Three
Kaius
The cattle cells smell of human waste and death.
The mortals foolish enough to wander into vampire territory are captured and kept here until either they die or are claimed by one of my kind.
For some humans, to be claimed is the hope.
Being kept as a blood slave has been fetishized, especially amongst those who have no roof over their heads or no food in their bellies.
Vampires keep their cattle well-fed.
Malnourished blood leaves a foul aftertaste.
Healthy blood is sweet, like fresh fruit, and savory, like slow-roasted meat.
Not that I can remember what those things taste like.
It’s been so long since I’ve tasted anything other than blood and wine.
Sometimes I gaze at the human food in the kitchens, and as I do, my mouth salivates with the ghostly memory of a ripe berry or a well-seasoned duck.
I’ve spent the last millennium longing for the things I took for granted as a human, and the only reason I’m in this fetid dungeon is because, for the first time in all these years, there’s hope that I can have them back.
The air grows more stale with each silent step I take deeper into the tunnels.
I can hear whispers echoing off the walls, but more importantly, I can hear the panicked flutter of an unwillingly captive human’s heart.
I hear a small whimper and the clank of human bones bouncing off the thick iron bars of the cells.
I stick to the dark and pause behind a corner to watch two sallow, greasy vampires accost a woman in the cell.
Her bright blue eyes stare up at them filled with pure terror, made even more evident by the smell of fear in her blood.
They have her arm in a tight grip, pulling her into the cell door and mocking her whimper with their own.
“What do ya’ think?”
one asks the other, sniffing the inside of the woman’s wrist as the other licks his teeth. “Should we have a taste before Lord Kaius arrives?”
He smells her wrist again and makes a noise of awe. “She smells delicious.”
The second vampire smacks away his hand, causing him to release the woman. She falls to the floor and backs away into her cell until I can no longer see her from where I watch them.
“You know how the Dread Lord feels about sharing his treasures. I have no desire to find myself on the receiving end of his wrath, and if you were smart, you’d be inclined to feel the same.”
The first man mutters to himself, and both stiffen and bow when I reveal myself from the shadows.
Air seems to fill my petrified lungs when I get a better look at the woman in the cell. She’s wearing a dancer’s dress. White. Delicate chiffon draping over her long legs.
Her eyes are so vibrantly blue, even in the dim light, and even brimmed with tears and redness. It’s almost…violent in the most stunning way. Like I could stare right through them and see not only her soul, but my own reflected.
“Lord Kaius,”
one of the worms says, pulling my attention from the woman, “We humbly ask for your favor in exchange for this gift,”
he finishes, with a grand and over-exaggerated bow.
I turn my nose up in disgust, shifting my gaze to the girl. “I have no need for more cattle. You dare summon me to this decrepit prison for a stupid human?”
They look at each other and smile. “This one’s special.”
The shorter of the two suddenly bangs the iron bars, causing the girl to gasp and curl into a ball. “You there! Turn around!”
She doesn’t move, so he reaches through the bars and grabs her wrist. “I said turn around,” he repeats, before shoving her, and she hunches herself over her knees with her back to us.
The two worms resume their snickering because they know her value—or at the very least, they’ve heard whispers of the value of a single scar. “We want twenty cattle of our choosing, to do as we please.”
“Done,”
I reply. “Has anyone else seen this human?”
“No, sire. We brought her straight here.”
“Where did you find her?”
“Just beyond the valley, in the town of Lemory. We was huntin’ for some fresh meat. Saw her dancin’ in the plaza for one of them full moon celebrations the humans do.”
He laughs. “Snatched her right from the courtyard in front’a all of ‘em. Squealed like a pig, she did.”
I let silence fill the air for a moment, and then I reach into the chests of my two subjects, grabbing their hearts and ripping them out. Their bodies fall to the floor with a thud before turning to ash.
The human girl watches me drop the hearts at my feet before I take a handkerchief from my pocket and wipe my hands clean. She gulps slowly, as if trying to swallow bile creeping up her throat.
With a curl of my lip and a huff, I turn from her, stepping over the remaining ashes with every intent to leave this prison and her in it.
But then she softly croaks, ‘wait’, and something deep in the very center of my being compels me to stop.
And in this singular moment, the entirety of my world shifts.
I just don’t know it yet.