The Vampire Bloodline: Secrets Beneath the Sand (Completed)

Prologue

***If you want to listen instead see the video***

It was the coldest night since they had left the palace.

The humans huddled together, shivering violently, their bodies pressed against one another for warmth as they tried to sleep along the stone wall of the cave. Outside, the wind howled like a starving beast, clawing at the entrance, sending flurries of snow drifting inside.

Just three days ago, Selene hadn't even known what snow was. Now, it was everywhere she looked, endless, white, and indifferent. The humans cursed it. They called it cold, wet, and impossible to walk through. But she... she envied them.

She missed the feeling of the sun on her skin. The gentle sting of a cold breeze brushing against her face. Even this snow, she imagined how it might've felt melting on her palm, clinging to her lashes.

"You need to sleep," she told herself. But sleep rarely came.

Each time she closed her eyes, she saw it again.

"Mother!"

The cry jolted her upright.

"I'm here, Aron. Don't worry," came her mother's soft voice.

"Mother!" the boy whimpered again.

"I'm not going anywhere son. Sleep now."

Her little brother, curled into the midwife's arms, finally quieted. Selene knew how it tore at her mother not to hold him herself, but in this bitter cold, he needed a warmer body than hers to survive the night.

She closed her eyes once more, trying to drift into rest, focusing on the soft rhythm of Aron's breathing. He had calmed. Slowly, finally, sleep came for her too, pulled her under like a quiet tide, the wind's howl fading into something distant, almost gentle.

***

She opened her eyes to the familiar curve of her chamber ceiling.

For a moment, she lay still, unsure if she was awake. The room was cloaked in dim light. The windows had been covered with thick drapes at her request. A faint draft stirred the velvet bed curtains. Dust danced in a narrow beam of light that slipped beneath the fabric. Everything was quiet, muted.

Voices echoed faintly beyond her door, servants shouting, bustling through the halls. The palace was alive, preparing for the banquet her father was hosting that evening. Even from here, she could hear the murmur of the city outside the walls. Too loud and too sharp. Her senses, ever since the transformation, were either painfully heightened or numb to everything.

She missed the sun.

She missed the taste of wine. The sweetness of a piece of fruit.

But she couldn't stomach them anymore.

Her mother now brought her jars of blood in silence. Selene would look away, ashamed, sickened by the thought of it, yet somehow, once the jar touched her lips, the sweetness, the warmth, pulled her in. And she would drink. All of it.

She sat up, heart pounding. For a moment, she just breathed.

Then she saw it, laid out carefully on the chair beside her bed. A white gown. Simple but elegant. Her mother's doing, no doubt, meant for the banquet.

She stood slowly and stepped out of her nightgown. The silk of the dress was smooth against her skin as she slipped it on, her fingertips tingling with nerves.

It would be the first time she left her room since the night she changed.

Since the nightmare began.

Her father had insisted. Enough time has passed, he told her. A month in the dark is too long. You're still the princess and it's time to return to the world and fulfill your duty.

Outside her door, she heard his voice, clear, commanding, and beloved.

She pressed her hand to her chest. Relief flooded through her.

"He's alive," she whispered. "It was just a dream."

But her heart knew better.

And some dreams never truly end.