The door to Angelina's room opened slightly and her father stepped halfway in. Angelina did not look away from the window, but continued watching the people, vampire and human down below. The sun sank behind the mountains surrounding their kingdom turning her porcelain skin red and reflecting off her elaborate robe. She held her arms folded over her chest and lifted a perfect brown in thought. Even to her father she looked like some ancient Greek goddess standing in judgment over mere mortals, and this pleased him tremendously. It showed that all his hard work had not gone to waste; that she one day would be an equally brutal leader, no love, no mercy.
King Aster walked up behind her as silent as a prowling cat and put his hands on her shoulders. Still she remained fixed, as if set in stone. "Your slave has been brought back," he said. "And I was told that you disciplined him despite that fact that he'd already been punished rather severely by Vylette."
Angelina continued to stare.
"Hard and cold as ice. Just like your mother," the king said. "When you were a little girl you seemed a bit too spoiled to become as great a woman as your mother, but now I see differently. You will spread our rule some day. Then we will no longer have to live in these accursed mountains in fear."
"We do not live in fear," Angelina said. "We create it. Being a myth to the humans provides a perfect shield for our way of life. It gives us more power."
"Well spoken," King Aster said. "If only all of the subjects saw as you see, then we would have more slaves and more lands."
Angelina still did not look away from the window.
"If only everyone kept their slaves in line as you do…"
The sun disappeared behind the black mountains.
"If only we could erase the rebellion from your slave's mind…"
The light above the mountains dimmed to gray.
"It is a wonder that he continues to run away…"
Stars shown above the castle.
"That kind of stubbornness is admirable though, if he was one of our own I think I might be rather fond of him…reminds me of myself when I was young."
The crowds below had thinned and animals alone frequented the streets. Angelina sighed, turned, though she still did not look at her father, and walked to her bed.
"Well, you must be tired," King Aster said. "I'll leave you." He walked from the room and shut the door behind him.
Angelina put her robe on the bedpost and crawled between the silk sheets. She stared at the ceiling and put the back of her hand on the empty pillow next to her. For the next hour she tried not to think of Axel; of his blue eyes that held no fear of human, vampire, werewolf or witch, his smile that when unguarded filled even the darkest rooms, his strength that went beyond mere muscle, his stubbornness…but the more she tried not to think about him, the more she did. A never-ending cycle. His voice…his laugh…it had to stop. There could never be a 'them', though they worked hard to free as many slaves as possible, they themselves would always be slaves; Angelina to her position, and Axel to the vampires. Never a them, not unless they wanted all they worked for to be destroyed, not unless they wanted to suffer torture and death, not unless they wanted the kidnapping of young children and the secret tyrannical reign of the vampire to continue. There were times that Angelina wished with all her being to be human, she wished and cried so hard that sometimes she thought she'd die, sometimes she even wished that she would die. But too many people, innocent people needed the cover she provided them as Axel lead them through the woods and to the mountains, to many people suffered a great deal more than she, Axel suffered a great deal more than she.
Angelina rolled over onto her face and cried herself to sleep.
