Chapter 68 A lonely vampire

Chapter 68

A lonely vampire (Charlotte POV)

It was about 13 days ago when I first met Ray. I remember, he came in with the 3rd platoon soldiers to buy some potions from my shop.

At that time I did not pay much attention to him and only saw him as a kid who came along with the soldiers for some reason.

But that time he was staring at me and I could feel him looking at me warily. At that time I just thought that the scary granny outlook that I made for myself intimidated him.

I decorate my shop to look a little spooky because I like giving my customers that kind of mysterious vibe about my shop.

After that I just carried out my daily routine. But something troublesome happened some days after that.

Apparently the soldiers of Detroit city had went for subjugation of stampede monsters and they came back utterly defeated.

According to what I was able to gather from my customers, there was an attack by vampires on the army and many of the members got abducted.

Moreover the captain of the 3rd platoon was gravely injured and carried to Elf Helium’s hospital.

This was a shock to me. I was quite sure that the attack was definitely the work of my uncle who was also after my life.

He is definitely kidnapping women with high mana and maybe he is using monster stampede to attract adventurers and army to do his kidnapping.

I made up my mind and was planning to leave the city immediately. I have a detailed map of all the hideouts that can be used by royal family, which was given to me by my father before my uncle attacked our mansion. My father knew he would attack and had prepared for the fight.

I still remember that day. My father had all the preparations to protect us. We were safely hiding in a separate house and our mansion was filled with my father’s men, ready to defend us. But the most dreaded thing happened which we could not imagine.

My father had various retainers and some of them were from very old bloodlines. But most of them ended up siding with my uncle for some reason.

The Azombras, the Zexos, and even the Acherons, all joined my uncle’s side of claim to the leader of vampires. Only the Ventrues and Cade family remained loyal and protected us. But still we had enough men to fight my uncle.

This was all very strange from the beginning because according to ancient traditions my father, who was the elder and capable enough, would definitely have the right to the leader’s seat.

But even then upright clans like Acherons and even Edmond Acheron himself sided with my uncle, which was very strange.

It was not like my father wanted throne at the cost of us, so he did agree to have a peace meeting with my uncle initially where he was planning to relinquish his right to leader’s seat, but then, an order from the elders came from the sanctuary.

The elder vampires who are said to be decedents of the suzerain the first of our kind reside in the sanctuary and rarely come out.

We had not heard from them for about 100 years now according to my mother. They are said to be so powerful that a single one of them can eradicate our entire clan.

And their order is considered the law of the country if it ever arrives. The elders act as a group mostly but sometimes even they have discords among them.

We vampires live in a hidden village and have a leader rather than a king because we don’t have enough of us to appoint someone as a king.

Although we don’t have any discord with any other countries, we still live in hiding because of our nature.

We vampire live on blood. Although we can perfectly survive on animal or monster blood, some of us have high preference to humans, elves or others.

This generally becomes a problem for us to coexist peacefully.

Although we have laws against violence against other humanoid species but the blood of humanoid species is like a drug to us especially that of the opposite sex.

Not that I have experienced it but according to what I heard, drinking blood of a man while doing it feels very good and a vampire woman like me would get addicted to it easily.

So we live in hiding while still maintaining somewhat peaceful interaction with other nations. We have a few traders that visit our village to trade with other countries. But only the trusted ones are allowed.

Anyways so an order came from the ancient vampire council and according to it, I who had inherited my late grandfather’s rare species of true vampire would eventually become the ruler after attaining enough experience in life.

And as per vampire traditions that would be about after I become 40 years old.

We vampires have eternal life and youth so 40 years was not much time for us. This news was like a death sentence for me.

Now my uncle wanted to kill me no matter what in order to gain the throne. All we could do now was to fight.

We could not run because so many clans were already with my uncle and they were all on high alert to not allow us to escape.

So we were prepared to fight my uncle and my father told us to hide in a safe house which was guarded by our most trusted retainer, Vlad Ventrue. But a tragedy happened.

My father was killed by his own retiners and Vlad venture also turned out to be a traitor and invited my uncle to our safe house through backdoors.

In the end my uncle and his soldiers killed my mother and sister too. I was saved because the sun had risen and was able to escape in the day. Being a true vampire, sun had no effect on me.

My uncle and his army failed to chase me in the sun and I ran and ran and ran while crying and shouting.

I lost everything that day, all because of that wretched man and those aloof elder vampires.

I was a lonely child with hobby of potion making and collecting various herbs. I mostly played alone in the sun and fulfilled my passion for potions.

Although I did not have any friends, I had a loving family. But all that was gone now. That night my uncle killed my mother in front of me and I don’t know what happened to my sister after she pushed me outside the mansion by tricking me and closed the door.

All I could hear was sounds of magic and shouts of people dying while the vampires invaded our hideout through secret underground tunnels.

My sister held them for me. She was a brave child and unlike the scardy cat like me she was a punk who used to pick up fights with everyone.

She used to fight a lot with me too. But in the end, I understood she was just trying to protect me, even though I was the elder one and it was my duty to protect her.

It was too late when I understood her love for me and she ended up dying for me.

I blamed myself for a long time for abandoning my family to die, even my little sister. She was a punk but I loved her.

She sacrificed herself for me. They all died because of me. I often thought of giving up but somehow just kept going. Hiding in various hideouts and finally settled in Detroit.

Meanwhile I did receive letters from some of my old acquaintances that left their messages at various guilds.

From them I came to know that my uncle was in pursuit of becoming a true vampire through an ancient ritual. And when I heard the news of vampires kidnapping, I knew I had to run again.

But that day while I was packing my bag, Ray infiltrated my house and subdued me.

I tried to act brave and bluff to scare him off, but he was even scarier. My heart almost started crying when his rock bullet passed right besides my face.

After I told him that I was not related to the vampire kidnapping, he became little gentle towards me.

I don’t know how he knew that I was a vampire but he never told me. He had many mysterious things about him.

He saw through my illusion magic and even managed to sneak into my house without being noticed.

I told him everything he asked and then he started apologizing. I was scared initially but after he started calling me Onee san, it made me fluffy inside and made me remind me of my sister who used to call me the same.

But I told him not to call me like that even though I wanted to be called so. I just could not be honest.

Also telling him my story made my heart feel lighter. It was the first time I had told someone what had happened since then and it made me cry too.

After that he told me that he was going to save his friends from my uncle and wanted my help. I told him that it was impossible but he did not listen.

So taking a little pity on him since his situation was no different from mine who also lost her family, I gave him some potions and a magic tool to ward off charm magic.

He wanted to repay the favor somehow and give something as apology for his behavior so I jokingly asked for his blood but he agreed easily.

Since I had heard so much about human blood, I wanted to try it.

After he left, I decided to take a whiff of the blood sample. It was definitely that of a virgin male.

I have drunk blood of many monsters and I can distinguish them easily. True vampires also have the ability to track the target whose blood they tasted at least once.

I put a few drops of Ray’s blood in my mouth, and it was intoxicating. I don’t think a normal vampire can handle this.

I placed the remaining blood securely in my item box ring, which was given to me by my mother on that night.

After that I packed my reaming things in there too and decided to leave the city. On the way I kept thinking of Ray.

I already knew that fighting vampires was death wish for that boy. Even though he had stealth skills and a good magic wand, my uncle was on another level.

Moreover, he had many vampires under his wing and also someone to cause monster stampede.

I kept thinking, about Ray and the taste of his blood could not get of my mind. I thought that maybe I had unknowingly developed feelings for that boy but I knew it was just the intoxication of his blood. But still I just could not get going and it started making me mad.

In the end, I foolishly started making my way to follow Ray in my Bat form. This is also a unique skill of true vampire.

Other vampires can make bat familiars but I have this additional unique skill to turn into one.

I followed him and found him making his way to various hideouts as per the copy of the map I gave him.

Surprisingly, he was dealing with monsters pretty easily. He definitely had great sneak skill and most of the monsters could not tell where he was.

Then after he entered a hideout, I used to wait outside hoping that he would not get killed.

I could still track his blood and instinctively knew he was doing OK but still waiting in anticipation made me very scared and tired.

Somehow he was able to deal with vampires too and killed many of them.

I was surprised how a boy like him was able to kill 3 vampires and hundreds of monsters in a hideout alone. Maybe he had a chance to save his friends and kill my uncle.

But soon his luck ran out. He encountered Vlad in one of the hideout. Although he was able to defeat him, the monster there was quite dangerous one and I started to smell his blood being spilt inside the cave.

I made up my mind and entered the cave. I saw a huge monster being half frozen and many dead monsters and vampires lying around. There in the middle I saw Ray lying wounded and unconscious.

I first fired my shadow spikes and threw some poison explosion potions at the monster.

Somehow the monster was already very weakened and it died after a few shots. I than immediately ran towards Ray in panic. I did not think I cared that deeply about him.

Even though his tasty blood was spilled all over, all I could think of was how to save him first and applied potions to his wounds and put some HP recovery in his mouth. I checked his pulse and heartbeat and thankfully he was fine.

After that I made him lie on my lap. I don’t know why I was so worried about him till now. but I think it was more than just my lust for his blood.

Maybe I liked how he wanted to save his friends even at cost of his life unlike me who ran away sacrificing my family for myself.

I liked him because he was doing something that I wanted to do but could not. There was also that tasty blood and his virgin odor.

While I was thinking these embarrassing things, Ray got up and started asking me various things.

For some reason, we started arguing but then he suddenly hugged and thanked me.

I was surprised but finally it made me realize my feelings towards him. I never thought that I would start to feel for someone in such a short time who I only met once.

After that Ray went to check up on something while I started looking around. I found out that the vampires who died were Vlad and his minions.

Looking at him brought some negative emotions in me. I was neither happy about his death nor sad.

Vlad had taken care of our family since I was born, so I knew him pretty well. Therefore his betrayal was very tough on me.

I hated him very much for he was the one responsible for death of my mother and sister and yet his dead body lying in front of me did not give me any solace.

After some time Ray returned and told me about prisoners he found and asked me about Vlad too.

I could not tell him much because my emotions were overflowing so I only answered him vaguely. All I wanted now was to move to a safer town and maybe bring Ray with me too.

But time was cruel. Ray refused my offer and insisted on continuing his mission to save his friends.

I wanted to go with Ray but he refused to take me with him no matter what so instead I volunteered to take care of the prisoners there and to call for backup.

Part of me was still scared of my uncle who murdered my mother in front of me so it was better that way. That sight often comes in my dreams and I sometimes get up crying and shouting.

I tried to tell Ray to not go but he was determined and I knew no one could stop him now. So I gave up and decided to fulfill his wish. I hope Goddess of death does not take him too.

Ray gave me a beautiful dress as a gift before paring which made me very happy.

I really love him now.