BLOOD.FANGS.N'.FIRE

Gavriel felt the girl's stare from where she stood. She was practically gouging a hole in his scalp.

The little girl must have thought that she was leaving his side in the night, how naive of her. He mused

Responding to the report from the Duke of the West, Rolland Evanstorm, such a peculiar man, he thought.

Never socialising with the others, he didn't speak unless spoken to. He was a man strict with rules and principles, but that didn't excuse him from having skeletons in his closet.

A year ago, he had sent him a small piece of paper he found behind the old man's painting.

It caught his attention because the painting felt heavy with a live aura.

It was after the night of the previous midnight ball, the king stood infront of the castle, concentrating his power, he swept the castle for any harmful entity left by his guests as a generous gift for him.

He felt something come from the third floor. It felt heavy and powerful yet harmless at the same time.

He strode to where he felt the energy waft from, reaching there, he looked at the painting that was giving off the mysterious energy.

He observed it up until now. The painting seemed normal except for the story that it was painted using dragon ash. He had previously felt some energy come from the painting, but he didn't give it much thought as the energy was very faint and harmless.

But now, the painting gave off a stronger energy than before. Putting his hand in front of the painting, he let out a small black mist that wrapped itself around the whole painting.

After a short period of time, most of the mist disappeared while some of it stayed on the canvas, but it concentrated on the right corner of the painting.

Retracting his mist, he lifted the right corner of the wooden frame for a small brown paper with barely visible scribbles to fall on the ground.

Picking up the paper, he realised that the strong energy was coming from the paper and not the painting.

The paper must be connected to the painting, somehow he thought.

"Matthew," Gavriel called.

It only took a minute for the butler to arrive where the king stood.

Gavriel handed the paper to the butler, "Take it to Evanstorm directly, tell him to find out what resides in that paper," he instructed.

'Who had placed it there,' the silver haired man wondered.

Of course, that person must have had access to the third floor. Since it was designated for the members of the Royal family, he wondered which one of his 'lovely' family had put it there.

And it looked like whoever did it, knew that the paper would react with the painting.

Touching the painting, he closed eyes, after a moment, he heard the sound of incoherent whispers, low tuned music, and the distant sound of footsteps.

The sound of the footsteps got closer and clearer the longer he stayed in the vision.

The footsteps sounded strong and firm, his visions couldn't make out things clearly. Instead, the sounds were more distinguished.

He saw a blurry image of a boy walking towards the painting, he looked closely at the boy and realised he had seen the boy's features before, although they were blurry.

As he got closer, he made out the boy to be his cousin Stephen, he saw him reach inside his coat's inner pocket, he removed the paper and placed it inside the right corner of the painting, where he had found it.

Removing his hands from the painting, he wondered what the young vampire wanted to accomplish by doing that.

Leaning on the wall beside the painting, he felt a liquid run down his nose. Touching his upper lip, he looked at the dark blood that had flowed out of his nose.

He smirked in mirth, "Just a little more," he whispered to himself.

Coming back to the room, he heard the door opening, the butler strode in carrying a silver tray that had a plate that was covered by another, a bowl of steaming beef broth and silver cutlery arranged neatly to the beside the plate.

The scent that wafted from the broth made Florah's mouth water. Her stomach growled in hunger, much to the embarrassment.

The two vampires looked at her, and then at her stomach, Florah felt like digging a hole and burying herself in it, feeling so embarrassed.