"MOMMY!" cried the little three-year-old vampiress.
Back at the Mills' primary mansion, Orlando groaned, shaking his head as he observed the small offspring of Tyler's brother. Frightened, the little vampiress sat at the edge of the table that Orlando had set her on inside his study. Toward the back, his advisors sat around another table, each quietly observing him with the toddler, as everyone tried not to chuckle at the humorous scene before them. Of all things to break Orlando's last nerve, no one expected it to be a toddler vampiress.
"Quiet, you little nuisance!" Orlando sternly barked while rubbing away the tension from his temples. The more she cried, the more his vamp headache increased.
"Momma!"
Unfortunately, the vampiress only cried louder after he yelled at her.
"Ugh! Would you contact your father? Your mother is useless to me!" Orlando snarled, showing his fangs, making the toddler flinch in fear.
"I want momma!" the vampiress wailed with few words while crying out telepathically to her mother.
Far away, her mother could only helplessly respond to her baby's cries. All she could do was soothe her from afar. Due to her own adversity, she wasn't strong enough to confront the Mills and save her daughter. Unfortunately, the father's attempts to be heard by the toddler were drowned out by her intense cries for her mother.
As Orlando approached the little vampiress, the door to the study swung wide open. His cousin Crystal and their Grandma Aurora, the wife of Headmaster Morbius, casually entered the room.
"Honestly, Orlando, this isn't how you get a toddler to cooperate," Crystal scolded, lightly smacking Orlando's shoulder with the back of her hand as her husband, Zach, from the Harris Coven, stepped inside behind Aurora with a smirk lifting on the edge of his lip.
Frustrated as ever, Orlando snapped at his cousin, "Let's see you do a better job!"
As Zach closed the door, he couldn't help but chuckle at the unintentional humor. Normally, Orlando wasn't one to lose his temper, but it seemed one tiny toddler had broken his final strand of patience.
With a flick of her wrist, Aurora shooed her grandson away. "We can manage it from here," she affirmed with a nonchalant approach toward the baby.
Orlando snorted and stepped back to the wall with Zach, his best friend, and cousin-in-law, where they both observed the two vampiresses work their motherly magic on the small vampiress.
"Come here, little one," Crystal coaxed, lifting the toddler into her arms.
She cradled the little vampiress in a comforting embrace and began rocking her with gentle bounces. Feeling unthreatened, the toddler wrapped her arms around Crystal and continued to bawl on her shoulder. Gradually, as Crystal soothed her, the little vampiress settled her cries into calmer whimpers and sniffles. To further soothe the little vampiress, Aurora gently brushed her hand along the vampiress's beautiful light brown hair and repeated the action several more times.
"You've had offspring, Orlando. You should know how to handle a baby," Aurora chided her grandson, earning an eye roll from him.
"She isn't mine," Orlando pointedly affirmed to his family. "And I don't have a daughter."
"You have a daughter on the way," Aurora objected to hearing such nonsense from her grandson.
"She isn't born yet," Orlando curtly retorted, attempting to justify his reasoning.
"You do just fine with your niece and female cousins," Zach quietly teased him.
He and Crystal had two daughters, and Orlando's twin brother's wife, Olivia, had one daughter with Alejandro. Orlando interacted with them just fine, leaving his family no reason to believe he couldn't handle this little one.
From a sideways glance, Orlando shot a baleful glare at Zach and snorted. Unfazed, Zach chuckled at his grumpy demeanor, completely brushing it off.
Meanwhile, as the toddler rested her head on Crystal's shoulder, she sucked on her thumb, calming down to the point where her eyelids were blinking heavily.
"Set her back down before she falls asleep," Aurora instructed, gesturing to the table as she noticed the toddler beginning to doze off.
With a nod, Crystal complied, gently placing the toddler back on the table and stepping aside with Aurora to be in her line of sight to see them.
Much calmer now, with her thumb still in her mouth, the vampiress sniffled and peeked up at them with her innocent, wet eyes blinking twice. Her cheeks flushed a bright, rosy shade, and moisture glistened on her face from her tears. Teardrops still dripped from her eyelids, though she remained calm and felt a sense of safety. At least, that's what her instinctive senses guided her to feel with the two unfamiliar vampiresses before her.
Against the wall, as she glanced at the stern faces of Zach and Orlando, a warning alarmed her senses to be wary of them. Despite her young age, her father had taught her how to detect threats, and both of these Royal vampires certainly radiated with the minacious energy her father had cautioned her about.
"There now, we're not so bad, are we?" Aurora cooed with a feigned sweetness and a deceptive veneer, purposely luring the small toddler away from the underlying menace lurking by the wall.
"Mommy," the vampiress sobbed, rubbing her tears away with the same slimy thumb she had been sucking on.
"Do you know the fastest way to reach Mommy?" Crystal asked, drifting her voice into a soothing lullaby, so soft and melodic, as if she were playing the harp.
The vampiress nervously trembled, shaking her head in a frightened "no" as Crystal leaned a little closer, reaching the toddler's tiny ear, which was covered by her long, stringy strands of hair. "If you ever wish to see mommy, you need to call for daddy, or else you'll never see mommy again," she whispered so creepily that her ominous words sent shivers down the toddler's spine.
Eerie and cold against the toddler's skin, Crystal's lingering breath felt like icy claws snatching at her soul, with malice seeping through each word that she spoke. Though her voice remained gentle like a song, it was as eerie as a disfigured ghost moving through the shadows of the night.
As her icy breath withdrew from the toddler's ear, a twisted smile paralyzed the little vampiress in such terror that she could no longer cry. The sheer dread that gripped her heart spoke volumes louder about the true danger before her. Even at her fragile age, her instincts screamed in warning of the perilous presence surrounding her. She knew, instinctively, that there wasn't any leverage of safety here.
Without hesitation, she sent a mental signal, desperately calling out to her father as she sat still, having no more teardrops trickling from her lashes. Almost immediately, she heard the comforting voice of her father responding to her telepathically.
As Aurora's sinister smile deepened more wickedly, she gently patted the toddler's head. "Good, little one," she praised as her voice dripped with false sweetness. "Keep signaling Daddy, so we can return you to Mommy. Tell him we need a neutral place to meet."
Without uttering another word, her trembling finger pointed at the door, guiding them with the instructions her dad telepathically told her to recite.
"Grab the toddler," Orlando coldly ordered, waving his hand to his one advisor from across the study.