The dragon's harem

Zia considered explaining the situation, but then asked the carriage driver to stop and left. Saying anything now could get her parents in a lot of trouble, if not for anything, then for trying to mess with the marriage of a noble.

But she never made it back home before everything went into hell. The sun had just receded behind the mountains, and she was making her way back home when she heard a scream coming from the house of one of their neighbors.

The carriage didn't even make it that far and stopped. The noble lad and his guards jumped out to look at the source of the scream alongside Zia. It was coming from her neighbour's house.

As she rushed in, the noble lad followed with his guards. Soon she reached the door and started knocking on it, calling for her friend who lived there. The scream was hers.

No matter how much she knocked, no one replied, and the guards arrived. One of them immediately paled; he could smell blood all the way outside. Someone must've been gravely injured. So he didn't waste a second and kicked the door open.

As the guards rushed in, Zia followed them, calling for her friend. Soon the lad reached her, "Back away! It might be dangerous."

The shadows danced, and the flicker of the candles on the tables twitched. The stench of blood permeated the air, and the guards pulled their weapons. One of them immediately called for a healer, and the other looked at Zia.

"You know the house's layout? Where is the kitchen?" He asked with a pale face, but immediately frowned and his eyes widened. Zia noticed his expression change and soon heard something fall behind her.

The noble lad fell down, and a large chunk of his neck was ripped off. As blood splashed and the lad twitched, the guards rushed at him. "Young lord!" And another guard stood beside Zia to protect her.

The moment the guard knelt to look at the lad's injury, his neck twisted with a heavy impact.

Zia couldn't see what hit the guard, but she spotted a shadow blinking past the soldier and immediately ducked down. In that instant, the soldier who stood beside her tried to block something, only for his sword to shatter and his head to be ripped off.

In seconds, all the guards were killed, and Zia knew she was next; she was left for last, she was the weakest. The lad probably was killed first to distract the guards.

Knowing that she is neck, it only took her a fraction of a second to lift a chair up to her chest and neck. Soon she felt a painful impact. The chair shattered on her chest, and she was sent flying back, shattering the window and breaking through the flimsy walls of her house, bleeding rivers.

The wood splinters took her left eye, stabbed her through the back, and chest. Her left arm got twisted at a weird angle, and she couldn't even breathe; some of her ribs had shattered.

She was now in her father's workshop, bleeding on the cold floor. Her parents rushed down the stairs when they heard the loud impact and saw her there. Barely able to move.

The two didn't make it down the stairs when something got them. Her father lost his throat, and her mother's head went flying and broke through the ceiling.

By the time her parents dropped to the ground, Zia had caught a glimpse of whatever was chasing her and had now made her way to her father's bench, secretly snatching something from among the tools.

She then felt it, something grabbing her by the hair, and lifted her up. When she looked, a tall woman stood there with long black hair, two glowing red eyes, and a face drenched in blood.

"Lucky brat." The woman hissed, "And I thought I could just stop for a snack."

The woman licked her crimson lips and opened her mouth, revealing a row of hideous teeth and fangs almost an inch long.

Before Zia could scream, the woman bit her neck. Zia felt a sharp jolt of pain, her legs grew cold, and her mind started getting foggy. But that was the moment she had waited for; she knew what kind of horror this woman was. Everyone has heard of them in their lifetime. She heard of them from her bedtime stories.

She swung her arm and pushed the thing she picked from her father's tool at the vampire's chest. Her father was a craftsman, and that was the holy symbol of Mora, the dwarf god of crafts and blacksmiths.

The holy symbol burned through the vampire woman's chest and sank into her flesh like a hot knife through butter. Not even the bones could stop it.

She dropped Zia and stumbled back, clawing at her own chest, trying to get it out, but that was already impossible. The symbol flashed with divine magic, and the vampire woman screamed her lungs out and rolled on the ground until nothing was left but ash.

But by that time, it was already late.

The vampire woman was killing everyone with one hit, but Zia survived one of her strikes. That woman didn't need to drink blood, so why didn't she finish Zia off immediately with a second attack and instead bite her neck?

Zia looked around, her head throbbing in pain, and her wounds were slowly healing. She could hear things she never heard before, and see what mortal eyes weren't supposed to see. The vampire woman had tried to turn her into a vampire and succeeded.

"A holy symbol?" A tall man with long black hair was standing beside the ash. He leaned down, picked Mora's symbol, and shattered it in his hand before it could burn him. "What a shame, a vampire lord died just like that. Foolish woman, I've told her to be wary of symbols so soon after getting reborn."

His red eyes shifted to Zia, "For a human, I salute your luck. Or should I say former human, you're a mere spawn now." That was Vlad. He had immediately come to check as he sensed one of his vampire lords dying.

He approached Zia, put his hand on her head, and the two of them disappeared.

That was how Zia had first turned into a vampire, six hundred years ago.