He swiped his fingers over the flowing streaks of her precious red nectar and bringing them to his lips, he tasted it. His eyes fluttered shut as he savoured the out-of-this-world taste. No elven blood had the exquisite flavour her blood held.

"Get your hands off me," Aselia’s screeched, feeling disgusted by his actions. There was no fear in those daunting orbs of hers. His eyes flew open and he almost chuckled at her boldness, there was no fear.

"I understand now why my son fancies you so much," Phantom removed his hand from her neck.

"Your son?" Aselia was piecing together the puzzle but she wanted to be sure.

"Xiran! I am his father," he leaned back in his chair and relaxed, enjoying her reactions with a satisfied smile.

"I don’t know your son, why don’t all of you understand that?" So this was the renowned and feared Phantom who was responsible for the genocide of elves. He scoffed at her answer, a malicious glint passed in his eyes as he mocked:

"You were literally talking to him when I found you."

"I just met him for the first time two days ago. Was only asking him who he was because I had no clue how he was involved in my life," she tried explaining and knew he wouldn’t believe her, no one would. It sounded ridiculous, even to her.

"You don’t remember him? Well, that’s no fun, seems like he has done what he always does," there were bells of amusement in his voice.

"And what is that?" Confusion strained her face, her eyebrows knitted together and Phantom knew she wasn’t lying.

"He took your memories, to make you forget his existence. I am guessing that’s why he chose a masquerade ball to meet you." 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

His words threw her into a whirlwind and everything began to make sense. All his cryptic words, the way he stared at her, her aching heart and jumbled memories, the dreams where he had no face, she breathed in sharply. The horrified look on her face which she desperately tried to hide but couldn’t told Phantom that he was correct in his assumptions.

"Took my memories? What do you mean? How can someone just take memories?" her thoughts went to Jaguar and the hollow and confused look he had in his eyes. Did he take his memories too? So many thoughts whirled around in her brain like a blender being turned on.

"You surely don’t remember anything. My son has the power to take away memories of others or more like subdue them in their brains so people no longer have access to them. That’s what he did to the girl he is apparently in love with."

Pointing to her with his long index finger, Phantom slowly explained, enjoying the colourful display of random emotions on Aselia’s face. He was sure, her brain was overloaded with all the information he had been giving her. This was epic and he couldn’t wipe away that smug smile that had plastered on his face.

"You are lying. Why would he do that?" Aselia’s heart knew it was the truth because it explained all the unexplainable events, thoughts, dreams and occurrences, yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe that someone wiped out her memories. But why?

"I have no reason to lie and to answer the why part. Well, I am not fond of elves so when I threatened to kill you he took this foolish step. Not knowing, he couldn’t hide you from me," he replied in a smooth voice without a care in the world, watching her with eyes colder than ice. There was no warmth in their depths.

"Why do you want to kill me? Don’t you care about your son?" Aselia found the man had no resemblance whatsoever with Xiran and she didn’t understand why he wanted to kill someone his son loved. The horrified look on her face said it all.

"Because I don’t trust elves, our world will be a better place with your kind gone. People will be less prejudiced and my son needs to learn the ways of us vampires," his words infuriated her, a burning fire rose inside her and spread throughout.

"And what’s that? To kill others? To bend other’s to your will? To eliminate a whole race because you had differences with few? Quite some valuable lessons you want to teach your son. Big words coming from someone who is biased himself. All I see is a conceited vampire, trying to rise to the top using elves as scapegoats."

Aselia didn’t hold back as she gave him a piece of her mind. Her words and eyes breathing fire. While he glared back at her. Her fiery spirit impressed him with every passing second. Something about her was very familiar.

"You talk too much without knowing the full context. I can bet you don’t even know how vampires came to be and no I am not biased, I have every reason to hate your kind,"

"Why don’t you enlighten me then? And we will see," she challenged him.

"If you insist but I hope you will be ready to bear the brunt for the sins your ancestors have committed against my kind because you are not leaving here alive and I will not rest until I kill all of you," he spoke with conviction, an uneasy feeling settled in Aselia’s heart at the calmness this man possessed.

"Go on."

Phantom then told her the origin story of elves and vampires, including who her ancestors were. She was bewildered beyond reason, learning that vampires and elves belonged to the same race. Phantom skipped the prophecy part entirely, he didn’t want her to know that she could be a child of prophecy.

"Now you know what your kind is like. Proud and prejudiced. And what’s ingrained in one’s self, can’t be changed, it can only be wiped out to make room for better species," he concluded in that sinister voice of his. His gaze was unsettling. It took Aselia a minute to get her bearings right, her heart had picked up speed as she tried to digest all the information.

"I am sorry for what happened to you but you can’t blame all the elves for that. There are good people in us," she finally spoke, underrated by his stares.

He reached out and grabbed her hair to jerk her closer to him and menacingly growled:

"I don’t care, not anymore. Elves are a dying race and I want to finish what I started. But first, we need to restore those memories of you so we can have a lot more fun. Since my son is about to arrive."