Chapter 1
*Warning* I advice you pay close attention to the first paragraphs at the beginning of every chapter.
White
Red
Silence
It was nighttime, and snow had fallen in the forest. There’s a trail of blood right in front of me, but whose blood?
I heard a scream. Is someone asking for help?
I ran, trying to find the source. But it’s too dark for me to see. Someone needs my help.
Someone, wake me up, I can’t. What’s all this? Where am I?
***
A knock on the door has me groaning as I twisted and turned in my bed. Once again, I didn’t get enough sleep. The dream I had felt so vivid that I’m still feeling restless.
After lying back down, I had to remove the strands of hair from my forehead. I looked at my room ceiling, which had some clouds and birds drawn on it. I heard the grandfather clock striking the time in the corner of my room.
Tiredly, I glanced around my room, which was quite a mess, clothes scattered everywhere, weapons on my vanity table, and blood. My dinner from last night that I didn’t have, I had forgotten again.
The dreams have been making it hard for me to eat. Every time I have those dreams. I would wake up scared, sweaty, restless, that awful, sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. And for the last two weeks, I’ve been having those dreams of someone asking for my help. They remind me of my experience and him.
That person I don’t want to remember but miss at the same time.
Another knock at my door distracts me from my thoughts.
“Your Majesty?” someone said.
I glanced at the door. I wanted to continue sleeping. Last night’s training took a toll on me. I’m full of bruises from last night’s practice and I looked like a Dalmatian with spots.
I starved as well, and when I do, it makes my healing slower. Needless to say, I have to get up. As I do, someone walks into my room without my permission.
“Good morning, Your Majesty.”
“What do you want?” I asked as my hands fisted on the sheets.
The redheaded, short, and chubby person before me was Antonia, my grandfather’s assistant. An annoying and ungrateful person.
This woman was hideous in her own way.
“Sorry to bother, but your grandfather is waiting for you in the dining room to have breakfast,” she said.
I truly wanted to lash at her, but my grandfather was no man of patience. With a sigh, I turned to get ready.
Ten minutes later, I’m ready with a T-shirt, sweatpants, socks, and a messy bun. My hair looking a mess, but I couldn’t care less.
I walked down the hall where the dining room was. I noticed the maids working in their daily routine. Some washing the floor, moving furniture’s, and others tending to the windows. There were at least eighteen maids in the castle. Which I think is too little for this entire place.
The castle is my home where my grandfather, my brother Caspian, and I live. We have some guards that live on the castle grounds in an adjacent building. But inside, it is just the three of us. Which makes us a small family.
The castle has a Victorian style to it. Enormous chandeliers hanging from the ceilings, vast crystal windows like prisms that reflected unique colors, and most of the furniture is vintage. I’ve been in charge of redecorating the palace time by time. Which has nineteen bedrooms, three living rooms; one on each floor, three dining rooms, which are in use. We have an enormous bathhouse that’s connected with Caspian’s and my room.
There’s a library also where I spend most of the time reading and doing research. We have a gym and training grounds; that is for guards and assassins training and other purposes.
We have a theater, a lab for testing weapons. We have two kitchens, one for the royal family and one for the guards, an inner garden, the throne room, and a Grand Hall for events like balls.
The castle is way too big for us, but we enjoy this place; it’s our home. And even though we are vampires that live in the twenty-first century, our homes are mostly castles and palaces on the outskirts of the cities where only nature surrounds us.
We keep certain things the old-fashioned way. No, we keep it traditional.
Opening the doors to the dining room, there at the head table sits my grandfather, Elder Cornelius.
“How long are you going to make me wait, Amilia?” my grandfather hissed.
“Good morning to you too, grandfather,” I sarcastically answered, then took a seat across from him.
“Enough with your impertinence, we need to talk about the Grand Ball,” my grandfather said leaving no space for arguing.
The Grand Ball is a celebration for not mated vampires, and every year I find an excuse not to assist. And as with any other of those previous years, I wasn’t planning to go again.
“Amilia, we are all going, including you,” my grandfather eyed me, studying my reaction.
“I can’t go,” I lied.
Honestly, I didn’t wish to go, and I don’t need to. I already had a mate, but my grandfather and my brother had never known about it. There’s no need; he’s already dead.
My grandfather’s jaw clenched as his hands tightened around the glass of blood he held.
“You!” my grandfather shouted. “You’re going even if you don’t want to. Caspian will join you. As you know, he’s not mated as well. So, he will be your partner.”
I blinked, assessing his order.
“Caspian?” I scoffed. “I’m not planning on going to the damn ball, especially with my brother, so no, thank you.”
His eyes flashed red as he glared my way. My grandfather thinks he can force a mate on me, but he can’t. And no one will. I won’t allow it, never.
I’m Amilia Vlad, a Pureblood Vampire. I’m twenty-eight years old, and I’m Princess of the Kingdom of Constanta, and I’m not planning on finding my mate because my mate is already dead.
I’m Princess of the Sapphire Eyes, and I hold secrets that no one has to find about it, even if it means I have to kill everyone who knows.
