25. Elias
ELIAS
T he room looks like it’s used for meetings in which nothing good ever comes for those who oppose the rulers.
It reminds me of some medieval exhibit. There’s one long wooden table with nicks in it that resemble nails dragging along it and what could be indents from weapons.
Surrounding us are stone walls with heavy wooden beams overhead.
It’s surreal being here in the magical realm, and in the castle of the vampire rulers, nonetheless. I never tried to picture what it would look like, considering I’ve never wanted anything to do with this place, but it does hit the nose on gothic old times.
Briar’s three dads sit across from us, which is a strange thought to wrap my mind around to begin with.
Which one is her actual genetic father? Or is that just something magic poofs away and all three contributed?
The one in the middle doesn’t move, not even a twitch–his stillness feels like a blade pressed to my throat.
The one on his right watches every shift we make, eyes sharp, cataloguing.
The last leans forward, closer to the table, a knife already resting under his hand.
He doesn’t bother to hide what he wants: to make us bleed.
My knee bounces under the table, though I force the rest of me into stillness.
I’m not afraid of them. If anything, I want to shout in their fucking faces, but one stern look from Dante as we sat down has kept my jaw locked shut since.
Last I saw Briar, she was running from them in tears, and none of her dads followed. That shouldn’t bother me as much as it does.
The man in the middle leans forward at last, the room crackling with rising tension with the shift.
His voice is clipped and calm, and it’s clear he’s the one who gives orders, based on the way he takes the lead.
He mentioned he was the king before we went through the portal, but the complexities of their roles and all of them being her dads has my head spinning to understand the ways of vampires.
Perhaps all three of them are kings here. Who the fuck knows.
“I am Dracula,” he offers.
Callum’s breath stutters loudly enough that I hear it from my end of the table.
Dante goes rigid between us, shoulders squared as if bracing himself.
Even I feel the shift in my own energy with that name being uttered, but I clamp my jaw tight and refuse to give him the satisfaction of seeing me flinch.
Everyone knows of Dracula from tales, movies, and reimaginings. He’s a thing of legends that I didn’t think existed. Yet here he is, in flesh and bone, and as a father of the woman we just watched get tortured for a month.
Surely this can’t end well.
My hands clench at my knees. All I hope is that they at least give us a chance to help them if they plan on taking my uncle down.
I thought escaping that prison would absolve me of any remaining emotional ties, but not once has my burning hatred for Terrance faded since we left the compound.
If anything, it only burns brighter with the time I have to think of how we let him manipulate our trauma and emotions the night he captured Briar.
We were weak, and he was a step ahead.
“This is Lincoln.” Dracula’s head tilts to the one with the steady eyes who’s been tracking every twitch and breath. “And Andrei,” he adds with a glance toward the knife-in-hand one.
Three beings with superior strength and skills to us. Three pairs of eyes deciding if we’re worth keeping alive.
I should feel more fear in their presence, but there’s a strange sense of peace in knowing they’re vampires.
Before Briar, my reality with vampires on was based on the one who killed our mother and mocked me as a child.
Now, I recognize there’s a part of me that changed without realizing it, a part that can now acknowledge it isn’t the type of blood or magic running in one’s veins that decides their heart.
I’ve seen humans with more monstrous intentions and a lust for spilling blood who fall more in line with my initial thoughts on vampires.
It’s a wake up call, realizing the world around you isn’t black and white.
“You are prisoners pending trial,” Dracula says evenly, folding his hands together on the table.
“The only reason you aren't dead yet is because of our wife and daughter, neither of which are here to protect you now. As our process requires, we will hear one plea of your defense before confining you to await trial. Speak carefully.”
The reminder of Briar hits hard, yanking that last image of her back into my head with her running from all of us with tears streaking her face.
My teeth grind with the sudden urge to spit the questions at them: And why the fuck didn’t any of you go after her?
Why did you let her break apart alone in favor of interrogating us first?
I choke it down, just barely. Dante’s jaw ticks out of the corner of my eye, and I force my knees to still under the table and not show my agitation and restlessness.
I need to keep my mouth shut, weighing the timing of an outburst, but the fire already claws at my ribs and crawls up my throat, needing an outlet.
If I can’t throw my shock at their mistreatment of their daughter at them, I’ll throw it where it truly belongs: at Terrance.
None of us would be in these positions if it weren’t for him.
I lean forward just enough to meet Dracula’s stare head-on.
“You want your queen back and the hunter empire in ashes?” The words scrape out roughly. “Then use the weapons you have in your possession that know how to do that. Us. We know the systems, the routes, and the weapons you are up against.”
The words are bitter on my tongue, but the satisfaction of spitting them out and daring these three to consider the proposition soothes the rage within.
Andrei lets out a low scoff, the sound more annoyance than amusement. Dracula’s lip curls just enough to show a hint of fangs.
“And why,” he asks, voice steady but heavy with disdain, “should we believe you’d want to help us at all? How do we know this isn’t a trap to gather more of our kind in one place so they can be slaughtered by yours?”
Dante shifts before I can open my mouth again, his gaze fixed squarely on Dracula as I watch him.
His voice comes out even and strong, stripped of all emotions, leaving just the truth of the matter.
“The first time I saw my father torture a magical being, I ran. My father had me dragged back. Broke me for it and left me on death’s doorstep to remember my place in this world.
Since then, I’ve taken orders and stayed alive.
That’s not loyalty, it’s simply survival.
I am not his and I would give you anything you need to ruin him.
If not for my own vengeance, but to try and atone for what I’ve had to stand by and witness. ”
When he’s done speaking, he stands swiftly, pushing his chair back with a screech on the stone floor. Andrei’s hand tightens on his weapon, but they allow Dante to pull his shirt over his head in one sharp motion and turn.
The red and black ink across his back catches the light, showing off a massive red snake coiled from shoulder to hip, winding over the raised ruin of scar tissue. The marks are still there, pale ridges cut deep into skin that no tattoo could erase.
It hits hard, seeing the proof carved into his skin. It’s harder to stomach than the admission in his words alone. My stomach knots, fury twisting in my chest. The kind that burns hotter every time my uncle’s face crosses my mind.
Terrance did that to his own son.
My next breath is ragged as my chest tightens. Every breath I take without cutting him down feels like another debt piling on my back.
Dante shifts his shirt back into place and sits back down. The room stays silent, the three vampires across the table unreadable.
They wanted proof of why we aren’t loyal to Terrance, and Dante just gave it to them.
Callum clears his throat, and when he speaks it’s softer than Dante’s tone, but equally measured and composed.
“As for my brother and me, our uncle locked our inheritance and blocked every application we made to colleges, just to keep us under his thumb. He told us if we worked for him one year, he’d release it all. He’d give us what our parents left us and stop interfering with our lives.”
His gaze falls to the table, shame thick in his voice as he continues. “We thought we could get in and get out, and that it was a bargain worth making. But we didn’t know what we were agreeing to until it was too late. That’s on us, and complicit is still complicit.”
His voice doesn’t shake, but I know him well enough to hear what’s buried under it.
Across the table, I spot the faintest shift. Shoulders that were rigid ease a fraction and narrowed eyes soften just a sliver. It isn’t forgiveness, not even close, but the hostility dulls at the edges as if Callum’s and Dante’s words were something the vampires didn’t expect.
It’s gone in the next breath, their masks back in place, but I saw it.
As small as it is, I know it’s the opening we need. If they’re listening, even a little, then I’m not wasting the chance.
“I agreed to it because I thought I could swallow it for twelve months and walk,” I say, the words grinding out through my teeth.
“I couldn’t, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself until after I watched my brother break apart.
” My hands lift from my lap to curl into fists against the table, nails biting my palms as the fury surges up my throat.
“Point me in the direction you want me to fight and I won’t blink or ask questions.
I’ll put my uncle in the ground and burn whatever’s left. ”
The fire in my chest doesn’t ease when I spit it out, but it feels more manageable.
Lincoln’s gaze doesn’t waver, but his mouth twists, the faintest curl of disdain. “Convenient stories,” he says, voice like stone cracking, “for boys who now sit in the hands of the very creatures they hunted.”