A Vampire to Rule: Fallen Empire (UNEDITED)

CHAPTER TEN...

~THIS TIME WHEN I make it to my backyard, I am not greeted with the same luxurious sense. Right now, all I can sense is death.

The obnoxious size of my backyard does not help me as I so desperately try and follow the sent of spilled blood. I am like a mouse, running through a maze that has no actual exit except one: death. Whatever this smell is, I don't want to know. Who's blood has fallen, I don't care. I just pray to whatever God that listens to a damned creature like me will let me come to find a dead deer.

My heart beat begins to synch with my footsteps. they are the only things my eats can pick up as I run through this maze of a garden.

Thump thump. Pat pat. Thump thump. Pat pat.

My eyes begin to make out something in the distance. As I make it closer and closer, my eyes make it out to be a body. Then, my nose gets a wife of a strong intake of blood; a pureblood's blood. And finally, my heart almost full on stops when I am left face to face with my own mother's body before me.

My movements came to a halt once about three yards away. I begin to reel in the sight before me. Her blood is pouring out slowly from her chest, her face looks ghastly, and her breathing is faint. That means one thing: she's still alive.

Quickly, my feet spring back to life and make it over to my dying mother's side. I gently kneel myself beside her. Looking at her like this, for some reason, does not seem right. To see my mother, a cruel woman, yes, but a powerful woman, so broken, so gone like this does not sit with me. This woman, who was suppose to be my best friend in life, was really my enemy. I know this, yet why do I want to weep at her last, dying breath?

As a last chance to reach out to her, I literally, reach out to her, gently taking her hand to mine. With this action, the woman before me opens her eyes. Those eyes, that normally pierce me just by looking at them, are soft and gentle.

Then, she smiles.

An actual smile.

Not in all my years being alive has she ever once smiled at me genuinely.

Her smile never leaves her face, even when she reaches up to gently stroke my face.

Like a dog, I lean into the gentle touch. Her kindness becomes too much. Tear after tear start to flood out of my eyes. No longer can I conceal emotions. No longer can I hold in my true feelings; that I have longed for this, for my mother to cherish me.

"Why," I furiously cry out.

"Why? Why, why why..."

Eventually, my helpless cries of "why," turn into incoherent sobs. I can't bare myself to look into my mother's face. It's too good to be true, and it is all about to be taken away.

"Layla," my mother's gentle, reassuring voice calls out to me. I bring myself to look at her, taking in every feature I possibly can.

"Who did this to you," I allow myself to speak. My mother shakes her head.

"We don't need to dwell on that-"

"Yes I do," I scream out broken. Before me, I have what I wished for my entire life, and its being ripped away from me.

"Please," my mother begs. Begs. Kristine Hardsworth does not beg.

"Mother," I whisper out mystified.

"Please," she repeats. "Drink my blood."

I am taken back.

Why?

When my eyes meet her own, I am met with the most desperate plead I have ever seen. The look forces me to oblige.

"Okay," I say, a small smile passing my face.

Slowly, I bend down, aligning my mouth to her neck. I bring myself to lean in and pierce into her skin, taking in the sweet taste of her blood.

As the delicate blood passes my lips, everything in sight disappears.