Two: Adrian

"You're being awfully weird." Eleanor snapped me out of my thoughts. I was busy looking at the bruised up girl that had her head on my lap as I sat in the backseat with her. Carefully, I tightened the coat more around her. I looked at the heat button and saw the heating system was already on. 

"What? Why?" I asked her in confusion.

"What's so special about this girl? Why are you so drawn to her?" she questioned, eyeing me. Was I being weird? 

"I'm not!" I argued.

"You are! Look at you!" Roland sided with Eleanor, making me roll my eyes. Was it bad to care for an injured individual? 

"I'm not drawn to her! I just feel sorry for her. She looks like she has been tortured for so long and she looks so... innocent." I tried to justify my actions to them. A voice inside my head told me that whatever I was feeling was not just out of pity. 

"Be careful, we don't know her kind yet, and she will most probably be a human. You know the rules," Roland warned me.

"Of course I know the rules, I'm an emperor," I muttered. 

"Can you hurry? Her skin is getting colder, she will die if you don't drive faster," I asked Roland since he was driving. I felt the need to be with her in the backseat. 

"So what if she dies? We've witnessed more tragic deaths in our lives," Eleanor said causally. Why was she being so heartless towards her?

"I don't know, I just want to save her," I confessed, looking down at her. Her chest was rising and falling slowly, as if it was not moving at all, giving me the feeling that she might stop breathing in any second. Carefully, I reached for her small hand and its coldness almost made me jerk away. I slowly let go of her hand since my body was naturally cold and she needed every ounce of warmth she could get.

An hour later, we finally arrived at my castle and the moment Roland parked the car, I picked the girl's injured body gently yet quickly and ran with my supersonic speed to the hospital ward inside the castle.

The doctor, who was a human, immediately stood up once he saw me and I gently laid her body down on the bed. Humans had their own doctors who were also considered slaves, yet they did not do any kind of slavery jobs and the same thing was with the nurses.

I kept a human doctor in my empire in case one of my slaves got sick. I was never fond of mistreating my slaves. Even the word itself seemed heavy to use. I usually referred to them as workers, not slaves. Although I was known to be a cold-hearted monster among vampires, humans saw me as a merciful emperor. A part of me always wanted to give them a glimpse of what they got deprived of.

"Can you treat her?" I asked him as I saw him examining her. I could read his thoughts; he thought that she was a lost cause.

"I'll do my best," he answered me. His answer was diplomatic and that was what I liked about him.

"What do the primary examinations indicate?" I asked him and the first word that came to his mind was 'death'. "Something apart from death," I added, and he gave me an apologetic look.

"Well, she is severely malnourished and dehydrated. Her blood pressure is very low and so is her sugar level. Her heart is barely beating too," he informed me.

"Do your best and treat her, I don't want her to die," I told him before leaving the room. I did not want to show my emotions in the presence of anyone. Emotions were a dangerous weapon that usually backfired. Emotions were better off hidden. 

I made my way to my room, hoping that I could be blessed with a couple of hours of sleep. After I took off my clothes, I lay down in my king-sized bed. My room was divided into three parts. A part that contained the bed and the dresser, the other part consisted of a big L-shaped couch and a TV and the last part was the dressing room.

I spent five hours tossing and turning, failing to sleep. Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw her in front of me. I saw her beaten, bruised, and bloody body. I saw her with her closed eyes, torn clothes, and long tangled brown hair. Her image was haunting me down and I could not escape it. I groaned out in frustration and sat up in bed. I looked at the clock and saw it was already ten in the morning.

I gave up on sleep and got out of bed. I went to the bathroom and took a shower in an attempt to relax my muscles. After thirty minutes of staying under the hot water, I decided that I had had enough and stepped out of the shower.

I dried myself then wrapped a towel around my torso and made my way to the dressing room. I got dressed in a black suit, a white shirt, and black shoes. 

I couldn't help but keep thinking about what James said to me. He didn't have any ounce of guilt in his bones for what he had done to her. He spoke of it as if it was pure justice. What could this girl have done to him to make him torture her like that? If anything, she seemed powerless and weak.

I wondered how long he had been torturing her to make her reach that state. By reading Brian’s thoughts, the human doctor, I could tell that it would be a miracle if she survived.

I left my room and made my way to the hospital ward to check on her, hoping to find her alive. I walked to the doctor's office and found that another doctor had taken the shift.

"Good morning," I said, gaining his attention as he was busy writing some things down.

"Good morning, sir," he said, standing up.

"A girl was brought here last night, how is she doing?" I asked him, "And I'd like to see her," I told him.

He walked from behind the desk and we both walked to the room where she was; she was in the ICU.

"We managed to stabilize her blood pressure, her sugar level, and her heartbeats, but she is still not fully okay. After running tests on her, we found that she doesn't suffer from any terminal diseases," he informed me.

"Is she still asleep?" I asked him and he nodded his head.

"She is weak, her body couldn't take the amount of pain she was put through, so she ended up passing out. We gave her a lot of painkillers to numb her pain, but these painkillers also wore her out. She will most probably wake up around sunset," he answered me.

"Do you think she will die?" I had to ask that question, I had to feed my curiosity.

"No, she was brought in at the right time," he assured me. Relief washed over me once he uttered that sentence. I didn't want her to die, I had a feeling that there was a huge secret behind this girl and I wanted to reveal it.

I walked inside the ICU and saw her thin body on the bed. She was all cleaned up and her wounds were stitched. It was more obvious now to see her facial features and she looked really pretty, more like gorgeous. She was such a delicate being and I did not know how James found it in his blood to torture her. 

"Inform me once she wakes up, I'd like to talk to her," I told the doctor.

"But she won't be able to talk a lot once she wakes up."

"Understandable, I won't exhaust her," I said and he nodded.

I left the hospital ward and went to my study room to look at the daily reports about the empire.

"Finally saw you!" I heard the familiar cheery voice of Olivia as she jumped out of nowhere, startling me as I walked to my study.

"Have you ever heard of a vampire who died because another vampire scared them?" I asked her and she shook her head innocently as she grinned, looking at me. "Well if you don't stop doing that to me then you'll hear about that," I said making her smile. I was too busy thinking about the girl that I didn't hear Olivia's thoughts before she scared me.

"I missed you!" she said as we both walked together through the long halls. Olivia could be considered my little sister. I had known her since we were both humans. She got turned at the same time I got crowned and I could still remember how scared she was. Luckily, she was blessed with two gifts which made it easy for me to take her to live with me in the castle since not all kinds of vampires were welcomed inside according to the sick protocol we all had to follow. However, I managed to not make her do any job, but since she wanted to be a nurse, she sometimes volunteered at the hospital ward for both vampire and human patients.

"I know I've been so busy." I looked at her apologetically as we both walked inside my study. Not everyone was allowed here, but she was allowed to be anywhere in the castle.

"Hey! What about that girl you brought in last night?" she asked me, looking extremely curious.

"Words travel so fast, huh?" I chuckled, causing her to laugh a little and nod her head.

"I don't know much about her." I shrugged.

"Tell me what happened! How did you find her?" She insisted, not letting go of the topic. This was normal, Olivia was being Olivia and I had no other option but to tell her.

After I was done talking with Olivia, I went for a tour around the empire. I usually did that once every week or two to make sure everything was going well in the empire. I was never fond of ruling my empire through reports. Yes, I read them, but I also loved interacting with my people– both vampires, and humans.

Once I back at the castle, I was informed that the girl had woken up. I immediately made my way to the hospital ward to see her. I was told that she was no longer in the ICU and she was transferred to a regular room. I knocked on the door and walked inside, only to see Olivia sitting there.

"You're back! She is finally awake," Olivia said excitedly, making me chuckle.

"Olivia, the girl has just woken up and you already managed to annoy her?" I teased Olivia.

"She didn't, she's really nice." For the very first time, I heard the voice of the girl I rescued; it was angelic and soft, matching her gentle facial features.

"See! I'm not that bad." Olivia shrugged, "Anyway, I will leave you two to talk," Olivia said, getting up. "We'll definitely talk again, Rayne. Goodnight."

"Goodnight." The girl that I had just learned her name smiled at Olivia.

So her name was Rayne? I liked it; it was unique. She had a really beautiful smile that could captivate any man. I needed to snap out of it, I needed to ignore her breath-taking beauty and how her long brown hair fell on her shoulders as it framed her face making her look bewitching. I was doing such a great job at ignoring her beauty.

"S-sir... is everything okay?" she spoke softly, making me shake my head a little, trying to concentrate again. How could any man concentrate on anything when there was a girl who held such heart-stopping beauty in the same room as him? Vampires were known for their heart-stirring beauty, but she was no vampire and her beauty was gorgeously outstanding. 

"Yeah, sorry. Your name is Rayne?" I asked her as I sat down on the chair beside the bed. She nodded slowly trying not to look at me. Was she afraid of me? I didn't do anything to scare her, did I?

"As the rain that falls from the sky?" I wondered and she shook her head.

"It is spelled as R-A-Y-N-E," she told me and I nodded.

"You look nervous," I said, looking at her.

"I was tortured by the last emperor who owned me," she murmured, looking down. Owned. That word annoyed me. She was not a property to be owned. I didn’t like how she referred to herself as an object that could easily be owned. 

"I'm nothing like him," I assured her, but she did not seem to believe me and she had every right to. "I'm Adrian Harlow, the emperor of Harlow Empire." I introduced myself to her.

"Are you the founder?" she asked me, tilting her to the side.

"No, what made you think like that?"

"Your last name is Harlow... The empire is called the Harlow empire," she replied. The imperial system started three hundred and fifty years ago, so her question was reasonable. The world had gone through many changes to reach the final established system.  

"Emperors have to give up their actual last name and use the last name of the actual founder which is also the name of the empire once they take that position," I explained to her. “I’m the third emperor of this empire.”  

"Am I going to start working here?" she asked me. To be honest, I did not think about that. I did not think of her as a slave. I had no plans to make her do any slavery jobs.

"You still have plenty of time. You need to recover first before I assign you to any job," I told her and she nodded, smiling at me. She had a beautiful, charming smile. "Why did he torture you?" I asked her and she paled a little. I tried reading her mind, but something blocked me from doing that. It was my very first time to face something like that with a human.

"He... he wanted me as his sex slave and I refused, so he decided to make my life a living hell," she told me. Something about what she said seemed unbelievable. Vampires could not have sex with humans. It was something forbidden and it might lead to the execution of both the vampire and the human.

"You do realize that the door of the room where you were locked was protected with a spell?" I pointed out.

"How would I know?" She shrugged. She was lying. I knew she was lying, but I did not know how to prove it.

"He warned me about you," I informed her, trying to get her to tell me the truth.

"Really? If I were so dangerous, why would I let him torture me like that?" She looked at me. She had a point, why did he warn me about her when she did not seem dangerous at all?

"You're right," I mumbled. I was really curious about my inability to read her mind. What was stopping me? "I have to go now. I hope you get well soon," I said, standing up then left her room. She was beautiful and I was told that she was dangerous, I saw that fierce look in her eyes. Although she was bruised up and wounded, I could tell that she held so much strength inside of her. I couldn't help but wonder who that girl was.

I went to look for Olivia, I needed to talk to her. She had probably talked a lot with Rayne and she could tell me more about her. I went to her suite and knocked on her door. Luckily, she was inside. I walked in and saw her sitting on her bed, watching TV.

"I have a feeling that you didn't just come here because you missed me." She smirked, making me chuckle.

"You know me so well." I laughed as I sat down on her couch.

"Let me guess! You want to talk about Rayne," she said grinning and I nodded.

"You have to admit, she's weird," I spoke, letting out a deep sigh.

"I didn't find her weird, but it's really hard to believe that the emperor did all of that because he wanted her as a sex slave." Olivia shrugged.

"I tried reading her mind, but for the very first time, something blocked my ability." Olivia gave me a confused look then she sat up on the bed.

"I also tried reading her memories and I failed too," Olivia said with a frown on her face. Olivia was gifted with the ability to read memories and the ability to see spirits. "I thought something was wrong with me."

"Nothing is wrong with any of us," I told her. "Something is vague about this girl."

"Maybe she doesn't have memories and she had nothing in her mind to read?" Olivia spoke with a doubtful look, making me roll my eyes.

"Are you convinced with what you've just uttered?" I questioned her.

"Honestly? No," she admitted, "We can just wait. I'm sure we will eventually find out if something is wrong."

"You're right." I nodded my head. I stayed with her for a while as we kept chatting about random topics then I went to my room to get some sleep. I had not slept in two days and I really needed to sleep. I was never able to stop my mind from thinking about Rayne. There was a secret behind that girl and I had to figure it all out.