Horror filled my mind…a sense of dreadfulness washed over me. All around me there were screams and weapons clashing together. The cries belonged to my father and his men who were up on the deck fighting to save me. The crashing of on coming weapons was from the pirates that were attacking our ship. Our ship was the best out there; the safest in all of England, our ship was the Cleo, named after me. It was the grandest ship.

Outside my door there was a dull thud that was followed by muffled yells and protests. It was then that I knew that my guard had been taken prisoner… or worse killed.

“Open up in there!” A deep growl ordered from outside of my safe room.

I kept silent hoping that they wouldn’t notice that someone was in here. It didn’t work. Seconds later there was a series of loud thumps and then my door fell and stopped in front of me. Stifling a scream, I pushed myself as far as I could into the corner of my bed. I started wishing and hoping that this was all just a nightmare and that I would wake up and greet my father good-morning.

“Well we weren’t misinformed; there is some precious cargo on here… precious enough to be the princess.” Again, that deep growl came at me.

I was going to die… all I could think of right now was that I was going to die. These people were going to kill me, like all those horrible stories that I heard of where people were attacked by pirates without mercy. I was going to die that same way. My name would be added to the list of people who were killed by these monsters. If I was going to die at the hands of these monsters then I won’t be going with out a fight. Opening my eyes, I stared at my finder, and slowly but confidently started to get up and walked up to him.

But, suddenly my confidence started to ebb away; it started to disappear at the sight of the man who found me. He was like no other man I had seen all my life, his deep growl of a voice didn’t suit him at all. He had the face of an angel, his copper gold skin framed by his sandy blond hair. His eyes were the color of the sea, they weren’t just one color, but many different ones mixed together. And his arms were full of weapons, but you could still easily see the muscles behind them. He wasn’t tall and yet he wasn’t short either, either way I would willingly die at the hands of this terrifying and beautiful angel.

“What are you gaping at girl?!” A strong arm followed that growl. Looking down I saw that the arm belonged to the terrifyingly beautiful pirate. But then the grip tightened and started to hurt my arm.

“OW! Stop! You are hurting me! You filthy tar! Let go!” I brought up my fist and started punching him, in hope that he would let go. To my surprise he did let go. I took my chance at freedom and ran past him towards the deck, racing up the stairs I heard a muffled curse and the pounding of feet chasing after me.

“Come back here girl! Come back you don’t want to see what is up there! Come back!” The pirate’s voice wasn’t a growl this time, but a soft whisper that seemed to speak in my head.

What was up there that I wouldn’t want to see? Had the killed my father? Were their bodies scattered around the deck? Tears started to sting my eyes; I pushed myself to run faster. Reaching the door to the deck I shoved it open. I tripped over something, but didn’t care to look, I was to busy looking for my father. Once my eyes adjusted to the dark I screamed, the whole crew was dead but they weren’t strewn across the boards of the deck they were in the arms of the pirates.

As I screamed again the pirates turned around sharply and glared at me. This only caused me to scream again, for their eyes were a dark blood red color. As dark as the blood on the deck. Suddenly I saw my father’s body, racing over to it. I leaned down and rested my head against his chest; there came a low hiss from behind me.

“That’s my body girl! Get away from it!”


Turning around I saw a man with pale skin and the darkest red eyes that seemed to glow in the dark of this horrible night. I reached over to him and smacked him across the cheek leaving behind a bright red mark. His eyes were startled, but that changed immediately. His eyes narrowed into small slits and emitted another feline hiss.

“How dare you talk to me that way?! You are a monster for killing my father! Get away from me!” My voice sounded more confident to me than I really felt.

Slowly the man backed away with a slightly startled and hateful expression. Going back to my father’s body, I let my tears fall freely. Why did my father have to die and I live? It should have been the other way around. I laid my head back onto his chest, and found it cold and wet with blood. Never the less I stayed there and closed my eyes silently daring the monsters to try and take him away from me. I slowly drifted into a troubled sleep.

I woke up in my father’s cabin, afraid of what they might have done to my father’s body I jumped out of bed and tripped over something. Looking down I stifled a yell, it was that man from last night, the one who tried to take my father away from me. There was that angel pirate also; they were both asleep on the floor in front of my father’s bed.

Slowly I made my way to the door, when I was halfway there. Two voices came inside of my head.

“I don’t think you want to go out there right now.” It was a sleepy voice, but it still had some threat in it.

“Don’t go out there unless you want to be killed by hungry vampires.” This voice wasn’t sleepy it was alert and dangerous.

Turning around I came face to face with the man who had tried to take my father. To my utter surprise he didn’t have the glowing red eyes anymore, but an emerald green. His face was like the other ones, it looked like an angels, a deadly angel that had been banished from the gates of heaven. I heard a chuckle this too came from inside of my head.

“Never seen a vampire before princess? Were you frightened of my intimidation?” Again that voice sounded inside of my head followed by another laugh.

I wanted to test something so instead of talking out loud I talked inside of my head. “No… I wasn’t intimidated by you.” By the look on the dark angel’s face he must have heard my comment inside of his head.

“Ah. So you can speak inside of others heads also… Interesting… Well I have to remember my manners… My name is Tahmon.” With this he did the grandest sweep of a bow and took my hand and gently kissed it, before I could snatch it away from him.

So this dark angel had a name and it was Tahmon? He looked like he was my age, but he had said that he, and the rest of them that ambushed my father and the boat, were vampires. So for all I know he could be five hundred. “I know what you are thinking… Yes I know your thoughts… None of your thoughts are safe from me Cleohanna.” My eyes grew wide with fright, he could read minds.

“Ah C’mon Tahmon quit scarin’ her.” The other one spoke and to my great relief it was not inside of my head.

“Hello Cleo how are you this fine and divine morning? I hope you slept well? My name is Davide.” He too gave a grand sweep of a bow, but instead of snatching my hand he held his out in front of me. Slowly I put mine in is and watched as he gently kissed my hand, then slowly lowered it all this time holding my gaze with his.

Tahmon gave a frustrated snort half laugh. “Davide you will never change. Not for fifty, ninety, or even a hundred years. You will always be one for over doing flattery. Always going slow with love, and being over cautious!” By now Tahmon’s eyes were that red color again.

Turning to me he gave a swift and stiff bow and briskly turned on his heel and left the room. Slowly I turned back around and stifled a scream; Davide’s eyes were a red too. He was looking at me with the gaze of a ravenous lion; they were intent on me and were focused on my neck. I started to back up slowly, and Davide followed me. In one swift movement was in front of me, I wanted to pull away but looking into his eyes I found that I didn’t actually want to pull away from him.

Then his teeth met the skin on my neck at first there was pain, but slowly the pain was replaced by the feeling of peace, love, happiness, and freedom. It ended abruptly when he jerked backwards, looking over his shoulder I saw Tahmon still holding Davide back. The look on Davide’s face started to scare me; it was the look of someone who wanted more of what they couldn’t have, it was the look of addiction.

“Cleo are you alright? Are you hurt? Do you feel dizzy, thirsty, or anything else?” To my surprise Tahmon’s tone was one of overwhelmingly love and worry.

Slowly I nodded my head. I found though that my voice could not be summoned at this moment, so I used my thoughts. “Yes I’m alright, but why would you care? And why in the world would I be thirsty?”

Slowly Tahmon stepped forward forgetting that he was still holding Davide. The look that was on Davide’s face scared me, that look of uncontrollable hunger was upon it again, the horrible sense of terror washed over me. Backing away from Davide I saw Tahmon’s face fell and slowly backed away from.

“No Tahmon it’s not you! Please don’t leave me! I love you Tahmon!” I said these words inside and out of my head.

At these words Davide’s eyes lit up with a fire that must have been like the fires of hell. Turning around he ran out of the room. Tahmon walked towards me and pulled me into a sweet and gentle embrace and placed a gentle kiss on top of my head.

“Cleohanna are you going to choose him over me?!” When I nodded his face turned into the face of a monster.

Davide crouched and lunged at me. Tahmon let go of him but, instantly jumped in front of me and crouched down. Tahmon pushed me out of the way; his push sent me flying into the wall. The last thing I saw before blackness overtook me was Tahmon flying backwards from Davide’s lunge. I tried to scream but unconsciousness was slowly dragging me under.

“Oh Tahmon please be safe. Please don’t die, I need you to live. I love you.” Then it was black.

Tahmon



My head was pounding as I jumped out of the way of Davide’s pounce, his eyes showed his true intent. To kill me, I raced to the door when I saw a bit of the sun out side of the window. If I could only get him outside then I would never have to worry about him ever again. Yanking the door open I threw myself outside into the hallway. Racing towards the deck door I heard Davide’s ragged breath coming from behind me, the next events happened to me in slow motion. I opened the door and shoved Davide out into the sun and slammed the door and holding it closed listened to Davide’s screams of murder.

Then silence, lifting my head as cold reality dawned upon me. One of my old friends who had saved me from a horrible death millions of years ago, I just killed. Slowly getting up I walked with the slow realization of what I’d done. Then remembering Cleo I started to run, she had to be alright.