BLOOD.FANGS.N'.FIRE

"The girl ran away earlier," Gavriel said after downing the red liquid in his glass.

"Hahaa, she ran. I wonder why?" Lester playfully asked with a knowing look.

Because he knew no sane person would want to be near the man before him for more than an hour.

Who knows what you might do that will trigger him to grant you your forever sleep?

Gavriel just ignored the other annoying witch in front of him and went on. "She was kidnapped by two witches in Dradfold. They kept blubbering about how their mistress wanted red-haired girls. That they were special and what not, " the king drawled, seeming uninterested.

"And you saved her?" Lester asked, raising a brow at his not so nice friend, to put it lightly.

"Well, yes, she is my employee, isn't she?" Gavriel asked, tilting his head a bit

Lester looked at his friend and concluded that he had to meet this maid before the man killed her because he could tell that the girl must have had something that had grasped Gavriel's curiosity.

And that was never a good thing for that person.

"The witch seems to no longer be one." Matthew chimed

"I can feel his aura fluctuating from being a witch into something darker," he added.

The three went quiet for a while, all thinking about different matters.

"How is the mist?" Matthew asked, breaking their silence.

"Good," Gavriel responded shortly after, downing more blood, for it to slide down his throat.

After that, Gavriel stood up to leave, but before leaving, he said, "Prepare a stage in the hall. There will be a play." With that, he exited the room.

Lester sat there worrying about his friend. He knew he was intentionally hurting himself, but he seemed to want that, that mist he had wasn't his to begin with. It had killed its previous owner for him to have it, and he was letting it also consume him.

"Does it happen often?" Lester asked the butler who he knew was still in the room.

"Only if he wants it to happen." Matthew replied

"Excuse me, my Lord," he said and exited quietly.

Lester exhaled tiredly, leaning back in his chair.

He couldn't let the king leave him alone in this mess with an unstable butler.

He had to do something about it and soon at that.

Back in the King's Chambers, a certain maid had dozed off in a bent position on the soft sofa in the centre of the room.

Gavriel stared down at the girl who slept soundly in his room. 'Was she some witch's experiment,' he wondered.

"So it was your red hair that attracted the witches," he muttered softly

He silently gawked at the girl's features that were well defined, like a perfectly moulded sculpture. He couldn't deny that the girl was beautiful.

A foreign thought passed through his head for a fleeting moment that amused him.

Looking back at the girl, he smirked by just imagining her reaction.

He looked forward to her performance in the play when she got to know what it was about.

Lifting up the sleep infused girl, he noticed how she was too light for her age.

Taking her to his bed, he slowly placed her in, removed her dirty shoes and tucked her neatly without her waking up even for a moment.

He remembered a certain girl who loved being tucked in by him.

It had been a week since he had last seen her, and he knew that by now, she was already throwing a fit about it. Maybe at his next visit, he will bring a toy for her to play with, he thought, looking at Florah.

Going over to his reading desk, he grabbed the book Matthew had fetched from the library.

Picking it up, he walked over to his bed and lay in it.

Leaning his upper body on the bed's headboard, he opened the book titled 'Ancient'. The book had a cover of a tail with golden spikes on it and other symbols and letters that he had never seen.

The girl beside him was the reason he had sent for any random historical book about creatures living in Zadroth from the library.

He wanted to know if the girl was a creature he had no idea of, but after seeing the witch, he thought that maybe his maid was just a witch's experiment.

The book somehow intrigued him to read it because he realised it wasn't any normal book.

"Your Majesty, half of this book is blank." Matthew said while handing Gavriel the book.

A towel was tied around his waist, appearing to have come from a bath "hmmm" the king hummed as he received the book.

The book appeared old, but its cover and pages were well kept. The cover was brown hard and cold, revealing how it was scarcely opened.

"Your Majesty, do you need change of a maid." Matthew asked, his eyes glancing at the bathroom door where he had heard water splashing.

Gavriel, who was drying his hair with a towel, looked at his Butler and asked, "Do you think l need that change, Matthew?" his eyes shone with mirth, a smirk playing on his lips.