• As everyone knows, fairy tales usually start with once upon a time or a long time ago and usually always has a brave prince saving a princess form an evil witch and ends with them living happily ever after. That is how you would expect a fairy tale to go, well not this one. This fairy tale begins in the not to distant past….

    “Noooo!!!” Anton screamed as the vampire standing in front of him ripped his father to shreds.
    “Next time, listen to me” snarled the blood covered vampire. Anton looked at him with a deadly stare that made him shiver. How was it that he wasn’t scared of dying or failing his mistress, but he was afraid of this mortal. After all this mortal was only a boy, not even a man yet.

    The vampire thought about this for a few more seconds and then decided to kill the human. Being punished by the royal vampire council was better than putting up with this strange mortal. In fact he couldn’t even see why the vampire princess even wanted to marry this mortal. No he wouldn’t allow it, but just as he was about to attack he collapsed.

    Looking down he saw the end of a wooden stake poking through his chest. When he looked up he saw the supposedly harmless mortal standing above him, glaring at him as he died.
    “Next time, there isn’t going to be a next time” Anton calmly said to the vampire, “Not for you anyway”. These were the last words the vampire heard as he drifted of and was finally free of the earth.

    Anton Herzen had short, blond, curly hair and bright blue eyes. He was the son of a deceased duke, making him the new duke of Herzen Manor and of the little villiage of Folsense. He also had a deep, dark secret that no one knew, not even his own father. Only his mother had known, but she had died 10 years ago. You see Anton was part vampire. He didn’t know how it had happened, his mother had known, but never told him. This is why the vampire princess wanted him as her husband. He was the only other male in the world that wasn’t her follower and could help continue her race. He knew this and so did she, but they had never met or even talked to each other.

    Anton had been trying to find out everything he could about the vampire princess ever since the first attack, when his mother had been killed by one of the evil creatures. He had told his father that it had been a heart attack, but every few nights from then on he had been dreaming of how she had died, but that was ten years ago and he still hadn’t found anything useful. He didn’t even know what she looked like. He had wanted to arrange meeting, but none of the vampires would take a message back to her, they would all rather die than obey a mortal. Sometimes he wandered how much she knew about him, everything or nothing. It infuriated him that he knew nothing about her, except that she wasn’t a normal vampire and that she was royal by birth, when she may know everything about him. Of course he didn’t know if she did or didn’t know who he was, but he was soon to find out that she was a little like him more than he knew….

    Scarlet Bloodfire had never left the safety of her castle before. The guards wouldn’t let her because they thought she was like them and would die by the sun or a stake. They were so wrong, but they couldn’t know that. Her mother’s dying wish was that she would never tell anyone her secret and that she would do her best to protect her coven and continue on her species.

    Scarlet thought it was strange how her mother had said species and not race. She wasn’t sure if there was any man that could help her continue the existenc of a new species of vampire. That was until she heard the existence of a prophecy. The prophecy was her answer.

    Scarlet had found the prophecy while looking through her mothers diary ten years ago. When she had turned to the end she had found a verse saying:

    Born into night a vampire princess is created
    Royal by blood, not marriage
    carrying the gene of a new vampire race
    Only one can help continue this species
    Born to a mortal duke and his wife
    carrying the gene of the new vampire race
    The only one who can mate with the princess
    No parents left, a curse on his town
    He is the father of a species and the king of a race

    That was when she had started hunting for this duke. when she had finally found her saviour, it was to end his mother’s life and start a war. She had punished the vampire that had killed the dukes wife but it was too late. And now the duke himself was killed and to make matters worse his son had killed the vampire in revenge. So now all she had was a major headache and a vengeful saviour.

    That was how she had ended up here, on a train on the way to the cursed town of Folsense and to Anton Herzen. She was riding first class and was in her own compartment. All she could do was think and hope that he wouldn’t kill her on sight. Little did Scarlet know that her path to saving her species was more dangerous than she had first thought.

    To many, Folsense looked like a well kept villiage, but only a select few knew the truth. Folsense was cursed. By what nobody knew for sure, well nobody except for the new duke of Folsense himself and he wasn’t telling anyone anything.

    When Folsense had heard of their dukes death ten years ago they had been surprised and devastated, who would have thought that their loving duke would have enemies. They held a funeral for their beloved duke, sympathising for his only son Anton who would become their new duke and protector. After Anton was name the official duke of Folsense, the villiagers had prayed that he wouldn’t die as his father had and leave them to protect themselves.

    Ten years had passed since than and the viliagers of Folsense had noticed that something evil was invading their town, the nights weren’t safe and the forest growing around the manor of the duke had been getting wilder and wilder. Rumours started up, revolving around vampires living in the forest and attacking their duke. Although no one could prove that these rumours were true, the people of Folsense avoided going through the forest unless it was necessary. Eventually the forest was avoided altogether and the gold mine that had been open for twenty years was closed as the entrance was in the middle of the forest.

    Now people wouldn’t even talk about the forest in fear, thinking that there really was a curse. Since the duke hadn’t been seen for nearly five years, the viliagers believed that the vampire had killed him and now roamed around in the dark, solitary manor. Praying that the duke’s end had been quick and painless, the villiagers decided to leave the vampire in the manor and not go near it, hoping that it would in turn leave them alone and so it had, for the past few years no one had seen or heard it, no one went missing and people started to fear the night less and less.

    Tonight, however would be different. When the train arrived at Folsense a young girl walked off it. The people of Folsense stared at her as she walked down the steps of the train station. “Does anyone know which way Herzen Manor is?” she asked in a voice that sounded like it had demanded a lot of answers in the past. The reaction she got was not the one she wanted. People looked at her in fear as they pointed up at the dark manor in the distance. “Beware, a vampire has killed the last duke of Folsense years ago and now haunts his manor” one of the braver townspeople told her.
    “Thank you for the warning, but I must go there” she replied, turning away from him. As she left people watched her, praying that her death would be quick and wouldn’t anger the vampire.

    Walking through the forest Scarlet thought about what the man form Folsense had told her. Was it possible that her only hope was dead, killed by one of her own followers? No it was impossible, he would have killed them all as he was dying. She would go up there and find him, hopefully. She wandered what had really happened here and what was Anton playing at?

    All of a sudden she heard thunder and it started raining. “Great” she mumbled, could it get any worse? She hoped with all her heart that Anton was home, she was wet and tired.

    Anton hadn’t left the manor for nearly five years, fearing that the vampires would start to attack Folsense. When he heard all the rumours that surrounded his disappearance, he laughed. He was glad that they hadn’t come looking for him, as that could have been the last thing any one from Folsense ever did. But the town was safe and knew nothing about the danger lurking in the forest.

    Anton had given up on receiving visitors until he heard a knock at the door. He looked out the window in his study on the third floor to see it was raining, hard and there was someone at the door. He slowly walked through the empty manor, listening to the rain fall, making his way to the front door. When he opened it he was surprised to see a young girl standing there, looking dead on her feet and soaking wet.

    “Would you like to come in?” he asked politely.
    “Oh, if it doesn’t bother you” she replied.
    “Not at all” Anton told her. As she came inside he looked at her. She was rather pretty, with long, wavy midnight black hair and ruby red eyes. All of a sudden he realised what he was looking at. Only one person in the whole world had ruby red eyes, the vampire princess.

    Scarlet was watching Anton looking at her, when he gasped, she realised that he had figured out who she was. Why hadn’t she gotten contacts. She saw him start to reach for a wooden stake and started to panic, surely he couldn’t hate her that much., could he? “Wait, I need your help, that’s the only reason I’m here” she told him. He hesitated, looking confused and sad.

    When she spoke to him, Anton was surprised at how sad and lonely she sounded. She had after all left the safety of her castle to come and see him. He decided to give her a chance to explain herself. “Why are you here?” he asked her.
    “My name is Scarlet Bloodfire, as you know I am the vampire princess”. “I came here for your help”. “The vampires have gone out of control, trying to impress me to become the nest king of the coven, but they can’t help me as they are normal vampires. I’m only half vampire, but they don’t that. I would have told them, but that is why both my parents are dead. My mother was a half vampire as well, but the others thought that it was a betrayal to the vampire species, so they killed her. My father died trying to save her, after he died they thought that I was a full vampire so I let them think that for the past seventeen years”.

    “Wow, my problems seem small compared to yours. Well my mum died from being strangled to death by a vampire, it was ten years ago and I was only eight years old. Do you know what its like, watching your mother being killed right in front of your eyes. My father was a way on business so I told him that she had a heart attack, I couldn’t tell him the truth. About two weeks ago one of your rogue vampires came up and killed my father by ripping to shreds in front of me, he died because I had kept him in the dark all these years. The vampire deid for that and you know what, it weas the same vampire that had killed my mother”.

    “I’m so sorry, I had that vampire hunted, but he never returned. I think he was living in the forest here, hiding, waiting. I should have come sooner, but they wouldn’t let me leave. I had to sneak out”. Scarlet told him.
    “Why won’t they let you leave?” Anton asked, curious.
    “They think that I’ll die if I’m out after sunrise, just like them, but I won’t. They can stab me with a stake for all I care. The only way that I can die is if I’m struck in the heart by a silver stake on fire, by someone close to me. I heart breaks form the betrayal, letting the fire consume it” she explained.
    “How many people have that power?” He asked.
    “Only one” she replied looking at him.
    “Oh” was all he could say.

    Anton decided to let Scarlet stay in one of the spare master bedrooms. He couldn’t think why, but he cared for her, a lot. He gave her his mothers old room. It still had a few of her dresses left, so he told her that she could borrow one if she wanted. “Thank you” she replied. Than he left her to change.

    Scarlet had a shower and chose a ruby red gown and matching shoes. When she opened the door, he was standing there. She blushed as she saw that he was looking at her. “You look beautiful” Anton told her, staring at her like she was gold.
    “Thank you, for the dress and everything” Scarlet replied.