Zane’s power too, forcing fire to come to my weak form. I set the wood around us on fire.

No sooner had I tried, Treyon threw me over his shoulder and took a calm step through the fire that raged around us, uncaring of being burnt.

“ASHE!” I heard Zane scream this time, and heard noisy footsteps as he tried to run after me, wrenching the power back as he tamed down the fire I made.

Treyon stepped back, and everything turned black instantly.

“ASHE!”

“ASHE!”

“Ashe…”

“ashe…”

“a-“