Empire of Vampires ✔️

Chapter Twenty-Six

A/N: ^what do you think of Danyel ;)

She sucked in a breath; her worst fears being confirmed. She'd always suspected it had been him, the man who'd turned her as she lay dying. But now that he stood in front of her, she didn't want to believe it. She had always imagined her saviour to be a decent sort of fellow; a hero, even.

The man before her was just a murderous maniac. 

An admittedly handsome maniac whose platinum blonde hair was in charming disarray around a sculpted face. Looking into his jet-black eyes was like staring into a never-ending void that you could just fall into and never stop falling. His style was outdated by centuries; being the type of clothing worn by men back when Marienne was human.

His white muslin shirt billowed loosely at the sleeves and did not button all the way up. His cuffs were undone and his collar was rakishly low, leaving his well-carved chest partly visible. He wore scandalously tight leggings that left little to the imagination. She was trying hard not to glance down.

Marie had always felt that men just dressed better back in the day. She certainly hadn't enjoyed the constraining styles of the era she was born in but she was just hypocritical enough to want a man to make the effort. 

His feet, however, were bare; making his movements all the lither as he stood in more grace than the lady herself. He was breathing heavily after their intense scuffle, his chest rising and falling with his ragged breaths. 

He bowed deeply to the lady standing in front of him, momentarily forgetting which era he was in.

'Pardon my rude manners, my lady, the name's Danyel. Unfortunately, there is no third-party present to make our formal introductions.' 

He took her ungloved hand in his own and she snatched it away furiously, causing him to apologize yet again for the impropriety.

'If you will forgive me, I must be on my way now,' Danyel said, a faraway look in his eyes.

Before she could argue, he had already run off into the distance, much faster than she could hope to catch up with.

'Hey! WAIT!' she yelled, but he didn't slow down.

'At least don't kill any more people!' she hollered after him, knowing he must've heard her.

Marie turned on her heel and walked to the bushes, steaming with irritation. There nestled into its softness, Andrew and James were still dozed off, the loud events of earlier having not disturbed them. Andrew's arm was splayed over her brother's chest; her brother who had an ungentlemanly line of drool slipping down his chin. 

She smacked him hard on the head.

James groaned and they both stretched awake, rubbing sleep off of their eyes.

'Did you catch the murderer...?' he mumbled rolling into a sitting position.

'Yes, no thanks to YOU.'

'You told mee to stay in the bush-'

'Well he got away now,' Marie grumbled, cutting him off, 'We'll have to come back next weekend to deal with it; at least, I don't think he'll get up to any mischief till then.'

She hoped she was right in that he seemed to accept her explanation of "killing being bad", she doubted he'd even thought of it that way before. He was like an outlier, who couldn't fit into society and follow its rules.

She crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for the apologetic boys to get up and dust themselves off. She glared at them for a good long while, hoping to instill some fear and respect, before she marched back the way they had come from.

The boys sheepishly followed her, trailing behind as she led them to the train station. They had seen the tracks curving all the way around the crater but hadn't been able to use them earlier as they had needed to get to the middle of the crater where the city was.

They chugged along now, James and Andrew sitting on one side of the booth and Marie sitting opposite and facing them. The boys stayed quiet under Marie's strict stare. She frowned at them now and then to remind them of their bad behaviour. They were meekly repentant under her stern gaze.

Finally deciding they had suffered enough, she relaxed against the back of her seat, de-stressing the entire atmosphere of the cabin. The boys let out a joint sigh of relief and she sat up straight again, frowning at the sound to keep them on their toes. They paused mid-sigh and waited in fear until she lounged back again, finally allowing them to let it out.

James was looking out of the window with an unreadable expression on his face. Andrew glanced out to see that his gaze was fixed on a few large holes cut into the mountain side, covered up sparsely with wooden slats.

'What are those?' he pointed, not so knowledgeable of the geography of the mountain area.

'They're the old wars tunnels,' James's eyes were glazed over in remembrance, 'I forgot they existed...'

Andrew bit his lip, sorry to have asked. He gazed into James's eyes in silent apology and grasped his cold hand under the table. 

The other boy managed to give him half a smile before he continued on, 'It leads straight to the meadow where the battle was fought... it's littered in lilies now. Do you think Danyel might go there?' This last question was directed at his sister who briefly glanced up in contemplation.

'He's trying to rid it from being supplied, something about it falling into the wrong hands.' She quickly explained their encounter before she continued, 'No human can go into the meadow without being blinded anyway, I don't know if even we can... so, yeah, I don't think anyone's going to be going in there,' she concluded abruptly, being dragged back into her own daydreams.

She couldn't get her mind off the eternal, he just puzzled her like no human ever had. His striking face was engraved in her mind; his hard features in a well-proportioned face. Stunningly contradictory against his soft, pink lips that were slightly parted in ragged breaths... those thick slanted eyebrows resting over black pools of desire... No. No, there had been NO desire. 

She was ashamed of her lustful thoughts now and she stared down at her own hands, trying to think of someone better who didn't just go around killing innocent people... someone like Georgie... actually, that made her blush too and she put her face down on the table and pretended to sleep so that the annoying boys sitting opposite wouldn't notice and tease her.

Andrew and James were paying no attention to her however, their fingers were still tangled together as they stared out the window, each lost in their own thoughts. The vampyre's fingers were turning surprisingly warm in Andrew's hand. He stared down at the long, graceful fingers, slightly tinged with red from his heat. 

James turned away from the window and saw Andrew staring open-mouthed at their entangled hands. He flushed a little as the other boy pulled his hand away self-consciously and awkwardly pretended to fix his hair to keep them busy.

They were back at the base of the mountains by now and from there they made the tiresome journey upwards, switching trains and tracks ever so often. They finally snuck back into the school a few hours later and dawdled away the rest of the weekend before stumbling distractedly into class the next morning.