Lucianus
She was as beautiful as I remember in the dress, trimmed in the blood gold of my station. Our station. My lips twitched as she glanced around and walked cautiously toward the main table. I remembered how timid she’d been the first time she’d dressed for dinner like this, as a proper vampire noble. She was as timid and as beautiful then.
I couldn’t help myself from touching her. The warmth of her sent a thrill through me as I thought about her could fading body from so long ago. I taster her skin and shuddered. I wanted more of her. The way that she had trembled and squirmed beneath me.Looking back, I realized that her fear had been reasonable. It had been years since I had considered what I looked like to anyone. I preferred to spend my days drifting through the castle as little more than a wraith before going to the human world to catch my next prey.I had missed her so much. To have her back like this, so completely untouched by time, made that battlefield from so long ago seem like nothing more than a distant memory, a nightmare. She smelled just as she had then. My servants had done well to find her usual bathing scents and add just the hint of her old perfume. She smelled the same way she had the last time I’d had her in my arms, in my bed. I winced as I thought about the perfume. I would have to beg her forgiveness for the spilled perfume, but all of that would have to wait. Perhaps if I kept her occupied through the night she would not be as upset and I would have time to replace the bottle. The thought of getting her beneath me, naked and writhing as I thrusted into her warm, willing body sent chills through me. I had missed her with everything in me. The simple pleasure of waking up next to her. She twisted in my arms, a soft pleasured moan escaped her as I rolled her nipped between my fingers beneath the fabric of her gown. I pulled away and lifted the sheet to reveal dinner for the evening.I frowned down at the humans that were on the table, narrowing my eyes. They all looked young enough. The woman seemed the youngest of them all, but there were too few men of the right age for her tastes. She had always preferred the taste of young men, though she had never had the pleasure of draining one to death. “Forgive me, darling,” I said and looked at her. “It would see that tonight’s menu is a bit lacking for your tastes…”She didn’t move. She didn’t speak. “Darling?”She said nothing, staring at the bodies on the table, still draining into the barrels below. How odd for her. Perhaps she was too hungry to speak, too shocked that I had managed such a feast for us in such a short mount of time. I poked the open wound in the man’s neck. The scent of blood hung in the air and made me smile. I remember capturing this man soon after I had brought my wife home. He’d been feisty. Then terrified when I threw him to the staff to prepare. The woman had gone catatonic before I had even dropped her in the kitchens. “So quiet?” I asked, taking our two goblets, cast in blood gold and rubies, from the cabinet below. “Did you expect something else for your welcome home?”How could she not think that we would renew our pact after so much time apart? How could she even imagine that I would not acknowledge the timer she had been lost to me. Did she think that I had passed these centuries without her without guilt? Without remorse? Had she no idea the turmoil her death had brought to our world? How empty it had been without her?Not my wife. She would know how much I ached with every moment we were apart. She would know. Perhaps she was just coming to terms with all the years apart. Maybe she too had just wished I had taken her when I’d found her rather than resisting the desire and organizing this grand feast. I filled the two glasses from the spigot and set the smaller of the two glasses in front of her. I lifted the bigger of the two to my lips and took a deep swallow. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her staring up at me. Pale and ill-looking. She turned and vomited over the side of her chair with a loud, heaving wretch. Something splattered onto the ground. The scent of bile and sadness filled the air. My heart lurched with a fear that I didn’t want to acknowledge. I pushed that thought back to the back of my mind. That fear had no place here. It would all be fine as soon as the pact was complete. She had been in the human world for too long.I set the glass down and jumped to my feet, rounding the seat to get to her as she pushed herself out of the chair, stumbling away from the throne, retching and stumbling. I grabbed her by the arm to steady her and lifted her glass from the table. This had to be done. For us, for our future and any hope I had of her being with me into the future.“Easy,” I said gently. “Just take two sips, okay?”My lips twitched, watching her tremble and shake as I lifted the goblet to her mouth. She heaved and sipped, shuddering. I watched the liquid get lower in the goblet and felt the rush of it before she reared back and shrieked. “Get away from me!” She pulled away, stumbling away from me. She crashed into the table and cried out as one of the bodies rolled off the table. “Get away from me, you monster! Don’t touch me.”I listened to her. Her words drifted through my mind as she screamed and tried to get away from me. I watched her legs falter. I watched her sway until she was in the center of the hall, collapsed to the ground, and curled into herself, rocking. “Please,” she gasped, sniffling and trembling. “Please, just let me go home. Please let me go. Please let me go.”I set the glass down and looked down at her as she sobbed. The joy faded and turned cold as I realized that this woman, this human, wasn’t my wife. The bit of delusion I had allowed myself faded quickly like an extinguished flame. She looked like her. She smelled like her. The lilt of her voice was the exact same. Had she simply held it together and played along, I may have never realized the difference. I could have deluded my self into thinking the trauma of the war had taken her memory. But she wasn’t my wife. The woman who had died and grown cold in my arms centuries ago among the blood and fury was gone forever. It had been foolish. I had been wrapped up in the joy and hope that had surged in me at seeing her that I had ignored everything else. The taste of her skin was much too spicy, like thrumming blood and cinnamon. The scent of her hair had a faint scent that wasn’t common to our world. Her eyes were younger, much younger than I ever remembered my wife being. Even when I had first met her, she had the eyes of an ancient vampire, hardened by war and the strife of the lower classes.Perhaps she was my wife, perhaps that was not even her name, but it didn’t matter. She was not my wife. Thus, she was nothing more than a body full of hot blood to me.I sighed, shaking my head and looking at the goblet. It was done, but it wasn’t something that I had to worry about. A blood pact with a human meant nothing to me. It would wear off with time and vanish with her death. And there was no one else in this world or the world above that I would ever consider tying myself to in any case. I lifted my goblet and finished the blood inside, relishing the warmth and richness of it before finishing her glass as well, as she began to wail and sob even louder. She sounded weak. Pathetic, like every other human I’d ever captured. She would understand their pain and perhaps more than any of the other. Getting rid of a blood pact would take time. Perhaps she would starve to death or simply die of old age in my dungeon. Neither gave me more joy than the other or more sorrow. I felt nothing.I looked over at the servants who stood off to the side, frightened and wary. “Take her to the dungeon.”TrinityI couldn’t think. How long had I been here? He had told his servants to take me down to this dark place. I hadn’t seen even a glint of red light or torch light since they’d brought me down here. Something clinked in the dark. I turned sharply, startled by the sound. The door opened, and light flooded in, burning my eyes. I squinted and covered my eyes, wondering who it was. I didn’t recognize the person, but my heart filled with hope as she came towards me. He had to have realized his mistake. Had my pleas reached him? How long would it take to go home?I got up just enough, a little dizzy from the time since I’d last eaten or drunk anything. Then, she shoved me back to the ground. I twisted as she kneeled over me, and someone else came to restrain me. “Let me go!” I cried. A sharp, hot pain cut through my palm as I screamed. I felt dizzy, feeling the blood leave me. I shuddered and tried not to cry at the pain. Then, she wrapped something tight around the wound, and the
TrinityThis time, I made my breathing seem weak. The torch was relit just as he opened the door and the light of it filled the room. I realized then that the torches had to last at least a few hours at a time. If vampires ate at the same rate that humans did, I estimated about four hours. I shuddered. I was lucky to have made it a day losing blood so frequently without food or water to help me replenish. If I had any doubts about whether or not these people didn’t intend for me to live long like this, I didn’t have them any longer. The weaker I seemed, the easier it would be to get this done as soon as possible and make my escape. He left me quickly the next time he came. I blocked out the pain. I didn’t even whimper. It took him several minutes to get his fill, then he stood to leave. I waited, shifting just enough to make sure more of my skirts were caught between the door and the frame of it. I heard him walk away.Finally, his footsteps were gone. I sat up quickly and checked t
TrinityThere was no way out. I couldn’t outrun him. I pressed myself against the wall, waiting for the moment that he would attack and kill me. His eyes were blood-red as he approached, looming over me. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. The fear was making me dizzy, but slowly, I started to accept that I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it. I felt oddly calm, almost hysterically calm like I’d taken Valium in the middle of a gunfight or something. I felt on edge and oddly too calm. My hands were shaking. My heart was racing and my mind was so clear that I could almost see my memories glittering like little stars in my mind.“Food has no right to run away,” he said. His eyes narrowed. “You’re asking for your death.”My heart lurched as I stared at him. “You kidnapped me.”His eyes narrowed at me as if he didn’t expect me to speak. It made me angry in a way that I couldn’t suppress.“You’ve kidnapped and tortured me! You’ve done terrible things to me. What ma
LucianusI returned her to the dungeon, dragging her naked through the hallways and strung her up so her toes barely grazed the floor. She didn’t wake up then, letting out a soft groan and turning her head. The light caught her face, and I thought of my wife’s face in the cool light of torches at night. My blood boiled as I pushed that thought and lifted my hand so the long, cursed whip appeared in my hand and spiraled into a pool on the floor. My mouth watered. The fury in me was itching to get out, even as I just wanted to drain her dry and ravish her. She woke up with a screech of pain when I swung the black whip, and it cut across her chest, turning the skin red. It would take almost nothing to break her skin. The cry infuriated me. I struck her again and again until the welts turned bloody, and she was screaming in agony. The scent of blood made my mouth water even as I couldn’t seem to pull back on my fury. I saw her eyes looking at me from within her dead face and imagined w
TrinityThe woman scoffed at me. She stood and struck me across the face. My face stung, but I didn’t cry out. Was she allowed to do that? How hard had she hit me? My ears were ringing like a bell, and my jaw throbbed. I tasted blood in my mouth as if I had cut my cheek on a tooth. I was more surprised there was any blood left.“You’re an idiot if you think you have the right to call our master by his name just because you have the late lady’s face,” she hissed. “Do your best to learn your place and await the day that the master will release you into death. Do not speak any further. You will only irritate me.”She left then and closed the door behind her with a loud, metallic groan, yet I didn’t hear a lock click. Was that the castle’s doing or her doing? I didn’t know, and I couldn’t bother to focus on it. Until I was down from this position, until my hands were free, trying to run away again would be impossible. Besides my hands, I couldn’t even imagine being able to walk. Somethi
Lucianus When my servants arrived with the news, I was irritated, but I was also oddly impressed. She must have been conserving her energy, her strength, to be able to take the blade and do so much damage so quickly. That or the woman there had simply underestimated her. It didn’t matter. The issue was whether or not I was going to allow her to get away with this. She was a blood slave as far as I was concerned, a prisoner of mine. Never have any of my prisoners been allowed to decide on their own freedom, least of all human ones. I drifted through the hallways as little more than a shadow until I reached the dungeon cell where they had left her. Her arm had been bandaged tightly, but my servants knew nothing of human medicine. No more than me, anyway. I pulled the vial of elixir from my pocket. Once when humanity and vampires had not been at war, we had had something like a peace treaty. They offered us a steady supply of humans in exchange for magic. Humans had always been greed
TrinityI woke up slowly. I couldn’t say where I was, but I knew I wasn’t where I had been before I’d cut myself. Had they thrown me somewhere else? Was I dead? My lips twitched, and I moved my hand. I felt no pain and frowned as I sat up and looked at my arm. There wasn’t even a scar. How was that possible?I had to be dead. It was almost a relief. “You’re smart… for a human.” I looked over at the man who had been in charge of my torture. I didn’t flinch, but I met his gaze evenly. He looked less derisive of me as he stared back at me.His lips twitched, and he turned his head. “She’s awake.”A woman came in that I didn’t recognize. She wasn’t one of the servants who had been in charge of taking my blood. She wasn’t the vicious one that seemed to enjoy cutting me, but I couldn’t remember her clearly if she had been a nice one either. The man stood. “Strong-willed too,” he chuckled. “You certainly got the master’s attention with that little stunt. Ira will get you cleaned up and tak
TrinityI didn’t see him again after that meeting, but the servants who came to take my blood also came with food. Even the few who didn’t come with food weren’t cruel about taking my blood. In place of their daggers, they’d brought needles. That made me pause. It seemed that vampires spent enough time in the human world to get human medical supplies. That meant they had a way of getting there quickly and without being noticed. He’d flown away on great black wings with me, but there was no way he and the rest of them just flew into the human world whenever they pleased. They’d be caught. They had to have some other way to get there. I had to find it and use it as soon as possible. But how was I going to get there? Was it in the castle or outside?Ira drew my blood gently as if I was just getting blood drawn at the doctor’s office. The other woman was silent and standoffish, but I didn’t see the man again. It was a start. A few days in, the man showed up again and told me that I wo