Somewhere above that silence, ink bled across parchment—blood made into words.
The war reports lay scattered across the obsidian desk, parchment stained with ink and the faintest trace of dried blood. Battles on two fronts, victories tempered by attrition.
The first report detailed the skirmishes with the werewolves. They pressed hard against the northern borders, their raids savage and relentless. Their numbers, once roughly equal to the vampires, had surged unexpectedly. Though still not matching the human populations, the spike in wolf numbers had thrown the vampire frontlines into chaos. Ambushes, hit-and-run attacks, and rapid pack movements now challenged centuries of vampire experience. Lucarion's nails drummed lightly on the table, a rhythm of controlled irritation.
But while his father, the King, waged the eternal war against their natural enemies, the Crown Prince guarded the east, where humans—their livestock—gnawed like vermin at the empire's edges. Opportunists. They sensed the distraction of the wolf–vampire conflict and struck to free those bred as cattle.
It was no war of equals. Yet it was… persistent. Irritating. A contagion that refused to die when crushed.
Among the ink and numbers, one report lay heavy as lead in his hand.
The prisoner.
A human general —an absurdity. For centuries, humans had been rabble, fragmented clans and petty insurgents to be stamped out at leisure. They had no armies, no true command, nothing resembling a state. And yet here she was: captured at the border, commanding troops, now bound in his dungeons.
She should have been nothing more than a resource. A source of information. A bargaining chip. A reminder to her kind that resistance was futile.
Instead, she lingered like a thorn in his flesh.
Subject has yet to provide intelligence. Endures all forms of questioning.
Subject has killed two guards and one officer, despite progressive restraint escalation. Recommendations: execution or immediate handling by His Highness the Crown Prince.
His jaw tightened, nails digging into the edge of the parchment. Three soldiers. Dead to a single chained human woman. While the werewolves howled at their gates and human raids burned supply routes, his men were being undone in the heart of his fortress.
The messenger stood stiff at attention, trembling under his silence.
"Explain," the prince said at last, his voice smooth and cold as steel.
The soldier swallowed. "She resists, Your Highness. Each restraint we add, she finds a way. It is not—" He faltered. "It is not natural."
Lucarion's amethyst eyes snapped up, the gold limbal rings that marked him as a royal flared in anger. "Not natural? She is human. A prey species. A herd beast. Do you mean to tell me your men are undone by cattle?"
The silence was answer enough.
The prince rose, tall and severe. His cloak whispered across the stone floor, the air itself seeming to shrink back from him.
"Incompetence has wasted enough of my time." He stepped toward the map. "I will deal with her myself. You're dismissed."
The messenger bowed so quickly he nearly toppled. "Y-yes, my lord."
Lucarion lingered a moment longer over the war map. Wolves to the north. Humans rising from within. The enemies multiplied while his soldiers grew sloppy. And at the center of it all, one woman—bloodied, silent, unbroken—was making a mockery of his command.
He moved through the halls of the fortress. Every guard along the way bowed, some hastily, some trembling. Even from a distance, he could feel the tension coiling in their spines.
He reached the dungeon. The two guards posted at the so-called general's cell stiffened. Their bows were hesitant, almost fearful, eyes darting nervously toward the cell's interior. Lucarion let out a soft, dismissive scoff.
He studied them coldly: cowering before the weakest of sentient beings—an average dog could overpower a human woman. Pathetic.
He raised a hand in a subtle gesture, commanding them to open the door.
The guards exchanged a nervous glance but obeyed, swinging the heavy cell door open.
One stepped forward, his voice wavering. "Don't go too close, Your Highness…"
Lucarion's lips curved into a faint, chilling smile. Too close for whom?
He stepped inside, the sound of his boots echoing in the cold stone chamber.
The first thing he noticed was the scent of her blood—sweet, rich, a note exotic enough to make him pause for a second.
Then he took in the full scene: she was strung tight, hands chained to the ceiling, ankles bound to the floor, forming an X in midair, every inch of her immobile. A spiked collar bit into her neck, tangled in the thick waves of bronze hair that spilled around her shoulders. Her eyes were closed, breaths shallow, steady, and utterly unyielding. She did not acknowledge his presence.
Lucarion circled her slowly, eyes flicking over the marks of torture that marred her skin. She reminded him of the rumors he had recently heard about the werewolves.
In the matter of selecting humans to be abducted or bought as slaves, vampires searched for blood quality and meekness, shaping them into obedient livestock.
The werewolves, however, usually only bought humans for ordinary purposes—labor and entertainment—and rarely bothered to abduct. There was no need, as they had never cared for particular attributes the way vampires did.
In the last century, though, their approach had changed. They began selecting humans differently—taller, stronger, hardier. Their criteria were exacting: muscular physiques, healthy fat distribution, and symmetry in features. For females: curvy hips, strong thighs, narrow waists, sturdy chests. For males: broad shoulders, defined musculature, proportioned limbs. Such precise standards were rare among human slaves, so the werewolves began abducting the free ones, vampire-style, to meet their specifications.
These practices fueled the rumors that werewolves were breeding with humans, perhaps to produce a more resilient, larger population.
Eva's form fit the ideal. Tall for a human woman, her frame held the balance of strength and softness, her curves accentuated by the stillness forced upon her. Even her face, delicate yet commanding, seemed sculpted to draw the eye—not by ornament, but by proportion. Strong brows crowned her deep-set gaze, while the smooth line of her nose and the natural fullness of her lips gave her a beauty born of symmetry and poise, the kind that lingered even with her eyes closed.
Lucarion stopped just short of the chains. The guards at the door shifted uneasily, one hand twitching toward his weapon as though disaster might spark from stillness. He ignored them.
Eva's eyes stayed shut, face neutral, breaths shallow, heartbeat slow from loss of blood. Physical punishment would not break her—that much was clear.
So he turned to the other battlefield: the mind.
Lucarion's voice cut through the cold air, low and deliberate.
"Do you imagine yourself a martyr? That your silence will rouse your kind? It will not. They will die screaming in chains while you rot here, nameless."
Nothing. Her eyes remained closed, her chest rising and falling with shallow, measured breaths.
He circled closer, eyes glinting in the torchlight.
"Do you remember Harlan?" His tone was soft, almost coaxing. "Your captain. Broad shoulders, a voice that carried even over the clash of steel. He met me at the ford with his spear raised. I snapped it in two and opened his throat with the jagged end. He tried to hold it closed, choking on his own breath, but he could not speak your name."
He let the words hang a moment, then leaned closer.
"And Toma. The boy who braided his hair tight so it wouldn't catch in his bowstring. I dragged him down from the wall myself. He clawed at my arm, begged me not to take his eyes. Do you know what sound a man makes when the light leaves him? You will."
Not a twitch of muscle. Not even the faintest ripple beneath her long lashes.
His lips curled in disdain. She was not resisting. She was simply not there.
Very well.
If words could not reach her, then he would drag them from her throat.
"Water," he ordered. His tone carried no rise, no urgency—merely command. "Buckets. Now."
At his command, the guards threw the buckets. Cold water crashed over her skin, drenching blood and bruises alike.
Her eyes snapped open.
Amber threaded with fine striations of red and gold, as though fire itself had etched veins into her irises.
Lucarion's amethyst eyes, ringed in glowing gold, locked onto hers.
She knew what that meant. She knew what he was.
A higher vampire.
The weight of his will pressing forward like a storm breaking. His voice was soft, measured—unrelenting.
"Who gives you orders?"
The enthrallment slid into her like hooks in flesh. Her throat tightened, her lips trembled. She fought it—gods, how she fought it—but her body betrayed her. Her mouth began to shape the word, her voice rising against her will.
Her jaw clenched, breath shuddering. She forced her chin downward, until the iron spikes of her collar bit into her throat. A strangled sound tore out, cut short as blood welled. Her vocal cords split under the collar's teeth, silencing her completely.
Lucarion's eyes widened in pure, white-hot fury. The chains rattled as her body shivered, yet her lips curled in a smile, crimson spilling over them, defiance blazing even as her own blood drowned her voice.
The chamber froze. The guards stared, pale and wide-eyed, waiting for his wrath.
Lucarion's claws unfurled, sharp crescents catching the light as his patience thinned.
"You insolent wretch…" His rich baritone dropped an octave, the words rumbled out of his chest and vibrated through the air, more dangerous than a roar.
Blood dripped from her chin, her throat raw and torn—but still she smiled. The fire dimmed in her half-lidded eyes, fading to darkness.
Lucarion stood over her in the silence that followed, the only sound the slow, rhythmic fall of her blood onto stone.