After the journey in the carriage, the coachman pulled the reins of the four horses which was at the entrance of the Isle Valley. Penny getting down first, looked up at the signboard that hung at the front with the name of the town. It was a posh town where women and men, even children were dressed to the point that it looked as if they had arrived here for a certain event. But there was no event which even Penny was aware of. 

It didn't take her long as Damien led her in to know that this place was a town built for rich people and not for people like her. The road and its path were much cleaner with no muddy patches and instead, it had a cemented ground which was very similar to the rocks used for the bridge of Quinn's mansion. As they walked in, Penny keeping up with Damien's long and proud strides on the ground, she looked left and right at the stores which had various items when it came from clothes to jewelry to food to shoes and any other things one would need to buy and spend luxuriously. 

Some parts of the town looked familiar but Penny couldn't put her hand as to why she felt it be so as she was sure she had never stepped into this place. And though she was yet to realize it, the reason was that at that time, Penny had concentrated on the person who had bought her.

"Ah! M-mistress, p-please!" 

Hearing someone cry from the other side of the street they were walking on, Penny's face snapped to see where the sound had come from before spotting a person who was on the ground and on his knees. In front of the young man stood a woman, her body covered in a silk-like dress which hugged her body rather snuggly. The woman had a whip but it wasn't a rope but a very thin-looking metal that the woman used on the young man erupting screams from him. 

"Did you think I wouldn't notice?" she lashed the whip on him making him fall down on the ground. It was later that Penny realized that there was another pair that stood barely a few distances away from them. It was another woman but with a girl. The woman held the girl by a chain which was attached to the neck of the girl. 

Slaves. 

They were slaves, thought Penny to herself. The stark contrast of the clothes was enough to differentiate the people who walked in here. While the elite wore clothes that were made of expensive materials, the poor wore almost nothing in comparison to them, with the skimpy looking clothes that weren't enough to hide the chast.i.ty of the girl who was collared. 

The young man groaned in pain as the metal bit into his body. Penny had stopped following Damien, her footsteps halting at the sight of what was taking place here. Almost everyone who walked by didn't care or bother themselves with helping the slaves. Most who came across only smirked, looking down at the slaves for being impudent while the others just walked by like they saw nothing out of the norm taking place. 

Damien noticing the shadow that wasn't close anymore, turned around to find Penny standing and watching something. Tilting his head, his gaze followed hers to find the vampiress beating her slave. Placing his hands in the trouser of his pockets, he walked towards her.

"She's going to kill him," whispered Penny as she saw the woman continue her a.s.sault on the man. 

"Would it matter?" this caught Penny's attention and she turned to him to ask,

"Does a slave's life matter that less?" a frown lingered on her forehead, her voice sad for what she witnessed. 

Damien stared at her, parting his lips to speak and said, "Depends."

"What do you mean?" 

"Look at them closely," he tipped his chip towards them and Penny looked back at the scene, "Why do you think the vampiress is angry?" his words were quiet enough only for her to listen to. 

"Her anger doesn't justify her actions."

"Look closer. Don't look just at them but at the people around them. What do you see?" she heard Damien ask her, his body closer to her with his words feeling as if they were spoken right next to her ear. 

Not knowing exactly what closer meant, Penny looked at those two before her eyes fell on the other two people whom she had noticed previously. The collared slave girl had tears in her eyes, fear evident in them. She heard Damien say, "I will tell you what happened here. The slave boy there has harbored feelings for the slave girl you see standing there which his mistress only found out about. Vampires are very territorial, very similar to wolves. My guess is the vampiress likes the boy too much and is furious. Come, standing here is not going to help," Damien placed his hand on her small back, guiding her where she had stood unmovingly. 

"When someone is bought from the slave establishment, the owner expects absolute loyalty. In terms of actions or feelings."

Penny had to tear away from her gaze from the people on the street, turning her eyes on the front of the street as Damien's hand that was on her back slipped away to go back to his side, "You cannot control who you grow fond of or the feelings."

"Sure but that doesn't make it anything less to disloyalty. The vampiress there is in love with the slave," and as Damien whispered this to her, her head turned to look into his red eyes that had turned back before they had reached the mansion, "It is a pity for some of the night creatures where their pride and status are put ahead than the other emotions. They are unable to embrace their feelings nor discard it which leaves them in frustration like the one we just saw."