Ayven

~ Prologue ~

The year Eighteen Fifty-One
One Hundred Fifty-Three years past
~~~

   Two sisters gazed around a huge room. Their long, fashionable gowns seemed just like everyone else’s. Full skirts, and trimmed with lace. Both sisters had long, dark brown hair that fell nearly to their waists, but was done up on their heads for this event.
   The taller, and older looking, of the two sisters was dressed in elegant midnight red accented with black lace. Her dark eyes appeared to be a shade of violet. The other sister had chosen a nearly black, dark blue dress for the occasion, also adorned with black lace. She had dark eyes like her sister’s, but hers were brown.
   The sisters stood by the grand staircase, watching the crowd of finely dressed men and ladies mingle with each other, and waited.
   Not much later, a young man, no older than 20 or 21, came quickly down the stairs. He was wearing a dressy, long-sleeved, black shirt with flairs at the wrists and a v-neck color with ruffles at the bottom. His long, black dress trousers complimented the shirt perfectly. He was the picture of young nobility.
   “Lady Arila!” He addressed the taller sister, with a bow.
   “Good evening, how is your Lord father?” the woman asked, holding out a pale hand to the young man, who took it and placed a timid and gentle kiss on the back of it.
   “He is well.”
   “And how are you?” the younger sister said, also holding out her hand.
   “I am well, Lady Alimai.” The young man kissed her hand as well.
   “It’s time, Lirit,” Arila said to the young man.
   He looked back to her. “Let’s go.”
   Arila and Alimai led Lirit out of the main room and into a side room, small, dark, and unoccupied. The two sisters lit the lamps so they could see, and then stood in front of the waiting Lirit.
   Arila stepped close to him, her face only inches from his. Her hand grazed the bare skin peaking out of the v-neck of his shirt. She ran her cold, pale fingers over the dark scar lines shaped in a double rose and surrounded with two A’s. “Are you ready?” she whispered, eyeing his neck hungrily.
   “I am,” Lirit said, his breath ragged with excitement and anticipation.
   Arila moved her lips to his neck, bared her fangs and sunk them deep into Lirit’s awaiting flesh. She drank deep and long, only pulling away sooner to make room for her sister.
   Alimai also revealed her fangs and bit through the young man’s neck, gulping down the blood that gave him human life.
   As her sister drank, Arila pulled a dagger out of her dress. She unsheathed it and, when Alimai pulled away, she slit her own wrist and handed the weapon to her sister to do the same.
   Arila held her wrist to Lirit’s mouth. “Drink,” she ordered.
   Lirit obeyed, drinking deeply from Arila first, and then Alimai. Desire and elation surged through his body. He could not get enough and was only stopped when Alimai pulled her wrist away.
   Lirit fell to his knees as a strange sensation tore through him. His heart gave a few erratic thumps and then stopped beating all together. An unbearable cold filled his veins and his muscles screamed in pain. Lirit bit his lip to keep from crying out and found that his canine teeth had lengthened and sharpened. Blood dripped from his lip where his new fangs had pierced it.
   The young man could not feel anything anymore and he collapsed into darkness.

   When Lirit’s eyes opened, Arila and Alimai stood over him, their fanged teeth showing in smirks.
   “How do you feel?” Arila asked.
   Lirit tried to stand, and found he could with no pain. He flexed his muscles and felt a newfound strength in them. He grinned too, baring his fangs. “Powerful!”
   “Then you’re ready?” Alimai asked.
   Lirit looked at them, still grinning. “Yes.”
   Arila and Alimai walked out of the room, Lirit following, and into the grand room once more. The music still played, the people still talked and danced, and no one could even imagine what was about to happen.
   “Ready everyone?” A great ringing cry sang through the room, spoken in Arila’s voice. The crowds fell silent and turned puzzled eyes towards where the two sisters and Lirit were standing. Arila, who was standing between her sister and Lirit, looked at both of them in turn. “Let’s go,” she said.
   Nearly forty figures in black seemed to appear from nowhere. They raced towards the crowd of dancers from all sides. Arila started foreword and Alimai and Lirit followed.
   Drawing the dagger Alimai had given him, Lirit started for his first victim. Bringing the dagger up, he plunged it into a pretty woman’s shoulder. She screamed and Lirit grabbed her and snapped her neck. He was surprised at his sudden action, but thought about it no more and sunk his fangs into the woman’s neck. He drained her dry of blood and left her dead on the floor.

   A long time later, hours maybe, Lirit stood amid nearly a hundred dead bodies. He looked around to see his father, the Lord of this house, standing behind him. The man was wounded and staring at his son confusedly. Lirit walked up to his father and stood close to him, his dagger in hand.
   “Son?” Lord Donovan said, his voice weak.
   “I’m sorry father,” Lirit whispered, pulling his father into a hug and stabbing him in the stomach. The man gasped and fell limp against his son and Lirit lowered him to the ground. He turned and saw all the vampires of Arila’s following standing behind him. Arila and Alimai stood in the front, smiling at Lirit as if to congratulate him.
   It was only a moment later that the arrow flashed past Lirit and buried itself in Arila’s chest. A look of shock and pain twisted the beautiful vampire’s face. She fell to the floor in a heap and her body disintegrated.
   “Clanin Juliarc!” Alimai shouted, kneeling by the remains of her sister. “I should have known you’d come back! I will find you and kill you for this!”
   Lirit turned to see the back of the arrow’s owner dissapear around the corner and into the hallway of the great manor. The arrow had killed Arila, the one who had first marked Lirit. He stood there, not knowing what to do.
   Finally, Lirit ran; he ran from his childhood home, from his dead father, from the vampires who had just helped him in his first massacre. He ran into the darkness of the growing night.

   Many years later, Lirit took a ship across the Atlantic Ocean to the country called America. His homeland of England held too many bitter memories. Lirit could stay there no longer. He had decided to establish a new life. To find a place of his own.