This was so frustrating, I thought. I had been allowed a few days out of the castle to get myself reacquainted with the streets of the town. I had put myself in a coma a couple hundred years ago to escape my doom. I had been…let's just say that I had been torn between two people, and took the easy way out. I was out late one night, on a corner near a tavern trying to get some sleep, when someone started singing.

A baritone voice rang out: "Where are you?"

It was weird, sung like that. The voice repeated it: "Where are you?"

Without thinking, I answered back: "Where am I?"

He asked again: "Where are you?"

"Where am I? I am here. Why should you care?"

He said: "I have been trying to find you, but you were always out of reach."

A hand touched me, hesitantly. The unexpected touch made me jerk back with a shriek. Reflexively, I spun out of my sit into an attack position.

Even while I did that, we sang together: "Where am I? Where are you? Who is to say who we are and what we do? We are as free as spirits in the Dead Land with no one to tell us how to behave. We haunt the living, not quite here and not quite gone."

The blue-haired man was a vampire. I could tell because of his hair. People can dye their hair here, but vampires can't, and besides, human hair dye isn't that vibrant. I could tell that he was trained as an assassin, the same as me.

As soon as we finished our little song, I moved away from him and started back toward the palace. The blue-haired man, known as Gackt, was – is, still, perhaps - in love with me, and also I wasn't really comfortable with talking with my own kind. Gackt moved to tug me back, but I pulled out from his grasp before he could even get me. I knew that he had been looking for me ever since Battle of Langton.

I ended sleeping on the floor of a tavern inside the smallest space I could find. As soon as the dawn came, I was out in my robe - my special one with the long sleeves that went over my hands and cast my entire face in shadow, no matter where the sun was - and made it back to the palace without meeting Gackt again, though I had the feeling he was following me.

As my duty as one of the two vampires who were employed to be the Princess' bodyguards, I was required to be with her pretty much all the time, except for when she dismissed me.

I slipped into place behind her chair as she herself settled into her beside her father, Kozi. Both of them are vampires, and are only two of the long line of vampire royalty that I have served under in the centuries that I had been captured by Kozi's grandparents. I knew what to do when there was an attack or an assassin loose in the palace. There were many servants in the palace, over one thousand. Most cleaned, cooked, and did other things of that sort.

There were some personal advisors and servants who calculated the taxes, and so on. There were also a lot of off-duty guards there, flirting with the servants that were also off-duty. I scanned the hall for trouble.

I thought back to the first day that I had been awake. Marie had strategically placed guards around the castle to capture me. As I was considerably weaker then I had been before I went to sleep, they had no trouble carrying me back to her rooms. The only reason why I had been able to escape the first two guards was because they were more focused on the prisoners. Maria and I – well, it was just Maria; I had been given food with blood capsules placed in them and I was ravenous – decided that I would be one of her bodyguards. I would take over the shift when the other vampire was too tired to perform his duty.

The first day I was awake was such a day, and I had been with Maria until he recovered. Unfortunately, this went on for too long, so Maria appointed me as her full-time bodyguard and dismissed the other vampire. I had bound up my long red hair into a neat bun. Jonathan, a scholar who had just been employed in the Royal Library, had a tendency to try to tell Maria family history by heart doesn't mean that he can tell everyone that Kozi's great-great-great-great-however-many-times-great grandfather and his family had slaughtered my family and taken the throne for themselves, least of all the people who could have him killed in a matter of words.

I had no idea how Jonathan got past me, but that day as Marie, Kozi, Brian (he's Kozi's bodyguard) and I were walking in the king's favorite rose garden (all the roses were Vampire Roses; they change colors to match the vampire's hair as they walk by. For Kozi they were green, for Maria they were orange, and for me they were red.) Jonathan was all of a sudden was there, talking to Marie and Kozi. I almost strangled him, but Jonathan was too well liked by Kozi for me to do that. As they glanced back at me, I felt Brian nudge me in the ribs.

"What do you think they're talking about?" Brian asked in an undertone.

"You don't want to know. When I get kicked out, ask then."

I felt unsettled as Jonathan came past.

"You're gonna get it now." He smirked.

Marie and Kozi headed back to us.

"Come, Madrena. We're going to give you a bath."

I struggled to get out of Kozi's strong grasp as Marie ordered some servants to collect the blood from the boars that were being slaughtered for dinner and bring it up to her room. Kozi left the room briefly as Marie forced me to remove my outer clothing. Kozi helped to bring in the bathtub full of boar's blood and placed it by the fire. The other servant glanced at me twice, and then scurried out of the room. No doubt that she would be passing on rumors that the princess' bodyguard took baths in blood. Marie furiously yanked my arm toward her and the bathtub full of blood. She started to scrub my arms, but stopped suddenly.

My arms were starting to glow, red lines starting to appear where Marie scrubbed. My family, they were deemed by the gods as the ones fit to rule our kingdom. They put marks upon us, lines on our entire bodies - the color of our hair - so that all would know we were the true rulers. When Kozi's family slaughtered my family, I made it so that no one would be able to see them, so I wouldn't have to kill even more people. They would only show if I bathed fully in blood, which I had never done. Until now, that is

"All right, you. Undress the rest of the way and get in that tub. No use in leaving only your hands like that." Kozi ordered.

As he left the room yet again, I undressed fully and quickly immersed myself in the full-to-the-brim bathtub. Despite myself and my surrounding environment, I enjoyed the feeling of blood soaking into my thirsty skin.

I relaxed for the first time since I had woken up from my self-induced coma. I had no idea that blood could do such wonders for my skin. It was smoother than before, and paler. It was the oddest thing, I thought.I should do this more often. I ducked my head under the surface. After several minutes, I came back up for air. When I couldn't possibly stand to be in the tub anymore, I took the towel from Marie and dried off, staining the white cloth. I was sent back to my rooms when I was dry, wrapped only in the towel and holding my clothes. I was told that I was to be sent for when I was needed. Meals were sent to my room, and I grew increasingly lonely. Weeks, and then months, passed as I wandered around my room. I wasn't even allowed to keep my Qnein – the gigantic mountain wolves that picked who their owners would be and never left their side since – in my room. Qnein can be trained to do practically anything. They can be used as bloodhounds, guard dogs, anything. They seem to love children, though. I always found that odd. Such a large animal that can easily tear apart a full-grown man loves to spend tome with children that barely reach its knees.