Disclaimer: I don't own KHR =w= If I did, I'd make all of my favorite pairings canon.

Chapter 1

First Meetings

It was a time of chaos in the world, wars all around and countless deaths every day. The realm of vampires –children of the night and enemies of the sun– was vastly growing, each day gaining many more as they steadily conquered empires, and even full countries. The leader of one of these deathly empires, one that dwelled in the time of darkness and was only lit from the moon and stars, was none other than king of the vampires, father to three, pureblood princes. All were fair skinned, yet only the third prince held the light head of blonde. With matching pale blue eyes, the third son held his ground well, along with holding the intelligence of someone who had been taught privately since childhood. He was both a skilled fighter and strategist, keeping mostly to himself unless his father commanded for him to do something else with his time. It was never easy for his father to convince the prince to do something though, as he was stubborn and aloof, following nobody other than his own thoughts and rules. He was both the worst rebel and perfect one to have the throne when he was gone, the king had decided. And for that, he had named the third prince heir to the throne.

The next king of the vampires would be King Alaude. Although this in itself had many risks, the king held the promise, and had demanded for guards to be with Alaude for most of the time he spent outside. That didn't mean that there had never been near-death experiences for the young vampire. Even with his mere 26 years in life, he had probably experienced more assassination attempts on him than any other person –other than his own father – by his own older brothers. Both jealous of his prowess and status, they planned for their younger brother's death daily. That had lead for the blonde to stay in his grand quarters for most days.

Alaude though, wasn't bothered in the least. He merely scoffed at the fruitless attempts his brothers had tried on him as he read vast amounts of books and scriptures in his study, closed off from the world. His meals were brought to him, and drudges, although scarce, we're brought to another room, which was connected to his very own study by a long, narrow passage that only him, the King, and the servants knew about. Very rarely did they ever come onto his quarters. Only a handful of times had one of them been able to see inside his study, and that had only been because the blonde had starved himself of blood for far too long.

There was something about drinking blood from mere servants that repulsed the blonde. He loathed having to feed from these lowly peasants. Their blood was not only weak, but it was also not the sweetest nor tastiest of them all. Only because he needed his strength to be okay did he ever make himself feed from those filthy humans, and he never made it a habit for him to feast upon them too much. If he could, he would not feed for a week, maybe for two, if he could save his energy and snacked on normal, human food for those days.

Maybe it was because of those many incidents where he had not had the will to feed that his father had forced him to sit inside this empty room at the moment. There was nobody in sight for now, yet there were three very adorned chairs set up close together, while a short, yet grand table was in the middle of them, separating two chairs from another in front of them. The table, as far as he could tell, was filled with human food, which held barely any taste; it was simply not to his liking. Although he could eat the foods, the nutritional values were not only low for a vampire such as him, but it was like eating paper for Alaude. Barely any taste was present whenever he happened to chew on those mundane snacks. From the foods spread out in front of him, to the chair in front of him, he could guess that his father was expecting somebody else here. The two were probably in their way right now, he mused, looking around the room. Leaning back on his own chair beside the throne-like one to his right, Alaude waited patiently, just like the silent child he was.

The room was dark, thick curtains draping over the windows in –very successful– attempts at blocking out the sunlight from the room. It was the morning after all, the sun just rising and stopping any stray vampires which were still outside right in their tracks. Such a nuisance, the sun was. The mere sight of it could make nearly every vampire shrink in both fear and panic. Inside the walls of the Stonehenge castle though, all of the servants, maids and habitants were safe, always keeping curtains on the windows save for the few hours that there was no chance of the sun appearing.

When his sensitive ears picked up the sounds of steps coming closer, he sat up straight, fixing his attire slightly before standing up as the king of the vampires appeared through the doors, a rather rare visitor following behind him. The air of power resonating from that very man that could make Alaude kneel down to his very order was strong; it was the only thing the prince would ever listen to, in the end. Even as the stubborn man he was, he knew when to bow down to something greater than him, and his father was one of them, albeit he had never met anyone who had the same prowess. The one behind him, he seemed to have potential though.

He was the leader of one of the most powerful Empires in the human world, one of the Empires that they were at war with. Even if he didn't go out all that much, the young vampire knew much from what happened in the outside world, mostly being told news from his many servants that kept to his needs. This man had conquered towns, empires, and even countries in the war. From what he had heard, he could be deadly, even to the most powerful vampires. Although the air that came from this –much younger– man was not as strong, Alaude could sense the authority and… strange calm that came with him. With such a rare visitor, he wondered why they were here today.

Ice blue eyes focused on the new face in front of him, silently studying the human as they all sat down, the king beside the prince while the other sat in front of them, giving the young prince a perfect view to watch him. Whatever he was here for, he wasn't approving in the least, the soft frown curving his eyebrows downwards slightly, as well as rigid his posture was successfully showing that. Had he been more focused on the conversation his father and the visitor had been having, Alaude would have picked up the words 'blood', 'my son', and 'consort' being used in the same sentence, yet he had not been paying attention, since he had been to absorbed in watching the man in front of him. Those focused green eyes, shining even in the lack of light in the room, only candles lighting it at this time of day since the light affected most servants far too easily.

As a pureblood, Alaude had no problems like this, not even the sun affected him, other than it making him slightly drowsy. He had never figured out if that had been the just the amount of time he had been awake, or the actual sun, though, usually just blaming it on the former. At the moment, that train of thought only made him wonder if perhaps his pale skin might have looked a bit more like the olive, tanned skin of the other male's, the Cavallone Emperor having that tinted skin so different from his kind; and that hair, almost as black as midnight as it contrasted even with his skin. It was as if they were opposites, Alaude with pale features and the emperor whose name he recalled being... Alessio... was it? had tanned features from having lived in day instead of night.

"... my son, Alaude." The sound of his name being spoken for the first time held his attention immediately, his penetrating gaze falling on his father's face right away, turning to his right as he focused on him instead of the other man. The scrutinizing look he had gotten from the king told him he had needed to pay attention from a long time before now. Surely he had missed something as the king sighed softly, his own gaze on the raven's face. That stern, commanding gaze –true of a leader– made any retort he had held die, his own stoic gaze falling on the green-eyed man once more. What should he do now? He had already missed most of the conversation. Truly lost in what was happening, the blonde chose to tune out what was being said, again, and just choosing to trust one of the servants by the door -which were most likely listening to the discussion at the moment– to relay to him what had been said.

Far too soon for his tastes though, the conversation was over, his father calling a servant to show both of them to a room in his quarters. With a puzzled look, he glanced back at his father, not knowing what was really happening before he was obediently ushered to a room. Why were they going to his quarters? The servant quickly had taken note of the blank look on the prince's face apparently, as the only words he spoke were, "The Emperor has agreed to be your personal consort so that your empires will become allies." Ah, that explained it. A frown touched his brow.

For once, he was glad that this servant happened to be one of the ones that served him daily, for if it had been anyone else, they would not have told him what was going on. The servant had left as soon as they had entered his quarters, leaving Alaude and the emperor alone, the air tense with anxiousness and awkwardness. The third prince didn't want anything to do with this, he decided. Even if this man was pretty much royalty and had just agreed to being his personal consort, the blonde had not agreed, and so he held no interest in these things.

Why was this happening though? There was obviously something that he had missed in those long minutes that he had been paying attention to the strange appearance that this man had. It was truly unlike anyone's he had seen. Although he had seen and met with humans in the past, the prince had never seen someone with such skin, such hair, nor such green, shining, yet guarded eyes like this man's. There was something about this man that gave him a mysterious air, something strange about him, yet that something was still as mundane as ever. He then realized he had been staring again.

With a silent huff, he turned on his heel, pointedly ignoring the man named Alessio. Alaude moved over to his study, choosing not to be in his room along with the emperor. He was bored, and the strange man had been silent since they had left the room where his father had been. The only reason why he hadn't outright rejected the idea when he had been told what was going on by his servant was because of the way his father had looked at him as they had left. This was his duty as their heir to the throne, he guessed, as he picked up an ancient book he favored, opening it to the page he was on before starting to read, ignoring the man in the room.

A/N: Okay, so this is the first chapter. I wrote this out at one in the morning on my phone, and edited it this morning since I'm sick and didn't go to school. Because of the people that read this said that I should make it into a fanfic (mostly Lulu), I decided to make it into one, although I barely have an idea of where this is going, so bare with me.