My Blood Legacy: Bloodlines

Anette arrived at the Royal Palace as if she had never left.

She did not ask permission, announce her name, or slow her pace as she crossed the enormous front courtyard. The outer gates were open, servants and soldiers moved about as usual, and for a brief second some believed they were simply watching another eccentric noblewoman approaching the heart of vampire power.

The mistake did not last long.

Two guards stationed at the main entrance, both far too young to recognize the weight of that presence, immediately stepped forward with their spears crossed in front of her.

"Stop. Identify yourself."

Anette barely looked at them.

Her face remained arrogantly calm, almost bored, as she kept walking.

One of the guards reached out to block her path.

The exact moment his fingers touched the dark sleeve of her improvised dress, the young man’s entire body stiffened.

The blood left his veins all at once, pouring from his eyes, nose, mouth, and pores as though his own body had simply decided there was no longer any reason to keep him alive.

The second guard did not even have time to retreat.

The same phenomenon struck him the next instant.

Both collapsed dry onto the polished marble, reduced to shriveled husks at the foot of the entrance stairs.

Anette continued climbing as though the entire thing had been nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

Her steps were light, but everything around her began reacting to her presence.

Windows trembled.

Several chandeliers jingled.

Servants who had witnessed the scene dropped trays and backed toward the sides of the entrance hall while magical alarms activated one after another.

With every new flight of stairs she climbed, more soldiers appeared.

She did not hurry.

She did not need to.

The impression she gave was simple:

This palace had forgotten who belonged to the bloodline that ruled it.

And now it would pay for that mistake.

By the time she reached the grand central atrium, the Royal Guard had already been mobilized.

Dozens of armed vampires surrounded the upper and lower corridors.

Blood spears, long blades, and defensive formations appeared almost at once.

None of them knew exactly who the silver-haired woman with mismatched eyes was as she walked alone among the drained corpses, but every one of them understood that she was a catastrophic threat.

The local commander shouted an order.

The first line attacked.

Anette sighed.

"Dogs that fail to recognize their masters deserve only death."

She raised one hand.

The world around her turned red.

Not red like fire.

Not red like light.

Red like living blood occupying the space of everything.

A sanctuary opened around Anette, silent and perfect, like a cathedral made of veins, liquid runes, and crimson threads drawn through the air.

The soldiers who had charged froze in mid-motion.

Then they came apart.

Not cut by visible blades.

Reduced instead to the fundamental element they carried within themselves.

Skin.

Muscle.

Bone.

Organs.

Energy.

Everything was returned to death’s embrace and transformed into blood.

The sanctuary did not crush.

It converted.

It was as though it simply told the body that its current form was unnecessary.

The result was grotesque and beautiful at the same time.

Where warriors of the Royal Guard had stood, only masses of blood remained suspended in the air, slowly revolving around Anette before being absorbed into her.

Her skin seemed to gain a little more radiance.

Her hair moved with greater life.

Even the faint irritation on her face disappeared for a moment.

"Much better."

But the palace was enormous, and the confusion had already spread.

Doors opened across every level.

More soldiers emerged from side corridors.

In the distance, she could feel reinforcements racing toward her.

Hundreds.

Then thousands.

A small part of her was tempted to continue and turn this reunion into an even harsher lesson.

Another, more practical part simply calculated how much more blood would be convenient to drink before someone with at least a minimum amount of intelligence appeared.

Then a shout tore through the hall.

"STOP! SHE’S THE PRINCESS, YOU IDIOTS! WHY ARE YOU ATTACKING THE PRINCESS?!"

The voice was feminine, sharp enough to cut through the tension, but carried genuine authority.

Anette turned her head and saw a figure rushing through the crowd.

She was tall and slender, with an elegant and unmistakably inhuman beauty.

Long golden hair cascaded down her back, contrasting with a black-and-white aristocratic maid dress, fitted tightly at the waist and decorated with lace and ribbons that did absolutely nothing to hide the fact that the outfit had been designed more to please noble eyes than to serve practical work.

Long pointed ears revealed her elven origin, while golden eyes shone with an intelligence far too sharp for an ordinary servant.

Syn.

A six-thousand-year-old vampire elf.

And one of the few creatures in that world Anette would recognize even in the middle of a battlefield.

Syn rushed into the center of the massacre, ordered every guard to retreat with a surprising amount of verbal violence, and then stopped in front of Anette.

Without hesitation, she dropped into a deep kneel, head lowered, one hand over her chest and the other resting against the floor.

"My Lady, you finally returned from the dead!"

Anette crossed her arms and looked down at her.

"And where was that loyalty while I was sealed inside a coffin?"

Her voice became even drier.

"Besides, I expected you to stay beside my coffin until I returned."

Syn raised her face, incredulous.

"Wait two thousand years beside a coffin that might never open again? My Lady, with all due respect, that is completely absurd."

Anette’s expression did not change.

"Of course I wouldn’t do that."

Syn blinked, relieved for half a second.

"Exactly, that’s what I thought—"

"I’m the princess."

The relief died.

Anette tilted her head to the side.

"You’re a servant, not the princess. A servant waits for her mistress. It’s not complicated."

Syn stared at her in shock, opening and closing her mouth twice without producing anything useful.

She tried to argue, perhaps in defense of her own sanity, but Anette simply extended one finger and pressed it against her lips.

"Please spare me the headache. Go prepare a bath and some decent clothes."

Syn took a deep breath, clearly swallowing a dozen inconvenient responses.

"Right away, My Lady."

She jumped to her feet, turned to obey, and immediately found her view blocked by two full, firm breasts.

Syn stopped as though she had collided with a wall far too soft to be threatening.

Her eyes followed the shape beneath the military uniform, drifted upward a little, and still found more than they should have.

"Oh? So soft. They’re just like Mommy’s—"

The sentence died halfway through when she lifted her eyes.

Chysis stood in front of her.

The Marshal did not need to say a single word.

Her presence alone was enough.

The hair.

The straight posture.

The immaculate uniform.

The expression of someone who had killed far too many people to be impressed by very much.

Syn immediately lost all composure.

The elf jumped backward and, in a movement almost ridiculous for someone so ancient, ran to hide behind Anette.

Chysis lightly bit her tongue before speaking, as though holding back a comment.

"Welcome back, Princess."

Anette, who until then had maintained an arrogant posture with everyone, turned toward Chysis.

The two stared at one another in silence for a brief moment.

The entire hall seemed to hold its breath as well, uncertain whether it was about to witness a formal reunion, a political explosion, or another massacre.

Then Anette opened a radiant smile.

"Grandma!"

She simply jumped into Chysis’s arms.

The Marshal caught her by reflex without taking even a single step back while Anette hugged her like a granddaughter reuniting with her grandmother after a long journey.

The scene was so absurd that even the surviving members of the Royal Guard seemed to forget about the drained corpses scattered across the floor for a second.

But, well, neither of them was actually related.

Even so, at that moment, the Princess of All Vampires had returned.

And for the entire palace, that was already more than enough of a problem.

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