I was startled awake.The other girls' sleeping faces looked calm in the dim moonlight seeping through the windows, but I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. Whether it was a side effect of being blessed or a survival instinct honed through trauma. I had never once mistaken this feeling. My body stayed still, but my senses sharpened, straining to find the source of the unease.
Then I heard it.
The sound was faint—barely more than a whisper—the subtle echo of approaching footsteps resonating from the hallway. Closer. Closer still. Then, they stopped—just outside our door.
In an instant, the door burst open with a violent crash. I flinched. Before I could react—or even register who it was—a magical barrier flared to life, encasing the bed in a protective dome of shimmering, crimson, energy. Simultaneously, beams of pure, radiant light streaked through the darkness from various points in the room, converging on the figure who had just entered. The blinding brilliance sent shadows fleeing into the corners—engulfing the intruder in light.
The others jolted awake in panic, disoriented and alarmed. But my eyes locked on the boy now revealed by the light.
He appeared no older than seventeen or eighteen, his posture tight with irritation, as if the whole ordeal were a tedious inconvenience. His expression showed annoyance rather than malice—like someone long accustomed to dramatic receptions who now found them beneath him. The beams of light, which should have seared flesh and soul, merely flickered against him like harmless fireflies—an eerie, unsettling sight.
Then he struck.
Without warning, the boy raised his hand and lashed out at the barrier shielding us. It shuddered with ripples under his blow, ripples of crimson energy bursting across its surface. Again and again, he attacked—as if brushing away cobwebs, not striking an enchanted ward—and yet each blow sent jolts of power vibrating through the air.
Suddenly, the door flung open again, and Leora entered like a storm given human shape. Her eyes swept the room—us huddled behind the protective barrier, the boy striking it with cold indifference—and then her voice rang out, sharp and commanding.
"WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING, CASSIUS!?"
The name echoed like a curse.
The boy, Cassius, paused mid-strike and turned to face her. His expression remained eerily calm as he ignored the fury in her tone. He looked at her not as someone caught in the act, but rather as someone mildly inconvenienced by a familiar face.
"Oh, Leora," he said with maddening nonchalance as he continued speaking.
"Perfect timing. These lights are getting annoying. Be a dear and get rid of them and the barrier too."
We all stared at him in disbelief, as if he had spoken in an alien tongue. Was he serious?
Leora, her brows furrowed in confusion and anger, stepped forward, her presence radiating barely restrained fury.
"Are you stupid?" she said coldly, "or just hopelessly arrogant? I'll only ask once more: what the hell do you think you're doing here?"
Something in her voice—something darker, deeper—finally seemed to pierce the fog of Cassius's indifference. His expression shifted slightly, a spark of recognition flashing in his eyes.
"Isn't it obvious?" he said, as if explaining a simple fact to a child.
"I'm choosing a bloodmate. There are seven girls here. Even if I claim one, it's hardly a loss. Honestly, they should feel honored. I, Cassius Gen Ven Hemokis, will make one of them my bloodmate. That is a privilege far greater than being handed off to that Vampire Progenitor as a… Puppet"
The arrogance in his voice dripped like poison.
Before he could finish his sentence Leora moved. One moment, she was in front of us; the next, she had Cassius pinned by the throat against the wall, her hand like a vice around his neck.
The sound of impact cracked like thunder.
Cassius blinked in shock—then laughed, ragged and unhinged.
"YOU NAIVE OLD HAG! YOU'RE SO OLD YET YOU STILL THINK LIKE A HUMAN. YOU THINK CHOKING ME MEANS ANYTHING? WE DON'T NEED TO BREATHE!"
His words were wild, his voice rising in volume and venom as he struggled to twist free.
"THE FACT THAT YOU'RE EVEN DOING THIS PROVES YOU'VE FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING. YOU'VE FORGOTTEN WHO YOU ARE, LEORA!" He said as he clawed at her arm, spat insults, and sneered.
"You're a lowblood attendant clinging to scraps of power. Now, you lay your filthy hands on a descendant of your Vampire Progenitor?"
Still, Leora said nothing. She held him there, silent and unyielding, as his tirade unraveled into madness. His words tumbled into incoherence, and gradually, his voice faltered. He looked into her eyes and saw no emotion reflected back—only the cold, ruthless judgment of someone who had already passed a sentence. Then, out of nowhere, a blade sliced through the silence.
A clean cut.
Cassius fell to the floor in a heap, stunned and gasping—not for air, but for control.
"Well," said a voice from behind, smooth and unbothered, "Is this what you resort to this time Cassius?"
We turned to see Lucius standing in the doorway, arms crossed, surveying the wreckage with an expression that hovered somewhere between exasperation and amusement.
"Oh, Lucius, thank the Gods you're here! This woman has completely lost her mind. I command you to get her off me!" rambled Cassius with a smug look on his face.
Lucius halted in the doorway, his expression hardening into a cold, unmistakable frown.
"You've gone too far this time, Cassius," he said, his voice low and laced with fury.
"There are lines one does not cross—and you have trampled over them without thought or remorse. Do not think you can charm or lie your way out of this. Not now. Not when your actions—had they succeeded—would have led to the utter destruction of our entire clan."
Lucius took a step forward, his presence heavy with authority.
"This time, your fate lies in the hands of the Progenitor himself. And your punishment will reflect the gravity of your betrayal. A betrayal that endangered every last one of us. You may be spared the penalty of "true death" by virtue of your bloodline, and your youth. But do not think yourself lucky. What awaits you will make true death seem like a mercy." (See PR/N at end of chapter)
Cassius went pale, the weight of Lucius's words hitting him like a physical blow. His bravado crumbled. A shiver ran through him, soon escalating into a tremble that consumed his entire frame.
Only then did Leora release him. Lucius seized the boy's arm without ceremony and began to lead him away. Silent and slack-jawed, Cassius no longer resisted. I watched as his figure faded into the dim corridor, swallowed by the shadows alongside Lucius.
As the heavy doors closed behind them, the room descended once more into silence and darkness. The magical barrier faded, and with it, the radiant beams of light vanished—leaving behind only the stillness of what had just transpired.
After several long moments of silence, it was Leora who finally spoke, her voice steady yet laced with something unreadable.
"Well," she murmured, smoothing her robes with precise grace.
"I regret that you had to witness such chaos. But do not worry, Cassius will pay dearly for what he's done. His punishment will be… fitting."
Her words hovered in the air like drifting ash—meant to soothe, yet failing to extinguish the quiet unease burning in my chest.
Two things had burned themselves into my mind during the confrontation. First, the sheer gravity of what Cassius had attempted. Whatever his intentions, they were considered severe enough to warrant intervention from the clan's highest authority—the Progenitor himself. That wasn't a punishment for youthful defiance. That was a judgment reserved for treason.
And second—his words. His final outburst, thrown like a curse as he trembled in fear, yet spoken with venomous clarity:
"That is a privilege far greater than being handed off to that Vampire Progenitor… Puppet"
It would be easy—comforting, even to dismiss that as the rambling bitterness of a frightened boy. But I couldn't. There was too much weight behind it. It wasn't the insult that unsettled me—it was the conviction. That word, puppet, echoed like a whisper from behind a closed door. A door they didn't want me to open.
And the more I thought about it, the more the mask began to crack.
Why would someone like him—privileged, protected, a blood heir—believe that being bound to a Progenitor's descendant was better than becoming what I was being groomed to become?
Bloodmate, they called it. Blood Consort. But what if beneath the ritual, beneath the elegance, it was nothing more than gilded servitude?
I knew better than to ask Leora what he meant by puppet. Not yet. That word held too much danger. But perhaps I could approach it from another angle.
So I asked why Cassius's actions had put the clan in jeopardy.
Her face didn't change, but the silence that followed was sharper this time—cutting, calculated. When she finally answered, her voice was calm, but something behind her eyes had shifted.
"In order to answer that," she said, folding her hands.
"You must first understand vampire society. The Hierarchy is not just tradition—it is law, blood-bound and absolute. Without it, our kind would fall into chaos."
She paused, then gave a small, almost imperceptible nod.
"I know this isn't the way you were meant to awaken. But the time had already come. And perhaps... Perhaps it's better this way. Why not begin your lessons early?" Her gaze met mine, calm but unreadable.
"Would that be acceptable to you?"
"Yes," I said, my voice quiet but firm.
"I'd appreciate that."
"Very well," she said, her voice taking on a more formal cadence. "Then let us begin…"
PR/N: For vampires, while they can still be killed, they have a different perception of death, meaning they call Natural Death (Old age) by the name "Death" and they call Unnatural Death (External factors) by "True Death".