She woke up from her nap to the sound of footsteps wandering outside and opened her eyes lazily, thinking about the events of last night, the only memories she had, drowning in a state of scattering and loss.

She fidgeted, hearing the crackle of her rusty bones, pulled off her woollen blanket, and went to the door barefoot, his apartment peering over her head. She watched her surroundings with anticipation, hearing a hum coming from the end of the hall.

"I move the sofa into the little empty room; I don't want her in my office messing with my things."

« The room next to yours? Zakaria asked him.

Jaden was silent, remembering that the room he was referring to was really next to his, and he gasped tightly: 'Ah, you'd better stay in the damned office."

"Yes, better. I don't really like the idea of her being in the whole house. Zacharias hung up, handing him his leather belt.

He took it from him and tightened it tightly around his waist.

"Neither am I; it is a temporary period. Just so that my heart reassures me that it is not a source of danger to us, then I will find a radical solution for it."

"And do you mean, by the way, to kill her?" Zakaria asked him, knowing the nature of Jayden's radical solutions, which always end in murder.

Jaden looked up at the door, giving it his full attention. He took a malicious step and, with a quick movement, opened it wide, allowing Eva's body to collapse in front of him on the ground just under his feet.

She fell on her four limbs, engulfed in a wave of shame and resentment, as she discovered the flagrant offence of eavesdropping from behind closed doors.

She remained in her place, refusing to stand and confront him, especially after I heard his last words. He will get rid of her after he finishes her, and he will kill her for no reason.

"If this happens again, I will imprison you in that small and dark room at the end of the hall. Do you understand?"

She straightened, standing in front of him, changing her shyness from what she did to anger, and shouting at him: "What did you do to kill me? Is this how you receive your visitors: by raising the sword in their face and threatening them with death?

He straightened up, shocked by her attack, furrowing his eyebrows, and answered her in complete coldness: "And who told you that I do not receive all my visitors in that way?"

Her features faded, and she scorned her thick saliva, staring defiantly into his eyes, refusing to be neutral and trying as much as possible not to wander around his bare chest. A delicious blush rose on her cheeks, which aroused his attention and bewilderment. Are these signs of shyness on her features?

He raised an eyebrow, insisting not to break the union of their gazes, adding: "In any case, you are not a visitor but an intruder, and with all this, you have had the honour of entering my colony. Other than that, you could not cross the shore and penetrate into the forest. He is killed before his clothes are dry and thrown to the fish to get them from him.

" Why?? Why this barbarism? Maybe we're just passersby; why do you sentence them to death for no reason? Or do you take pleasure in killing and take it as a hobby for you?"

"You can think of this as the reason. Murder is my business, my hobby, and my pleasure. He cut the little distance left between them, dominating her with length and width, causing her breath to scatter for a few moments, but she quickly contained herself, refusing to show the fear that ran through her.

"Come on, go and get yourself ready to go out."

She turned away from his path, giving him the opportunity to cross her after him, and Zacharias followed them with his confused looks, noticing his master's unusual tone, for in his whole life he had not seen him allow a female to discuss with him for any reason. Well, in spite of his dryness, cruelty, and frivolity, he has a generous heart compared to the others."

I followed him, watching him wear a leather jacket over his chest belt, under which his many weapons were hidden.

Do you have extra shoes? I asked him, contemplating his high-heeled leather shoes.

Turning his face to her and looking at her bare feet, he commented, "Yes, I have an extra pair of shoes, the size of which fits your height perfectly."

She furrowed her eyebrows, feeling her anger rising from his tone and his sarcastic look: "Do you think you are light-blooded?"

"It is an insult to myself, if you think so." He hung up, instructing her to come out in front of him.

She went out impulsively, paying full attention to the ground under her feet, but no sooner had she raised her eyes than her ground froze, shocked and stunned by the sight before her. And in the middle of the houses is a large green yard decorated with a natural water fountain and various games for children who play and laugh with pure and innocent hearts.

She found herself watching them with a foolish smile adorning her face, turning to Jaden and noticing a look of pride on his features, but he did not allow her to comment as he pushed her to follow the progress, saying:

"Well, where did you come from? I am sure that you have never seen anything similar in your life. Yes, despite all the development that has swept the world, we are still living a primitive life, refusing to give up our civilization and our history."

"I feel it, although I do not remember anything about where I came from, but there is something inside me that tells me that for the first time I see something similar, the place here is fictitious by all standards."

He stopped in front of one of the houses and entered it through the elegantly paved stone corridor, and I followed him, contemplating the garden and the singing, with a wet mouth lusting to pick something out of it and taste it. Blonde, the colour of a witness, she looked astonished at first, then quickly contained herself, replacing her astonishment with a kind smile. She asks him, "Lord, how can I serve you?"

Jayden nodded, turning to Eva, as if making sure that she was behind him, and whispering to the female: "Do you have clothes and shoes suitable for the size of these?" He asked her, pointing at her, and she approached them and called them, "Eva, my name is Eva." I commented, staring at Jayden with a piercing look, the latter raising an eyebrow indifferently.

The woman with her troubled gaze wandered between them, her features bewildered and questioning, but she did not comment but rather said: "Yes, yes, it is the size of my daughter Mary; I will bring her right away with something that suits her, please. ' She let them in, and Jaden moved away from the door, heaving again. 'I'll stay here; you go in with her.'

She disappeared behind the door for a while and then went out to him wearing blue jeans, a black cotton and leather sweater that contained her body perfectly, and high-legged black leather shoes, looking emaciated, small, and easily breakable. He blinked for once, bewildered by her thick, dark hair, her long braids twisted in a spiral from the top of her head to the bottom of her back. Where was this hair yesterday? He wondered to himself, unable to take his eyes off her.

She flushed her cheeks, feeling the heat around her rise to the point of boiling. Yes, his suspicious look embarrassed her and scattered her feelings, but she did not know how to deal with his reaction. She recalls the reaction of the female inside the moment she straightened her hair inside and shook it from the dampness that was still between her strands from the time she was washing, so that the latter gasped, causing her to panic, thinking that she had done something offensive, but she reassured her by praising the nature of her hair, which according to her is non-existent among members of her gender.

She held a lock between her fingers, muttering in a shy tone, "Do you like my hair?"

I asked him, staring at his eyes, which travelled from her hair to her marine eyes, noticing their clear blue as a summer sky.

She gasped from behind him, staring at his back in exasperation, and she followed him after a few moments, calling him: "What should I understand from your words?" Do I take it as an insult or a praise?

"Take it as you like; it doesn't matter." He answered her indifferently as he continued his walk in front of her, crossing the residential area until the sacrifice was close to the wall, so that she began to notice a gathering of another kind—a good number of males gathered in a circle that seemed to her as if there was a battle going on in the middle.

"What is going on there?" She asked him with all her interest in them.

"They are training the new generation of guards and fighters."

"And why do you need guards and fighters?"

"I don't need it. They need it so that they can defend themselves and their families. Here, you have to choose what you are, either hunter or prey."

"Do you mean that there is something dangerous outside these walls that is devouring you? Is that why this wall was built around the village? I asked him to put dots above the letters, and at the same time, fear and panic grew inside them. Does this mean that the place outside these walls is not safe? Could she have been the prey of a monster before she lost her memory?

Jaden sensed the fear that began to grow within her and found himself adding, without even thinking, "They cannot get out of their dens during the day."

"Uh!! » She breathed, following him outside the wall, which one of the guards who were present for him opened to find herself facing nature, a breathtaking view. The colony was built at a low level in the middle of a trench surrounded by very dense trees, so it is difficult to track it from afar, and you will not be able to see it until you are inside this trench directly.

"Oh, mighty!! That's cool!! That's cool!! She muttered, watching her surroundings in astonishment: the dense trees and the surrounding hills, the sound of sea waves very far away, the clear sky, and the source of the rushing waterfall that appeared to her from a distance...

'Okay, go ahead; it's a long way ahead."

She asked him, "Where are we going?"

"Where I Found You"

"Why?? " I asked him, feeling the panic that was running through her body automatically.

"Maybe we find a thread that tells us anything about how or why you are here."

"Are you sure that these dangerous monsters don't come out of their lair during the day? And what if it changed its strategy and decided to go out and attack us during the day? She asked him in a panicked tone, thinking of going back inside the walls and hiding away. She turned her attention back to the wall to find it wide open, and the children and adults were roaming around comfortably.

Why is the fence door open? Is it safe to let children go out like this unattended? She showered him with bewildered and frightened questions.

"They cannot go out in the sun; they will burn to death as soon as their skin sees the light."

He lifted a branch of a leaning tree blocking their path to make way for her to advance, but she stood in front of him, arching her eyebrows and staring at him in admiration: "Do you mean they are vampires?"

"What do you know about vampires?" He asked her, surprisingly, if she thought that the vampire family were monsters.

She walked past him, allowing him to take a comprehensive look at her back, which was adorned by her dark hair, whose spiral features jumped with every movement she made.

"I don't know; I feel like I know a lot about them, but I don't remember the details."

Do you remember whether you lived among humans or vampires?

She turned to him, crossing his path, causing him to run into her. "Oh, what do you mean by your question? Do you think I am one of them?

"Well, of course, you are not human, and neither are you a pure vampire, but a hybrid. Vampire blood runs through your veins, and something else I could not define

"And how did you discover that?" She asks him in a state of frustration, as it seems that he knows more about her than she knows about herself. Is it conceivable that she should not mention whether she is a human, a vampire, or even a hybrid, as Jayden claims? " Is it possible for the information to be in her head somewhere in a dark, tightly closed room, and she feels unable to open it or even access it, as if she knows that this information is in that room while she is standing in front of her, unable to access it? This is an unpleasant, annoying, and frustrating feeling.

They reached the top of the hill, with the flat ground exposed before them and the woods in which Jayden had found them.

The whole time she thought that they would approach the mouth of the waterfall, she was disappointed when she found out that they were walking along it without approaching it.

"Can we go to the waterfall when we're done?" She asked him in an awkward tone tinged with childish enthusiasm, as if she was not accustomed to asking or even to having her demands answered, but despite that, he answered her coldly: "We are here for important work and not for fun; let's go forward."

Her lips curled up, her cheeks a deep red, fleeing from his cold gaze. She hurried before him, regretting her question.

And what did you expect? To smile at her broadly and take her to see the waterfall.

And she—has she lost her mind? She wooed him, and he was the one who was telling his servant that he would kill her as soon as he finished with her.

She glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and watched him penetrate into the forest as if he were its master, confident in his steps and not being careful, as if he were confident that nothing would happen and that no one would dare block his path.

What is the reason for this scar on your cheek? She found herself asking him completely stupidly, without thinking about the consequences of that question.

As he looked up at her, his eyes grew darker and harsher, making her body tremble in terror. She lowered her gaze, pretending that she had done nothing, and hurried through the narrow path between the thick trees.

Well, what is wrong with him? As if he has indigestion, let him loosen up a little; perhaps his features will become good-looking instead of this frown and the frown that controls her.

" here!! » His voice behind her stopped her.

She turned around at a loss, not remembering the area at all, as all the edges of the forest seemed to her the same.

"I found you here. Where were you before you came this way?"

She turned around in a lake, trying to notice anything different—a distinguishing sign of her desire. She placed her palms on her waist, shaking her head, and muttering, "When I woke up, I found myself in a deep hole. I spent hours trying to get out of it, and when I succeeded, I took a random direction without losing the place around me.

"That hole," he pointed to, a few metres behind it, so she followed his directions, walking in the direction he had indicated, inspecting its surroundings carefully, trying to remember anything that reminded her.

"I don't see anything here!" She told him to turn to him with the intention of checking whether he was following her, and as she felt her foot slip through the void, she screamed, trying to push her body back so that she would not go back into that damned hole.

She cried, closing her eyes in anticipation of her falling. She suffered from the pain and bruising for hours last night when she was trying to get out of her to come back and fall on her before she reached the top of her, but instead of hitting the bottom of the pit, she felt her body hit something solid and warm, and thick arms surrounded her with possession.

She held him tightly, burying her face in his chest and breathing violently, feeling him trying to free her. She held him tighter, blocking him, seeking safety, muttering: "It's the hole I was in; I don't know how I got to it; I don't remember anything; I don't remember anything before her, as if my life began the moment I woke up covered in blood; I'm scared, so scared."

There was a moment behind her when her foot slipped, and he pulled her by her arm to prevent her from falling and to surprise her, throwing her in his embrace, seeking his safety and protection.

He is not her protection and safety; she is mistaken in her thinking, and he is not and never will be.

He freed himself from her grasp and took a few steps away from her, trying to create a distance between them, as females have always been for him just a source of food and the satisfaction of an animal instinct that he refuses to allow her to dominate or control, so he always does what he does because he wants it and not because he needs it. A policy that he has followed through the ages and never enters any kind of feelings into that equation.

He took one last look at the hole, inspecting its surroundings with anticipation, planning to return later with Rakan and Isaiah to comb the area; there must be something here that they are oblivious to.

While he was busy inspecting his surroundings, he missed Eva, turning his back on her, and turned around moments later to her place, surprised by the silence that suddenly spread around him.

« Eva!!! » He shouted her name, listening to his surroundings, perhaps listening to the footsteps of her feet or anything that exposed her direction and smelled her scent in every direction.

« Eva!! » He shouted again in a higher voice, rushing to the shore.

She ran among the trees, hoping that the Almighty would make her destination correct and lead her to safety—to any place that would save her from Jayden, perhaps finding someone who knew her and helped her.

She stumbled on a branch of a tilted tree and fell to the ground, feeling the pebbles digging into her knees and palms, causing her severe pain, but she did not pay attention to it, standing again and continuing her escape into the unknown.

She gasped, feeling elated, when the sea began to clear in front of her with its blueness and its mighty waves crashing violently on the shore.

Yes, she was running in the right direction, and this prompted her to continue running. She heard Jayden calling her name from somewhere behind her, but she did not dare to turn behind her so that she would not slow down to keep pace with the escape towards the shore.

But she soon set foot in the forest until her foot stumbled and fell, rolling with her body from the top of a sandy hill to the bottom.