Luna laughed as she chose the right clothes and footwear for her to slip on from the Vampire King’s concubine’s treasure chest.

The simple red gown she picked was lovely to human eyes, but with her vampire’s eyes, she could examine how the light shined off of every stitch and tiny imperfections, which made the colour even brighter.

As a newly turned vampire, touching things felt better than she ever had before but feeling something that had always affected her would be a different story.

Everything would be magnified, and she would go insane.

Luna titled her head, pondering how long would it take the Vampire King to free himself from the shackles.

‘It was a puzzle the Vampire King needed to solve.’

Now she will let the bastard figure out which spell worked on the right wrist from the left one, wishing he will not wake up sooner.

She needed to know how to slip away from the Vampire King’s lair real quick.

Luna was impressed by how Cederic, the military general, did it, so she decided to try it herself.

Searching her memories, Luna tried to remember how her room and Lady Clarence’s looked like so she could teleport herself back to the Consortium.

She zoomed her entire awareness of their room’s vanity mirror in great detail.

Before her eyes, Luna’s body seemed to explode, break apart, and a black mist appeared from where she’d stood.

The thick mist was moving … faster … faster … swirling together and then poof.

Luna was back in the caves.

“Oh, dear,” Luna muttered to herself. “Wrong place.”

‘Let this self-inflicted test serve as a practice.’

‘She can do it as long as she focused well.’

Not.

She had unwittingly wondered if Jon was still alive and safe, but why?

The bastard was her tormentor, and it was none of her business, whether he was dead or alive.

Luna prayed to the Goddess that the Nagini eat Jon.

But then again, Luna couldn’t stop her damned curiosity from popping up.

Now, this quick, nonsensical thought brought her back to the caves.

Luna stepped into the tunnels with her manifested sword drawn in her hands as she stood in its shadowed corridors.

Crouching behind a stalagmite that had reached the ceiling, Luna used an illumination spell, the riotous light revealing the slime that coated the stalagmite.

The ability to focus on anything became much harder.

Everything seemed to catch Luna’s attention. Her new senses were a hard thing to adjust to.

So far, the thing which amazed her most had to be the Vampire King.

Since she turned into a vampire, everything about her had been set on the Vampire King’s frequency, and Luna thought it would fade by the distance.

As it was, she could only concentrate when her body screamed that her mate, the Vampire King, was much too far away from her.

An inconvenience, indeed.

Luna saw Jon in her mind’s eye, lying on his stomach with his handsome face on the ground, unmoving.

She focused on this image, and she materialized beside him.

Luna kicked Jon with her boots to check if he was still alive.

No movement whatsoever.

She sat and cradled Jon’s head to see his face.

Overturning him, Luna screamed when Jon surprised her by saying, “Boo!”

“What the fuck, Jon? You scared me!” Luna gasped then kicked him again for surprising her.

Luna would kick him a hundred times for no reason except for revenge.

She had been to hell and back, literally, because of this bastard.

“I can talk, but I can’t move,” Jon muttered as he groaned, trying to lift even a pinkie but couldn’t. “Somebody locked my joints. Was it you?”

“I just arrived, silly.” Luna’s lips curled in amusement. “I met the goddess Hecate, and I passed the test.”

“You did?” Jon laughed bitterly. “Congratulations, High Priestess.”

Luna understood the principle of karma a lot, and she knew Jon did too.

‘What you did will always get back to you in any shape or form.’

“I don’t know what happened,” Jon said, devoid of emotion.

So, he wanted to play it this way?

“For the goddess’ sake, Jon, don’t even attempt to forget that you beat me up.”

Luna put her feet on Jon’s back and jumped on top of him, adding more weight to his suffering to torment him further.

Jon grunted as Luna tried to break his back, but he handled it well like the ancient vampire he was.

“I know I did, but you talked to an unseen entity, and I just blacked out after that.”

Luna stabbed her sword on the ground, half an inch closer to Jon’s face. “Well, another reason to leave you to die.”

A spectre had quickly emerged, stalking her stealthily as it threw nightmarish shadows against the stone walls of the cave.

An executioner’s black hood masked its features.

Red eyes glittered deep within the hood’s recesses like an illusion, briefly seen than gone quickly.

Luna ran a hand through her long silver hair in frustration as she grunted, pulling out her heavy sword from the ground. “Oh, goddess, another spirit to kill.”

‘If it can be killed.’

The black void in the pit of her stomach grew, threatening to obliterate her with anxiety.

Fear cavorted in Jon’s eyes as the spectre’s shadows thrown by Luna’s glow lights danced on the walls.

The massive sword in the ghastly hand of the hellish apparition gestured toward the stalagmite Luna crouched behind in grim invitation.

Well, it was her fault for unconsciously going back to the caves with Jon, and if she wouldn’t fight, then… oh, she forgot she was a vampire now.

Strong.

Magical.

She was tough to kill, not unless the spirit pulled out her vampire heart from her ribcage.

Courage paired with anger began to build, displacing the paralyzing fear she had, and Luna turned to meet the demon.

A daring smile twisted Luna’s lips.

Sword clutched in both hands, she advanced and parried the first vicious swing of the weapon wielded by her foe.