It wasn't sleep that had taken over us, I now know that I will sleep no more, I will go into a sleep like state. Lucas didn't stir when I got out of the bed, dying to know if it was true about being able to tell if I was so soon after. I found a bathrobe in his wardrobe and quickly scampered to my old room to get the test. Anxiety took hold as I waited for the clock to tick over, the first line appeared almost instantly, the second line took a minute. But there it was, one little stick told me something that I never thought would be true, I was pregnant. I slipped the test into my pocket and tried so hard to hide the grin slapped across my face. When I returned to Lucas, he was still in bed, in his sleep like state. It was what was hovering around his bed that freaked me out. A man, tall and thick set, he had a wooden stake in his hand. Slayer. I grabbed a chair similar to the one that I had smashed the glass door with and broke it over the man's back, sending him to the ground. Lucas woke with a fright, seeing the man on the ground, me with the remaining bits of chair in my hands.
"Hey, guess what?"
"Uh, there's a strange man in my bedroom?"
I look down at him, still passed out.
"Yeah, not that."
I pick the stake up; it burns my hand as I drive it into his body.
"Ow." I hiss through my teeth.
"Jeez, don't touch them Scarlett."
He stops and as the realisation strikes him he flies out of bed, dressing quickly.
"Slayers are here. Shit." he mutters. "Get dressed. Here, wedding present."
He tosses a long black dress at me, heavy black velvet and red lace insert.
"How very goth of you."
After I have dressed, he drags the man out of his room and down to the ballroom. The scene before us was shocking. All of our wedding guests and staff had been rounded up into the ballroom, the slayers in some serious numbers. Miranda looked at me and I gave her a nod, she grinned knowing that this was what they were waiting for, the battle was to begin, here and now. It was a blur of vampires taking out the slayers, the shape shifters protecting my family and my band members. The werewolves decided to get in on the action too, finding themselves some slayer necks to break. Once the dust had settled, the slayers that were in the ballroom were dead, I walked among the bodies, looking for my neighbour.
The blood pooled on the floor among the corpses, lifeless and mangled bodies. My stomach turned at the sight, they were humans, the would have families, children, wives. But not anymore, now they were orphans and widows. The blood was intoxicating but not nearly as enticing as what they served at the meeting. There was a strange smell to this blood, something that I could not figure. Maybe it's the smell of dead blood? my mind tried to find an answer. Maybe they've been eating garlic cloves it tried again. Through all the blood and death, there was one that wasn't here, my neighbour.
"He isn't here."
"Shit." Terrance mutters.
"How did they get past the beasts?"
"That would be the secret entrance." Lucas says rather amused.
"A what now?"
"Secret entrance." he smirks, leaning in to my ear. "Escape was always possible, if you knew where to look."
"You bastard." I grin.
I watch as the staff start to remove the dead bodies from what was once the room where we married. The chairs had been removed, the floor slicked with a pale red sheen. My parents, Asher and Eddie were being remarkably at ease with it, I guess that these people had threatened their lives so they probably didn't care about them. Me on the other hand still held empathy for life. The staff were taking the bodies to a large bonfire out on the lawn, a message to those that may try a second wave of attack. It was going to happen, my neighbour wasn't here, he was biding his time.
"This was an effort to try and stop the wedding." Terrance muses. "He must know of the prophecy."
"There was one in our room." Lucas gestures to the body being dragged out of the room.
"And where are we at?" Terrance looks at me.
"Oh, I uh." Shit, I wished that I had told Lucas now. Would have been nice to tell him before declaring it to the world.
Lucas grins.
"Did I hit the target?"
I nod.
"Excellent." Terrace says as he walks off.
Lucas wraps his arms around me.
"Sorry, I was going to tell you but I kind of got distracted with the slayer trying to kill you."
"Yes, well I am grateful that you saved me rather than telling me that you are pregnant." he frowns and then smirks. "You took a life Scarlett."
"What?" I frown at him.
"You said you didn't want to take a life, that you valued humanity, yet you just took the life of a slayer."
"He was going to kill you. I did what I thought was necessary. Your life is more valuable to me than his."
A grin curls into his mouth as he looks down at me, leaning in to kiss me on the cheek.
"Ok, I think we are going to have to smoke him out." Miranda says appearing out of nowhere.
"Get your cloak on girl, we are going."
"Cloak?" I frown.
Charles appears beside me, clearing his throat. Lucas takes it from him, putting it over me. A long velvet hooded cloak, black on the outside, red on the inside. So soft and so very heavy. I wince when I pull it into my body, Miranda takes my hand and looks at it.
"What happened?"
"She touched the stake."
Miranda turns and calls for Alina. She takes my blistered hand, placing hers over mine, not touching me but hovering just over it. It tickles as she closes her eyes, her long brown hair falls over her face as she lowers it. I try to not laugh as the sensations in my hand get worse, making me want to scratch it.
"There you go."
I look at my hand, normal again.
"Next time, don't touch the stakes, poisonous."
"Oh ok."
There was no battle plan, it was just a case of finding the man and removing him. The hope was, once he was dead the rest would have no interest in continuing with the battle and if they did, they would find their own demise. The kings guard stayed with my family and band members, now very shocked at what had just happened. Reality had finally hit them; they now knew they were stuck in the middle of an unholy war. I would have liked for them to be very, very far away from here, but I knew that they would be safe, the kings guard would watch them, the beasts would stop any slayers from getting into the property, the whole castle had been checked. There was only one issue, the secret entrance. We were going to move to it, sweeping the property as we moved, ensuring there were no hidden slayers. We had only gotten as far as the small field beside the castle, they waited for us in their hundreds, in the centre was Dietrich. The men stood firm, stakes in their hands, their brows creased deep.
"Scarlett." Miranda whispers to me. "You know what you need to do right?"
Something strange rattles through my mind, for some reason I do know what I need to do, just as the verse said, she will be the one to show the mortals not to fear.
"Go forth and speak from your heart." she whispers.
I step forward, moving away from Lilly, Miranda and Alina. Everyone else that had been with us had stepped back, this was it, this was our time. The moonlight gently caressed the soft velvet cloak draped around my shoulders, the grass below shimmered in its light. I pulled back the hood of the cape, my skin was so pale it was like it was translucent, perfect powder white skin.
"You do not need to fear us, I am living proof that a vampire can feed and not kill."
The men around Dietrich look at me very confused.
"I will prove it to you if one of you are brave enough to venture here to me, I will not kill you."
I look at the men, some of them look of stout heart, determined in their minds. Some of them look scared, like they have been forced into this. I wonder if any of them are fans.
"Do any of you know who I am?"
There is one that raises his hand slightly.
"You, would you like to prove your bravery to your peers?"
I had expected him to slink into the crowd of men, cowering behind them but he did not. The stake was dropped to the ground as he stepped out and ventured to me. He took his cap from his head and scrunched it in his hand nervously. The panic was set in his face, even though he was brave enough to step out, he was still scared.
"You need not fear me, I do not want to take your life, I only want to show you and your colleagues that it is possible to live after a vampire has fed. Are you prepared to show them?"
He nods at me.
"Yes." he stammers. "Yes ma'am."
"It will hurt for a little bit, but it is bearable." I take his forearm. "Don't jerk it away or you will make the wound worse."
He watches me as I sink my fangs in and take a tiny drink. He wasn't very tasty, which made it easier to stop feeding.
"There you go. Still alive?"
He nods with a little grin.
"Off you go, back to your friends."
The young man looks at the tiny marks on his wrist and walks back.
"You see? Still human, still alive..." I turn to Miranda. "He wasn't very tasty, is there a reason for that?"
She nods. "Something will be wrong with him."
"You." I point at the young man. "When you leave here, you should go to the doctor, you weren't very tasty, something is wrong with you."
The whole group turns and looks at him, he looks a little worried. Again he steps from the crowd and moves to me.
"Thank you vampire, I shall not be staying here any longer."
He turned and walked across the field, leaving the group.
"You see? He survived. No one need die, give your blood freely and a vampire need not kill you. All we require is our sustenance, the same as you. You are told to eat meat, are you not? Yet there are some of you that do not, there are some that are vegetarians. Just like there are some vampires that do not want to kill humans. There are those like me, who value human life."
I can hear the men murmuring among themselves.
"You now face a choice, you can leave just as that man did and live to see another day or you can stay and fight us, I can promise you that you will not survive."
It was quite a shock when they started to follow the young man's path, leaving Dietrich alone in the field. He began to shake his head, shouting no. I hadn't seen him move, so fluid in his movements that it was like a blur. From behind he pulled what resembled a machine gun, preparing to fire it at us. Of course, he hadn't realised what was sneaking up behind him, invisible to humans. A king's guard took him down with a snap of his neck, but in that very second Dietrich fired the gun. Most of the stakes that were fired out were driven into the ground, sadly there were two that found their marks. A wooden stake had skimmed the edge of Lilly's hip, a metal stake found me.