Lady Dhampir

Noble Houses

The whole atmosphere in the Queen’s Garden changed in an instant. All heads turned towards the entrance, some young girls blushing already. Milena had already met the Prince, yet she couldn’t help but be a bit excited to see him again. She stood like everyone else, preparing to bow.

The Queen walked in first. She was a tall woman, with pale skin and red eyes. Her brown hair was done in an impressive hairdo under her crown, not one strand out of place. She seemed severe… Despite her large dress, she was actually quite thin, with skinny hands and hollow cheeks. Milena instantly wondered how she could be awake so early for a Vampire. The Queen didn’t let any of that tiredness appear on her expression. Instead, she looked serious and dignified as she walked in.

“You may all rise.”

Everyone finally raised their heads, and right behind her, Milena spotted the young prince. Seeing him with his Vampire mother, their resemblance was striking. Their traits were almost the same, except that the Prince was obviously healthier. His gold-blonde hair was shining and matched his white and gold ensemble, almost the same as the one he wore when Milena had first met him.

“Welcome, dear children, to this Tea Party,” said the Queen while looking around at all of them. “It is my deepest pleasure to welcome the future generation of His Majesty’s Kingdom here.”

Milena thought it was strange how she talked about the King as her superior, not her husband or partner. The Queen turned to her son, putting her hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll apologize on my son’s behalf and mine for being late. But please, continue with your conversations. I look forward to conversing with all of you.”

While saying that, Milena suddenly wondered if Queen Lyriana was looking right at her on purpose. The cold, red eyes almost made her shiver. That Queen was truly too impressive…

“Hi everyone, it’s nice to see you all today!” suddenly said Ellias, stepping forward.

Instantly, a wave of young children rushed to salute him so fast that Milena didn’t have time to react. In a few seconds, the Prince was totally surrounded by a whole group of young nobles. Even Cassidie had vanished from their table to run there.

Next to her, Lilyn sighed.

“He's as popular as ever…”

“Is it always like this?” asked Milena.

“Pretty much. I mean, His Highness is famous already. He is skilled in his studies and swordsmanship, is nice to everyone, has good manners, and is good-looking. Even if he wasn’t a prince, he would probably be very popular...”

“The perfect Prince Charming,” sighed Helena.

Milena noticed her cousin’s cheeks were a bit pink, as well. She turned to watch the crowd of children gathered around Ellias, who was politely chatting with them, a gentle smile on his face. Milena sipped her tea. It probably would take a while before she could hope to exchange greetings with him. Instead, she turned to Lilyn.

“How about we get some more cake?”

“Oh, yes!”

Helena noticed Milena had barely eaten anything, but she stayed silent.

“I’ll wait for you here!”

The two young ladies left the table to go to the large buffet, where dozens of cakes were aligned. Milena could barely restrain herself from frowning. She really hated sweets… Her friend sliced a bit of some red cake. Lilyn apparently loved those. That’s when a girl rudely shoved her, making her drop the food onto her dress.

The girl turned around as if she hadn’t seen Lilyn.

“Oh! I didn’t see you there…”

“It’s okay,” mumbled Lilyn, looking down at her stained dress.

Milena, however, couldn’t help but frown. Not only was that rude girl lying when she said she hadn’t seen Lilyn, but she had obviously done that on purpose. Gauging her friend’s reaction, that was not the first time either.

“I didn’t hear you,” Milena said with a cold tone.

“Excuse me?”

“Apologize. You hustled my friend and stained her dress, yet I didn’t hear you apologize.”

The girl snorted, turning to them with a pissed look.

“Apologize? If anything, she should be thanking me! A lady should watch her diet, and I just spared her from gaining even more…”

Milena glared at her, keeping her from finishing her sentence. Next to her, Lilyn was red with embarrassment.

“It’s okay, Milena…” she whispered, looking awfully awkward.

However, Milena was not going to let it go. She hated bullies more than anything, and this girl was obviously having fun by ridiculing her friend.

“May I know who I am speaking to?” she asked.

The girl in front of her took a proud stance.

“I am Valentina De Rosella, first daughter of the Rosella House. Duchess, shouldn’t you know this by now? I guess it has to be hard to catch up with everything given your situation, but still. One should make an effort to match their own rank...”

“Really? My father told me only to remember the most important names. I don’t remember yours, so I guess it wasn’t,” replied Milena with a smirk. “Otherwise, I would have known how the Rosella House was raising their daughters to be rude, unapologetic, and conceited bullies. That doesn’t seem to befit a countess rank, either.”

The girl’s face immediately turned a bright, angry red.

“How dare you—!”

But Milena stepped forward, looking calm despite her eyes throwing daggers.

“Do you really want to fight in front of their Majesties, Lady De Rosella? I wonder what the Prince would think of a countess openly bullying a baroness…”

“You… You have no proof!”

“I have my word as a duchess and a stained dress right under your nose. So, what’s it going to be?”

Rosella looked down at the large cream stain on the dress, and Lilyn’s teary eyes. She seemed to hesitate for a bit, biting her lip and holding her anger in.

“Whatever…” she finally said, trying to walk away.

But Milena stopped her.

“We are not done yet.”

“What?”

“Your apology, I haven’t heard it.”

“You’re pushing it too far!” exclaimed Valentina.

Milena tilted her head.

“You played this game, you lost. You purposely came to pick on my friend despite me being right here with her the whole time. Did you think I wouldn’t say anything? You underestimated me, a duchess, and that’s your loss. So if I say you will apologize to my friend, you will. This way, next time you can think twice before acting too recklessly.”

Valentina seemed just about ready to explode when Milena was done talking. However, several children around them had stopped talking to witness Milena’s words. The heavy silence around them was speaking volumes. Taking a look around and seeing that everyone was waiting to see what she was going to say, Valentina suddenly went from anger to a very embarrassed look, almost as if she was about to cry from shame.

With trembling lips, she slowly bowed to Lilyn, lowering her head.

“I’m v….very sorry, Baroness…”

She then turned around and almost ran away before Lilyn could answer. Milena, still looking very calm, turned to her friend, and took out her handkerchief to try and get most of the cream off of the dress.

“Thank you,” whispered Lilyn, “you didn’t have to…”

“On the contrary, I had to. If I had stayed silent while my friend was getting picked on, I would have passed for a weak duchess.”

“But you just made an enemy at your first party…”

“It’s a child’s dispute, Lilyn. Even if we fight a little, it would take a lot more than that to actually have discord between two Noble Houses. And the Rosella Family is not even close to the Crescent House anyway.”

“She’s right.”

Helena, Yasina, and Cassidie had just come over, and Cassidie took over to help tend to Lilyn’s dress while Helena talked to her.

“You probably did the right thing, Milena. If we act weak now, it will become a problem when we want to establish our positions later. We may just be children, but being bullied by others will definitely bring bigger disputes between our families than defending ourselves.”

With a sigh, Milena stepped to the side to leave Yasina to clean the rest of the dress for her friend. She looked around to try and see where Valentina had gone, but the Countess had left the garden. A lot of other people were staring at her, though, and she could see some of them were obviously gossiping about her. Milena didn’t really care about that. She had expected so, anyway, given this was her first time acting among the nobles.

What she hadn’t expected, however, was to see the Queen also staring at her. Hiding the lower part of her face behind a large fan, the most powerful woman in the Kingdom was looking right at Milena with her red eyes. A bit intimidated, Milena wondered what she was saying to the noblewoman next to her. It was impossible to tell since she couldn’t see her lips, though.

Had she involuntarily attracted the Queen’s attention to her? Milena realized she was staring too and quickly looked away before she seemed impolite.

However, all of her friends had suddenly gone silent. They were looking behind her with shocked expressions. Wondering what was going on, she turned around.

Prince Ellias was standing right there, smiling at her.

“Nice to see you again, my Lady. I’m sorry I couldn’t greet you earlier. How have you been since our last encounter?”