In the main palace of Bloodmare family.
Asher the second son of the family, holding a red glass with fresh blood on it. He sat across the woman, whose presence itself was enough to make the lower demons tremble with fear.
She was Rowena, the elder Vampire and the first wife of Andras Bloodmare, father of Raynn.
Her eyes were like a viper, matching her poison vampire bloodline and in opposite was her second child, Asher Bloodmare.
"Mother! Why did you suggest that low blood to join the academy with me? You know how embarrassing it was to just stand beside him." Asher complained about Raynn's going to the Demon academy with him.
Rowena showed her smile, a smile which can bewitch anyone, "If you can understand what I have planned then would your father have agreed to my proposal." She reassured him, still trying to be mysterious.
"But mother, what's the point of it." Asher asked in loud tone.
"Seems you have forgotten your behaviour, Asher!" Rowena's eyes glowed in anger which startled Asher, then he politely asked, "Mother! I can't go with him; he is a low blood."
Rowena clamed down and sipped the fresh blood from her glass, "You aren't going with him, he'll go in a different carriage, as for he might reach the academy or met with some unfortunate accident, who knows."
She smiled with glass touching to her lips, and a sip of blood which then melted in her mouth. While her son smiled knowing, finally they can get rid of a dark spot in their family.
…
Raynn oblivious of their plot, sat on his bed with blood bag in his hand. Rowena deliberately sent the blood of demons for him, instead of human, to remind Raynn that he wasn't one of them, the vampire but a lowly ghoul.
However, her move to disgrace him gave Raynn a chance to awaken something which was hidden in his body. It was something, which he awakened without realizing it.
Raynn then tore the blood bag and unload all the blood inside his mouth.
As the blood began to enter his body, Raynn's aura began to surge, though it wasn't something big but a growth compares to the tiny grain. However, he can feel that every time, he consumed the demonic blood, it always increases his strength which could have taken years to grow.
As the blood bag emptied, he sighed.
"She knows that one blood bag isn't enough for me, especially in my growth period." His tone laced with anger, but he supressed it, knowing that this isn't the right time.
Rowena has full control over the house of Bloodmare and from supplies of blood to the movement of a single servant, everything was controlled by her while Andras was always busy in political matters.
Her behaviour isn't same against others. She treated others way better than him, her anger for Raynn was all due to Rowena's jealousy towards Raynn's dead mother and her status as ghoul queen which once rivalled Rowena's status.
Even after her death, Rowena still harbours resentment against her and now, she wished the same fate for Raynn.
Raynn knew that one bag of blood isn't going to satisfy his hunger and because of that, he had been secretly going to the market to purchase the demonic blood which was easy to get, However there were eyes everywhere, so he had to take precautions before slip out of the palace, which was a confine for him.
This isn't his first time. Few years ago, he found a secret passage under the palace which ended up in a gutter of the market. He uses that route to always slip away and then came back before anyone noticed.
Raynn didn't have any guards who were stationed outside in his palace or servants inside in his palace but he knew that Rowena must be keeping tabs on him.
He then moved to the basement where old and broken coffins were stored, under those coffins was the route to the gutter.
Raynn approaches one of them, pushing it to the side until the lid was showing, then opened it and jumped inside, without thinking twice.
The gutter area was darker than outside, but being a night creature, the dark isn't a problem for him.
It was used to throw the corpses after sucking their blood but since the palace was empty and the only person who lives here was Raynn, the gutter was clean and the beast who roams in this place were already killed and devoured by Raynn.
'This place gives me nostalgia. After dying as Silva, the second time I came close to death was in this place.' He walks while reminiscing the day, he first time discovered the gutter.
Two years ago, Raynn felt presence under the castle and because of the shortage of food, his instinct forced him, in the gutters where he was attacked by the Zombie rats and hunched wolves.
These two were the territorial beings of the gutters who had roamed here for a very long time.
That day, Raynn was attacked by the single Zombie rat which he somehow ended up killing but that was just a beginning. After killing the one, he was suddenly swarmed by more than dozens of rats, who were in a size of a baby goat.
They tore his flesh apart and bruised him that he found himself on the verge of death but that was the moment, when his ghoul blood began to boil. Raynn, even at the death door pulled the rat and began munching its flesh.
While his vampire bloodline began its work, healing the body with fast regenerative ability. Then as if a monster was unleashed inside the gutter, Raynn killed more than dozens of Zombie rats and devoured them.
Soon he realized that this place can become a food farming place for him and from that day, he always came down every day, hunts few beasts and then return.
He repeated it for a year and half, till the population of Zombie rat became nil. As for Hunched wolfs? They weren't the exact gutter beast, but usually enters it to find dead corpse or to hunt Zombie rats.
Because of that, Raynn didn't had any other choice but to move forwards, until one day he found the way which was connected to the market.