~Bleeding Hearts~

It took getting halfway through the colonnade for Bel to see who was coming. There were about three guards and they were accompanying four servants. Bel only assumed they were servants because of their clothes; she didn't actually recognize any one of them.

The servants had their heads bent, and one of them was clutching their neck. The servants who were now close enough scattered to the sides, dropping to their knees. The guards stood behind them, one on each side while two were on the other side, each group holding up torches.

Bel winced as the smell of blood hit her. It was pretty sharp, and she could immediately tell someone was bleeding out. Bel stopped immediately, and her eyes zoned in on the servant clutching their neck.

She knew they would have to provide food for the vampires, and obviously, the food would have to come from their people. Dhampirs were different; she heard some of them had never tasted human blood before. This was something they prided themselves upon.

"Bel, what are you doing?" Her mother asked, halting her steps too.

Bel broke through the guards, who were too stunned by her actions to block her path in time. She stopped in front of the servant, who glued his eyes to the floor. Bel could tell he was scared. He was a young man who didn't look a day over nineteen.

His hand fell from his neck, revealing two pierced holes; his palm was stained with blood, even in the dark she could see how red it was. Bel's gaze darkened; surely there was no need for him to bleed out. She knew vampires could easily clot the bleeding holes by simply licking them.

Apparently, someone didn't think to do that because he was the only one who was bleeding. It would probably clot by itself in a few minutes if he applied pressure on it, but there was no reason for him to go through that when he just lost blood.

He dropped even lower as if he wanted the ground to swallow him. Bel smiled softly in an attempt to ease him and slowly stretched out her hand. She lightly touched him on the shoulder. She didn't need to touch him to heal him, but she found that it helped.

She closed her eyes and let out her magic. The air crackled, and a white light glowed on the young boy's neck, and the holes closed up immediately, leaving nothing but a tiny scar that was practically unseeable.

He looked up with wide eyes at Bel and immediately brought his gaze down. "T-thank you, princess."

She pulled her hand away from him and straightened her back. She walked away from him back to where her mother stood. The Queen had an unreadable expression on her face.

"You didn't have to do that," her mother said when she got close enough.

"I can't believe you would say that. They made him bleed more than he needed to," she responded with anger in her voice.

"He would have healed eventually," her mother said.

"No need to dwell on the matter; it took me nothing to heal him. Shall we?" Bel asked, and without waiting for her mother's response, she started towards the left wing.

Bel was angry, and she thought she was doing a very good job of not showing it. She couldn't believe they would be so negligent about something so important. It would have taken only a second, but whoever had fed from the human thought it wasn't worth the effort.

She couldn't believe her parents were willing to marry her off to them when they treated humans like this. Such actions shouldn't be easily forgiven.

They got to the doors, and two guards stood by the entrance. Bel knew they were vampires immediately. Their red eyes almost shone as the torches revealed their faces.

Bel knew her father had renovated the left wing to accommodate the vampires' request for no sunlight and a few other requests she didn't want to think about.

Every window had been boarded shut, and anywhere light could stream in had been covered. It wasn't until the Dhampir gave his satisfaction that they stopped working on the left wing. She remembered his name was Stelian, but she didn't want to think about him in a way that made him seem familiar.

The guards bowed to them and opened the doors. At least they had some regard for them; Bel tried not to roll her eyes.

As soon as the doors opened, Stelian appeared out of the dark space, and Bel watched her mother jump out of the corner of her eyes.

That was the only sign of fear her mother had shown all through this, and Bel realized they were walking into the vampires' den. She didn't think they would try anything, and her mother looked pretty confident.

It wasn't as though she had anything against vampires. She didn't think they were vulgar beings who couldn't control themselves or anything like that. She just hated the whole idea of this marriage, and at this point, she was nitpicking at everything.

"Your Highness," Stelian said with what appeared to be a smile. It didn't make him look less scary. "Princess." He nodded at her.

"Stelian," her mother called a little excitedly and a little too familiar. "You startled me." She clutched her pearls as she spoke.

"I apologize," he said and tilted his head. "It wasn't my intention."

"I know; it's fine."

Stelian bowed with one arm behind his back, and Bel noticed a necklace fall out. It looked like a locket. There was an inscription on the heart-shaped locket, but it was too tiny to read.

Bel also thought the locket was a little too small for him. She wondered if it belonged to someone else. Stelian didn't look like the type to walk around with that kind of jewelry. Any kind of jewelry for that matter.

"This way, please," he said and turned his back to them.

His words pulled her out of her thoughts, and Bel couldn't help but think he seemed polite, and she didn't know how to feel about this. She noticed that only two guards out of the seven accompanied them into the vampires' den.

Shouldn't they be a little more cautious? She glanced over at her mother, and she saw that the Queen was more nervous than scared. Bel wondered about that, but they were about to meet the Queen and King of Darkcrypt. She might as well prepare herself.