Don't wanna die yet...

        Celeste looks into the dark brown eyes of the man. She can't decide if this man deserves to die or not. Her nostrils flared as she took in a lungful of air. 

      There's no other way Celeste… she told herself. There's no other way…

       Celeste's eyes were about to gleam red and her fags were ready to peak out in the thirst for blood, human blood. 

      She was about to slash through the air and sink her canines into the flesh of the man's neck and suck his blood until he lay cold on the ground, dead.

        But it seems that it's not his time to die yet. A man with golden skin steps out of the trees and walks until he's standing in the row with the man who had conversed with Celeste. 

     He is wearing khaki pants and a sleeveless brown shirt that clenched around his body like a second skin, showcasing his strength and etched muscles through the thin cloth. Almost the same as the other person from before. 

       Now it makes her wonder if they were hunters, not some mere woodcutters. Not that she even saw a hunter with her own eyes. 

       But had heard about them a lot from her grandmother and about the werewolves that had shredded a vampire into pieces when he entered their land unannounced and as a threat. 

       That was scary for her young mind then and now, standing here in the same land, being a vampire and unannounced, saying she was terrified would be understated.

     "What's going on here, Seha?" The newcomer asks. Celeste's hands fall on her sides from gripping her robe. There's no way she can run, she can flee when these men can certainly strangle her down and take her to the palace. 

       "Who's this lady?" He asks, confusion painted in different shades on his chiseled face. He looks like he falls in the same line of age as Seha. 

      "Umm, I don't know. I was asking her who she was." The man snakes a hand around Seha and draws him close all while having calculating eyes on Celeste. 

      "Who are you?" He asks again. At this point, Celeste's mouth is glued, and she feels numb. No words formed in the back of her throat as if she had forgotten how to speak or how to move her tongue to shape the words. And her mouth, it feels like it was filled with sand. 

        What does she say? 

     "Is she dumb?" He asks Seha now, tilting his head slightly toward him to meet his slightly narrowed brown eyes. 

       "No, she's not." The crease around his eyes smooths down when his eyes meet the unknown man's gray ones. 

        "Why is she not replying then?" 

        Celeste watches their exchange with an errant beating heart against her ribs. Gulping down around the rock of uncertainty that lodged in her throat, she takes a very small step back, her eyes never leaving the men.

     The leaves under her feet scrunched with loud crackles in the silent air of the forest and alerted the men's sharp ears. Both their head snaps her way in a flash, eyes glowing golden. Alphas.

      "Don't try running away, lady. It's in vain." The man says. After his appearance, Seha doesn't say much and this guy takes it to him to do the talking. 

     Celeste doesn't know what to do anymore. 

       "We are asking you this again for the one last time, answer it if you want. Who are you?" Seha says.  

       Celeste sucks in a harsh breath. What does she say? That she is a vampire princess from their rival Kingdom? That won't be the answer they will take pleasantly, no. If she let them know let alone she's a vampire they will take her down and kill her in this instance. 

       And her mind is too foggy to think or come up with an idea to save her life. 

      The man who's holding Seha's waist heaves a sigh, shakes his head, and looks Celeste in the eyes before looking back to his lover. Or Celeste think is his lover by the way he holds the other oh so delicately and the way he looks at Seha. 

      "We should take her to the palace." He says, eyes searching into Seha's face to find a reaction. Seha's eyebrows scrunched as if he was considering the possibility. 

       Celeste's heart which was dropped in the pit of her stomach now dropped even further down to the ground beneath her with a loud crack. No. This couldn't be happening. No, this could not. 

      "No!" 

    "No?" The man cocked his eyebrows with a full blown smirk. Celeste's skin crawls from the fear clawing inside her gut. 

     She couldn't do that. She can't go to the palace with them. She can't let them take her there. They will find out she a rival, a vampire. And kill her. 

      No, she doesn't want to die. 

     She doesn't.

     Not yet, no…