She gripped Dante’s legs, pulling herself up. Her words were slowed from her sobbing. Her tears threatened to choke her. “Please help me. I want to go home. I…I want my mum.”
Dante cringed, hesitant. Alex could see he wanted to help her, but was conflicted.
“That will be difficult. She won’t be much help to you. Your mother is dead,” Julian said with much delight. The air of someone passing on a happy secret.
The girl slapped her hands over her ears and screamed.
“She tasted very nice,” he continued loudly.
“Stop!” Dante yelled.
“Why should I? You can make it stop. Even you know the taste of pre-teen blood. Just give in.”
Dante looked down at the girl, staring for a moment. “Never. I would rather enter the eternal sleep,” Dante flashed his hands as his nails grew an inch. He pointed one of them directly at Julian, baring his fangs as he growled, “and if that be the case, I want you to do it. If you can.”
Julian rose slowly, looking as of all his Christmases had come at once. He stepped down the high steps one at a time. Before he reached the bottom, a group of men had emerged from the shadows and surrounded Dante. Alex noticed all of these men had the same charcoal eyes that Dante sported as he glared at Julian.
“Coward,” Dante sneered.
“Smart,” Julian countered. “You like killing vampires so much, well here’s your chance.”
“Become one of us, Dante. You don’t have to die here,” Vincent said, looking towards the girl that Dante had stepped in front of, trying to defend her. “You have no human, you have no choice.”
Dante turned to Alex, still comforting a devastated Michelle. “I’m sorry,” he said simply. He turned back towards the royal family and glared at them all. “I would rather die on my feet for them, then live on my knees for you.”
“KILL HIM!” Julian screamed.
Dante roared and clicked his neck twice. Alex had seen this before. He was ready for battle, ready for certain death as the vampires charged.
“Wait!”
Everything stopped. Alex surprised even herself.
“How dare you, bitch? You have no say here,” Julian snapped.
Alex trembled from head to foot.
“Now now, Julian, let us not be rude. Let us see what she has to say for herself,” Vincent called, unable to disguise his curiosity.
“I am Dante’s human… I mean his donor,” Alex said.
Vincent’s face fell. “What?”
“You—you said that if he didn’t have a human…or if he didn’t submit to you, he would be killed. Well I—I volunteer to be his human.”
“No!” Dante cried, “Alex, I don’t want this for you.”
Alex’s shoulders trembled as she succumbed to tears. “Dante, please…”
“A wonderful offer, but not enough to save him,” Julian spat.
“Julian, enough. Do not presume to speak for me.” Vincent said as he rose and marched down the steps.
“What? You’re just going to let him walk?” Julian screamed.
“It’s over. If you speak again, I will have you removed from this room,” Vincent growled.
“Bullshit! What about his punishment?”
Vincent whirled on Julian and gestured to Michelle, still on the floor. “He has paid for the laws he broke. He had no human and still denied us. This was punishable by death. Now thanks to this…” he said, generally flicking his hand in Alex’s direction. “He has a new human and does not have to submit to our ways of feeding. That is the law.” Vincent continued to glower at Julian, who skulked reluctantly out of the room. “Now, it is almost dawn, I suggest we retire.”
Everyone took this as more an order than a suggestion and dispersed, taking the girl with them and leaving only the humans and Dante.
Dante closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. Michelle sat silent, head down, oblivious to all that had taken place. Dante took a moment and then picked Michelle up in his arms. “Let’s get out of here,” he said.
Alex followed him towards the foyer.
“Could you please collect Michelle’s things?” Dante asked. “They’re still in the room.”
“Of course,” Alex replied.
Dante left with Michelle and Alex dashed up the stairs. She still had not processed what she had just done. What is this going to mean for me? For Dante and Michelle?
She began stuffing Michelle’s belongings into her bag, when a chill came over here. She was not alone in the room. Turning, she saw Melina in the doorway, staring at her. Has she been waiting for me? There was an agonising silence and as it went on, Alex registered again the fact that Melina had not uttered a single word at any stage of the proceedings.
Alex had no idea what to do. Call for help? Walk past her? Say hi?
And just like that, Melina swept gracefully into the room, her soft velvet covered voice seemed to carry on wind currents to Alex’s ears. “Are you not afraid?”
“Should I be?” Alex asked.
“I must congratulate you on your cunning,” Melina said, again after a long pause. Alex concentrated on how light her voice was, the complete opposite to Dante, yet both had the similar effect of being powerfully soothing, or unnaturally jittering. “Using one of his few weaknesses against him.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Alex said.
Moving faster than Alex would ever be used to, Melina had a finger in front of her face, the tip of which was moist. Melina had caught a single tear running down Alex’s cheek. “It is perhaps his greatest weakness, one that I myself experienced before my mortal life ended, when I knew him as Alejandro. He could’ve still fought the guards. He would’ve been killed, so would you. He would say it’s better than being his donor. But you begged him. He never could stand to see
