The Blood Rose Lady

Rosette found Rozelyn sitting in the living room, drinking an orange juice. She looks cozy, calm, and as if she hasn't just been interrogated at the police station.

"Care to join me for dinner?" The Thaumaturge then smiled at her.

"I just had one."

She put down her juice and vanished in thin air.

Rosette looked around, looking wholly nervous and worried.

"Some things that you'd been looking for are just behind your back all along."

Rosette whipped her head to the back, to where Rozelyn was standing and grinning. Her left hand bracing at the door knob.

She was astonished by Rozelyn's sudden teleportation. "You're going somewhere? I mean teleporting somewhere?" Rozelyn gave her a breathy, dominant laugh. "Just feeding my triplet cats outside."

"Oh." "Yes."

Rozelyn looped her arm at Rosette as they went outside and found Lucia, Francisco, and Jacinta playing at the Bermuda grass.

The three cats jerked their heads as soon as they saw Rozelyn approaching. Lucia went away further.

"That big one seems to despise you, hate you if I may say," The former Mrs. Richards remarked, eyes at Lucia who's licking her tail just below to where the mailbox was located a few meters away from the road. "Lucia is a spoiled cat. If she hates something, she'll definitely hate it for the rest of her feline life. Let's say, for the rest of her nine lives," Rozelyn said with amusement.

Rosette said nothing. But a simple grin was painted on her face.

Rozelyn noticed that and tightened her grip to her looped arm at Rosette's.

"Something happened to you today..."

Rosette's head whipped to her side, to Rozelyn's direction.

"I-I-" She stuttered.

But Rozelyn interrupted what she's going to say. "Tell me, dear sister."

"I-I..." Rosette was still stammering.

"You what?"

"I...." She took a deep, long breath before opening her mouth again. "I saw Leonardo at Ezra's Diner."

Rozelyn dropped her looped arm. "You saw who?!"

"Leonardo. My former mortal husband whom I left that night, that midnight..."

Rozelyn gave her that incredulous look but then shifted to a wicked smile.

"You two fuck in your car?"

"What? No!"

"You gave him a blow job?"

"No-Stop. No, Rozelyn." "I..."

"I?" Rozelyn arched her brows and inched closer to the Astral Vampire.

"I cast glamour to myself so that I will look like someone else." A tear then fell at Rosette's cheek.

Rozelyn wiped that away with her phantom, invisible hands. Her face then shifted to serious mode, "I understand. You value the safety and secrecy of our world."

Rosette nodded. The two cats, Jacinta and Francisco, seemed to hear every word they are conversing. She smiled at the two orange cats.

"Is there something else you want to say to me?"

"Leonardo...He has-"

The loud horn of an oncoming car interrupted their conversation. Rosette's eyes widened as she pointed with a trembling finger, Rozelyn's call for cry to her eldest cat sent Rosette sobbing.

"Lucia!"

Rozelyn sprinted to the cat, a car was inches away from the lying big orange cat and the raven-haired vampire.

Yet, something happened.

Everything froze. No, not just froze. Everything stopped.

Rosette couldn't move. All she could do was stare at Rozelyn and Lucia who were the only ones moving.

The droplets of the oncoming rain also halted. The car stopped. The couple having sex on their room across the street also halted. Everything but Rozelyn and Lucia stopped.

'Impossible...' Rosette thought.

She saw Rozelyn put Lucia beside Jacinta; the latter under Rosette's feet. The cats themselves even froze.

If she's right, it was exactly thirty seconds that everything she saw halted to the moment Rozelyn cried out her cat's name.

She wasn't sure if that was an outburst of power or Rozelyn was already aware of her time-stopping abilities.

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Rosette just saw Rozelyn teleported a while ago. Now, she was beholding the sight of a heart-stopping occurrence-time has frozen. What else does this eighteen-year-old vampling cannot do aside from failing to voice out her feelings to her stepmother's adoptive son?

As soon as Rozelyn saw her frozen, the world went back to its original motion. The oncoming car earlier was now driving smoothly without any animals blocking its way.

The mating couple across the street were back to their business. The rain continued to pour down by now, wetting them and the triplet cats.

"What the fuck is that Rozelyn?" Rosette rarely uttered a curse word. But when she does, it's like listening to a broken radio on one's car: she'll repeatedly spit those bloody words out.

"I don't know. One moment I was running towards Lucia and when I blinked, everything went bloody still...including you."

She was quivering. This walking vampire who has god-like abilities was shaking.

Rozelyn lost balance and she was lucky that Rosette managed to catch her.

"Are you alright?" Rosette asked, looking at the now-pale Rozelyn. She touched her forehead and she shrieked a curse word again.

Rozelyn was burning hot, like the flames of the netherworld that burned in a single touch. Her breath was even hotter, like the smoke of a blazing flame.

"What happened to you?"

"Rozelyn!" Cyrill's voice was a cry to Rozelyn who was now at Rosette's arms and a relief that she was still conscious despite losing balance.

Romaine trailed behind Cyrill. She was carrying an ice bath in a bowl with a damped cloth.

"Let's bring her inside," it was Rozelyn's stepmother who suggested.

"She was burning. Like a goddamn fire blazing!" Cyrill's cry made Rosette cry silently...again.

"Let's bring her inside and let her rest while I give her an ice remedy. That sudden release of power did that to her. It was the first among the centuries, first among the millennia."

Romaine glanced and touched Rozelyn's forehead then continued explaining. "Not even Dracula and Alexander Orvin, formerly Alexander the Great, had an ability to stop time. It was Rozelyn and Rozelyn alone who managed to freeze the whole world, even for the span of thirty seconds."

"Which means that..." Rosette realized and gave Rozelyn, whose eyes are now closed. But her hot breath still burns Rosette's skin for a bit. She then gave Rozelyn a look of fascination and incredulity.

"That she's the most powerful Thaumaturge that ever walked on this blue planet," Cyrill even sank to his knees.