4. Getting closer

"So tell me, who is your master?" The king leaned over the table watching the ex-human closely. "Where are you from?" He needed to know which country this ex-human belonged to. There was no way to tell where the ex-human came from or even get any clues about who might his master be. The markings on his neck were similar to the ones merchants from the south kingdoms wore, but the fair skin and silver hair were usually traits of the former human noblemen from northern countries.

"Well…" Zero looked at his feet, not quite sure how to answer at first. He didn't like the way those dark eyes watched him unceasingly. Both were now in much more private chamber. All the guard were sent away and it was just the two of them now. "I was born and raised here … but I don't have a master."

"Bullshit!" A hand grabbed Zero's shirt suddenly; yanking him forward and making him collide with the edge of the table quite painfully. The pureblood's face was dangerously close to his now. "You must think I'm really stupid…You have no master? Don't be ridiculous! Who are you really working for?" The king's grip tightened. The temperature in the room seemed to drop a few degrees. Who was this boy kidding? This country belonged under Kurans' rule and the only purebloods here were he and Yuuki. Surely he, the king of this land, would have known if there were any unbound level D's walking around. Was the ex-human acting on his own or was he acting on his master's orders?

Zero hated how his heart started pounding loudly at first, when he got the sight of the two sharp fangs right in front of his face. The pureblood sure knew how to pull his aura. But he wasn't going to be scared of any vampire. Not second time. Not anymore. Zero gripped the hand holding him.

Both of them were glaring at each other stubbornly waiting for the other to give up first. It might have turned quite ugly, if a loud bang from the door hadn't made their heads spin in its direction. There stood Yuuki with a strange expression on her face as if she couldn't decide between surprise and anger. Finally, she seemed to settle on the latter. "Brother! What are you doing? This man saved my life, this is the way you treat him?"

"He could have just staged everything." There was something strange about the whole thing, Kaname could feel it.

"If he was the one who planned it, would he also risk getting himself killed in the process? The dagger was poisoned; he wouldn't have survived without the help of court physician. You know that, you called the doctor yourself. He risked his life for me and you are just being rude in return."

Zero's eyes widened. He nearly died? Thinking about it, despite the wound being small, he was quite out of it. So it wasn't just because of the silver infecting his wound as he initially thought.

But the king wasn't about to let it go so easily. "Not, if it is all part of his masters' plan. Ex-human can't refuse his masters' order...Who is it? Who turned you? What's his name? "

Zero's grip tightened. He was getting quite irritated with the king's stubbornness. Irritated and little scared, because he can't afford to have blown his own cover. "I told you already, I don't have a master. Shizuka was the one to turn me, but she is definitely not my master. One day, she appeared at our door and killed my parents and that's all. She probably hadn't thought I'll survive her bite." Not entirely the whole truth, but not a lie either. Zero's jaws clenched, feeling kind of angry to have to spill it out like that. He felt their gazes on him, but strangely he found himself unable to meet them.

Finally the king's hold on his shirt eased, but the hand lingered there a little longer before pulling out completely. "I see…" Kaname said already deep in thought. Biting or hurting vassals of another pureblood was serious offense, but he wouldn't put it past Shizuka to do something like that. She was missing for some time; maybe the rumors about her madness were true. If so, she could prove to be quite dangerous.

Kaname glanced at Yuuki as she casted him one of her 'well, shouldn't you apologize' looks with hands on her hips. The pureblood sighed. He didn't see any reason why he should apologize for his behavior at all. And he certainly wasn't going to. "We all shall take our rests. It's far in the afternoon already." Kaname felt quite tired himself, a lot of things happened lately. "Seiren will show you to your room..."

"Zero. My name is Zero."

"Here, let me take it for you." Zero took a stack of dry branches from Yori's hands. A week had passed already, but he had yet to speak with the pureblood. Whenever he tried to get an audience with him, he was stopped by Seiren saying the king was currently busy with other more urgent matters. There wasn't anything he could really do about it, so he found himself helping Yori with her gardening duties instead.

But he couldn't really complain. He got access to all the food in castle's kitchen and had his own comfy room in servants' building.

"Thanks." Yori was really grateful for Zero's help. Her father was sick and she wouldn't be able to do all of this by herself. "Won't you come have a breakfast with me and my father, Zero?" Yori decided to invite him as a thank you.

"Sure." Zero agreed easily. It certainly beat going to the castle's kitchen and meeting other servants. They weren't exactly hostile, but they were kind of wary of him. He didn't really understand what their problem was, until it was explained to him that his level D status might be the reason.

He entered the side kitchen, which served as some kind of dining room for servants, and once again the girls sitting there stopped talking suddenly and started casting quite suspicious looks his direction instead. The change in the atmosphere was quite apparent. He was not welcome here obviously. Zero didn't understand why all the servants behaved like that, but decided to ignore them as usual. He headed to the main kitchen to grab a slice of bread and cheese when a figure of elderly woman with a big tray blocked the doorway suddenly, making him stop abruptly as not to crash into her. The woman looked at him and then behind at the girls and sighed dramatically.

"Girls, don't you have a work to do? Milady Ruka requested to have a breakfast prepared in winter garden an hour ago. Don't tell me you haven't even started with preparations?" The woman cast them her most stern look. "Here, take this tray and hurry!" The panicked looks on the girls' faces were priceless. They all got up at once and disappeared in the hall quickly as if their behinds were on fire.

The strange woman chuckled. "Actually I made that up. Milady Ruka is still asleep, but it wouldn't hurt the girls to do some proper work in advance for once... Well boy, sit down! I'll be right back." Her figure disappeared in the kitchen for a while, before appearing with a big tray full of something that smelled really good. "Our young king just sent it back saying he isn't hungry. Well boy, want to try some royal breakfast today?" She set the plate in front of him sitting on the opposite side. "And don't mind those silly girls. You're probably the only level D we have right now in the castle. People tend to be guarded around them as they were bound directly to their masterand most of them were used as their eyes and ears. You could have never been sure if you haven't said a wrong thing in front of the wrong set of ears. But now, our young king and princess don't have any. The former king and queen didn't have any either. Not that I knew about. And believe me, I know a lot… What kind of head housekeeper would I be if I didn't know what's going on around here?" She bumped her chest proudly, laughing.

Zero kind of liked her. She was very...unusual for a vampire.Zero took a bite and decided right there that he had never eaten something so delicious before. The woman watched for a while as he gulped the food with the speed of royal horse. „There is still more in the pantry, so eat as much as you want." She smiled at him warmly." This is my thank you gift for saving our princess. Whenever you feel hungry, come find old Bertha and I'll always bring something good for you from the royal kitchen...You know, it was very brave of you. You remind me of my grandson. He was a very kind boy. And brave. Sadly, he was born in such bad times, but died as a real hero. I still carry insignia from his uniform. Look." She took the cloth out of her pocket and showed it to Zero.

"He fought in the great blood war?" He recognized the sign from one of the Yagari's hunter books. It was the last and longest war between humans and vampires, which they lost so tragically.

"Of course, which war did you think I was talking about? Such bravery, he and his troop held the line until all the innocents were in safety. They saved the whole village from hunters' raid that day. Alas, they all lost their lives there." Zero put down the spoon, suddenly not so sure he was feeling hungry anymore.

Some noise coming from the stables brought Zero back from the memory. Out of nowhere a beautiful white horse was running in their direction. "Somebody catch her!" A few people seemed to be chasing after her.

Zero would have been content just watching how it unfolds, but the mare started heading to their part of the garden where they worked so hard until now and he wasn't about to let her destroy all their hard work. He had some horse training as a hunter, so he might as well put it to use now. Zero matched his speed with the mare, grabbed her mane and pulled himself up. The horse started to rear up and Zero did all it took to stay on top of her. Whispering soothing words, he tried to shift his weight more naturally. After a while of struggling she seemed to finally relax and slowly started to accept her new rider. Zero tried to steer her and surprisingly, the mare listened. It looks like she was trained, just a little bit wild.

"I can't believe that someone actually tamed that monster." The mare's pursuers seemed to finally catch up. They were two young nobles dressed for the horse-riding. The mare neighed at them in warning but stayed calm otherwise.

"She's not a monster! I think she's beautiful. Just a little bit temperamental, that's all." Zero patted the mare's strong neck and sent the small blond noble a glare, not liking him already.

"I agree." A familiar voice commented as the king appeared beside them suddenly. He too was dressed for the ride. Kaname looked at Zero with what almost looked like approval and continued explaining. "She wouldn't let anyone sit on her. The only person ever able to ride on her was my wife. But it seems she took quite a liking to you."

"Aido actually thought that he found a way to tame her and wanted to try it as soon as we came back. Surprisingly, it didn't work...again." The tallest noble explained.

"Hey! It was really close this time. And you commoner…" the one called Aido rounded on Zero. "Get down! It's a royal horse you're sitting on. And it's incredibly rude to speak to his majesty from any heightened position. How dare you!"

"Relax, Aido! 'His majesty' doesn't mind in this case." Kaname retorted, but his eyes stayed focused on Zero. "Your name was Zero, right? Say, would you care to join me for a ride? I'm sure Lily would really appreciate it after such a long time."

"B-but my lord, we've just arrived, you should get some rest." Apparently Aido didn't get the clue that he was being dismissed.

"I'm sure I know best what's good for me, lord Aido." Kaname said with an angry frown. "But you're right. You and Kain should head back and rest. "He glanced over his shoulder." You too, Seiren. I don't think I'll need a bodyguard in local woods." The moment he said that, a small figure appeared bowing. She didn't look very pleased by the order. But it's not as if the pureblood couldn't defend himself against one ex-human after all.

"My deepest apologies, your majesty! I didn't mean to make an offence." Aido bowed so deeply his head almost touched the ground.

"We really should go. Excuse us, your majesty." Kain also bowed, just not so dramatically as his cousin and started steering Aido in the direction of the castle.

"It's funny, we can outrun any horse we want, but still, the view from the saddle is the most beautiful one, and definitely not so tiring." the king said after a while. They rode at slow pace, white horse next to the black one, exchanging a few words here and there, but mostly staying in content silence. Both of them lost in their own thoughts.

Zero wondered if he should use this opportunity. After all, they were alone in the middle of nowhere and the king looked more relaxed than ever. The hunter glanced at the sword by the pureblood's side. It was the perfect opportunity and yet he found himself quite reluctant to try anything. No, even if he had a weapon, killing pureblood in his full power was just impossible. He should stick to the plan. At least that was what Zero tried to convince himself.

Kaname's thoughts were also swirling around assassination, but a different one. There were still no messages from Rima and Shiki since they left the country and he wondered if they had found anything new about the emblem that was engraved on the assassin's dagger.

Zero had enough of thinking especially about the real reason behind his reluctance to try anything and just blurted out the first thing that came to mind. "Let's have a race." He regretted it the moment it left his mouth.

The king looked at him perplexed, not sure how to respond at first. Finally, he smirked. "Sure, but I have to warn you, you won't see anything but my back for the rest of the ride." With that, he set off at a rapid pace, his dark cape floating behind him.

"Hey!" Zero spurred Lily and set off after him. He was trying to catch up, but it was a little tricky to maneuver with all the trees around and the king soon started gaining quite a distance. The hunter pushed the mare harder and harder and just as they were about to jump over the small swamp, Lily decided she had just enough. She stopped abruptly, making unsuspecting Zero fall over her head, right into the middle of small mud pit.

As soon as the pureblood noticed that no one was following him anymore, he headed back and did all he could to not burst out laughing at the sight of the ex-human. "If it is any consolation, I must say that the mud goes well with your eyes." He said with as straight a face as he could.

Zero glared at him. "Yeah? So why don't you try it? I am sure it will suit you more." He grabbed a big chunk of mud and hurled it at the king. Kaname was actually too busy making fun of the ex-human to be paying much attention and it hit him right in the face.

"What the…" this little low blood! "How dare you…" the pureblood didn't get to finish. The horse responding to his darkening mood reared up suddenly, sending his master sprawling on the ground, right next to Zero.

They looked at each other for a while. Seeing each other sitting in the middle of a swamp, covered in mud all over, they burst out laughing. They couldn't help it, it was just too absurd. "I nearly forgot my payback." Kaname splashed Zero's face with a fresh dose of dirt. "Hey!" The hunter wasn't about to let it go so easily and both of them ended up fighting like little kids, really forgetting themselves for the first time in a very long time.

Kaname was just pushing Zero back into the mud, when he stopped suddenly. The hunter looked up into those dark eyes and gulped, the face bending over him was completely serious all of sudden. What the...Zero wasn't sure what to think or expect for a moment, when he too heard voices, not so far from them. Of course, the pureblood would hear them first. It was still early in the morning, but probably the right time for local wood cutters to start with their daily work.

Kaname stood up abruptly, maintaining his king's mask again. "Uh… we should go." He tried to clean himself of dirt with not much success. Both of them were covered in mud from head to toes. "Zero, let's not tell anybody about this. Ever."

"Agreed." Zero smirked. Little disappointed that the short moment he saw the king without his serious mask was gone.

Kaname whistled for his horse and looked over his shoulder for the last time. "This evening, after you wake up, come find me. I might have a job for you." He said with an enigmatic smile before mounting his horse and setting off.

A/N: Chapter edited 4/2011

Thank you so much for all your reviews!