Michael's story

As I lay in bed next to Mia I smiled and couldn't believe how lucky I was to be here with her.
*flashback from here on*
I lay awake in my bed listening to the sound of the wind and rain beat down on my cabin roof. My father's words still swimming through my head from when he banished me from the castle grounds and disowned me.
I hated him. I always have done since I was 52 and he decided that I had to get married. I refused to get married but as the eldest and next in line to the throne I had no choice.
I married a princess from another kingdom but I didn't like her. She was spoilt and rotten and I wanted nothing to do with her.
Finally when I turned 100 I decided enough was enough and divorced her, gave up my throne and moved out into the woods I now call home.
I sighed at the memory and got up out of bed and walked out my room to see a large puddle of water. Great the roof is leaking again. Grabbing the bucket and the mop to clean up the water I started my day like normal.
Clean the house, repair and finish building it then hunt for dinner. It was the same everyday.
By the time I had come to building the rain had almost stopped so I grabbed my tools and some of the wood that I had covered up to keep dry and started to mend the roof.
It has taken me almost 40 years to build and maintain this house. I chose this spot deliberately as it is near a stream so I have fresh water, there is a highway about 60 miles west should I ever need to go to town but most importantly it was quiet.
Out here I didn't have all the loud noises of the city and I didn't have duties or people calling me Prince or bowing down. Out here I could be myself and I don't have anyone to bother me.
I heard a loud crash from inside the house. Well almost never had anyone to bother me. I sighed and finished up on the roof and came down to find my old friend Derrick slumped on a log bench in the living room.
'I really need to buy some furniture.' I thought to myself.
"Good morning Ricky." I smiled at his disgusted face.
"Shut up Mike you know I hate that name. And I hate mornings so why am I being awoken so early by you hammering on the roof?"
"First of all its 11am second I was fixing a hole from the storm last night unless you want the house to be flooded." I walked past him and to the kitchen. Or at least what should be the kitchen but is just an empty room with a few sideboards.
"I don't care if its 11am its still too early." He groaned. "So what we doing today then?"
"We are going to be building the house some more. We still need to put down the wooden floors, buy furniture, install the water system and find a way to get power." I ran my hand through my hair and leant against the kitchen wall.
"Ugh I hate work. How about you do the downstairs stuff and I'll do upstairs?" He said.
"Why because the upstairs is yours?" I rolled my eyes.
"Exactly no point in me doing work on something that isn't mine." He stated and laughed.
"Alright fine. Let's get to work."
The sun had just started setting by the time we had finished he work for today. It had been a very long day.
I had fitted all the floorboards that we had brought from in town. Derrick had a truck parked out the back of the house and we had made a little path to drive down to the highway.
I'd also brought some proper seats. Leather sofas and a table for the living room. New beds and bedspreads for us both. I even got to start on the porch I wanted.
I just come back from hunting some deer for mine and Rick's dinner and when I came into the house with the fresh kill I was surprised at what I saw.
"Hey man do you like it?" Rick grinned.
The stairs that lead to the 1st floor had a carpet going up them and their was a banister with carvings in it. But there was lights all around the house.
Instead of all the candles there were actual lights and they were beautiful. It actually looked like a home now.
"Wow Rick this is great. But how did you get lights and stuff?" I asked and looked around completely forgetting the dead deer on my shoulders.
"I went into town and brought a generator and hooked it up under the house a few weeks ago. I've been trying to get the damn thing to work for ages and today I got it running so I hired a guy to come over and install lights and heating while you were out hunting. I mean you were gone for 2 hours." He rolled his eyes.
"Yeah the storm must have chased away all the game I was gone a while." I said and I dropped the deer and engulfed Rick in a hug. "You are the bestest friend ever you know that."
"Yeah I know I love you too. Now let go of me before someone sees and thinks I'm soft." He slapped my back and I grinned.
"Hungry?" I asked and picked up the deer again and started to prepare it.
"Oh man that was the best thing I've ever had." Rick said and he burped loudly and hit his chest. He picked up his glass of deer blood and drank it down.
We were sitting at our new mahogany table with a fire going in the small hearth that I had yet to finish and we had just eaten deer steaks with potatoes and green beans that grew in the small allotment out the back with some other herbs and vegetables. Rick has a very good gardening side to him.
"Your welcome." I laughed and drank my blood too. "Its been a very good day." I looked at the small clock and saw it was just past midnight.
Outside the wind was blowing madly and it echoed down the chimney but inside it was just so nice. If anyone were to take a photo of us right now they wouldn't have been able to tell just how fucked up we really were.
From an ex prince who went from having everything to nothing and a banished lord who refused to live the lives of other vampires.
"Do you ever wonder what it would be like if we had followed the other vampires?" I asked and stared at the flames of the fire.
"Nope I refuse to live like them. Drinking human blood and enslaving them its just wrong man. Vampires were fine with drinking animal blood and living in peace with the humans because they didn't know we were there. It was better that way. But now humans hate us and we've all but destroyed them." Rick grunted and sighed.
Back in the old days Rick had fallen in love with a human and he was about to propose to her when the vampires took over the planet. He tried to protect her but when she found out he was one of them she hated him and she ended up getting put in a slave camp.
He hated himself for it and I knew it was a sensitive topic for him even after all these years. It has been almost 90 years since he lost her.
We were both in our twenties when the world had been taken over and we have spent the last ten years building this house together. Brick by brick, panel by panel. The cobblestone foundation took us almost a year to finish.
I grinned at the memories of the first 2 years trying to build this house and how we had to live in the back of the truck because we hadnt even finished the floor.
"What you grinning at?" Rick smiled at me.
"Just remembering how long it took to get where we are now and the times we had living in the truck." I chuckled.
"Ugh don't remind me. God you took up so much space it was unbelievable." He laughed and finished off the blood and stretched. "Right I'm off to bed we have a lot of work to do tomorrow. Night man."
"Night Ricky." I stood up and cleaned away the table, put the fire out and went into my room.
My new bed was so much better than the wooden cot I had built myself. This one had a real mattress.
My father may have disowned me but what he didn't know was that I had over £50 million in a bank account saved up over the years. My mother had given me my inheritance in her will when she died and my father didnt know about it.
If he had he would have flipped. I'm poor but rich at the same time. I thought about this as I smiled and fell asleep listening to the rain outside.
When I woke up I was surprised to hear banging outside and went to investigate. I followed the banging to find Ricky outside hammering some of the wooden boards.
"Good morning." I said confused and he looked up and grinned.
"Morning I thought I'd make a start on the porch hope I didn't wake you." He wiped his forehead and I saw that he'd already made the steps and was putting on the final wood layer.
"Wow what's gotten into you? Your never awake this early." I laughed.
"I just thought I'd get it done. Then the house is almost complete." He shrugged.
"Do you want breakfast I'm thinking deer bacon deer sausage and eggs with a cup of deer blood." I said.
"Sounds great you cook that and I'll finish doing this." He grinned. "Besides we both know you work better in the kitchen its why your my wife."
I flipped him off and started on the breakfast. We had a lot of left over deer last night. We drained all the blood into cartons and bottles in the fridge that we brought yesterday now we have electricity. The meat that we can eat we wrapped up and put in their too so we can cook it up and the parts we couldn't eat are out in the woods as bait for out next meal. I'm hoping to catch a mountain lion. I love mountain lion.
As I was frying up some of the meat I heard Ricky come back in the house. "Wash your hands in the stream first before you eat." I shouted at him but I got no reply.
"Ricky?" I took the meat off the stove and turned to see men in black suits standing at the door. "Who are you and what do you want?" I sneered and bared my fangs at them.
"Calm down Prince Michael. We are here to inform you that your father has died and it is time for you to take his place as king." One of the men said.
"What makes you think I want to go back and be king?" I growled.
"It is your duty to do that." He replied.
"It is not my duty to do anything now get out of my house." I stalked towards them and growled.
They both nodded and the one I was talking to left first. Just before the second left he turned to me.
"You should know Prince that your friend Derrick took the offer and has left to go back to his kingdom to be Lord once again."
The world stopped. "No your lying Ricky wouldn't do that. He hates that kind."
The guy shrugged. "I guess the money was just too tempting for him." He left and shut the door behind him.
I was left in silence and I went to the door to see that Ricky was gone and so were the men. The porch was partly finished and the wood was still where he'd left it.
It was as if a bomb had gone off and wiped away Ricky but spared the furniture. Why would he do this? He hates them. The only explanation is that those men kidnapped him because he wouldn't go back there by his own will.
I walked out the house and just kept on walking until I reached the end of the woodlands and I found the desert. I don't know how long I had been walking for but the sun was very low in the sky.
I turned back and walked home alone. It was pitch black when I finally got home and all I could hear was the stream. It was so peaceful and I was alone.
I walked up the unfinished steps to the house and went inside I didn't bother to turn on the lights as I went to my room.
For 5 days I just lay in my room awake and wondering where Ricky could be and why he left me. Finally I left my room and started to get back to my life.
The meat had gone bad so I threw it all out and started to finish the porch. I barely noticed the time go by as I continued to build and hunt.
Days past and turned to weeks then months. Still no word from Ricky. At this point I had given up. The house was finished and everything was great.
I'd get up cook breakfast and go out to garden in the allotment before hunting. I went to town and brought a bunch of new furniture.
I'd thrown out all of Ricky's things and moved my room upstairs. There was a tv in the living room and I had finally finished the cobblestone fireplace with a proper chimney on the roof.
Things were starting to get back to how they were again and it was like none of it had happened. No more visits from the men though I had been sent a letter to inform me that my youngest brother John had taken my place as king and I was forever banished from his kingdom which didn't bother me. The letter made very good fuel on the fire that night.
I was about to head out to town to by some more things when I heard a rustling in the trees ahead of me and I saw a small figure.
"I can see you! Come out right now!" I shouted and walked down the steps to stand in the clearing.
A small girl walked out from behind the trees and I saw her trembling. She was very small and looked to be very weak.
I wonder where she came from and how she found me here. There is no one out here for miles. I decided to test her and see how she reacts to me. She could have been sent here to spy on me by my brother. Or worse.
"Well well a human all alone in the woods. Anything could happen to you out here you know. Where are you going little one?" I stalked towards her and saw her step back a little.
She stuttered something about running away from her master. My heart twinged a little as I remembered that she is only here like this because of me and my family.
I pushed the thought to the side and turned my attention back to her. At least she's a runaway so she wasn't sent here.
"A runaway. Even better that means no one knows your out here. Which type of human are you? If you had a master that means you are one of the slaves." I looked over the bruises on her body and at what she was wearing. There seemed to be a cut in her neck from something that was there before.
She confirmed that she was a pet which explains the mark and she was trembling like mad. Alright Michael stop teasing her now she's clearly scared.
"I see. Tell me why did you run away." I asked as I walked around her to check on all her cuts and bruises. I was curious as to who owns her and where she came from but instead of an answer all I got was an eyeroll and that irritated me for some reason.
She went from being scared and polite to rude in 2 seconds and I hate rudeness. I couldn't help it and I snapped.
"I asked you a question and you think rolling your eyes is a good enough answer." I growled and the look of fear in her eyes reminded me of myself when my father said the same to me when he asked if I was ready to take on a bride.
"No...no sir...I wasn't rol...rolling...my eyes...at y..you. I have a...a spirit. Ma...master was g...going to kill him. I was rol...rolling my ey...eyes at him." She stuttered quickly and I was shocked from what she said.
Did she say she has an extra spirit? I've only ever known one person to have that and she was murdered for it. I suddenly felt very protective of her.
"You have a spirit?" I clarified and I could see the look in her eyes to confirm it and I grabbed her arm and pulled her towards the house "If what you say is true then its not safe for you to be out here."
And that was the first time a human had ever set foot in my house and for some reason when she did I never wanted her to leave. I wanted to protect her for the rest of her life