Plan
Plan
"Shhh… don't shout!" Ariel jumped on Damien and pressed her index finger over Damien's lips.
While she looked behind to check if anyone else had heard them, Damien was there blushing from head to toe.
The two of them were in Ariel's room at the moment. They were hiding from everyone else. Or let's say, Ariel had forcefully kidnapped Damien and brought him to her room.
She didn't know why, but her father had forbidden her and her cousins from telling Damien anything about the Vampires. They had blindly obeyed that order until now.
However, Ariel spilled the tea for Damien.
She wanted to lure him into doing her bidding by giving him the information.
Her grand plan to escape from the Palace included Damien in it. As she hadn't gone outside the Palace before, she was a little scared. She didn't want to be alone when she ran away, that also at night.
And since Damien was a powerful demon, and since he also had wings, Ariel included him in her plan.
Ariel looked back at Damien after making sure that no one was peeking inside her room or were eavesdropping on them.
She creased her brows after seeing Damien's tomato-red face and asked, "What happened to you?"
Damien abruptly pushed Ariel aside and awkwardly scolded her, "Don't s-stick to me like t-this and ask me what's wrong! I'm hot, obviously!"
"Tsk!" Ariel rolled her eyes and sat a meter away from Damien. And she excitedly began whispering again, "Anyway, as I was saying Vampires drink human blood. Our history teacher also told us that Wyverndale had a great war with the neighboring Kingdom called Mihir. And guess what?"
Damien didn't answer Ariel right away because he was lost in his own thought.
Ariel snapped her fingers in front of Damien's eyes and whispered aggressively, "Hello, Mr. Day dreamer! I'm saying something."
Damien suddenly crossed that one-meter distance between them and brought his face very close to Ariel. And he asked in a serious tone, "What other things do you know about this creature called vampire?"
Ariel narrowed her eyes at Damien and mocked him, "Oh, so now you want to come close to me huh? What happened to you getting hot?"
Damien sighed and sat back in his original place. And he asked again, "Please tell me faster, Riri. I'm running out of patience."
Ariel didn't know why Damien was this interested to know more about the Vampires. However, she liked his impatience because that meant she had the upper hand here.
She gave a wide smile to Damien and asked, "Okay, I will tell you everything that you want to know about those creatures. But first I want you to promise me one thing."
"What?" Damien asked, his eyes already burning with impatience.
Ariel gave a sly smile and held out her palm while asking, "Promise me that you will…" she leaned a little closer to Damien and completed her sentence, "…help me run away from the Palace."
"What?" Damien exclaimed. "Why do you want to ru–"
"Shhhhh…" Ariel jumped on Damien again. This time she was tightly clasping Damien's mouth with her palm. "Don't shout the scheme, you idiot!"
"Alright, alright," Damien replied in a muffled tone and pushed her away. Again.
Damien then shot arrows of questions at Ariel, in a softer tone, "Why do you want to run away? Did you get scolded by your parents? Where are you going to go after running away? You are going to starve to death!"
"Listen to me first, Dame." And Ariel clarified, "I am not leaving the Palace for good, you idiot. I just want to roam around for a night. You know, fly around and see what the world looks like outside the walls of this Palace."
Ariel gave a puppy-eyed look to Damien and asked again, "Won't you accompany me? I don't really know the way around and I don't want to get lost alone."
"So…" Damien had a playful smile on his lips when he asked, "You're willing to get lost with me?"
Ariel rolled her eyes at her friend and sneered, "I don't want to get lost, you dumbass. I want to safely return home. Before my parents find out that I'm gone. That's why I'm asking you to come along."
Damien didn't think that roaming around for a while was such a bad idea. He never understood why Theodore was so strict with Ariel.
Besides, he also wanted to know more about the Vampires. So he agreed, "Okay. If it's for you then you know I'm ready to do anything."
Ariel squirmed in happiness and flung forward to give a tight hug to Damien. "Thanks, Dame. You're the best."
A soft smile appeared on Damien's face before he untangled himself from Ariel. "Okay. Now tell me about those Vampires. Everything you know."
Ariel gave a nod and began explaining their physical features, "They have long canine teeth that they use to tear off their victim's flesh. And they dig their fangs and drink their victim's blood."
Damien felt a pang in his heart as Ariel described more about the Vampires. He was thinking to himself, "My canines… they grow when I smell human blood."
Ariel further explained, "They normally look like humans. But their distinctive feature is that they have extremely pale skin and they have red eyes. The purer the vampire blood, the darker the red."
Damien now felt a hammering inside his chest. "My eyes… they turn red…"
Damien took a deep breath in and exhaled loudly. "This can't be a coincidence… can it?" He narrowed his eyes and thought, "Is this what my mother is hiding from me?"
"Dame… are you okay?" Ariel looked concerned when Damien suddenly began to hyperventilate.
Damien was getting cold sweats from these pieces of information from Ariel. His mind felt like it would explode from thousands of questions that arose inside his head.
"Dame?" He faintly heard Ariel's voice calling out for him.
He then looked down at the floor and took a few deep breaths in to calm himself.
He looked back at Ariel and then said with a determined look on his face, "I'll help you run away. But we are going to the land of the Vampires. I want to see them with my own eyes."
Ariel furrowed her brows and tilted her head a little. "But that land is too far away from here. It might take hours for us to fly there."
"Riri, if you get tired flying then I will carry you in my arms," Damien's face hardened with resolve.
He wanted to find answers to his questions. He needed to go there to the land of the Vampires.
Ariel smiled awkwardly and replied while blushing a little, "That's not what I meant…" She shrugged her shoulders and added, "But, it sounds like a good deal to me."
"So it's a deal then," Damien held out his palm towards Ariel.
Ariel had a wide grin on her face when she placed her palm on top of Damien's and said, "It's a deal."
Damien tightened his hold on Ariel's hand and asked, "When are we running away then?"
Ariel took a deep breath in and thought for a while.
And she answered, "First, we will have to do some preparations if we don't want to get caught. I don't know how much time that might take. But we are running away soon."