Innocent Darkness

Origins

Present day July 2017
Nadine POV

I've been here at the Sanctuary in Orlando for a while now. It's like a place for vampires who have nowhere else to go. Like me, I lost my sire, the one who turned me into a vampire, and was exiled from my home. I feel numb just about every day here. My days have just been spent looking out the window, watching the world continue happily as if there weren't creatures that lurk in the darkness. Back at the end of May I was kidnapped and tortured by some super 'chosen' vampire hunter called Van Helsing. I managed to kill him and free his prisoners but at the cost of losing my sire.

He 'perished' in a small explosion but the funny thing is I've felt his presence still since it happened. We bonded in some weird practice that involves drinking each other's blood. We can feel where the other is near, have an idea of their general vicinity, feel their thoughts and feelings on top of getting strange random visions of old memories. Everyone has told me that I haven't accepted his death because I'm having some sort of mental break because that's what is supposed to happen when the other half of your bond breaks. I'm not crazy, I know he's out there and sometimes even watching over me.

Luckily the window I choose to always look out of was specially engineered to allow vampires to stand in sunlight without bursting to ashes. The drawback, however, is I can't touch the glass or I'll end up scorching my skin off. The sun was setting, but even if I touched the glass before it was night time, I'd still hurt myself. I could see an outside clock on the building across from the one I'm in and I turn my head like clockwork to the sound of the door to my room opening.

"Oh look, my daily ration." I say coldly to the man who was bringing a glass of blood with him. He let out a sigh and sat the glass next to where I was sitting.

The laid-back looking man had round coffee-colored eyes. His luxurious, wavy, beige hair is neck-length and is worn in a practical style. He crosses his arms as he looks over me as he usually did, as if he was calculating something before I felt a sharp yank of my arm.

"Ok, you've mourned enough, lets go." He'd say as he dragged me out of the room.

"Let me go Josh!" I protested before he snapped his head back to me.

"Why? So you can continue to sulk and be all brooding? Boo hoo, your sire died. I'm sure if Prince Jones could see the way you were acting he'd say your being embarrassing again!" He shouted at me.

"But," he took a breath to calm himself. "there's something you need to know about. And while I was only told to simply keep you here, I'm actually bored seeing you like this." He'd give a yank to my arm and we walked down the hallway to the main foyer.

The foyer was where everyone hung out at as well as the main entrance to the building. A pair of circle staircases spiraled upwards to an upper floor. He dragged me up the stairs and down another hallway, we were going to his office. Two armed guards stood watch as usual on either side of the double doors. I guess vampires like double doors because I've seen just about every important vampire use them. And yet I get scolded for talking about the 'stereotypical' things vampires do in works of fiction.

Josh released my arm and I took a seat on a couch that sat in a corner of the room. I looked over at the desk that he took a seat at as I sat uncomfortably waiting for him to break the silence of the room. First time I ever met him, there was a different person that sat at that desk. The original person who ran the Sanctuary, but my sire killed him to prove his worth to the Florida Grand Council. The Grand Council overlooked all the smaller vampire leaders in it's state, think like governors and the Princes, male or female were called by the same title, are like mayors of their cities. Not every city had a Prince though, and my sire was Prince Trent Jones of Lakeland. He had some sort of will of sorts that passed the rank to his right hand man Marcus should he die.