A cold hand slapping itself around her mouth jolted her out of any slumber she was near to falling into.

Not being able to see in the dark of the room, as clouds had covered the moon and prohibited any light from seeping in through the window, Lily immediately screamed from behind the unfamiliar hand, bringing her own up to grab at it.

"Sh, sh, sh," a whisper of a voice attempted to ease her, although she kept thrashing in the bed under the force of the hand that seemed utterly impenetrable. Suddenly, the sound of a match striking drew her attention, and she stilled her movements to look in the direction of the orange light.

That is when she saw, holding up the flame of a lit match close to his face, William, his golden eyes solid as he stared at her with a sickening grin. She wanted to scream again, to thrash and cry, but she was frozen. She could only lay there, her hands still gripping his incredibly strong one around her mouth, and stare into his poisonous orbs that watched her like a snake.

"Hello, Lily," he mumbled, the twisted grin still set on his face. Trembling, she watched him turn to the candle sitting on her nightstand and bring the lit match to it, lighting the candle and bringing more brightness to the room. But the brightness was still dim and was only strong enough to castle light on either of their faces. But behind William, farther into her room, the only thing Lily could see was a suggestive darkness that made her feel completely trapped and alone with him.

Her breaths trembled behind his grasp, her body tensing as she began to think about every horrible thing he was probably going to do to her.

Then he abruptly flipped a knife out of his pocket and up into the air between them, the familiar metallic sound paired with the suddenness of the movement causing her to attempt to jump back but only meeting the pillow her head was resting on. She began to whine as he grinned behind the shiny knife, thrashing her legs again and trying harder to pry his hand from her mouth, but it was to no avail.

Then she felt cold metal press right against her throat, effectively freezing all her movements. She kept her eyes trained on the ceiling, feeling too scared to even flicker them over to the predator keeping her hostage on the bed.

"Feel that?" he growled, his voice suddenly much harsher and venomous. "Huh?!"

He pushed the knife down harder, and she squeezed her eyes shut as it pressed deeply and painfully against the bones of her throat. She was about to nod her head as the response he was so violently demanding but stopped herself upon realization that a single move would have her throat sliced apart. So she tried to make an acknowledging sound, not daring to even open her lips to do so.

William's stern expression twisted into his familiarly sickening grin, his eyes dropping to the girl's neck that looked so delectable. "Now," he began in a slightly hissing tone, "I'm going to take my hand off your mouth, but if you make a single sound, I will slit your throat faster than you can get a syllable out."

Taking a risk, she slowly moved her eyes towards him, feeling chills erupt in her stomach when they connected with his. She could see the malice in his eyes, the thirst, the evil, the greed. It basically dripped from his eyes and his words. She made another sound to signal that she understood, and she felt that this was one of those moments where she didn't need to be ignorantly brave.

Upon seeing his fangs lengthen, her lungs trembled in her chest, and he slowly moved his hand away from her mouth, his eyes watching her meticulously. She stared at him, trying to figure out if this was real life or a nightmare. But the glint of his fangs against the candlelight was too real. His glowing golden eyes were too vivid, and the knife against her neck was too sharp. It was all real.

Licking her lips nervously, she waited for him to do or say something. It was torture just laying there getting stared down by somebody who had her in a defeated position but was not doing anything about it. Her heart raced in her chest, thundering against her ribcage and begging for its life to be spared. But she had a bad, hopeless feeling about that moment.

"W-What are you going to do..." she whispered, careful to speak softly so that she would not alarm him nor move too much against the blade pressed to her neck.

William, his wavy blonde hair gelled into curls and his thin beard perfectly trimmed, tilted his head as his breaths grew heavier. He was beginning to not be able to withstand being around the scent of such sweet blood. He was not as good as containing his urges like his cousin was.

"Whatever I want," he grimly whispered, leaning closer to press his nose against her jaw.

Her entire body clenched at the contact, and she squeezed her eyes shut and felt him inhale right against her skin, breathing in as much of her scent as he could.

"There's no way I can have this blood right under my nose and not taste it." He dragged his nose up her jaw and to her ear, whispering against it, "Nor taste the other sweet scents I smell coming off you."

She felt the urge to jerk away, to reach up and punch him, to kick him in his groin, but the blade on her skin was a powerful enough threat to even make Lily herself not lash out.

"You know you will be killed if you hurt me," she whispered, chewing her lower lip in hopes he would not respond to her words with a drag of the blade he held. She knew that her warning was futile if she fell dead right after having told it.

But instead of reacting the way she so dreadfully expected, he only chuckled right into her ear, thankfully pulling away so he could look at her incredulously. "Oh, by who? That pathetic excuse for a Queen?"

Lily's eyes visibly deepened with disappointment, knowing that the Queen demanding for her to remain untouched and unhurt was the only thing she had against him.

"Sorry, baby," he whispered, taking the blade away from her neck. She at first was relieved, but she sucked in a harsh breath of fear when he snatched her wrist. "But I'm not afraid of the Queen. You've softened her." He pushed up the sleeve of her white nightgown, laughing deviously at her cries and attempts to pull her arm away. "And if you were to tell her what I'm about to do, I would simply murder you. Then what would it matter to you, hm?"

Clenching her teeth, she shook her head and tried to plead him to not to do it, but he was tracing the veins of her arm with nothing but pure bloodlust in his eyes. "Please, do—" Her plead was cut off by her own gasp when she felt him suddenly bring the knife to her arm and slice it deeply, a sharp pain immediately throbbing in its place.

He watched the cut, pupils growing wider and eyes glowing brighter, his fangs lengthening even more as he watched the well-awaited blood begin to trickle from it. He wasted no time in clamping his mouth onto the cut and immediately sucking the blood from her veins, careful to not let his fangs even scratch her.

"Agh!" she cried from shock and from the feeling of her blood being pulled from her body, but her cry was silenced with his hand clamping back onto her mouth.

She couldn't do anything but lay there and cry, waiting for him to stop and for it to be over. Hot tears streaming down her face was the only thing she could feel, and suddenly the candle seemed to grow dimmer. As she stared at the ceiling, her heart palpitating in her chest and her eyelids growing heavy, everything started to fade away. She could tell it was not venom inducing her to sleep, for he had not even bitten her. It was blood loss lulling her into a numb state, her face rapidly becoming pale and her lips turning blue.

When he finally felt her arm be released, she could hear heavy, intoxicated panting right next to her. She could hear a victorious laughter ringing in her ears, the sound of someone standing up.

Unable to open her eyes as she was mercilessly being pulled deeper into unconsciousness, she heard one last thing before passing out completely.

"When I become King, I am going to feed from you every single day. And next time, I'll bite."

✞

Sunshine blinded her, along with her own golden hair flowing in front of her face. Her bare feet pounded against soft blades of grass as she ran among a field, the sun casting onto her skin from behind tall trees and warming her. She could hear that familiar, sweet, ringing laughter right beside her, and she could feel a hand holding hers, a hand that she had grown used to feeling. She glanced over, her face lit with a smile, but she was met with Jasmine, the girl who she had loved her entire life, the girl who was her safety, her warmth, her oxygen, holding up a gun pointed towards her face. There was no light or love on her face, no kind adoration that was always there when she was around her. It was solid and blank, her lips almost a scowl when suddenly she pulled the trigger. The sound erupted in her ears, seeming to split her brain in half and tear her eardrums apart.

She shot up in her bed, her lungs burning as she tried to breathe through the fire in them. Sweat moistened her forehead and dampened her hair that was stuck flat against her neck, her heart drumming inside her. She nearly screamed when she noticed a dark figure standing near her bed.

But relief filled her as she recognized it as Holden staring at her with a startled and confused look on his face, holding her tray of breakfast in his hands. "Jesus, did you have a nightmare or something?" He shook his head and leaned down to pick up the apple that had tumbled from the tray and hit the floor, being the cause for the loud gunshot in Lily's head.

The girl closed her eyes and took a deep breath, scolding herself for translating the drop of an apple on the floor to a gun shooting her in the brain. But that did not account for why she had dreamed of Jasmine holding the gun up to her. She wanted to mentally press the issue further, but she felt a pain in her arm and, upon glancing down, saw that her arm had trickles of dried blood down it. As Holden was raising back up from picking up the apple, she quickly pulled her sleeve down and slipped her hand under the duvet, bringing the covers up around her unusually cold body.

The memories of last night began to invade her head, and sickness grew inside her. She felt dirty and used, forced to keep it a secret even though she felt like doing so would lead to it happening again. She barely remembered the things he had said, but she clearly remembered her life being threatened if she were to tell the Queen. She closed her eyes and took another deep breath, trying to clear herself of all the knots twisting up inside her.

"Why do you look like that?" Holden questioned as she set the tray onto the nightstand, immediately discovering that the candle on her bed was lit and had melted nearly all the way to its bottom, the wax pooling around the bottom and slipping over onto the nightstand. He quickly blew it out, realizing that it had been left lit all night.

"Good morning to you, too," Lily mumbled in response and rolled her eyes, leaning her back against the pillow.

"You left this on all night," he pointed out, having remembered it not being lit when he had left her room the night before. He wanted to question it, but his attention was drawn by the smell of blood starkly hitting his nose. He quickly glanced over to her, his eyes not filled with thirst but rather concern and confusion. "Are you alright?" he slowly asked, seeing how pale and sweaty she looked. Her eyes even appeared to be sunken into her skull and duller than usual.

Her eyes widened as she read the suspicion on his face. Remembering that he could probably smell the blood on her arm, she gave a nervous laughter and stood up from the bed, being sure to keep her arm hidden from him as she stepped in front of him and took the tray. "Um, yea," she chuckled. "Just...tired, haha." She gulped as she turned away from him and began carrying the tray of food to the bathroom.

"Uh, why are you taking that in there?" he questioned, noticing the strangeness of her behavior but not being able to put it all together.

She paused, only turning slightly to look back at him with a tight smile. "I'll eat it while I take a hot bath." She waited for him to give a hesitant nod before turning back around, but as she did, the cut on her arm hit against the tray, pulling open and immediately letting crimson blood seep through the thin sleeve of her white gown.

Holden's whole demeanor perked up. He scrunched his eyebrows, taking a small step towards. "Lily," he began cautiously, "Are you hurt or something?"

Feeling aggravated at his determination to keep asking questions, she didn't even turn around as she stiffly answered, "Of course not, Holden. Why do you ask?" The last words were spoken through clenched teeth as she felt blood run down her arm, threatening to slip from her skin and through the sleeve and onto the floor where she could make no excuses for it.

"I just..." He felt awkward at his words. "I smell blood."

This time she sharply turned around to him, her eyes wide with an agitated, neurotic look. "There's this thing called a fucking menstrual cycle, but you're a good-for-nothing man and a vampire so you'd never understand, you fucking intrusive, selfish hog!"

Taken aback by her anger, he only watched in suspicion as she sharply turned around and walked into the bathroom, trying to close the door behind her with her foot, but her body tilted and caused the same apple to roll off the tray and onto the floor.

"You stupid fucking ap—"

Her loud curses were cut off by the door slamming shut. Holden chuckled a bit, deciding to let it go. He then realized it was her period blood he had smelled, his lip curled in disgust as he decided to leave the moody girl's room for his own good and safety.

✞

"No, I said to the left," Queen Rose ordered, looking over to Holden and shaking her head. "These illiterate twat trucks don't know left from right."

"'Tis twat trucks they are, Your Majesty," Holden agreed with a smirk on his face as he and the Queen both stood beside each other with their arms crossed, watching three guards attempt to hang a huge painting on the wall beside the staircase in the entrance hall.

It was quite a beautiful painting. It was one of the place in which the Queen was raised—a little lean-to shed in the middle of a beautiful forest colored by autumn, orange and brown leaves floating in the air while the clouds covered the sun above. He knew it was an important painting to the Queen, as she was always very sentimental of her childhood, especially the years before her parents were killed.

"Jesus fucking Antichrist, are you three crippled with blindness?!" She stepped forward, deciding that they were not intelligent enough to hang a painting on their own. "Are you trying to be cute by hanging it literally sideways? Because it's not cute and neither is your inability to follow directions." She began to straighten the painting herself, and one of the guards attempted to help her. She quickly snapped, "No, Marcus, go bury your nose in a dictionary before I send you to the elementary school you apparently never attended."

Holden slapped his hand over his mouth and tried not to burst out with laughter as he watched the guard, Marcus, hang his head low and storm off dejectedly. Thinking he let out a giggle himself, Holden arched his eyebrow when he realized the giggle came from above. Glancing to the staircase, he saw the blonde human girl standing at the top, having watched the whole scene unfold.

Her ears perking at the sense of the girl's presence, Rose immediately snapped her head to the staircase where the girl stood. Her breath literally stifled in the back of her throat at the sight of her. She looked strangely beautiful that morning, perhaps because she could smell fresh soap on her body. Her tresses bounced softly on her chest as she descended the staircase, her baby blue eyes locking with hers and sending her into a downward spiral which she couldn't tell was painful or euphoric. All she knew was that she felt excited by the girl's mere presence, something she would have scolded herself for a week ago.

"Good morning," Rose announced in a velvety tone, her eyes slipping down the girl's body as she neared the bottom of the stairs. Her waist looked so delicate in the long-sleeved dress, and the skirt of the white fabric caused her behind to look delicious.

Holden eyed the Queen carefully, noticing the way her eyes seemed to melt towards the girl. He then glanced to the blonde, seeing that same look in her eyes. He looked between them both, glancing back and forth until it suddenly began to click in his head. "Oh, shit," he whispered, but both of the women were too enveloped in eye-fucking each other to even hear him.

"Morning," Lily whispered to Rose, her heart pounding in her chest at her beauty. Her height was always striking, her slender body always fit perfectly under her clothes. But that morning there was something different about her, about the smirk resting on her plump lips, about her yellow-green eyes that watched her every move, her skin that looked dewy and soft. Her hair was pinned back elegantly, her jaw clenching as she watched her as if trying to beat back something inside of her.

"Did you sleep well?" Rose asked right as the girl's bare feet hit the floor, ignoring the voice in her brain telling her she was pathetic for asking a human about how they slept.

Lily went to automatically tell her that she slept good out of polite habit, but memories of evil golden eyes and a twisted grin jolted her insides. She tried to pay no mind to it and to stay calm or else Rose would sense her anxiety, but when she answered, "Good," she watched Rose's eyebrows thread ever-so-slightly, her head tilting in detection.

"I slept good, too, Your Majesty. Thank you so much for caring about me, as I've only been your servant my entire life," Holden sarcastically butted in, giving the Queen a tight smile even though it went unnoticed by the vampire whose eyes were carefully watching the girl, her senses locked in on the anxiety she picked up. It was not uncommon for her to sense anxiety from the girl, considering she was a human living in a castle of vampires, but this time there was something different, something that was truly bothering her.

Suddenly, the front doors opened, the sound snapping Rose out of her attempts to see through the girl who was seeming to make an effort to be unreadable. She watched a guard enter with an unfamiliar vampire behind him. The guard was a bit surprised to see the Queen standing there, and both him and the other vampire bowed before her. Rising back up, he gripped the spear in his hand and bellowed in the large entrance hall, "Your Majesty, this man says he has something urgent to speak to you about."

Rose's eyebrows threaded as she walked towards him, the issue with the girl still in the back of her mind. "What is it?" she asked as she approached the vampire who was scuffed up, his face dirty and dried blood emblazoning his forehead, as if he had been hit so hard he could not heal. He seemed hesitant to look her in the eyes, as most common vampires were.

"Y-Your Royal Highness," he began, physically trembling before her. "I-I've come to warn you." His red eyes shifted to Holden and the girl behind the Queen, noticing the strange fact the girl was a human who was standing