A slave greeted Darius As he entered through the front doors of Zane’s magnificent and sprawling castle.Vines grew up all around the thick, wooden arched doorway, some hanging down heavy with jasmine and ivy. “I’ll summon your host.” The male slave bowed deeply and the top of his stark gray head could be seen.He had thick hair that hung just to the top of his white, starched collar.A crimson red bowtie was smartly positioned at his neck, concealing much of it. His tuxedo jacket was made of heavy black velvet and his pants were black and made of wool.
“Don’t.” Darius shooed his hand past the butler.Evan, the butler, stood back just a step, not having expected this reaction to his humble and polite greeting.Darius had his thick blond hair pulled back into a ponytail. The fringes of it reached his back just between his collar bones.His eyes were the deepest, most liquid crystal blue, so dark that they could pass for black if one was not close enough to him or seeing him in the full on light.“Just tell me where my host is.” Darius sniffed at Evan. “I’ll go to him myself.”
“He is in the north garden, Sir.”
Darius brushed by the butler most rudely, simply because he did not move out of the way fast enough for him.Evan watched the back of his master’s esteemed guest as he strolled through the great foyer.The vampire seemed to float over the dark, wide planked floor, his steps perfect, smooth, and stealthy.
Darius was very powerful as a vampire.He was not as strong as Zane and possessed no special power unique to himself, but he was fearsome all the same.He had known Zane when Zane was just a child.Darius was turned when he was in his late teens, so he was not only like a big brother to Zane, but like a second father as well.Where Arrios could be aloof and distant, Darius was warm, fun, and almost like a kid himself.He watched Zane grow and mature until his aging process halted due to the vampire blood within his veins.As Darius made his way though Zane’s labyrinth of a castle, he thought back to his own beginnings.
Darius, as a boy, lived in a slave camp for another vampire that lived a long way from here.The vampire whom was his master, Hugo, took a liking to him.Much like himself, Hugo was blond with deep sea blue eyes.Darius was a hard worker and Hugo would see him often around his home cleaning, washing clothes, working in the fields, tending to the farm animals.Everything that was the duty of any slave, Darius would do.To avoid punishment, he picked up where everyone else slacked off.
When Darius was only four years old, he was asleep in his mother’s arms when a small group of human hunters attacked his family.‘Human’ hunters were those people, since they could not re-enter into the humans’ world without vampiric power, who would rob tiny babies and small children from the poor families in Zane’s realm and bring them to other - not so honest - vampires in return for special favor.The newborns were the easiest, they were the least able to track as stolen property.Plus, they would have no attachment to their biological families as they grew.Their only family would be other slaves that belonged to the same vampire they belonged to.Darius, however, was older and had memories of his family, however fleeting, and of what had happened that stormy night so many centuries ago.
The hunters that took Darius had tied down his siblings and parents, pillaged his family’s hut, raped his mother and two sisters, beat his father and brother, then lit the hut on fire while they were still in it.As the hunters took the kicking and screaming Darius away, he could hear the piercing screams and blood curdling wails from his family as they burned.
The three men that had taken the platinum headed boy were rough and unfeeling.They kicked and beat him and made terrible fun of him while they had him and were taking him to Hugo’s home.Hugo owned ten slaves, he was more or less a ‘regular’ vampire and was among the most popular - and least powerful l- kind of vampires in the kingdom.
