SPELLBOUND

Evie was led by the three maids into a long, straight corridor. She immediately realized that they were inside a massive castle, and she could tell that this was the famed castle of the duke of Kirzan Zolan had told her about. It was exactly just as how Zolan had described it.

Everywhere she looked, she saw nothing but lavish luxury. Marble tiles edged with pure gold covered the walls and floors as intricate chandeliers hung from the high ceilings that dazzled anyone's eyes who would walk through this place. Also, another thing that really caught her eyes were the myriads of colourful paintings that were hung tastefully along the long walls of the castle. Evie could only smile and shake her head when she remembered what Zolan had said, that this place was really too extravagant and one's eyes would tire just from looking at the splendours it contains within its walls and would not be able to even appreciate anything inside it anymore.

They soon approached a door and the maids then opened it for her. Evie took a glance within the room and then entered with them, walking in though with calm measured steps, but she was on full alert for any sudden surprises. The soldiers that had escorted them all the way from the dungeons had remained stationed right outside of the room she had entered.

"This room had been prepared specially for you, milady." The maid informed and Evie looked around the rather tastefully decorated room. However, she did think that it was another extravagant room that might be a little too large just for her use alone. And she also did wonder how could this room be prepared and decorated so quickly? There was no way that he had prepared all of this for her just within the span of that few hours from meeting her, right? Or was this place all ready to receive guests and the words 'prepared especially for you' was just niceties that were said to please her? Well, whatever the case was, Evie was still very much on guard and did not allow herself to relax even though on the outside, she still looked every bit the princess she was and conducted herself with impeccable manners.

"Why did you bring me here? Didn't you say Gav… I mean the Lord is waiting for me?" Evie asked. She was expecting that they would have brought her to him and not to a room – specifically hers.

"He ordered us to take care of you first, milady. Please rest for a while, we will prepare a bath for you." Without waiting for her response, the maids quickly moved away and got started on their tasks. Two of them entered into the bath chambers to prepare her bath water, while one was moving about in the room, gathering the bath materials, setting out the clothes she was to change into and turning down the covers of her bed.

Evie clenched her fists. How can she bathe and rest with a clear conscience when her men and Zanya were locked in that dark, dank, and dirty prison?

She stubbornly followed after the maids who were now preparing for her bath. "Where is he? Bring me to him first." She demanded but the maids ignored her. "Fine, I'll go look for him myself!" Evie hissed and she turned to march to the door when one of them blocked her way.

"Please milady," she fell on the floor kneeling before her which shocked Evie, "don't make this hard for us… w-we don't want to die yet, please." Her voice was shaking so badly that Evie did not have to look to know that she was trembling so much.

As she looked down, seeing the pale human girl kneeling before her and even trembling in fear, Evie's heart ached for them. Why were they so terrified? She had also noticed that the three of them were quite pale and not as healthy looking like her own maids were, back in Gavriel's castle in the capital.

Bending over, Evie reached out to help her stand, and that was when she noticed the marks on her neck. She knew then without a doubt that those marks were due to the maid being bitten, more specifically a vampire's bite.

Without a word, she strode over to the other two maids and pulled their collars away from their necks as well and as she had expected, there were vampire bite marks on their necks as well. The marks even seemed to be fresh.

"Who did these to you?" Evie asked as she looked from one maid to the other, feeling angry.

"This is a normal occurrence here, milady. Any hungry vampire can bite us whenever and wherever they want," one of them explained and Evie bit her lips. Now she understood what Zolan meant when he told her that this place was the worse place for humans to be found in. He had told her that this was one of the dukedoms in the vampire empire where human slavery was very rampant and accepted widely by the citizens here. Therefore, the treatment of slaves was even worse off compared to other places.

Evie felt pained for them. No wonder they looked so frail and weak. She even wondered if they did get enough food to eat for that matter. Anger rose within her as she sat aside silently stewing in her own thoughts as she let the maids go about their tasks.

When she was in the tub, she continued asking them. "Are all humans in this place being treated as badly as you three are?"

The maids looked at each other as if they were confused. But eventually they all nodded. "Yes, milady. But the truth is we are already much better off than many of the others are. The male humans have it worse because the vampires do not care at all even if they died. They only held back on mistreating the female humans because they said our blood tasted so much better compared to the males."

Clenching her fists, Evie tried her best not to burst out in anger. "Are the three of you also born right here in this city?"

"Yes, milady. We were all born and raised in a small town called Ervas just a short distance outside of Kirzan. It's a place for humans only and the designated place where humans are expected to reproduce."

"What?!! What do you mean by 'expected to reproduce'?" Evie's voice had come out so shrill it almost was a shriek. She managed to hold back her outburst, but her heart was so jittery that she could almost not bear sitting still and wanted to jump up in indignation.