A Real Man

Belle wondered if it was a witch. 'Jade did say some witches live in this forest,' She thought.

She stared at the trees one after the other, her eyes squinting. Believing it was only in her head, she began picking more wood.

"You definitely mistake me for someone else because I have never been in a dangerous place before." She mumbled to herself, not expecting anyone to respond to her.

A gasp escaped her lips when the voice resonated again. "Are you sure? You don't seem to be sure yourself." The voice taunted.

"Now you seem to be the only danger here." She retorted.

"Took you long to figure out."

While her eyes scanned the area again, she spoke, "Well, you seem to think you know something about me. Why?" She waited to hear from which direction the voice would come, and at the same time, she feared the person might know more than she would want.

"Stop trying to find me. No one can find me unless I want to." He advised in a flat tone.

At the top of one of the trees, Kione sat relaxingly on a branch with his eyes closed as if he were asleep, his knees up, and a leaf sitting between his teeth.

"Why don't you show yourself then?" She said in a persuasive way. "We can have a more fluent conversation that way."

"I doubt that." Where he sat, his eyes flared open and his ears pecked up. "You should be on your way, yes?" He opened his pocket watch before closing it.

"You can't tell me what to do." This time she got no response; instead, what she received was a haunting silence.

She felt something move quickly behind her, causing her to shiver. She snapped her head to look behind her before turning her full body, but there was nothing except the void space she had walked past.

Belle's gray eyes caught sight of a bird flying directly at her. She made no attempt to avoid it, as she didn't think it would bump into her, but that was until she realized it was a crow and it wasn't going to stop.

She hastily sauntered around. Running away from it, she bumped into someone.

Despite not fully realizing who it was, Belle jumped into their arms, clinging to them for help as if her life depended on them while her eyes were shot tightly.

"Please save me." Her pleading was muffled because of her face, which was buried in the person's chest.

In the next second, when nothing happened, Belle slowly raised her face, and her eyes darted to look behind her. A feeling of relief flooded her, and she let out a sigh for that essence.

Kione stared at the girl, who was too oblivious to realize that she was in someone else's hold, watching her with keen eyes.

"Didn't know someone was afraid of the forest." He spoke with mirth dripping from his words.

His words brought her attention to him. A frown marred her face as she recognized the voice. It was too familiar to displace because it was the reason she had to go through such a predicament.

'If only it hadn't been distracting her into stopping to retort, she would have been heading back now.'

She shifted her gaze to look at him and quickly released her hold on him.

"Yo-You?" She said with gritted teeth, this time never minding if he was the Lord's son. "Drop me." She ordered.

His lips pulled into a lopsided smile as he confirmed, "Is that what you want, that I drop you?"

"That was what I just said."

"As you wish, bunny." The next moment, she was landing on her bottom.

"Oucheh." Belle groaned in agony, feeling the pain the impact had caused spread quickly. "You did that on purpose." She accused him, pointing a finger at him.

He scoffed. "Did you forget you asked that I drop you?"

Taking a deep breath, she exhaled softly. I would let it pass only because he saved me once. She decided with a frown marred on her face.

Belle slowly got up, dusting up her dress that had caught some dirt. She gazed up at the man with a thought in her mind, 'I thought all men were supposed to be gentlemanly, but this one was crazy.' She shook her head to put the thoughts aside.

Her eyes shifted to the woods she dropped before squatting down to pick them up. "Why were you wasting time making small talk with me?"

"Don't flatter yourself too much. You have been noisy." Just as he said this, a black bird came to perch on his outstretched hand. A wrapped piece of paper secured between his beaks.

When Belle saw this, her eyes widened in shock and realization. She watched him retrieve the paper from the crow and wondered if it was advisable to run away from them.

Belle hurriedly picked up the remaining wood while Kione read whatever message was written on the paper. But just as she stood up, ready to leave, the crow snapped his head in her direction.

Its black, soulless eyes stared directly at her bright silver-gray ones as if it could see right through her.

Kione, who had gotten the information he wanted, hummed before the bird flew away. He took a turn to leave the forest, and Belle should have been happy that he was finally leaving her, but she realized that she didn't remember which way she came in.

"Please wait!" she called, but Kione didn't stop to listen to her. Belle quickly ran after him, following him hot on his tail, and she could barely keep up with his long strides.

After a moment, she stopped and huffed softly. "You are not a real man." She accused him while out of breath.

The vampire stopped and turned to the girl, who was currently hugging the log of wood she had picked. He took a slow, dangerous step towards her. Right now, she resembled his prey, while he was the predator.

She took a step away from him. 'I should have listened to Jade's warning about him. Maybe it was time to run.' Her eyes darted to both sides of the forest, looking for help.

By now, he had come to stand so close to her, with only a little distance separating them. Kione leaned in with a devious smile playing on his lips.

"Tell me, how do you define a real man?"