The Metropolitan City Of Dominion

All vampires needed blood to sustain their life. While human blood was without a doubt the preferable life juice to drink, most vampires had to be satisfied with animal blood on regular basis.

Occasionally they bought bags of human blood from hospitals. If they were up for a celebration, they would buy premium blood. As in, blood procured from young human beings below the age of twenty.

Only a fraction of existing vampires had the livelihood that allowed them to feast on premium blood regularly. Of this fraction, only a small number of vampires would allow themselves the luxury of sucking the premium blood directly from the victims' necks. Because these clients paid a lot for the pleasure, it was understandable that they expected to be catered to their utmost satisfaction.

Baron Scratchface, officially known as Baron Winston, was one of the vampires who hailed from ancient, pure-blood vampire families. He liked to reminisce about the time when the vampires were free to pick on victims and drink the premium blood as much as they wanted without being tied down by rules.

A few years ago, he ran a national campaign to be elected as a Parliament representative. During the public campaign, he openly proclaimed that he would like to bring back the glorious time when the vampires were free to hunt for blood. Any blood without age restriction.

Of course, the human beings would be compensated for their loss fairly. His bold proposal earned him a lot of appalled headshakes. It was no wonder that he ultimately lost the election and the human beings were able to heave a sigh of relief.

Despite his notorious speech, he was a law-abiding vampire. He had been one of the best clients that Nick and Serena had over the decades. Nick ensured Aiden that Baron Winston was not going to do anything out of line.

Baron Winston lived in an ancient castle which was located on the western outskirts of the metropolitan city of Dominion. After arriving with the train at the South Dominion Train Station, they still had to travel by electric car to reach Winston Castle.

Coming from a small town with no vampire or werewolf population, Aiden could not help but swallow his saliva in fear when he saw the crowd in the train station at night. There were even a few human beings who mingled around with the superior races, chatting and laughing together in a friendly manner.

Big cities with a lot of vampires and werewolves were relatively safe from rabid vampires. Unfortunately, it did not mean that the cities were safe in general. More vampires and werewolves around also meant more conflicts between the two races.

While a bloody fight or a car crash made headlines in small-town newspapers, a brutal fight that involved throwing cars at each other barely made the news in Dominion. It was considered a normal daily occurrence that did not merit special attention.

Human beings who lived in big cities also had different attitudes toward daily conflicts. They quickly escaped dangerous situations before something serious remotely unfolded. A simple "Hey, watch your steps" was enough for human beings to quickly run away or jump into their cars to head to another destination.

Thankfully, as time progressed, younger vampires and werewolves emerged. Having grown up in a society consisting of three races, they were more tolerant toward each other.

The enmity of the elder generations was watered down, enough for the superior races to develop an adequate sensibility to not start any fight without giving the human beings and irrelevant parties time to escape.

Fewer and fewer accidents involved human beings. The same thing could not be said about the public property damages, which had ranged from broken electric poles, cracked streets, up to fallen houses and buildings.

After every incident, the City Council was too happy to ask the involved parties to pay. After succumbing to their mad bloodlust, the fierce creatures eventually calmed down the next day and paid the penalty.

This explained why the streets and buildings at Dominion always looked brand new and polished. It was because most of them were.

The electric car halted smoothly in front of an old iron gate with a surrounding stone fence.

"We are here," Serena announced.

Beyond the gate, an old towering castle stood like a giant that had survived a lot of winds and snowfalls.