the rite
The body twitched once before going still.
The girl was still alive when Lucien sank to his knees.
Her breathing was shallow—a gurgling rattle in her chest like broken glass shifting. Her eyes weren’t pleading anymore. Just wide. Blank. Watching the ceiling as if she could vanish into it.
Lucien could barely hear her over the pounding in his skull.
The room was a feeding chamber—custom-built by the syndicate. Metal walls crusted with layers of dried blood. Hooks on the ceiling. A drain in the floor. Everything engineered for containment, cleanup, and forgetting.
The body had been lashed to the restraint chair. Silas stood behind him, hands pristine, voice as calm as ever.
Silas Vale
You know how long she lasted?
Silas mused, circling slowly. His boots left tracks through the wet on the floor.
Silas Vale
Seven minutes of resistance. That’s double what the last one managed. Exceptional.
Lucien’s stomach lurched. The blood was everywhere—slick underfoot, warm on his palms, reeking like rust and violation. His own heartbeat sounded wrong, erratic, like it was trying to hide from itself.
Silas Vale
You think morality is strength?
The girl’s body spasmed. A last nerve firing.
Lucien bit down on a scream and crawled closer. She was dying. Rapidly. And he knew what Silas would do if she expired untouched—he’d bring another. He’d keep bringing more.
A clawing guilt dug through his gut.
His fangs emerged with an involuntary twitch—forced out by starvation, shame, and the invisible leash Silas had kept wrapped around his soul since childhood.
Silas gripped Luciens' neck
Silas Vale
You’ll thank me later
Silas said, and with one sharp push, forced Lucien’s head down.
The first taste was vile. Too fresh. Too hot. It scorched his tongue like acid but tasted like heaven. He didn’t chew—didn’t have to. The blood poured in, thick and slow, like syrup laced with metal. His body shuddered as it hit his core, lighting him up from the inside with strength and energy.
He kept going until he couldn’t breathe.
His stomach rejected the blood violently. Lucien doubled over, retching onto the floor in heavy, heaving spasms. It came out red-black. Splattered across his hands, his clothes, his shoes. Then came bile. Then spit. Then blood again.
He clawed at his throat as if he could rip the act out of his body.
Silas Vale
You’re pathetic
Silas Vale
A half-formed creature with human fragility and vampire hunger. You’ll never be anything but broken
Lucien vomited again—harder. His face smashed into the blood-soaked floor with the force. He screamed, not just from nausea, but because he felt her. Inside him.
The girl’s memories hit like knives: sun on her skin, her brother singing off-key, the first boy she kissed behind a market stall. Lucien felt her panic, her betrayal, her final thought—
He collapsed, shaking. Covered in her... her blood... her feelings.
But Silas was already leaving, voice echoing off the concrete.
Silas Vale
You’ll beg for another feeding soon. Hunger always wins. Humanity is just what bleeds when it does
Lucien lay in his own mess—alone, haunted, and no longer sure which part of him had done the feeding.
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