CRASH.

Teru swiped the tray of food off the table. It fell to the floor, scattering food everywhere. The maid, a beta woman with a yellow collar, yelped. For a second, he felt guilty because he was making her job harder, but the sight of her collar color enraged him. She betrayed her pack, too, for comfort, for this life.

He went back into his bed, covering himself with the blankets. Teru listened as she picked up his broken mess.

Still…what he’d done wasn’t nice. Teru huffed in defeat and kicked off the covers. He joined her, picking up the glass shards. A piece sliced into his pointer finger, blood oozing out from the cut. It didn’t faze him; he’d had more serious wounds.

The maid gasped and wrapped his hand with one of her hand towels. Dots of blood soaked through the white material. She fetched a box with a red cross on it. When Teru saw the bandages inside it, he waved his hand in protest. 

“I’m okay, really.”

“Please, sir, let me do this.” There was a sense of urgency in her tone, almost fear-like.

He complied. As she dabbed and disinfected his finger, Teru watched the blue sky through the window. The rooftops of the other skyscrapers were visible from this angle. “Where are we?”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“I don’t.”

“We’re in Avania’s capital, New York City. Most of the city names never changed from Before. This building was erected by King Abaddon. It’s not a castle, per se, but it’s the main headquarters. The laws that all vampires and humans must follow are created here.”

“And Kieran? Who is he?”

“Just a resident of this place. You could say I work here,” someone else answered. Kieran had just entered the bedroom, eyeing the mess. His nose smelled the air.

“Where are you bleeding?” His eyes zoned in on the red-stained towel. Upon seeing the blood, musk saturated the room. He turned his attention to the maid and spat, “What did you do?” 

Teru’s inner omega stood at attention. He wanted to roll over and expose his neck. The maid shivered from his radiating anger. No wonder she wanted to hurry and treat him. He was a vampire monster, easily able to break her neck with just the flick of his wrist.

Kieran rushed over to Teru.

Is he going to hurt me? he thought and panicked, kicking the slippery floor to escape.

It was futile to even try. The vampire grabbed Teru’s arm—not hard, but firm enough that he couldn’t move any further. Drops of blood flowed down from the cut.

Without warning, Kieran put Teru’s finger into his mouth and sucked. His tongue wrapped around it, coating saliva on the minor gash. It stung at first, but the pain gradually went away. The long fangs grazed, creating goosebumps all over. Those pointy canines were way too close for comfort to breaking the skin.

Teru yanked his hand away. There was a POP noise when his finger came out of Kieran’s mouth. A healed reddish line was all that remained. It would be gone in a day without a scab or scar.

His crimson eyes shone, triggered. They had a hungry look to them that made Teru’s legs weak. Whether he quivered from fear or from some other primal emotion was uncertain.

Kieran wiped his mouth with a handkerchief. He studied the discarded food. “You need to eat. You’re nothing but skin and bones.”

Teru didn’t say a word. He looked away, not wanting to see the wasteful mess he had made.

“Little one, are you ignoring me?”

‘Little one.’ Why give me such a nickname to only kill me later? This guy is fucked up.

And yes, ignoring was the plan. After a whole long minute of Kieran staring intensely at him, he grasped tightly onto Teru’s forearm and forced him to walk. They headed towards a door of the bedroom that he hadn’t explored yet.

“Let go!” Teru snarled. 

He bared his teeth and went to bite the bloodsucker’s hand. Before he could rip out a chunk of cold flesh, Kieran gripped Teru’s jaw and shook his head, like an owner reprimanding a disobedient dog that was caught chewing on something it shouldn’t have been.

“Don’t,” he forewarned with authority. Teru had no choice but to oblige. He didn’t have the strength to fight against it. 

Kieran roughly pushed the door open. He turned on the lights to reveal a gleaming room. Everything was so polished. It was like a smaller version of the one at the auction house where the beta servants had washed him.

A bathroom.

There was a giant square bowl in the corner with a showerhead above. That must have been the bathtub. A long mirror with frosted swirls bordered the wall above it. For the first time in his short life, Teru saw himself in high-definition. Mirrors were hard to come by because they weren’t necessary for survival, and if scavengers had brought one back, it was cracked and coated in moss or algae. Seeing his blurry reflection in the lake was clearer than a mirror found from over a century ago.

Kieran saw him looking at the mirror. “Haven’t you seen yourself before?”

Teru broke the mini silent treatment. “Not like that.”

“Go look.” 

He released him. Approaching the mirror slowly, Teru put a hand on the smooth glass. 

Is this what I really look like?

His long, black hair was dull from malnutrition, but the texture was still thick. The strands poked his chestnut brown eyes, full of wonder. Thankfully, he was blessed with clear skin that held up well in the wild. Hina used to always complain about how Teru never experienced a bad bout of acne.

He was surprised by his darkened eyes. The gray makeup from the auction house had smeared, giving him a racoon-like look. And the glitter was all over after rubbing his face when he woke up. 

Regardless, this was him.

Wow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Kieran watched the omega admire his reflection, yet there was no pride or narcissism coming from him. 

Is it literally just pure innocence? Does such a thing exist in this selfish world?

It was fascinating to the eldest prince.

He heard shuffling outside the door. The servant he called for earlier had arrived. Kieran snapped his fingers. Two beta females entered the bathroom. The human noticed the newcomers, eyeing the yellow collars with disdain. It seemed like he knew what the color meant. 

What a quick learner.

“Clean him up. Do not use any flowery or sweet perfumes. Non-scented soaps and lotions only. I also don’t want to see a speck of makeup on his face, not one sparkle. Everything else, you know what to do.” 

The women bowed and went over to the boy, who was hesitant about their intentions. He backed up, almost slipping. Kieran smelled a wisp of bitter pheromones.

Is he scared because of what happened while preparing him at the auction house?

“They’re just here to wash you. After today, you can do it yourself, if you prefer.” Kieran sat on the vanity’s chair. There was a meeting he had to attend, but it wasn’t important right now. He felt oddly overprotective once he detected the omega’s fear pheromones. It wasn’t like him to have such concern towards another person.

They guided him to the bathtub. Once they adjusted the handles to a comfortable temperature, water gushed from the faucet, filling up the tub fast. The betas started to strip him. He was on guard, not liking this at all.

“Please lift your arms…er…,” one woman paused. “What is your name?”

This piqued Kieran’s interest.

“T-Teru.” He went to grab something on his chest, realizing whatever he went to grasp wasn’t there, looking lost.

Teru.

The name was fitting. Perfect. Still, it was vexing that he told an average beta and not him.

Teru raised his arms so they could take off his shirt, followed by his pants. Everything was exposed. Kieran looked away since Teru was uncomfortable with him there, but the prince stole secret glances whenever he could. The desire to lick every one of those bruises and scabbed cuts was physically hurting his inner alpha. He wanted to eradicate everything that had caused each one of those woun—

Stop. Why am I thinking about holding him already? That was not my intention when I brought him here.

After Teru was in the bathtub, he sat in the water, wide-eyed. They cleaned him well. Each sparkle gradually disappeared. His face was becoming clear of unnecessary makeup. Kieran didn’t want any traces of that tainted auction house left on him.

After scrubbing his hair, they used the detachable shower head to rinse. He kept coughing from the water cascading over his face. When they let him soak for five minutes, soap bubbles floated in the water. He had a playful gleam in his eyes, cupping water in his hands to stare at the white fluff. 

“Whoa,” he whispered.

Just what sort of conditions had he been living in to react to bubbles?

A servant grabbed the scissors from her pouch and began snipping away the black locks. The playfulness turned to hostility. Teru almost jumped out of the tub and growled loudly, almost snapping her hand off with his barred teeth. Water splashed over the sides, getting the floor wet. The woman screamed in fright, taking a step back.

Did I take in a human or a wild animal?

“They’re merely trimming your hair,” Kieran assured. “It was bothering your eyes, correct?”

Teru didn’t respond. He was breathing hard from being startled, nostrils flaring. He turned his body away from Kieran, ignoring him again. The servant slowly approached, worried that she was going to get bitten by the feral mortal. She sighed in relief when he let her touch his hair.

How can I get him to talk to me?

The alpha looked at his watch. He really needed to go to that meeting. Perhaps he could show up, give his opinion about the new law, and go. Yes, he could do that. The last thing he needed was his siblings sniffing around here because of his absence. 

One drop of Teru’s rare blood was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted in his life. 

So if they came to investigate and found the hidden omega, they’d want a taste, too.

Like hell he would share. Kieran wanted to bend that lovely neck and sink his fangs into it. The daydream was making his instincts go haywire, desiring to make a permanent ring on that nape an—

He stopped from continuing that dangerous train of thought, alarming himself.

Marking. I must be ill to think of such things…or my rut is…

“I have urgent business to attend to. I’ll return in an hour.” Kieran was talking to Teru, but the women misunderstood and thought he addressed them. They bowed. How annoying.

Ugh. Betas.