“Of course sir, and you girl, for your own good, behave,” The slaver said, “Kneel before your master. The slave monger kicked her behind the knees causing her to fall on the floor with a moan of pain.

The room was silent and the only sound that could be heard were the chains that imprisoned Meryl. Kneeling on the floor she looked at the strange man that had bought her and pleaded for mercy with her eyes.

“Mess, she’s no longer your problem. So stop giving orders and hitting her.” Caleb took the chain that was attached to Meryl’s collar, grabbed her arm and helped her to stand without much effort.

“I’m sorry, my lord.”

Caleb placed a hand on Meryl’s trembling shoulder and pushed her towards the door while everyone looked at them intently.

They got into a car and Meryl looked closely at the man who had bought her. It was the first time she saw a vampire up close. He was just like something out of a dream. He had black hair and eyes the color of rubies. Eyes that were so intense that they hypnotized you, but his beauty was the least important thing at the time. Meryl just begged any supreme being to protect her from what appeared to be a close death.

Looking out of the corner of her eye, she saw her buyer sit indifferently. With a clenched fist supporting his jaw he looked quietly out of the car window. Only a few centimeters separated them, but she had the feeling that it was light years. Something that she wished was true with all her might.

Fifteen minutes after leaving the city that slept because of the late hour. They arrived at a large, old mansion on the outskirts of the city. The garden was dry and the trees inspired dread. It would have been the perfect place to shoot a horror movie. The car stopped and Caleb got out to gallantly open Meryl’s door. He didn’t look at her but waited patiently for the two minutes it took his new acquisition to finally get out. Her bare feet stepped on the gravel surrounding the entire house.

Meryl was staring and was startled when she felt the leather glove covering Caleb’s hand on her bare shoulder, pushing her again, this time towards the front door that began to creak open.

“You have taken longer than expected,” A man’s voice quietly said, noticing that his boss did not arrive alone. This was something new and unusual.

“Take her Alexander. Make sure she bathes and remove the chains,” Caleb ordered.

“Yes, of course. Through here, Miss.”

Meryl looked at Caleb unable to hide her confusion because this was not what she expected. He just walked past her and into the mansion leaving them both there. A little unsure about the situation she approached Alexander carefully. He was a young man with such pale skin that he almost glowed in the dark of night, with vermilion eyes and a black suit.

He certainly looked like the kind of vampire she would have imagined in her old life, with a strange attractiveness and a little sickly.

“I’ll leave you some clean clothes. They are a little old I hope you don’t mind. I think the water will be to your liking.”

She frowned and couldn’t stop the slight trembling that continued in each of her muscles. She got into the tub of warm water scented with wild blackberries and felt reborn.

The water was cold but Meryl continued inside with a blank mind. She almost seemed dead.

The sound of the door brought her back to reality.

“Are you okay?” Alexander asked from the other side.

Meryl whispered a slight, “Yes”. The vampire heard perfectly. She left the water without waiting any longer, not wanting to give them reasons to enter. Meryl saw the simple white dress with a conservative cut and puffed sleeves. She sat in a chair that was in the room thinking about what to do, wear the dress, wait, risk going out. Meryl still wasn’t sure why she was there. Maybe she was tonight’s dinner.

Meryl had a rebellious impulse and once again put on her dirty clothes that had been given to her by the scientists before the experiment. She found it strange that they were treating her so well. It was far from the stories she heard from her cellmates and far from a normal situation.

Alexander came in soon after and was astonished to see her dressed in the clothes she had arrived. He smiled to himself realizing what she was trying to say.

“If you had told me I would have washed your clothes and tried to fix the torn part. They seem important to you. Well, I’m sure you’re hungry. I’ve prepared something. If you come with me,” he said, making a gallant gesture with his hand and pointing the way to go.

Although she didn’t want to go she had no choice. Meryl stood up carefully and started walking leaving small wet footprints on the shiny black marble floor. The mansion must be large. There must be dozens of rooms. As she passed through the wide corridor she saw door after door with beautiful portraits hanging in the hallway. The whole house was decorated in the Baroque style.

“This way.”

Alexander opened a door that seemed to be made of well-treated oak. They both went through it and entered a luxurious lounge. Fire illuminated every corner and its crackling was intriguing.

In the center was a large table with several plates of food. The tasty smell that emanated came floating up to Meryl and she felt a gaping hole in her stomach. For the first time she realized that she had not eaten since she had awakened, but soon the hunger became nervous nausea and as she sat down she realized that she wasn’t alone.

In the couch furthest from her, the person who had purchased her sat holding up a glass that contained a thick red liquid. Meryl could only see his profile illuminated by the flames. He looked serious and the light emitting from the fire highlighted his black hair revealing it was a very dark blue-black.

He seemed unaware of her presence, but it was far from the truth. He knew better than anyone that she was there. He could still smell her fear and it was all beginning to seem irrational to him. Caleb lost track of time wondering why he had bought her. He was still astonished that he had bought a worthless woman. She had a bittersweet smell and most likely tasted the same, but the most important thing was that he had to get used to having another person there who was not his right hand, his best friend, Alexander, or Jeoff, his driver and bodyguard.

They must have spent ten minutes sitting there when he heard the faint clink of metal against porcelain. He had no need to look to know she had not eaten, no, he had an uncanny ability to know what was happening without seeing.

“If you will not eat,” he began with a quiet, deep voice that frightened her. “It’s best that you go to sleep. It’s almost three o’clock in the morning.”

Meryl looked at him suspiciously, still waiting for the moment he would pounce on her, and bleed her to death. The wait was worse than anything else. Feeling defeated, she stood up obediently.

“Come with me,” Alexander appeared from some corner startling her once again.

They went upstairs, which had as many rooms as the first floor. However, on this floor, there were two walls with an impressive exhibition of paintings and statues in the Roman and Greek style. The statues were already old when Meryl lived her life before the experiment.

“Caleb has told me that you can use this room. It’s fully furnished and there are also clothes,” Alexander explained.

Meryl ran inside without letting him finish speaking and closed the door behind her. She tried to get some sense of security being locked safely inside the room. There were several lighted candles illuminating the room with elegance, it was a beautiful and spacious room.

The bed was big, the bedspread was an emerald green color, and shone like silk. The high wooden post stretched from the ends holding the canopy in the same shade as the rest of the linens. There was a bathroom and a huge walk-in closet full of clothes for a woman. The double-paned window was next to an old wooden desk that sat in the middle, near the wall and had a matching chair.

“Caleb?” Alexander asked. “What happened to make you bring a slave?”

“I don’t know,” he said rudely staring at the glass that was full once again. “I had a strange feeling when I saw her.”

“Please understand my confusion. I’ve been with you for one hundred years and you have never shown any interest in anyone.”

“I’m as surprised as you. It’s late, I’m going to rest.”

Alexander smiled watching him disappear through the doorway. There was no one on the face of the earth that knew Caleb better than him. Saying he was tired was something Caleb said when he did not want to talk about a topic, and yet there was the human girl who had gained his attention. He had also noticed something strange about the behavior of the girl. The fear she had of all things. Maybe she didn’t know Caleb? Even while under the direct command of Amadeus, Caleb was not known to be cruel, maybe a bit cold and extremely serious, but not evil. Any human would have given an arm to end up in Caleb’s house.

Alexander still remembered the conversation in the bathroom. Caleb had specifically asked Meryl to stay in the room he had decorated a few months ago without reason. It was a room that Caleb had denied Ashe his latest and most ardent lover and the reason that she had furiously left. Once she saw that he did not give in to her whims. Ashe had never even received a hug from him. Their relationship had only been purely sexual.

“If he wasn’t a man, he wouldn’t let himself lust,” Alexander whispered, he thought it was funny, while he cleared the table. “Hopefully, this will not cause any major problems.”

Meryl woke up not knowing what time it was. The darkened sky made it impossible to know when it was dawn and when it was dusk. She still wondered what had happened, how, and especially why.

She stared at the ceiling of the bed not wanting to get up. She felt weak and remembered the delicious smell given off by the soup from the night before. Her stomach growled several times complaining loudly that she was hungry.

“Should I get up?” She asked herself in the solitude of the room. “What should I do, God? If Mom were here. Oh, Mom, George ...” She sobbed covering her face with the pillow.

It seemed incredible that she had not had time to mourn for the two most important people in her life. It was hard to believe that never again would she see either of them. It was a horrible feeling and her mind was trying to pretend that nothing was real. That she was in her own bed, and had just woken up from a nightmare, but the knocking on the door returned her to the cruel reality, the mansion of her master.

“I thought that since you were not well. Maybe you’d like to eat breakfast here?”

Meryl couldn’t seem to listen, her eyes stared at the tasty contents of the tray: toast, juice. Why did a vampire have those things? Didn’t they feed only on blood?

“Thank you,” she muttered, avoiding eye contact.

“You shouldn’t be afraid, you’re safe here.

Meryl lifted her head suddenly amazed at his words. For a second she wanted to cry, but her instincts would not allow it.

“Hey ...” Meryl called before he left the room, “You’re one of them, right?”

“One of whom?”

“Vampire.”

“Yes, of course.”

“Can you tell me what happened?”

“Sorry,” Alexander apologized, “but I don’t understand what you mean.”

“Why is the sky dark?” Meryl asked in a tone of supplication. “Why is the world like it is now? Since I woke up yesterday I’ve only seen horrible things. I don’t understand anything.” Meryl muttered to herself as she lifted both hands to her face to silence a gasp of despair, “What am I going to do?”

Alexander remained still. He was unable to understand Meryl, but something was wrong. He went in search of Caleb leaving the door open behind him. Maybe his boss could get more answers to all the confusion and above all, get Meryl out of the state of despair she had sunk into. She kept staring into space as if about to lose her mental faculties.

“Caleb, you better go and see your guest.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure, but she’s babbling. She’s asking strange questions.”

Caleb waited a few seconds before going to see Meryl. He arrived at her room and saw her sitting with slumped shoulders and looking at the quilt that covered her legs. She seemed unaware of his presence.

“Leave us alone, Alexander.”

Caleb approached with caution. He wanted to avoid scaring her. He could see her lips moving gently, whispering something only a vampire would be able to perceive. He sat on the edge of the bed and concentrated on using his senses.

“I just wanted to make money, for mom and George. It was a stupid experiment, only one week of sleeping and our problems would have ended forever, but when I woke up it was dark and everything was broken and destroyed. Then I was sold. Vampires, vampires. Since when are they real? They’ll kill me, hurt me and I won’t be able to do anything. Nothing.

Caleb was shocked he had understood perfectly what she said, but how could it be possible? The words tied up the loose ends that had tormented him during the last hours. It would be shocking for someone to suddenly wake up in such a hellish world. He reached out and grabbed onto her shoulders trying to return her to reality in the least shocking way possible. Feeling the sudden pressure, she looked at him with eyes open wide. Caleb could see the panic in her eyes.

Large transparent tears began sliding down her cheeks. He felt powerless and for the first time in centuries he wanted to stop the pain of another living being. With both thumbs, he dried her rosy cheeks. He felt sorry for the human who apparently came from the past. Caleb knew there was some reason why his instincts had been alerted and he’d been forced to buy her. Now here they were.

“You’ll have to calm yourself and tell me everything.”

“Don’t kill me!” Meryl suddenly shouted, as if waking from a nightmare.

“It’s not what I have in mind and not what I intend to do. Tell me, how did you get here?” He insisted. “Tell me.”