JACK

The sun was blinding, colours of spring danced before Jack's eyes as he tried to sharpen his vision. Jack let the smell of flowers fill his nostrils and the warmth of the sun caress his skin. Somewhere underneath, a dreadful idea that this wasn't real emerged, but Jack pushed it down hard. He recognised the place, he pulled it out from his memory.

"As I was saying, Hugo Capet let her stay in Avignon, until we figure out how to install her at Cardona." The voice belonged to Roberto Faliero, the brother of the king of the underground.

Jack always thought Roberto was a decent man, unlike his brother.

"That is very kind of Hugo." Jack murmured as he had all those years ago. They walked through the sunny pathways of colourful gardens of Avignon.

"Antonio isn't happy about it, but he said he would help." Roberto smiled. He was made a little while after Jack, but where Jack was twenty-six, this fellow was only twenty. The childish hopefulness still shone in his bright blue eyes.

"I assume your brother still hasn't let go of that awful business." Jack guessed. Where Roberto was kind and open-hearted, Antonio was ruthless and cruel.

"No, underground is everything to him. You know how stubborn he is. Now, I'm afraid I have some business to attend. But please, make yourself at home and my servants will summon you when the dinner is served." Roberto excused himself and Jack was left alone to look around the beautiful gardens.

Jack walked through the terrace covered in stone, decorated in moss and ivy growing through the cracks. Pillars adorned in sculptured flowers and abstract shapes stolen from Greece, followed Jack as he walked. Sun shone so brightly; Jack almost didn't notice the somewhat eccentric man in front of him. The man sat on a bench, a piece of paper in his hand and his eyes watching something in the gardens.

Perhaps, Jack was in a good mood that day, perhaps he felt like meeting new people, but he stopped to see.

"May I ask what you are doing?" Jack asked and the man looked at him, a wide smile across his plain face. His eyes seemed lost somewhere, but his smile remained.

"I saw the most beautiful lady in the entirety of this world. The beauty that immense needs to be carved into eternity." The man lifted a piece of paper and showed it to Jack.

The man was a poet. Jack smiled.

"I am so sorry to disturb you. I'm Jack O'Neal." He introduced himself and offered a hand to the man. The man's smile was childlike.

"My name is Francesco Petrarca. And anyone that appreciates poetry may disturb me anytime."

Jack nodded and excused himself as he lifted his gaze towards the lady Petrarca described.

She was walking through the gardens with other ladies. Sun lit up her dark red hair and it went so well with all the flower in the background that Jack stood there awestruck. She laughed at something one of the ladies said and the sound rang through Jack's ears like a beautiful melody. Underneath the laughter and the shining eyes, Jack saw a tortured expression that attracted him.

Unable to help himself, he waited for the ladies to disperse and then approached. She was a vampire, he realised, and he was so thoroughly glad. Jack made sure no one watched as he got nearer to this God-sent creature.

"Good morning, Milady." He said. The lady lifted her gaze, her thick eye lashed throwing a shadow over her eyes making them seem darker green.

"Good morning." She said smiling and offered her hand. Jack readily took it and politely kissed it. She smelt like lavender.

"My name is Jack O'Neal. Lord Roberto told me about you and I wanted to introduce myself." Jack introduced himself and tried to smile as charmingly as he could.

"My name is Lerra De Noves, I'm delighted to meet you." The girl smiled broadly and Jack's heart fluttered with desire like he was fifteen years old again. He was never able to stay away from a woman he fancied and the moment their eyes met, Jack knew he would not be able to stay away from this woman.

"I heard what happened to your family, I am so sorry." Jack said, desperately trying to find the reason to start a conversation. Lerra delicately brushed what seemed to be a tear forming in her eye.

"Thank you, you're very kind." Lerra said. "What brings you to Avignon?"

"Negotiations with Roberto Faliero on account of Lord Augustin Bryce. I am certain you know everything about our world." Jack guessed and the beautiful woman smiled.

"I've heard Lord Bryce is a horrible man. But you can imagine, how difficult it is for a woman like me, sheltered her entire life, now suddenly exposed to such cruelty."

Jack's heart almost melted at the innocence and naivety of this woman. The need to shelter her, keep her safe, washed over Jack. Roberto shouldn't have exposed here to their ways before she was ready, God only knows what horrors she had seen in the vampire underground.

"I am so sorry you had to go through it all. How come your family hadn't introduced you to your heritage?" Jack asked.

"They were against it. Such a shame..." Lerra sighed. "If they had chosen to be made, they would be alive now."

"I am glad you chose this life." Jack managed what he believed to be a sympathetic look and Lerra seemed to smile gratefully.

Jack woke up panting in a dark room. His heart was beating loud; he felt it in his hands and his neck. It seemed so real – this memory, this moment that would be the end of his life. Jack sat in his bed, trying to calm his breathing.

Jack had never thought Lerra would be the end of him. He never knew that the moment he chose to follow her would come back and haunt him. But he did know one thing, Lerra De Noves never loved him. She might have cared in a way, but never in the same capacity he cared for her.

He got up and began pacing around the room. He clearly remembered Petrarca's words, this horrible dream reminded him. A beauty this immense should be carved into eternity. But it wasn't eternity that Lerra's beauty was carved in, it was Jack's memory. He never forgot the girl he met that day and he always believed this cruel creature was once innocent. But he knew now that the innocent girl had never existed; he created her to heal his own soul. She was always broken, or perhaps something had happened that ruined her, something not even Jack knew. He was just a pawn in her game, same as Roberto Faliero once was. He ended up dead and Jack would, too.

Was he really ready to die because a woman crossed him, broke his already black heart into millions of pieces?

Almost like they heard he was awake, soldiers entered Jack's room and he didn't even try to escape them as they dragged him to Bryce's chambers.

Jack had a chance to be a good man, but he threw it out of the window as he did with every other opportunity that entered his life.

As he walked through the endless halls of Windsor Castle, Jack thought about reasons. Perhaps it was because his father never loved him, perhaps it was because he was sent to war when he was fourteen years old.

Or maybe because he should've died when the spear went through his heart on the battle field years later. He always thought destiny saved him, or some unknown god that had a plan for him. Jack convinced himself that Lerra was a part of this plan, but she never wanted to give him what he needed most: happiness. His tortured, black soul roamed this world without purpose, destroying everyone in its way.

A strange thought, that maybe he was meant to destroy, washed over him.

Would Lerra build, instead of destroy? No.

The door to Bryce's chambers opened and Jack found himself standing at the crossroad of his life.

"Control." Bryce said, not turning around to face Jack. "I have always loved control."

Jack was suddenly pulled to the floor, vampire guards holding him down as every instinct in him told him to run. Jack tried to shake them off but they were too strong. Overwhelming panic surged through Jack as he felt the hilt of a dagger pressed against his back.

"You have decided not to tell me what you know. You seem to have forgotten that this was never a matter of choice." Bryce turned around slowly.

Looking at this cruel man from the ground, Jack felt small. They all built something, whether it was fear or love, it didn't matter.

Would he die now because of a woman that ruined him?

"Lerra staged it all, Bryce. It was all a part of her plan."

He would always destroy.