My mind groggily came to as morning approached. Someone was gently patting my arm.

“Helen, Helen, you need to wake up.”

I groaned and rolled over. The room was still dark. I really didn’t want to get up today, not after a dream like that. It felt so real, so stressful. The restless sleep made my body feel so heavy... “Five more minutes mom…” I slurred sleepily, wanting to fall back asleep and replace the memory of the dream with something else.

“C’mon, Helen,” urged the voice again. My mind became more awake as I realized it wasn’t my mom’s. “You need to be awake, it’s not good for you to stay out of it right now.”

I opened my eyes and suddenly felt like I was hit by a truck. The pain on my shoulder was throbbing still, and my head was pounding. The room was dark, lit just by a small candle sitting by the bedside. The face of a young adult girl with bright hazel-green eyes cleared my vision, her dark brown hair and pink-tipped bangs pulled back in a ponytail to reveal a friendly and concerned expression. The rest of the room faded into view, revealing a different room than the one I had woken up in before, and five girls that looked to be about my age.

My stomach lurched and the girl who was waking me up held up a trash can for me as I turned over and vomited into it.

“Easy, easy,” she said, rubbing my back as I hurled again. After a third time the nausea started to pass and I felt even more drained. She wiped my face off with a damp cold cloth and handed me a cup of water. “Drink slowly, little sips.”

I did, my stomach feeling almost hollow. “What happened…?” I groaned drunkenly, my memory of the events extremely foggy. “Am I...am I dead? I feel like I died.”

“No, thankfully you’re not dead,” she said with slight amusement. “You’ve, um, had quite the ordeal though.”

I laid back again into the very soft pillows and bed. “Just tell me one thing at least. Are vampires real?”

She hesitated for just a moment, thinking of how to answer. At last she sighed, and I already knew the answer before she even spoke.

“Yes, Helen,” she confirmed softly. “Vampires are real.”

I breathed in deep, letting that sink in. My heart didn’t seem to have the energy to race, but my mind was able to process something. Either that fact is true, or I am still in an ongoing nightmare. Whatever the case, there’s nothing I could do about it right now. I let my breath out.

“Okay,” I murmured, mostly to myself. This may as well happen. The girls as seemed to relax at the calmness in my voice. “Okay.”

“How do you feel?” asked the girl right behind the one with pink hair, her hair short and almost black and her skin a soft brown. Next to her was an almost identical twin except for her hair, which was longer. Their eyes were amber in the candlelight.

“Terrible,” I answered, deciding to roll with what’s happening. “But the world has stopped spinning at least.”

“That’s a good sign,” said pink bangs in the front. “You’ll start feeling a lot better soon as you get some food and drink in you. My name is Rose, by the way,” she introduced, then gesturing to each girl in the room. “This is Suzanne and Alice,” the twins nodded, “Claire, and Wendy.” The last two, a strawberry-red curly haired freckled girl with bright green eyes and pale skin, and a short, shy, bouncy black hair and steel gray eyed girl.

“Helen,” I responded. “Though, it looks like you already knew that.”

“We’ve been updated mostly about what’s happened,” Rose said, helping me to sit up. “How much do you remember?”

“Well, apparently I’ve been kidnapped by vampires,” I said sardonically, rubbing my shoulder as the bite prickled under the gauze bandage. “And...now I’m married? What’s the deal with that?”

They tried to stifle a laugh; I smiled a little, glad they took my dark humor well.

“Not quite, at least not in the way you think it would be,” Rose briefly explained with an amused and patient smile. “We’ll try to catch you up on everything, but first we should get you something to eat. You feel okay to walk?”

I did a mental check of all my faculties. The heaviness was slowly lifting and the dizzy was all but gone. My shoulder still throbbed a little, and that strange rubbery stretching feeling was still there and still pulling at me, but I was otherwise feeling better.

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, and let them help me to my feet and out of the cushy bed. They led me out of the dimly lit room to a lighter room, and through another door into a hallway. It was a much smaller hallway than the one I remembered walking through before, not so wide, but decorated in very much the same fashion. Gentle light flitted through as the closed walls turned to open windows, revealing a pink and orange sunrise. My guess right now would be that it was just after 6am.

“How long have I been out?”

“Since the last time you passed out? Not long.” Suzanne walked beside me. “You were only out for a few minutes, and then slept for about an hour and a half.”

“What about...since I arrived?” I put lightly.

“It’ll have been less than a day I think,” Rose answered. “I think they found you outside the castle around 8:30-9 o’clock, they said you were in and out of it for a good while after that.”

Concern overtook me. “I...I don’t remember any of that.” Other thoughts filled my head as my hand subconsciously went to my shoulder again. “So—so I was bit, right? Am I…?”

“Don’t worry, you won’t turn,” Rose assured me. “Not unless you want to, but that would require a different ritual than what had happened, in addition to your consent.” I let out a breath of relief.

“So how does that work then?” I asked, relaxing just a little more. “I’ve always thought the common consensus is that once you’re bit you’re done for.”

We made a turn and walked into what looked like a kitchen restaurant as Claire replied this time. “That’s probably because people tend to disappear from your side of things whenever a vampire decides to feed, or their behavior might change. And when a vampire takes on a Bride their partner usually begins to have a preference to accommodate the vampire.”

Rose went and talked to what looked to be the chef of the kitchen, ordering food I assumed hopefully, while we sat at a stainless steel counter and Claire continued.

“But since vampires haven’t publicly done that in centuries, people’s assumptions only became more skewed and the myths more off mark,” she said.

“Okay, so, a lot of questions now,” I gestured in a slow-down motion.

“Food first,” Rose said, coming back to join the group as she and the chef she spoke to brought plates of breakfast. She handed me a glass of orange juice. “Drink a little of this first before you eat.”

I immediately became aware of how hungry I was and obliged, feeling better after a few sips of OJ, and even more after digging into warm eggs and sausage and toast. Everything tasted beyond delicious, and I was so thankful I wasn’t going to turn into a vampire. I would miss the taste of food too much. ‘Course, that was assuming anything mythology has said was correct. Which, it seems, might not be much.

“So,” I said after a few minutes of eating. “So, in step by step order of events if you can, what happened to me? And what’s going to happen to me now?”

They looked to Claire, who seemed pretty happy at the chance to explain. “So, starting with what happened before you were bit, last night was supposed to the union ceremony between the Lord of the castle and his chosen Bride, capital ‘B’. A vampire Bride is someone who a vampire has chosen would be their most compatible mate, and has committed to only feeding from that person. Historically this was a phenomenon that would occur when a vampire reached a certain stage in life and found a single source to feed from. It’s like this magical bond forms between them, and ties them into place and make the vampire only able to feed from one person. By only being able to feed from one source, the vampire’s life would be dictated by the well-being of their human. Sometimes they don’t make it to that stage, and sometimes…” she struggled to find kinder words. “...accidents happen.”

“But once it happens, it can’t be undone,” she continued after I swallowed nervously. “Here at the castle, soon as a new Lord is ready to take charge, a Bride is chosen for them and the ceremony is performed when the time is right and they reach that stage.”

I nodded again, and felt a chill of dread as I realized what this was leading up to. “So...so then…?”

They nodded.

“Normally it takes a few feedings to develop the bond. With the royal bloodline it works a little differently, but only in the sense that they can predict exactly when the final connection is ready to be made. That was supposed to happen with Lady Victoria, but when Lord Zain bit you...for some reason it was invoked instantly.”

“So,” I began, letting everything sink. “So, when this Zain guy bit me, I somehow became his host?” They nodded. “And there’s no way to undo it. Which means…” My stomach sank.

“Yeah,” Rose confirmed sadly. “I’m afraid you won’t be allowed to leave anymore.”

I slumped back, feeling dejected.

After a moment I asked, “So, you guys are human though, right? Does that mean you guys are food? Or also Brides or whatever?”

“Sorta,” Suzanne answered this time. “I mean, if you want to put it simply then yeah, sure, we’re basically food. But I mean, everything is taken care of for us, we’re still allowed to live regular normal lives and pursue interests and so on, we just have to donate blood regularly, take care of our bodies, and be supervised anytime we leave the castle.” Her sister nodded with her.

I perked up at the last detail. “You’re allowed to leave?”

“With supervision,” Rose clarified. “As we get older we’ll be allowed to travel to other boarding houses similar to this place and still experience the world, and with permission sometimes we can sign up to travel with the embassy on conference visits. We’re not allowed to leave the community since we were all born and raised with them and we know too much, but they do their best to try and make up for it.”

“That...” I started carefully, “that honestly sounds a bit like a cult.”

“I know, right?” Claire agreed with a smile. “That’s what I thought too as I got to know this place.”

“Oh right!” Rose said. “I forgot you came from outside the castle too.”

“What happened?” I asked casually. “Did you get Bride-ified too?” She laughed.

“Nah, I was rescued when the embassy was on a trip. I think I was, like, six? My parents had passed when I was really little so I was handed off to my aunt and uncle. They were assholes. Apparently a vampire saw me getting verbally abused by them in public, enough to warrant investigation, and ‘supposedly’ looked into the circumstances.” She make air quotes with her fingers. “Honesty I bet they had already decided to whisk me away regardless. Then hop skip and jump I was out my bedroom window and away from that mess.”

“Dang,” I exhaled, ironically shuddering at the thought of getting kidnapped by a vampire.

“Don’t get me wrong though, I’m really glad they did,” she continued. “I was in a really bad place. It’s a bit messed up the way it happened, yeah, and doesn’t exactly make for a good argument knowing a vampire cult can just go around kidnapping people, but it doesn’t happen that often and certainly not without good reason.”

At this point I became aware that we had long since finished eating and were making our way back. Other than the slight tugging-sensation that still occurred, which every now and then would flare up a bit and then die down, I felt strangely comfortable now. We passed by the glass windows again, the sun a bit higher in the sky now and warmth falling in with the rays through the trees. A lush garden courtyard fenced by what looked like more open-view glass hallways and one open set of pillars and archways spread across the entire view. Dew coated the grass and flowers, and benches sat under trees. There was a small patterned hedge maze to our current left. It looked like a nice place to spend an afternoon reading or just relaxing.

A brief thought passed through my head. Maybe this won’t be so bad.

“How come this place was never discovered?” I asked curiously. “I mean, outside we knew a castle might be here but by the sounds of things there’s a pretty big civilization going on.”

“Well, it started when vampires started realizing that just feeding from any old human from any old place was dangerous,” Claire said. “You know, with the hunters and people not really liking that their family members were being attacked and taken away. So they started a coven of vampires AND humans, made an agreement to keep the humans alive and take care of them, and then boom, safe and stable food supply.”

“They keep it secret by keeping in contact with other creatures,” Suzanne added. “Witches helped by putting spells around vampire locations to make sure no one just accidentally wandered in, and so on.”

“Except for a few exceptions,” I muttered darkly, earning questioning looks from them. We rounded the corner and took a different turn than from where we originally had come from. The pulling suddenly grew stronger, distracting me from the fact that they had asked me something in response, and I debated on whether I should ask if this strange sensation was normal.

Before I could decide though Rose suddenly stopped with a surprised ‘Oh!’ My attention refocused forward and my breath caught in a very mixed emotion as all other questions fell away.

“Good morning Lord Zain,” Rose greeted respectfully, and the others shyly murmured greetings as well.