Title: Dark Bride: Revenge (the Prologue)

Author: Love In Vein

Summary: It is seven years after the events of Dark Bride: The Choice, and innocence had been shattered and a darkness has fallen. Can revenge be taken on a loved one, or is blood thicker than water? Based on the alternate ending.

A/N: I highly recommend reading my first story in this series, not only because I still love it after all this time, but also because I think this story will make a whole lot more damn sense if you do. The basics are as follows: Lilli was good, The Evil (Damien aka Satan) wanted her. Evil in her came from her parents practicing black magic as teens. Sordid affair follows, with Lilli trying to stop the darkness from taking over. You can kinda guess what happens next.

Prologue:

The street lamps flickered with a sickly yellow light as a figure walked slowly down the deserted city street. Her face was a mask of stony resignation and her posture was defensive and cold. Her eyes, once warm and happy like a beautiful spring sky, were now hard and dark. The innocence that had once enveloped this young woman was long gone. She turned her head sharply at the sound of a deep roar and took off in the direction of it. She came to an alley and saw a huge, red beast feasting on the body of some unfortunate person and growled lightly in her throat. The sound caught the attention of the beast and it dropped its meal and turned to her. She smiled slightly at it, but the smile did not reach her eyes. The beast made a noise that sounded like a cross between the squeal of a pig and the roar of a lion and charged forward, its hulking body belying surprisingly graceful movement. It knocked her into the brick wall and she fell with a thud. It loomed over her, confident that it had taken care of this one easily. But the girl had other plans. She grabbed his horns as he leaned over her and catapulted herself onto the beast’s back. From around her waist she grabbed a heavy chain and pulled it tightly across the creature’s thick neck, choking the life out of it. As it wheezed to the ground she pulled out an ornately carved knife and drew it across its throat, spilling viscous black blood onto the pavement. Satisfied that she had made her kill, she knelt and ripped a tooth from its mouth and put it in her pocket, a souvenir. Slowly standing, she ran her tongue over her blade, cleaning the blood off of it leisurely and with a small shiver of satisfaction. Then she walked out of the alley and towards home.

The girl’s home was not too far away, a small apartment above the Cherry Club. Walking up the narrow flight of stairs, she kept her head down and did not meet the eyes of the homeless man strung out just a few feet from her door. Entering her apartment, she locked the three deadbolts and sighed, leaning against the door for a moment. She crossed the living room/kitchen area in only a couple of steps and closed herself in the pitch-blackness of her bathroom. Stepping into the shower, she now began to feel the pain of that night’s battles. Cuts and bruises adorned her body, and some weren’t fading quite yet.

Once out of the shower she wrapped herself in a dark green towel and opened her medicine cabinet, fumbling for half a second before finally finding what she was looking for. She sat on the toilet and opened the small black box, taking out a new syringe and a vial of dark liquid. After filling the syringe to the hilt she grabbed the belt she used for just this purpose and wrapped it around her upper arm, tightening until she thought her veins would burst. She closed her eyes and plunged the needle into her vein, her breath hitching in her throat as she felt the powerful liquid enter her blood stream and begin to heal and change her once again. Her cuts and bruises faded and she no longer felt the aches or pains. A feeling of power and invincibility overwhelmed her and she smiled. This was really the only time she smiled. It was only when she smiled that you could see her fangs, when the light in her eyes was more demon that human. You see, May Ventagna wasn’t wholly human anymore. Couldn’t be, if she wanted to take her revenge.