chapter 3

Princess stood in the middle of the market, people were busy buying and selling and their loud voices

annoyed her ears. She was never one to be found in noisy places. One of the reasons the other

professors didn't like her.

They called her a killjoy behind her back as she was always first to leave a party or gathering.

Standing at a spot, she tried to remember how she got here but her last memory was of her writing in

her book.

'Did I fall asleep?' She asked herself looking around the busy place.

Someone bumped into her and softly apologized. All Princess could do was bow her head in return

and she watched the lady walk past her. Venturing into the deeper parts of the market, she noticed the

beautiful things that were on sale.

If she had the money, she definitely would have bought some.

"Excuse me…" she stops when she gets to a woman who appeared to be selling snacks.

The woman had her head lowered as she arranged the snacks. She raised her head and Princess took a

shocked step back.

Her face was something she had never seen before. Her face was morphed like that of a bat. Her teeth

were out and she barely had any lips. Her fangs were protruding and her eyes rolled round in their

socket.

The woman studied Princess' expression and Rose and got on her feet all of a sudden.

Princess took another cautious step back, almost bumping into someone on the busy road.

"You do not belong here do you?" She asked and looked around. "Help! An intruder. We have a human

in our midst." She screams and everyone's eyes suddenly fall on her.

They all stopped what they were doing including the passer by and stared at her. It was then she

realized they all looked normal but if one looked closely, there was something off about them. They

either have weird face shapes or features that belonged to another creature.

"I…I don't know how I got here." She tried to explain feeling her feet go soft.

"Burn her!"

"She will speak. Let's kill her!" They shouted.

Two huge men with legs resembling that of a bear walked towards her and they made way for the men.

In their hands were sharpened tools that would pierce through one's skin on impact.

"We will chop her head off. This will teach her a lesson." The first man said and Princess fell on her

bum.

"Human…how dare you sneak into our world." The other growled. An animalistic sound coming from

the base of his throat.

Princess looked around, desperate for someone to help her. To be saved from these beings that looked

abnormal. She couldn't die without having the family history written. Who knows when next they

would get a chance and Nikolia was the only surviving member.

A woman walked between the two men and poured something that looked like water on her.

Drenched in the strange liquid, she felt her body begin to itch and she started to scratch it. The more

she scratched, the more she felt uncomfortable. Red spots began to appear on her skin and the first of

the huge men raised his weapon in the air as the crowd cheered him on.

Just as it was about to land on her, she looked ahead and saw Nikolai standing among the crowd. Their

eyes met and her eyes went wide. But she didn't get the chance to call out to him before the weapon

landed on her.

Princess jolted awake from her dream, her forehead covered in sweat. The sweat on her neck trickled

into her cloth and her mouth had drool in it. She stared at the book she had been sleeping on and

noticed the ink was perfect and still in position. Her sweat simply stood on the page like water rops.

Glad that the book was water resistant, she wiped the sweat off it using the hem of her blouse before

wiping the sweets from her forehead.

"Why did I even sleep? Did I not get enough sleep?" She stared at what she had been writing and

continued to read the family history.

Feeling that something was off, Princess tried to remember but couldn't.

Did she have a dream?

She couldn't tell. The only strange thing was that she felt as if her whole body was being tingled by

something and her shoulders began to ache slightly.

Massaging her shoulders, she continued to work on the history doing her best to not think about how

she mistakenly slept on the book whose cover was made from human hearts. Just the thought was

enough to make her shudder and bring goosebumps to her body.

'The De Bronse family began their history in 1306 although rumors in the family say that we have been in

existence for as long as 1046. Who knows if it is true? The roots of beings like us are usually untraceable.

Although artifacts from the 1300s are found around the house, we can never place a hand on a specific

date or year. Being an ancient family, the blood that ran in our veins was always different. Everyone

could feel it pumping. We could feel that we were different. The wealth we came upon, the fame and

history that was passed down through the word of the mouth, everything made us stand out.

Two weeks ago, I heard from Fred the III that our grand aunt, Gina the IV used to survive upon the blood

of humans.'

Princess paused and read the sentence all over again to make sure she hadn't read it wrong. Survive on

the blood of humans? What was she? A vampire.

She chuckled to herself and began writing down the paragraph she had read. She stopped in the middle

and thought of something.

A vampire? These kinds of things were myths and simply didn't exist.

But then, the De Bronse family originally came from Romania as Nikolai had said. Romania being a

country were the vampire myth originates from. There is the possibility that members of the De

Bronse family could have been turned.

She shakes her head and tries to keep her mind straight. This was a normal human family history not

some fantasy novel she was asked to rewrite.

It struck her that the person writing when referring to her family members had added things like 'The

III'. Was names passed down into the family like the English royal family?

Or perhaps they were titles used to refer to these people like the English royal family?

Princess shakes her head and continues to write. When she was done, she hurried with the next

paragraph.

'It was weird to hear such in our family considering that we majorly only ate flesh and plants. Why would

she drink blood? Was she a vampire? But then I remembered how Fred The III had told me about the

story of the monkey who ate humans in our family when the family just started and mother cleared it by

saying the monkey did eat people of the town except members of our family.'

She had to take a deep breath before she continued to write. Whoever documented this history, either

has a lot of love for fantasy books or the De Bronse family was just purely weird.

'Apparently, it was because the monkey was our great grandfather who was being punished by his wife for

adultery. Great grandmother turned him into a monkey thinking it would shame him but he only

proceeded to eat the people of the town until he was turned back to normal.'

Princess released a sigh and reread the paragraph she had just read. Now she was convinced, this isn't

the real De Bronse family history book. They must have created this fake to match with the

supernatural rumors people had of them and to make their family special from the rest of the ancient

families.

Maybe there was nothing to be curious about regarding the De Bronse family after all.

As she was about to read the next paragraph, Nikolia walked in and tapped about his wrist. Princess

stood from the chair and picked her book, not daring to touch the history boom. He glanced at the

huge book and walked outside.

As she gently closed the library door, she asked him. "Wouldn't you return it to the safe?"

He shrugs his shoulders. "That won't be necessary. After all you will continue reading tomorrow." He

gauged her expression before adding. "Unless you are too scared to continue because of the things you

have read."

Princess squinted her eyes at him and scoffed. Perhaps this was their goal. They created a fake history

book and made the words a bit weird and scary so whoever wanted to document would get scared and

quit before even starting. Right now, Princess was sure the book cover wasn't made of human heart.

That was simply impossible and ridiculous. "No. It did not faze me the slightest."

He smiled and nodded his head as she walked past him. "Wait!" He suddenly calls as Jake and Rose

appear. Walking towards her, he stopped when he was about two steps away. Gave her a skeptical

expression and Princess' heart began to race. Could it be that he knows about the key she took from

the hidden drawer?

Her armpits began to itch and she resisted the urge to grab the key from her pocket and hand it back to

him.

Nikolai took a step forward and sniffed the air around her while Princess took a step backwards.

"What? Is something…wrong?"

He arched his brows and stared at her from head to toe. Something was weird about her now. She

smelled a little differently than before. Almost like a De Bronse but he doubted the De Brosne family

had any children outside of the family. Even if they did, there was no way no one wouldn't know.

Princess couldn't take his intense look and convinced herself that the man knew about the key. "I…I

actually…" She tried to find the right way to say it.

"You smell different. Almost like a De Bronse."

She frowned and released a breath of relief. "De Bronse members have a particular smell?" She asked as

Rose and Jack walked closer to her. She stared at the man's eyes, feeling a mysterious pull towards him.

His eyes carried a message she could not decipher and his entire aura was intimidating.

"Yes. The De Bronse family smell. Stronger than DNA." Rose replied instead, making even Nikolia

frown. "They smell like Baneflowers." She says and Nikolia felt his heart skip a beat for the first time

since he has been alive.