Full description: Long ago, before human memory, there were vampires. But they are not the kind that you know; they were the Original Vampires, the Vetus Est. However, as time passed, the Vetus Est began to die out, especially with the birth of the Cold Ones; the Cold Ones, while not possessing the same abilities and strengths as the Vetus Est, had next to no weaknesses, in addition to having very little control over their instincts, and so they began to wipe out the Originals.
Many centuries later, the Vetus Est have been mostly forgotten by the supernatural world, with the only evidence of their existence the legends humanity have.
But they are not entirely extinct: a nomadic vampire named Carmilla LeNauf is one of the last Vetus Est in existence, and she has survived on her own for over sixteen hundred years without raising suspicions or risking her existence.
But when she moves to Forks Washington, things will change. Forever.

Disclaimer: I, Holiday Thorne, author extraordinaire, do not own Twilight, nor do I own the many mythologies in different cultures that have created the Vetus Est, or Original Vampires. However, I do own Carmilla LeNauf and most of the plot.

Daybreak

Prologue
Silent Killer

Who is the betrayer?
Who's the killer in the crowd?
The one who creeps in corridors
And doesn't make a sound
-Heavy in Your Arms, Florence and the Machine

Many, many, many years ago . . .

Licking her scarlet painted lips, the woman, dressed in a burgundy and silver dress that clung to her upper torso, accentuating her hourglass curves, and flared off at her hips to end in rippling pools of vividly dyed fabric, eyed the man hiding in an obscure corner of the alleyway hungrily.

His hair was disheveled, messy from his terrified run from the hunter, and the terror, evident in the way he panted for breath, the expression on his young face, the way his dark eyes watched his surroundings warily, made her throat ache that much more with her thirst. Everything about this one, from the hoarse whispers of his breathing to the unsteady pounding beats of his heart, made her thirstier. And his scent . . . mm, absolutely and utterly divine.

She stood above him, her prey, perched in the shadows of the roof of a church overlooking the city, under its cover of midnight murky blackness. It was nighttime, almost midnight according to her internal clock, the time when it was the safest for her to leave the shadows.

When the young man had at last relaxed, believing himself to be out of the throes of danger at long last, it was in that moment she decided to strike.

Moving in a graceful blur, she leapt from the ledge she had been neatly balanced upon, landing in a crouch reminiscent of a large feline mid-hunt. Despite the height from which she had dropped, the woman's landing was nearly silent, save a whisper of fabrics that could not be heard by human ears, and she was entirely unaffected by the height she had dropped from, straightening into a standing position.

Her hair, gentle ringlets of ebony black, fell down her back in a smooth waterfall of darkness and shadow, falling down to her mid-back uninterrupted; her brows of the same color were gentle arches of pristine elegance above her almond shaped eyes of almost unnatural color. The irises of her cat-like eyes were of a vivid, fiery ginger-orange color, with flecks of gold scattered about in the molten color. Her skin was pale, the color of winter snow with gentle splashes of light coral pink across her high, almost elfin cheeks in a healthy blush - despite the pallor of her skin; her features, formed of the sculpted marble of her skin, were almost delicate, ethereal in that they were unnaturally beautiful. And yet her beauty was tainted by an aura of what seemed to be danger.

The way she strode towards the man cowering in the corner of the alleyway, comfortable despite her bare feet, was much like the smooth gait of a lion hunting a gazelle, timid and fragile, and the look upon her face was entirely of the predatory nature, a terrifying hunger burning in the molten recesses of her liquid orange irises. The grace with which she moved was the walk of a hunter, accustomed to stalking its prey with light feet and swift movements.

At last, the woman stepped into the thrown light from the oil lamp hanging nearby, the man let out a soft squeak of fear, recognizing his death incarnate into a humanoid form. Before the squeak the man let tumble from his lips could blossom into a fully-fledged scream, and therefore run the risk of alerting someone to her hunt, the woman lunged at him, tearing into his throat with long, sharp ivory fangs that suddenly elongated from behind her lips.

Despite the ferocity with which she tore into her meal, not a single drop of the crimson life-blood she was drinking spilled; every drop of the man's blood landed in her mouth, consumed and devoured in her haste and inhumane hunger for the substance pumped through his body by his heart.

As she gulped down the crimson liquid, sweet and almost saccharine to her tastes, the man sagged in her deathly embrace, an expression of peaceful bliss settling languidly upon his features. His dark eyes sagged, fluttering closed as he surrendered himself to the pleasure of a vampire's kiss of death, and his heart's puttering beats began to slow, eventually stopping to end in sudden silence that echoed in her ears as she pulled away, licking the stray droplets of blood from the corners of her scarlet lips before they could fall and stain her skin or her elegant clothing, kept in pristine cleanliness despite her strenuous activities.

The vampiric woman allowed the man's body to fall from her grip, narrowing her eyes at the corpse and smirking in victory when it abruptly caught on fire, the flames a startling blue with white edges as it burned indescribably hot. It seemed she still had it.

Within seconds, the corpse had been reduced to ash that was quickly scattered on a gentle gust of wind, and the flames extinguished as abruptly as they had begun. As if nature itself was helping the woman to conceal her vampiric existence, it began to rain, starting out as a gentle drizzle, a soft pitter-patter of rain against the cobblestone streets, before morphing into a steady downpour, a constant, forceable drumming.

But the woman never noticed the change in the weather, nor the way the ashes of the man were blown away on the breaths of the wind; her electric, gingery-orange eyes were fixed on an adjacent street, down which she could sense a disturbance - a Cold One.

She was determined to ignore the presence of the creature, both for her own protection and a disinterest in the chaos it was no doubt soon to wreak; it had nothing to do with her, unless it threatened to expose vampires to the humans. She really didn't feel like cleaning up its mess so that the Volturi, self-stated "royalty" of the vampire (Cold Ones) world, wouldn't come to clean up. If they were to come into the city, they would smell her scent, realize there were still Vetus Est around and hunt her down. That is something that she would rather avoid happening; while possessing an advantage over the Cold Ones with her special abilities, the Volturi were large enough that fighting them was not an option that she desired to become reality if there was any other way.

But her determination was shattered like a pane of glass under the force of a thrown stone when she heard the shrieks of human terror, followed mere seconds later by the tantalizing scent of spilt blood; the allure of the blood was easy to resist, having just hunted and being of a species of vampire that had much more control of its instincts than the Cold Ones. She raced in the direction that the disturbance was in at a speed that was just above the average speed of a Cold One (much less than her own kind's average speed), having pinpointed its exact location easily enough after a moment of concentration.

When she was about a block away, she reduced her speed to a human one, sensing a large number of human presences up ahead. As a second precaution, she changed the color of her eyes to a vivid blue, the shade of sapphires twinkling in the brilliant light of the sun, and made her skin darker, the color of caramel with undertones of henna brown to make herself seem more human; there was nothing she could do about her inhuman beauty, though. But the darkness should help her to hide the beauty.

She walked at a quick speed for a human and rounded the corner. She noticed several things all at once: there was a man, blonde, young, and attractive for a human, lying on the ground, a gaping bite mark oozing blood slowly - still alive, as well (she winced); a Cold One, ancient and thirsty, was attacking the other humans, in defense of himself it seemed; there was an entire mob of humans trying to attack the creature, holding pitchforks and torches as stereotypical mobs do; and there were more Cold Ones lying in wait beneath the streets - in the sewers.

She moved into action instantly; she kicked the Cold One away from the human it was about to drink from, causing it to stumble back a few feet - mostly from surprise, as these creatures possessed bodies similar in make up to stone and she wasn't using her entire strength. She called out softly, gently for the mob to run, and though they were hunting the creature they had discovered, they did as she said - both bewitched by her and terrified by the snarling creature behind her.

Once the humans were out of range to hear what was to happen next, the woman released the seal that held most of her powers at bay, knowing she would need them if she was to defeat the coven of Cold Ones. Immediately, the creature before her recoiled, its nostrils flaring as it scented the power radiating off of her - the power of a Vetus Est.

She drew her knee into her chest and kicked the stunned Cold One back, sending it hurtling into the brick wall about ten feet behind it; the humans could not have chosen a better place for a showdown between vampires.

Before the Cold One could recover from the sudden strike, she appeared behind it and wrenched its head off easily before setting the corpse alight with the same blue and white-tinged flames she had used minutes earlier.

With a cry of despair and anger, a few Cold Ones erupted from their hiding place beneath the sewer cover, flying at the woman who was watching the light violet smoke rise from the Cold One's burning corpse, but before they could come anywhere near her, she whirled around and flicked her wrist, causing all of them to burst into flames, killing them almost instantly.

Once her job had finished, she wiped her hands off on the brick wall, hoping to wipe away the stink of Cold One - a disgusting, perfumed incense that made her sick to her stomach, and turned to look at the man lying in the streets, bleeding still.

She scooped him up into her arms, ignoring his quiet protests, and she used her teleportation abilities to return to her home, a small cave in a mountain a couple thousand (or so) miles away from the city, invisible to passerby unless they knew what they were looking for.

It was furnished well, an indulgence to her extravagant tastes, and she set the changing man upon one of her spare beds - just in case of an emergency or the ruination of the bed she used most often. She quickly gathered a cloth, a bowl of cool water, and some bandages, scavenging in her meager supplies of first aid items; she tended to get into fights and accidents quite often, and she needed to stock up again - especially if this man was to take a while.

As she wet the rag and folded it over his forehead, she wondered why she was going to such an extent for this man, this human - though he would soon be a Cold One. She did not care for humans at all - and she cared even less for Cold Ones. Yet there was something in the man's face that demanded that she protect him, as if he were to be someone important to her someday.

He was not her Beloved, that she could tell. There were no electric shocks when they touched, no instant attraction or lust to be felt. No, the feelings she felt towards this man were more along the lines of a motherly sort, the need to nurture him and protect him from the world.

She knew that in the moment that she saw this man, something in her changed. Eternally.