STORM

"Take care!" Jenna called from the crowd.

Tessa held my hand as we walked to our carriages. I saw her fiancé send her off with a kiss before we headed out.

The grand event of the sending off ceremony had all the people out in the town square. My luggage was already in my carriage, with the dresses and other necessities that Jenna helped me pack. Each carriages had one horse to pull the vehicle along.

We would take the carriages to the edge of the kingdom where the vampire kingdom intersected with ours. Apparently, we were going to go on passenger trains once we were inside the vampire kingdom. Having hardly left Locketon and now completely leaving the North kingdom felt uncomfortable to say the least. But a sense of adventure and new experiences awaited. I'd never been on a passenger train. There would be one trained royal guard with each of us at all times, from the beginning to when we reached the palace.

My father refused to come to the town square, opting instead to work on a special sword request in his workshop. I hoped he wasn't still angry by the time I came back.

"What about my dresses? How will I wear them by myself?" I thought to my corsets, but Jenna assured me they would have maidservants there to help us.

Normally, the route to the vampire kingdom could be shortened by going through and into the dark woods. But this time, our escorts would take us through the official way to the royal palace of the vampire kingdom.

We passed by a lot of tree and country farmland, just out of our town. I saw cows muddling about in the fields and some fish ponds. After an hour of riding, we reached the boundary line just as a storm approached. There were a set of large trees covering the rest of the journey so we couldn't see what lay beyond, but as we got off our carriages, with our human guards holding our luggage and umbrellas for us, five shadows appeared behind the trees.

They were four guards to accompany each of us and one liaison member of the vampire council who was on a horse.

My vampire guard's name was Marcel. The liaison member took some time to introduce each of the four guards. To me, Marcel was a little sinister looking, with his sinewy arms and scarred neck along with his raised collar black coat. He didn't speak much except to alert me and update me. He explained that the train was a royal order train, so there wouldn't be random passengers other than important people who were on the way to the palace.

"We are in train compartment two A. Please follow me, Miss. Judd." Marcel led me inside the train.

It was just me, my human guard and Marcel in my compartment, and he told me to get some rest as the journey would be another hour or so. I wanted to stay awake but there was not much to see as the train's speed was impressively quick making everything blur and so my eyes began to feel heavy as I sat near the window.

I awoke with a jolt when there were some shouts and banging noises. Wiping my face I looked around. It seemed like the day had passed and it was getting into the late afternoon. Marcel and my human guard weren't in the compartment. My heartrate increased as I wondered what happened and whether I should check.

The worried and curious side of me won, so I slid open the compartment door, and tiptoed closer to where I heard the noises. When I rounded the corner, a hand curled around my throat. Choking for breath, I scratched at the hand and the hand let go.

"Apologies, Ms. Judd."

It was Marcel. He must have thought I was an attacker too. Marcel tried to shield me from the view but what I saw almost made me throw the contents of my lunch on the floor.

Three men lay on the floor of the train, each knocked out. Two of them had their heads cut off. Scattered around them were an assortment of weapons, as if they had been holding them. One of the bodies with head intact but with blood pooling around him, was my human guard.

The two vampires came to kill us humans, that much was evident. Knives and guns, that wouldn't usually work on vampires.

"Miss. Judd, it's best if you go back to the compartment. We're dealing with this." Marcel uttered.

"Is everyone else okay?" I asked, immediately thinking of Tessa and the others.

"Yes, they are all secure, except for the boy with the spotty face. Spenser was it? He was injured lightly as he was coming back from the bathroom, but it seems you were the main target of this assassination attempt, they came straight for our compartment." Marcel said.

Fear lanced through my chest.

Why would the assassins want to kill me? What did I have...it could be my father's connection to the vampire war, but I didn't think that was information publicly announced to the whole vampire kingdom. For the rest of the journey I was alert, in case any other attackers were there. I didn't have any way of contacting my father to let him know, nor to help my human guard or if he had any family. I didn't even know his name.

--

"I trust your journey was rather smooth? We apologize for the hiccup along the way," the liaison council member spoke with us as the guards brought us to the palace entrance.

Hiccup?

"One of our guards died!" I exclaimed.

The council member's eyebrows raised and he said, "But you are alive, are you not? That is what matters. We cannot guarantee of no threats, but we do our best to protect you. Our guards are trained well and will protect you with their whole efforts. We are in communication with the human kingdom to arrange for collection of the corpse."

I didn't know how to react. They were so uncaring that a human just died in their jurisdiction, but if I were in their shoes, it made sense that they couldn't very well send us back now that we were here. It was by royal order that we had to be in attendance, from both our kingdom and the vampire kingdom.

As I thought on how to respond, Tessa tugged at my shoulder. A collective gasp came from those who were facing me, and Marcel's eyes followed a person behind me.

I spun around, and there stood the second vampire prince, Avalon Quentin Klingborn.