Perfectly ordinary. That was how Alice would have described her life up until that morning. Yet when she looked back, it was not exactly ordinary, was it? 

Alice was the youngest child in a prestigious family of true vampires, the Willoughbys. Her father was the head of the vampire council. Her mother had been the sword of the vampire council. Yet Alice had always felt that something was not quite right. Her father had always treated her with disdain, pushing her away, refusing to as much as look at her. 

She tried her best to be what they wanted her to be. At least her older brother was always there, doting on her, reading with her. She loved nothing more than to read, books were her refuge. She constantly aspired to learn new things, knowledge was something she placed highly. She was proper and followed everything she was told to do, perfection was something placed very highly in the Willoughby household. 

Which is why it was quite odd to her when her father came knocking on her door one night. 

“Alice. Tomorrow morning we have things to do, please wear this dress and wait for me to fetch you,” he muttered coldly as he handed her a long white dress, not giving her a single glance. 

“I will wear it, Father,” Alice said softly and took the dress, it felt like silk as she held it. 

She closed the door and glanced down at the plain, long white dress, “Ugh, this looks like something a ghost in a haunted castle would wear,” she mumbled under her breath before she hung it next to the large mirror in her bedroom. 

“Where would we be going?” She questioned before she fell back on her oversized bed and giggled, “Some secret vampire ritual perhaps?” She felt the soft fabric of the bed sheets beneath her as her mind filled with more questions. 

“I know, maybe I’ll put it on and walk around the hallways at night. I can scare the butler,” Alice grinned and sat up, “I should probably leave it for the morning though. Father sounded quite serious. Then again, tomorrow is a school day, I will miss physics, I have to hand in an assignment. The timing is really terrible.” Alice frowned as she jumped off her bed to investigate the dress more closely. 

“I feel like this dress is judging me. It’s perfectly fine to talk to yourself, stupid white dress,” she whispered as she lifted the sleeves up. 

Her face was full of questions, yet she couldn’t find any answers. It bothered her greatly. She grabbed the dress off the hanger and swiftly changed into it. 

“There. Now I’ll be ready for whatever’s gonna happen. I look silly though. Like a ghost,” Alice giggled again, twirling around before going to lie down. 

Her eyes were wide open as her mind kept wondering what tomorrow was all about. Could she ask her brother? She bit her lip, no, he was probably sleeping. She didn’t want to disturb him. She clapped her hands together, deciding she would be better off trying to get some sleep. 

The problem was that she could barely sleep that night. The usually soft sheets seemed to cling to her uncomfortably, and her mind was too full of questions with not a single concrete answer to be found. She tossed and turned until the sun rose brightly, flooding her windows with light. She was a true vampire, so the sunlight did not bother her as it would a turned vampire. 

Early that morning, not long after sunrise, there was a loud knock on her door. She jolted out of bed and pushed her long dark brown hair behind her ears before she opened. Her father scowled down in her direction, avoiding looking at her directly. 

“Come, child. It’s time,” he said dryly as he pulled her wrist along, his grey eyes kept avoiding her. 

Alice glanced up at his tall imposing frame, always dressed in a grey suit, “W-where are we going?” She stuttered. 

“The Council.” He still did not glance at her, his hand wrapped around her wrist tighter as he kept pulling her along the hallway and down the winding stairs to the basement. 

Alice swallowed hard. It didn’t make much sense to her. Why would he bring her to the council? She tried to keep up with his swift pace as they went deeper down the basement. 

They reached a large circle chamber with an empty stone archway in the center, it was covered in strange markings and symbols. Alice knew the symbols represented each of the important true vampire families, staring at the archway she realized this would be the gate to the Council building. 

Charles Willoughby let go of her wrist and picked up a knife that lay on a small table next to the archway. He then proceeded to cut the palm of his hand, rubbing the blood on the archway itself. 

Alice gasped as she saw the blood gathering in the middle of the stone arch, traveling to the top symbol where it started glowing faintly before filling the whole archway with a red glow. 

He grabbed her wrist again and tugged at her arm as he pulled her through the archway with him. Alice closed her eyes, the bright red glow blinding her as they passed through it. They were not in the basement of the Willoughby manor any longer, the archway was simply a portal to the Council building. Alice couldn’t stop staring, marveling at the size of the columns, and the size of the chamber they had stepped into. 

Her father tugged at her arm again, leading her out of the chamber, into the grand hallways. Alice couldn’t stop staring, she loved it. She wanted to stop and be amazed by the architecture, by the scale of it all. 

His hand tightened around her wrist again as he opened a large door leading into a different circular chamber. He threw her down on the floor, her body landing hard against the cold stone. 

“Ow,” she mumbled under her breath, she knew better than to speak up. 

He avoided her gaze as he grabbed her wrists again, securing them with two chains that were fastened to the floor on either side. The metal felt cold and heavy on her small wrists. 

“W-what are you doing? Father?” She questioned softly. 

“Something I should have done the day you were born, child. You are not mine. You never were. You are his vessel, his child. And for that, we, the Council will now pass our sentence,” he spoke in a firm tone, staring right into her eyes.

She felt his cold gaze, and a chill passed through her. Not his daughter? Whose then? Whose vessel? Her heart thumped fast and her hands started shaking as she saw the other members of the Council come through the doors and form a circle around her. 

“This child is a child of the Necromancer. She is his very vessel, his soul lives in her. I say we end her before she comes into the power,” Charles Willoughby thundered, his voice echoing throughout the chamber.