William Shakespeare sat up from his chair. He had dozed off on his desk after a grueling two hours of thinking about what poem to write to please the queen. He will have an audience with her tomorrow and the queen would love to hear his poems. But every time he tried to come up with something, his thoughts always ran back to his first meeting with the vampire princesses of Romania.

The human writer stared long and hard at the crumpled sheets littering his desk before shifting his gaze to the clean one that was mocking him in a silent manner. He leaned back onto his chair allowing his head to tilt backwards as he attempted to give up on writing. 

But he could not just do that! He was a writer who had been recognized by the queen as one of the best and he surely could not just give up such title. After he wrote and produced ‘Romeo and Juliet’, the queen had allowed him to conduct the play in one of the famous theaters she frequented. He was even lucky to have been invited to the Royal section where he met the two alluring vampires that caught his admiration. He recalled the events that occurred in the cramped room on that fateful noon. 

“Your highness, may we know what you have decided on the situation?” the younger one of the vampire princesses said in a voice that sounded like an angel from heaven. 

“Well…” the queen began. “I have decided to keep you in the shadows. I do not want to risk sabotaging my business with you as well as with the people. Your family owns a huge part of the industry in this country and I am thankful to you for offering a helping hand, but I am not willing to risk my business relations. Please do understand that my decision is for your safety as well, your highnesses. I do not want people to see you in a negative light.” 

The elder of the vampire twins carefully scanned the room for any suspicious individuals. For a short moment, her eyes landed on the writer whose theatrical play resonated through the halls of the theater. But it seemed to the princess that William was just a mere person whom she would not come to know on a personal level. Somehow, this saddened the writer when he saw Taeyeon’s gaze shift back to the queen before speaking. 

“We understand, your highness. Please give our regards to the hunters and we wish them luck on their responsibility. For now, I will tell my family to lie low and will not meddle with vampire hunter’s matters. But, should the situation go out of hand, my family and I will not hesitate to place the matter on our own hands. I hope you do understand what my words mean, your majesty…” Taeyeon replied. There was this intensity in her eyes that made everyone who meet them feel inferior. 

William noticed the sudden downpour of the queen’s pride as she shifted uneasily in her seat. “I understand, princess.” Her voice seemed to tremble in fear. 

Before anyone else could approach the royal vampires, the princesses stood up and with a silent bow and excuse, they left everyone’s presence leaving the writer baffled at their intimidating aura. Their presence seemed to linger even after they have left. This made William think of them even more as the days since his meeting with them passed. 

Now, he got out of his trance and stared idly onto the blank sheet of paper before him. His pen dripped of the black ink that now began seeping through the cedar wood that made up his desk which sat by the window. William was at a loss for inspiration and he could not think of a better poem to present to the queen. His thoughts always came back to the twin vampires he had met a few days before. 

He laid his head on the paper once more before picking up the idle pen with his right hand. Without much thought, the writer in him began to scribble as if his hand had been possessed by an entity. He thought of the auburn-haired young woman and her chestnut-haired twin sister while he allowed his pen to do its task. To his surprise, he had not made any mistakes on his writings as the poem begins to take its form on the paper. 

When he was done, he stared at the formerly blank sheet of paper which was now filled with three quatrains and a couplet. His poem had fourteen lines which described the two intended successors of the vampire kingdom. 

“It is a sonnet,” he mused to himself as he smiled at his masterpiece. 

He reread the paper in his hands as he began judging his own work. The sonnet read:

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? 
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date: 
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd; 
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest: 
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this and this gives life to thee. 

He would not have thought that this poem would soon have people thinking of him being in love with someone. William found it intriguing to have written about vampire twins whose beauty he had most admired. He never realized that his simple ode to the Jung princesses would stand the test of time and have his name forever etched in the pages of literature’s history. 

He would never know that centuries later, Taeyeon and Jessica, the two subjects of his favored sonnet, would be reading it in their literature class. Of course, the two vampires would be oblivious to the fact that they were the inspiration for his 18th sonnet. The two vampires would only be hinted of a few lines that might help them guess the true subject of the poem. 

But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou growest: 

The four special lines will make them think that a vampire might have inspired the writer, but then, Taeyeon and her twin sister would find such thoughts ridiculous in class. After all, vampires do not exist in the real world as they had wanted the mortals among them to believe. 
 

***

Egypt 

Hyoyeon and Sooyoung were made to rest inside the tent that the Bedouins had provided for them. The two vampires were reluctant to sleep at first because they couldn’t bring themselves to trust the tribesmen. But to their ancestor’s urging, they both complied and accepted the Bedouin’s attempt at hospitality. 

Hyoyeon found herself sleeping beside her favored cousin as the soft desert breeze passed by the tent. They were both dead tired by the sudden use of their respective elements in both retrieving the twin swords and in fighting the skilled humans who found them in the desert. 

Both Hyoyeon and Sooyoung owned each half of the twin daggers that Count Kim, Hyoyeon’s father, had given them during their rite of passage into the Royal Vampire Family. The rite included surviving in the Carpathian Mountains for nine days and on the last day of their ordeal, they are to come back to the Jung Castle intact with their respective partner. 

Sooyoung and Hyoyeon had teleported to the castle just in time but both of them soon realized the consequences of having Hyoyeon use her powers to such an extent. The young Kim, who was then ten years old, ended up too exhausted to move after a few days. The effect of the teleportation was gradual but painful. 

Years of training had enabled Hyoyeon to control her teleporting powers more without exhausting herself too much. The wielder of the dark affinity had maximized her powers to even teleporting herself and some of her comrades to unknown locations for as long as they won’t go far out of range.

Right now, Hyoyeon found her muscles too sore for her to move. Should something go wrong right now, the young Kim would be powerless under the hands of the enemy. It took her a great effort to move her aching muscles as she tried to make herself comfortable in the simple mat where she and Sooyoung slept. Every twist and turn she makes made her wince in pain. 

Sooyoung opened her eyes to see Hyoyeon’s plight. “Hyo…How long have you been in pain?” Sooyoung inquired as she sat up and eyed her cousin. Hyoyeon just groaned in response. The young Choi could clearly see how much pain the other vampire could bear. She thought of something to console her dear cousin of the constant feeling that placed her body in despair. 

“Hyo…I think you need nourishment to heal faster…” Sooyoung said slowly hinting her cousin to drink her life force. Blood heals the crippled and vampires, creatures who dwelt in blood, are solely dependent on the crimson fluid. 

Without much ado, Sooyoung bit open her wrist and held it towards her cousin who greedily drank the red liquid that oozed from the young Choi’s artery. Little by little, Hyoyeon could feel the effects of drinking her favored cousin’s blood. 
 

***

A few paces outside the tent, Jung the Elder sat beneath a tree as he watched the dimming horizon. The desert was now more dangerous to travel at night. He knew that a thousand years since his leave couldn’t have changed the ways of the land. 

Without much disturbance, someone sat himself to his right. The vampire ancestor turned to meet a man who had grown accustomed to the scenery unfolding before him. 

“In the past, you were called the demon prince since our tribe had thought that you were a ruthless person. But after what you had done for our tribe a thousand years ago, we could only call you the Great Prince…” the old man began; his eyes continued surveying the vast expanse of the desert.

The vampire ancestor smiled at his companion. “You can just call me Jung the Elder or White Tiger now. My days as a prince of this land have long vanished along with the glorious years of Egypt.”

“Then, you are currently living as a vampire. Am I correct?”

Jung the Elder could only nod before saying, “Yes but I do not partake the blood of mortals. I have not taken a sip of blood for centuries.”

“Then you must be dying inside…You should know that some of us, Bedouins, have hunter’s blood. The direct descendants of the tribe were great grandsons and granddaughters of the youngest prince.” The Bedouin elder warned. 

“So, my youngest brother still lives within his descendants…” the vampire mused. 

“Yes, his blood still runs through the veins of his sons and daughters just like your descendants. The only difference between you two would be the fact that you’re still alive together with your great grandsons and great granddaughters.”

“It doesn’t matter. My sons and daughters have died a long time ago during the war between my other brother. Now, I only have my granddaughters and grandsons.”

“But what has brought you back to this forsaken land? You should know that I am a direct descendant of the first hunter…”

“The curse is broken, my friend.” Jung the Elder’s reply came out short.

The old mortal beside him shifted his gaze towards him for a moment. He studied the age-old vampire beside him before turning his sight towards the looming darkness.

“You mean the destined twins have been born?” the Bedouin elder asked.

Jung the Elder nodded and said, “They are now grown up and they have grown strong. Their skills were promising.”

“Then were the guardians born as well?”

“The guardians you speak of are resting in your tent right now,” responded the vampire. 

There was a pause at the moment as the Bedouin elder tried to digest the information. 

“Do you mean that the guardians have already retrieved the relics?!” the Bedouin asked in surprise. 

“Yes. The guardians have it and are planning to hand it over to their intended owners…” 

“But I must warn you. The journey will not be easy for them once the desert knows that its most prized possession has been taken from it.” 

“I have faith in my descendants just as my brother had faith in you to carry out the task.” 

“Then you should know that we, his descendants, are hunters…” 

“But I know that you mean no harm to us. You only kill those outlaws who drink the blood of your kind.”

“True. That is why we did not attempt on killing you when we realized you were members of the Royal Family…”

The vampire breathed a sigh before smiling at his friend. The Bedouin looked at him silently as the vampire sat up from his seat and walked towards the desert. Jung the Elder turned to his friend and said, “Walk with me.” 

The Bedouin elder stood up and strode towards the old vampire. He was unsure of what the vampire has intended to show him. They continued walking until they came upon a cliff that had been the top of a giant sand dune. The ancient one gestured his companion to be quiet as they