A vampire queen.

Not all was well in the kingdom. His father was busier than usual with his counsel, and his only words to his son were, not to lose Veri. Veri was the princess from the neighboring kingdom, and a deal had been worked out years earlier for Elatus to marry Veri. Since they were five, they would visit each others kingdom for the summer to become acquainted with each other and the cultures of their kingdom. This year it was scheduled for Veri to visit their kingdom, and Elatus was getting anxious. Over the past few years he had started developing very real feelings for her. She had started to develop into a very beautiful young lady from her average looks as a child; This most certainly didn't help his predicament. She too had become attached to him, and they always spent time together.

However this wasn't the only problem going on. Veri and her entourage should have been here a week ago, and they just received message the caravan had been robbed. Tensions between the kingdoms was a mess, fingers being pointed at who's fault it was, and everyone was on high alert.

When Veri arrived Elatus was relieved. But their usual meeting was short Veri had been injured, with a bandage on her neck, and was very on edge. The next day wasn't much better, she wasn't out much during the day, besides when he saw her once at lunch, they made eye contact, but she quickly broke, and quickly left the dining hall. Her servants were talking how she had started to taking to the night, but was absolutely terrified of even a glimpse of the dark. Several weeks had passed like this before Elatus steeled his nerves and sought her out one night, with her sitting in a tree, lanterns canvasing the tree, like stars in the sky.

"Veri, are you awake?" Elatus whispered. This apparently was the wrong approach, she jumped. Scrambling backwards before a branch broke and she fell. Quickly Elatus rounded the tree and caught her. "It's alright, it's just me Elatus." It could have been a trick of the light, but it seemed like her eyes receded from serpent like slivers back to round pupils, her hair also seemed to return to her brunette from what looked like platinum blonde.

"You scared me. What are you doing out here?" she wheezed, still catching her breath.

"What am I doing out here? What about you? Shouldn't you be in your room?"

"I can't sleep in there. It feels like a dungeon, a mortuary. I feel trapped; it reminds me of the stopover that we were attacked at." She teared as she wrapped her arms around his neck.

"I've only heard the official reports, but it mentions little of what happened to you." He reassured her to sit next to him.

"Well, it started out as a robbery, the horses were cut free, and the majority of the soldiers chased down the thieves. Something else was outside though. The two left to guard me were cut down, and it came in straight for me. I didn't get a good look in the dark, but it sounded like a bat, and it bit me right before I passed out." She shuddered. "If that were the worst of it, but the dreams, I dare not speak of them."

"What dreams? Why didn't you tell anyone what really happened?"

"How could I? A silly little girl, bitten by a vampire? I can sometimes see into his thoughts, and oh they scare me."

"Vampires? There haven't been even stories of vampire sightings since before the rise of the three kingdoms! Besides, don't vampires drink blood? Have you been..?" He swallowed.

"So, you don't even believe me? What does it matter then? I'm not sure why I haven't had need to drink blood, but I can tell you it was definitely one that bit me." She teared up, as she ate through yet another orange.