That Night

*Flashback*

- - -

"You're invited by the master to be in the mansion other than gawking here in your car."

Calixto looked up at the man who yanked the car's door open before he could even notice his presence—their presence because another man pulled Iris from the passenger and his thought of fighting them off disappeared from his mind the moment he saw Iris unconscious in the arms of the man who removed her out of his car.

"Take your hands off her," he snarled, baring his fangs to the man who was carrying an unconscious Iris on his shoulder like she was a sack of potatoes.

The man didn't react to his warning, instead, he left in the blink of an eye and before he could follow him, the man who aggressively opened his car door, held him down and he had to fight him off for a good ten minutes before the man said. "You're wasting your time, fighting me. Your human slave is probably now in the mansion. Erik is one of our best runners."

Calixto stopped. His fist froze in the air in front of this jerk who had no decency to even introduce himself to think that he was his father's underling.

"I am Macario," he said as if hearing Calixto's thoughts. "I'm the one tasked to bring you to the mansion whether you agree with us or not. I know that you won't but your father's order is something I can't refuse, hence, I decided to remove your human slaves to keep your hands with my blood." He lowered his head and added, "you have to forgive me for being proactive in doing business."

"Lead the way," he said in between clenched teeth, lowering his fist. He had to get Iris back first before he would bash the man's face.

Macario took one step back when he lowered his hand and stared at him for a few seconds, trying to read if he was still in attack mode. When he was convinced that he was no longer going to receive any assaults from Calixto, only then, he turned his back on him and ran in a blink of an eye.

Calixto had no problem running alongside him and if he had known the way, he could run away from him. But it appeared that Erik, the runner guy, was not just a runner. He did not leave any track or scent that if Macario was not leading him, he would probably have a difficult time tracking Iris because even her scent, they had camouflaged it. These men that his father sent were not just normal cursed creatures of the night. Their skills were something that was honed and developed through time and the genetics that they were born with before they were even turned into vampires.

He hadn't seen them in his father's castle in the past. They must have been part of his father's workers when he was already killed by his own father.

Until now, he could not still understand the reasoning of his father for killing him. Because from what he heard from Love, his father also put his mother into a forced slumber because she started a mutiny. In his case, he just fell in love. It was not a reason enough for his father to kill him and even used the woman he loved as an instrument to put him into five hundred years of sleep.

He timed the distance they had been running by counting the steps that he had taken and he could say that the mansion was quite far from where his car was.

"How long had my father lived in this place?" He asked to get some information from Macario but he did not reply to his question and just doubled his speed. He kept his annoyance in place, thinking he had time to ask later, and caught up with Macario.

He smelled the attack before it happened, thus, he was able to halt and raised his hands in front of his face, his fangs ready in place but he did not expect the attack to be from Macario. The new vampire that suddenly appeared in his way did not do anything. He was just a distraction and for him to choose his opponent to attack only to be attacked. He was a second late before he realized what had happened before he found himself in Macario's arm frigid. He hit him with the blood of a blue nightingale mixed with some herbs that his father's witches concocted for him. It would not kill him but would paralyze him for a good twenty minutes. That was his record in the past. The only way to beat this Nightingale was to break down the poison in his blood into smaller sizes enough to be killed by his own poison. His record of twenty minutes was already considered good in the past because his father trained him by injecting Nightingale every week.

However, he had been asleep for five hundred years and that was how long his blood encountered this poison. He was not so sure if he could still do it in twenty minutes. He was still pondering his odds when he was dumped in an intricately designed dining chair in front of a massive dining table. His fuzzy brain recognized the still unconscious Iris a few chairs away from him. He tried to listen to her heartbeat but the poison in his blood was making it too difficult for him. He was too glad when Iris stirred from her chair, awake.

He had his attention on Iris, watching the man who was pouring something into her cup, while he was fighting off the poison in his blood he did not notice that his father was occupying the head of the table opposite him.

He felt the danger and dread crawling in his balmy skin. He blinked his eyes, his brain was screaming in rage towards his father who was sitting calmly, enjoying his tea while observing him.