Chapter 1. Betrayed

"You betrayed me?" 

Eva looked at the tall, handsome but unmoving man with incredulity. Her hands started to tremble as well as her bright red eyes showed a few tears. 

"Why?"

After centuries of living alone, she never thought that a weak and pitiful human would ever mean something other than food to her. However, with only a few decades living together, that man changed everything. 

A little boy when they met, and a man when they loved each other. But he betrayed her. 

"Why?" she asked as tiny drops of blood ran out of her mouth turning her pale skin into a savage painting. "Why did you do this?" 

The echo of her voice reverberated on the stone walls inside their castle. The one they used to call their home for so many years, but now, it changed into a tomb. 

A deep smell of crimson liquid unveiled the death of those who followed that man a few minutes ago. Pieces of marble stones and mantles destroyed on the floor showed how brutal the battle had been from the beginning.

The red color of her wounds overflowed her white long dress. Though, not only on her but from the bodies strewn across the floor, injured and agonizing. 

Corpses of those she had to kill accompanied her as she waited for the man to give her an answer. Just a few words, but she only obtained silence covered in painful groans. 

"Why don't you answer me?" Eva continued asking but the man stayed still. 

Soft noises suddenly traveled to her ears. Even when they were stealth and trained steps, she could hear them aloud. It didn't matter if they were a light whisper or a single breath. She could hear them all. 

From the front and back doors, another wave of fierce hunters surrounded her with their silver blades pointed menacingly at her body. 

"Don't let her move!" shouted a hunter leading the group in the front. He seemed to have a silver star on his shoulder symbolizing his high rank. "Use the Rochester chains! Restrain her!"

Eva smirked as she saw how they tried to capture her with those measly chains. 

She sent two hunters approaching her, flying to the wall. However, the next second two other hunters entered her sight quickly. They moved while shooting daggers at her from all directions. 

It was hard to evade them, but she was faster than them and quickly subdued their attacks. However, from behind her a man hidden in the darkness had shot a sharp silver arrow to her shoulder, making her stumble.

"This…" she looked at the man and smirked. She couldn't sense his presence and that was unbelievable. 

She coughed blood when the power in the silver arrow entered her body like freezing water making her incapable of standing. 

"This is our opportunity! Shoot now!"

She tried to take the arrow out of her body but the other hunters shot her repeatedly. Though she deviated several arrows, she couldn't take them all. 

"We did it," someone said as they watched how she was about to fall to the ground. 

However, they underestimated the power of a pureblood. She was nothing like those little, weak vampires who hadn't lived for centuries.

She smiled at them with wickedness, the crimson-red eyes sparkled with strength and the arrows came flying from her body to them. 

"Do you think this is enough to defeat me?" she said with a mouth dripping with blood. Then she closed her eyes and said a name. A hidden name she can only whisper to her shadow, to summon him, his helper and companion for eternity. 

"The one who lies in the shadows will come to me and this will be your end, hunters." 

With a hidden spell from her clan, she invoked him, the beast within the shadows. 

"Kill them…" she whispered and the torch lights froze suddenly. The gasps of terror invaded the place. 

The hunters moved back as they watched the beast emerging from the darkness like a black cloud of thunder and lightning. 

Its ferocious teeth showed as daggers ready to devour them. It roared, making the windows break and piercing their courage to the ground. 

However, the most experienced hunters entered the battle with that thing without fear of dying cruelly and violently. That would be their best honor. 

Though, there were some who ran like cowards as they never expected that they would meet their end in the claws of that monster. 

Eva could smell clearly the fear growing in their hearts, the aroma was like power to her. 

"To the vampire, seal her!" One of the hunters shouted and began to chant a spell. 

Eva looked at him with a mockery hidden in her smile. It seemed that they had come with everything to detain her. But that would never be enough. 

"That beast is attached to her! If we stop her, we will kill that thing too!"

Some hunters circled Eva and chanted at the same time. Eva was about to kill them but then… a silver blade came across her stomach from behind her. 

The same hunter, the one with the silver arrow, stabbed her. Once again, she didn't feel his presence at all. Who was that man? 

However, this time, she won't let him go. With the power of her blood magic, she broke the blade and took it out from her body. 

Then she moved at a speed only achieved by centuries of lives, and appeared before the hunter. "This is your time."

The man looked at her fearlessly and smiled. 

Eva was seriously pissed this time. She grabbed his neck and lifted him up like a tiny weightless feather.

His hood came out suddenly and she saw his head which had a symbol of a crow and two spades. She didn't know that symbol. 

The man coughed blood as he agonized but continued showing a mocking, fearless expression. Then with a swift movement, he took a chain hidden in his long sleeves and tied her wrists. 

"Do you think this is enough to detain me?" Eva smiled. "You know nothing, mortal."

"I… I… know…" the man tried to say. "You are… powerful, but this will stop you… I will stop you, beast."

Eva smirked and squeezed his neck more, almost breaking it. However, the next moment, a strange force emerged from the chain, and blood running down from that hunter's wrist empowered it. 

He had cut his wrists and sacrificed his soul to activate the spell. 

"You…" she was surprised at the man who looked at her with a smirk, then he faded like dust. Disappearing before her eyes. 

"Brother!" 

A hunter fighting the beast suddenly shouted. 

Eva noticed how her shadow disappeared and the lights from the torches came back to illuminate the room.

The man, the brother of that hunter, rushed up to her, but she sent him back with a flick of her hand. However, this time, she couldn't move from the circle and she couldn't break the chains. 

That was a hidden spell, only a few knew about it. She looked at the man who was still a distance from her, looking coldly at the battle. 

"You… it was you…" 

The chanting continued and the hunters, now with regained strength and faith, shot arrows at her. 

Several times, they had tried to bring her down, but every wound healed with a speed that only a pureblood vampire was gifted with.

However, Eva was trapped like a little bird inside a cage. She couldn't send the arrows out, she couldn't move. 

"Why…" she looked at the man, "tell me… or you won't even explain to me when I die in front of your eyes."

Her heart refused to believe that he led those men to their home, their refuge. And without mercy, he watched her cry with desperation as they attacked her. He even told them how to defeat her. The secret she conferred to him after they confessed their love. 

Many years ago, she had given up everything for him, her clan, her immortal life, her power, and the pleasure of living as the queen of the world.

She only wanted to be with him until her last breath. The only wish she had was to share this life with him, to dream with him of a new life, but he betrayed her.

The men dressed in black robes and with glowing purple markings on their faces glared at her disgustingly. 

She stopped fighting as several tears flowed from her eyes. 

They didn't care for her cries and begs; they were hunters from the most powerful order in the Union. Trained from infancy and sent to the worst places to fight demons such as her. 

However, they weren't strong enough to find her and kill her after so many years. She was a legend among the vampire clan and the Union. The last pureblood of more than a thousand years. 

No one could be more powerful than a pureblood, at least no human being.

  They did not let her move. Silver chains helped contain her mighty strength, both of her arms, her legs, and even her neck had a piece of chain around. 

Only the silver and the blood spells inside the chains could suppress high-level vampires such as her.

Eva tried to break their hold and walk towards the man who was still silent and unmoving. But with each step, she felt the hot metal burning her skin.

It doesn't matter, her skin no longer mattered, and her body was useless. Her heart was already broken and with that her pact with him.