The Immortality Doctrine: Bred To The Blood Prince

Chapter 21

Abel and I had reached the tribe when it was almost dark. The group was standing just a few feet near the place.

"Where have you been?" Angeni's brow was furrowed at particularly her brother. I know deep inside that she was angry with me.

"We ju-"

"I'm sorry we forgot about this," Abel stole my thought. But I honestly thought he was going to make up a lie. "Anyway, where are the enemies?"

She raised her eyebrow at him. "They obviously ran away."

The Elder's Village was completely different from normality. Instead of tents filled with vampires in, all that was left were tents somehow but the difference it made was that it was burned by some wildfire or most probably intentional fire.

What I could currently see—tents that barely could stand or were hardly recognizable as tents, and just few fire elsewhere. Based from what I was seeing, this attack occurred an hour ago. 

I found and picked up a material that the villagers seemed to use for their houses on the ground. I looked at it, with my eyes narrowed. It was a piece of fine wood, its edges were a dark-brown mixed with a black color, it was burned.

I also saw wolves around the place, sniffing.

"Have you gotten to this place in this time only?" Abel asked his sister.

She shook her head excessively and looked at the dreadful scene right before us with an obvious expression of anger.

"We all came at the same time. We still waited for the pack in the forest," she clenched her fists as she tilted her head to look at Tate.

"If you and your fucking pack came at time then this shouln't have happened!" She jabbed a furious finger at him. "We should've defended those innocent lives! Now look what you've done, corpses on the ground. Corpses!"

Tate took a step forward to face Angeni, with temper rising in his face. "Are you actually blaming me for whatever happened here?!" He asked. "If in case you've forgotten, you were the one who asked for our help!"

"Let's just split up, everyone. Find some survivors." I interrupted the argument. The argument that seemed like it would get worse if no one would stop them.

Everyone agreed, but not a single one responded. They all quickly did split up. But I caught the both of them scowling at each other.

Tate followed me when I went straight ahead. Abel was with Angeni and probably Eilif as well.

The other wolves guarded the tribe, surrounding the whole place.

I looked around as we walked. There was a tent barely standing up, no fire covering it compared to the others. I took a peek inside. When I was opening the tent flap, there were burned pieces that fell to the ground. There was no one inside, but just dead bodies. I just started to wonder why one of the bodies were covered with blood. So I curiously went inside to check and to make sure.

I carefully walked inside the narrow tent. There was a man who was lying down the ground face-first, his body was almost covered  completely with blood. His blood was still gashing and flowing. I leaned closer to it, and discovered there were some stabs and scratches.

I quickly exited the small tent. "It's a bloodbath attack, Tate. The ones who attacked this place were so ruthless," I told him. "Let's go find another survivor," I added, jogging again directly to my north. As I continued to jog, the place was getting worse, the ground was with more blood. I couldn't afford to open my eyes anymore. More bloodbath each time I dig deeper.

I felt piteous for the innocent people whom those vampires cruelly killed. I knelt down and couldn't handle the grief inside me. Tate stopped by my side, but did not look. I was sobbing all of a sudden. This place was the most dreadful, brutal, and tragic place I had gotten into in my entire life.

"This is all of my fault, Selene. If you think you should blame yourself, don't. This is more a blame to me than you."

"Why were you late?" I couldn't help to ask them that. It wouldn't matter if he would get angry or something.

"You never know how hard it was to lead such a big pack. I had a hard time explaining things to them, making them believe the existence of Angeni's ability. Angeni ought to know that wolves and vampires are foes for centuries until now."

"Wait, did you say foes?" I verified.

"Yes. Wolves don't believe that vampires have abilities. But I think they wouldn't accept that vampires are stronger than them because of they possess magical powers. That was more apparent to me. But it certainly depends. Who's stronger than who."

So that was why. Hmm.

But unexpectedly, there was a cough we both had heard that sounded alive. We exchanged looks for a moment. But we eventually stood to try to follow the sound. Behind a huge burned tent was surprisingly The Elder, whose head was leaning on the tent. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing when I checked the pulse.

His face was dirty from the fire, he was also covered with blood but not entirely. His clothes were torn apart, and the fur that he was using for his warmth was hardly on his body.

"Tate, could you carry him?" I asked. If he couldn't, then I would gladly help him carry.

He nodded without saying a word.

The both of us went to the spot where the group had previously split up. The wolves saw us coming, and watched as we waited for the other vampires. We stood and waited for a few minutes when Angeni first appeared.

"Where did you find the elder?" She asked as she went to touch the hand of the elder.

"Just there, far north." I replied and pointed using my finger. "Did you find any survivors somehow?" I added.

She dropped his hand gently then looked at me. "No, everyone is dead," she replied with a frustration in her voice.

"That's mysterious, Angeni," my eyebrows met as I mused. "If everyone's dead, then how and why did they leave the elder alive?" I asked very quietly.

"That makes sense," Abel commented. When I heard his voice, my body shook. I got shocked, I never knew he was just there.

"We're gonna ask the elder once he's back to normal," Angeni told me.

"I saw some stabs on his dead body," I tried to sound like it was so informative as a school lesson. "Light stabs, few blood. These are making my mind explode. Why didn't he die? This most likely happened an hour ago." To be honest, it could almost be literal—my mind exploding.

I felt Abel's hand on my shoulder, I was squatting. "He's The Elder, remember?"

Oh right. Not just The Elder but more likely the Blood King.

"Where could he be treated . . ." I heard Angeni whisper that to herself.

"In my house, An. My father is a doctor." Luckily, he was.

A grin had appeared from her mouth. "Thank the heavens above."

"Leave us behind, Tate," one of his friends suddenly said.

"Be careful there," I suddenly uttered as if they knew me.

We went out of the tribe, then ran as quickly as our feet could. We could lose his life.