Alrighty! Here's just a simple (tsh, yeah right) vampire story by ME, your goddess, Raven. Nah, just kidding about the goddess part xD! Oh, and here's my disclaimer: Some of my ideas come from various books, such as the Anita Blake books by Laurell K. Hamilton. But I will not take actual characters from the book and call them mine. Do I look greedy to you?!

Introduction:

The Menial

Sumire wants out; now. Her back is raw and bloody, and she can't remember the last time that she ate a meal she wasn't afraid was poisoned.

At a mansion called Phoenix, every slave Vampire owns a slave, and every slave is treated like a worthless animal. It just so happened that Sumire gave the Master Vampire a note-worthy scar on the left side of his face. So, of course, she's treated the worst. If she drops something, she's whipped at least five times. If she's rude, she goes without a meal for a week. Any Vampire she meets up with in the grand hallways of Phoenix usually adds to her cuts and bruises.

When a new Vampire named Wraith appears, Sumire can't help but think that there's something different about him. He's quiet, but not paranoid. Inside of him, power builds itself. Sumire realizes that this Vampire is a good guy, and he's also more powerful than any Vampire she's ever met. If she tried to befriend Wraith, would she be able to escape? She hopped so.

Please R&R and ENJOY!!


Chapter One

When the sun found its way through her poorly curtained window, Sumire smiled. She was sitting upon her bed, waiting for it. When the sun came up, the Vampires went down.

"Are you going to go to Arrah?" A girl with fair blonde hair and bright green eyes was standing in the doorway. Her name was Lira, and she shared the room with Sumire.

"Yeah, I suppose I have to. I can't exactly bend over after that last hit."
Lira made a face, then disappeared from the doorway. Sumire waited until she couldn't hear Lira's footsteps down the hallway before getting up. When her feet hit the ground, one of the large scabs on her back cracked with a sort of ripping noise, and the girl had to take a hold of one of the posts to make sure her knees didn't buckle. Thank the Gods that they had Arrah (a Healer) living in Phoenix.

Otherwise, Sumire thought as she made her way down the hallway, I might not be living at all.

Once the girl reached the small medical wing of the mansion, she pulled open a door which lead to Arrah's nursing room. The old woman was skilled in healing whatever needed to be healed, but she never could yell at the Vampires for hurting the humans she lived with.

"Oh, sweet Jesus, let me look at you," Arrah pulled Sumire over to one of the beds in the room, then sat her down. The back of her shirt was crusted with blood, and Sumire knew that they'd have to peel it off.

"Carver had a little too much fun with the whip last night." She mumbled, then looked away while Arrah started peeling the shirt off. Unfortunately for her, there was a tall mirror facing her.

The girl studied her reflection as Arrah lightly pulled at the shirt. She wasn't very tall, standing at five-foot-four, and had long, tangled black hair. It framed her face almost perfectly sometimes, and exaggerated her steely gray eyes and pale complexion. Sometimes she thought that she was the Vampire, not them. At least she was 18 years old and they were about 380.

Her arms were lined with scars, and she knew that once it healed she'd have to take a look at her back. The skin was so shiny because of all of the scars that were put upon her back; not even Arrah could fully heal some of them.

Sumire's eyes left herself to study Arrah. The woman was older, yes, but she flounced around like a woman in her mid twenties. Arrah had the same black hair that Sumire did, but she had blue eyes instead of the gray. The Vampires had put her in charge of the medicine cabinet for a reason. Her and Sumire were family; mother and daughter. It was an awful fact, but Sumire trusted her mother more than anyone in Phoenix. That was a simple fact.

"Okay, it's off." Arrah made a face when she dropped the bloody and torn shirt into one of the trash bins, then left to go get some medicine. When she returned, she motioned with her hand for Sumire to lay on her front. The girl did, and her mother sat down next to her. She was holding a washcloth and a liquid used for cleansing a wound, but it hurt like Hell.

As she poured the liquid on, Sumire dug her face into her arms and snarled to herself. Some day, she'd be able to use that damn leather whip on Carver and enjoy it just as much as he enjoyed whipping her.

"Oh, child," Arrah whispered under her breath, and Sumire lifted her head. The liquid in the bottle was almost completely gone, and they'd started with a full bottle. But it was the expression on her mother's face that made Sumire turn her head more. "If he went any deeper he could have snapped your spine."
"Oh, I know mum. I know. That bastard is awful, but it's just because he's embarrassed that a human gave him that ugly scar on his face. He deserved it." Sumire looked away and relaxed her shoulders. Since the scabs had been washed away, the four new slashes from the whip were bleeding freely. Arrah left them to bleed for a minute so that the bacteria would leave with the blood.

A few minutes later, she returned with bandages and a jar of ointment. She made it and kept it specially for her daughter, although there were other ointments that she used on everyone else. Some may call if unfair, but not everybody got beat the way Sumire did.

"So, what are your plans for today, mum?" She had to break the awful silence between them.

"Oh, I don't know," Arrah didn't look up from her work. She carefully pasted some of the ointment onto one of the slash wounds. It had a cooling effect, so Sumire wasn't in much pain thankfully. "I think I'm just going to make a few new topical meds and what-not. What about you?"

Sumire nodded slightly, then shrugged. Both women flinched because of it. "I-I'll just wander around. Maybe go out and get some vegetables for tonight's dinner. Maybe I can try to make it decent for once."
Arrah had stopped putting the ointment on, and that made Sumire turn her head to look at her again. The woman's eyes were sad, and she looked at her daughter in a way that made her want to cry. "Carver told me that he wants to drink from you tonight, Sumire."
"Oh," Was all that she could say to reply. She wanted to hug her mother, but she couldn't because of the ointment. After a few moments, Arrah thankfully started pasting more on, then finally wrapped her back with the bandages.

Sumire sat up as her mother left to get her a new shirt. Their clothing wasn't special at all; it consisted of black flannel pants, and a black shirt that was either long-sleeved or had no sleeves at all. Today, Sumire got the shitty version of a tank-top. The bandage didn't show from under it, so Carver wouldn't take his own anger out on Arrah tonight for "helping and loving" her daughter, as he'd put it.

"Alright, off you go." Arrah smiled, then patted her daughter on the cheek. A hug would be useless, obviously, but the contact made Sumire feel better. With a nod, she walked out of the wing and meandered down the hallways.

She came to a halt in front of one of the many paintings that lined the spacious hallways of Phoenix. It was a painting of Carver. In this one, his shoulder-length gray hair was tied back, and he was glaring with those piercing amber eyes of his. His face was sharp and mean. He was from somewhere in Europe, but he carried no accent. It must have been because he was so old. Carver was exactly five-hundred and fifty years old. He was the most powerful Vampire in the house, and probably the country. But then again, Sumire had never gone beyond the gates of Phoenix while she was there. She'd been a slave for seven years. Arrah had given birth to her in another city, but was captured and taken in as one of Phoenix's slaves. She wasn't killed because of her ability to heal. When the Vampires found out that she had a daughter somewhere out there, they searched for a year until they finally found her. Sumire had been hiding in her father's place. He looked nothing like her, except for the gray eyes. His hair had been blond and short. He was a gentle and kind man, and the Vampires had slaughtered him like a pig. Sumire wouldn't forgive that, ever. That was one reason why Carver had that scar on his face.

In the painting, there was no scar. Sumire guessed that it was done at least seventy years ago. But now, the Vampire had a pink, ugly scar that was about two inches wide and ran from the top of his hairline down to his chin in a curve. It sat on the right side of his face, because at the time, that was the only area that Sumire could reach with a butcher's knife.

"I thought that you weren't allowed around here."
A clear, dark voice was heard from behind her, and Sumire whirled around. Gerard, Carver's usual "blood donor", respected Sumire more than she thought he did. He enjoyed the fact that whenever Carver fed off of him he could see that scar she'd given him.

Sumire grinned. "I'm not, but that doesn't stop me."

Gerard smiled and shrugged. "I guess not. Did Arrah help much?"

"Yeah, and I guess that you get to take the night off."

"I what?"

Sumire sighed and sat down on one of the benches that sat next to a window. Gerard sat next to her, but he turned so he could look at her. "Carver told mum that he wanted my blood tonight, so I guess you don't have to give any tonight."

Gerard waved his hand as if he was trying to wave her words off. "He'll probably lend me out to someone else. You know that."
The girl's eyes lowered, and she shrugged. "But one can hope, can't she?"

Gerard nodded slowly, then suddenly perked up. "Hey, I guess a Master Vampire from another state is coming in tonight."

"And why are you so happy about it?"

"I overheard Carver complaining that he was stronger than any other Vampire here. Apparently, Misery invited him."

"Misery's such a whore. She probably just wants to sleep with whoever this Master is or something."

Gerard laughed. "Yeah, but Carver usually occupies that certain spot on the bed, so I don't think he'd let Misery get away with that."

Sumire nodded. Carver would rather kill than let his dear Misery, the "High Bitch" as they all call her, sleep with someone else rather than him.