I Want A Real Gift

In the Capital

Crashh.. the sounds of things falling to the ground and swung across the room to hit walls echoed all around the chamber. The empress was furious. Her whole chamber was a mess. Broken glass covered the floor and blood was smeared on some of the things.

Her maids sat on their trembling knees in a corner of the chamber and dared not raise their heads to watch the empress throw things around.

"Aaahhh….." The woman screamed to get rid of the stuffy feeling in her chest that she couldn't shake off no matter what. "That dwarf, that mere two feet tall son of a b**ch…" she cursed while things kept floating around the chamber. "How could he replace my hale and hearty sons to ascend the throne?"

If it were up to her, she'd have long discarded the prince to rot in the farthest corner of the palace but alas! Her husband was an emotional fool; an unreliable person who only remembered his first queen and the defected son she gave birth to. She and her sons were nowhere in the emperor's plans.

What mattered to the vampire emperor was his firstborn whom he had announced the crown prince at the moment of his birth. He could have waited too, to see if his useless son was eligible to succeed the throne but nah! The man was bent on being unjust to his other sons. It didn't help that his other sons were from her and not the same mother, which added more to the pressure.

She had thought that with the dwarf prince's continuous illnesses and hindered growth, the emperor would have given up on the idea of keeping him the crown prince and eventually the emperor. She was mistaken.

Today at the annual banquet of the empire, the emperor made an announcement. The crown prince, Ryan Raizel, would be officially joining the imperial court after his seventeenth birthday which was only a few months away.

Ever since, the vampiress was inconsolable. She had been wreaking havoc in her chamber and no one escaped her fury unscathed. Thinking about the stares of amusement that people directed towards her upon the emperor's announcement, the empress felt her blood boil again as she grabbed the nearest glass showpiece and threw it across the floor.

The glass item broke upon hitting the floor and its little pieces flew away in different directions.

"Hiss…" the empress's sharp listening skills picked on a slight exclamation of pain and her red eyes fell upon the perpetrator.

It was a young human maid that was trying to control her tears. A glass shard was stuck in her knee and blood oozed out of the place while she tried to stop the bleeding with her hand that was placed on the knee. The wound didn't look deep but as expected of a human, the girl couldn't help but hiss when suddenly hit by the glass.

With minimum movements, so the empress wouldn't catch her moving, the girl slowly removed the glass from her knee which had only managed to cut a little of her skin. Little did she know, the empress was already watching her with a murderous intent. The vampiress' cold, crystal-like skin had turned red with the amount of anger she felt bubbling upon the insolent maid's disobedience. How dare she make a sound when the empress was around?

She stretched hand towards the girl and the next moment, the human's neck was in her hands. The girl had flown across the room in the blink of an eye like the iron moves towards a magnet. Eyes filled with horror, the human girl flailed her limbs to no avail before the vampiress dug her fangs on the place between her shoulder and neck.

A pitiful scream resounded around the chamber while the other maids tried not to make any noise lest they end up like the poor human girl.

A few moments later, the guards were taking the girl's dead body out. This was the third body in the last four hours that they were ordered to discard today.

The empress sat there, watching them leave quietly. She was a lot calmer now and analyzed the situation carefully. That boy had stopped growing at the age of four. For the past twelve years, he was stuck in the same height and body features. His canines didn't grow much and he despised blood.

If played well, she could easily bring people to hate the half vampire who couldn't digest a single glass of blood. On the other hand it was her, who could suck many humans dry in one session. A smile played on her lips.

The Imperial Raizel family had ruled the kingdom for generations and for generations, there was never any kind of disagreement about that. All the three races unanimously agreed that the Raizel family was the most powerful, pureblooded, dedicated family that had the ways to protect the kingdom and deserved to be the rulers.

People had a blind trust in the Raizel family but that trust could be shaken. When the crown prince wouldn't be able to protect himself, the seed of doubt would be planted in the people's minds. They'd definitely demand for the crown prince to be removed from the position.

But that had a risk. If the crown prince survived, there'd be investigations and at some point she could get exposed. That only left her with one option; get rid of the crown prince. She had to find a way that not only would kill the prince but also save her name.

Aurelia's Courtyard

Aurelia looked at all kinds of tonics, spirit cleansing pills, and antidote herbs that her grandpa had gathered for her during his expedition and her lips twitched. Why these medicines? I want a real gift.

She stared at her grandfather sulkily who laughed at her expressions. "What's with this sulking face? These all are rare medicines that I accumulated with lots of hard work." It was after the duchess was sent to the capital and everyone else went back to their courtyards.

Her sneaky grandpa snuck into her quarter instead of heading for his own courtyard. They were now sitting in the lounge illuminated by countless lanterns and candles. The fireplace was burning brightly while Aunt Feng got Roma and Rose to serve them tea before dismissing them.