Chapter 21 When Darkness Consumes
WHEN DARKNESS CONSUMES
“He sold your blood?” He gave a slow nod as if my heart wasn’t hammering in my chest at this family bombshell.
“Your blood?” I repeated again. I couldn’t ever imagine a loving parent doing this to a child…even a Vampire one.
“Ours. Mine, my brothers’, even hers. He disguised it as an elixir, a tonic that promised strength and vitality. Mortals paid fortunes for it. And soon, we were no longer poor. The weak, starving family became a dynasty.” He looked up then, his gaze locking with mine.
“This manor was purchased with that blood money. A gift from one of his royal clients in England. It was meant to be a retreat, a place where we could start anew, away from the politics of Italy.”
I looked around the vast, shadowed library, the firelight painting gold on the dark wood and ancient stone.
“And for a time… you were happy?” I dared to ask, and his expression softened, though it carried sorrow.
“For a time, yes. My brothers and I were still young, barely men. My mother laughed back then…she laughed often. She filled these halls with light and music. We would chase each other through corridors you’ve yet to see, our footsteps echoing with something I’ve long forgotten the sound of.”
“What sound?” I asked gently, and he smiled faintly, though the look never reached his eyes. The room stilled until finally he said a single word in reply,
“Peace.” A word that now hung in the air like a prayer.
“But peace never lasts, does it?” I asked softly. His lips curved into something dark, almost self-mocking.
“No. Peace is the first thing the world demands you sacrifice for power. And my father… was a man who never knew when to stop taking.” I shivered, though not from the cold.
“So that’s when everything changed?” He nodded slowly at my question, the light dimming in his eyes.
“That was the beginning. The foundation of everything that followed. The greed. The betrayal. The death… the bargain made that eventually cursed us”
“The darkness?” I asked, automatically looking to the side of his face that no longer needed a mask to hide it.
He paused for a long moment, as though the memory itself carried a weight that threatened to crush him. His jaw tightened, and when he spoke again, his tone was quieter, haunted.
“He wanted more than a name in the trade, more than a place at the table. He wanted immortality of legacy, not just life. So, he went looking for something no mortal, no vampire, was ever meant to find.” His gaze drifted, unfocused, as though he were watching it unfold all over again.
“What did he find?” I whispered. His lips curved in a humorless smirk.
“Not what he expected. He found a demon. One of the old ones. Not the kind that bargains for souls in alleyways or whispers to the desperate. This one was ancient, older than the night itself. And my father…” He shook his head.
“… He thought he could outwit it.”
I felt my pulse thrum in my throat.
“He made a deal,” I said softly.
“Yes,” Vas replied, his tone laced with bitterness.
“He offered something in exchange for power, something so great that even now, I don’t know what it was.
None of us do. But the demon granted him what he desired.
Strength, status, dominion.” He lifted his hand slightly, and I caught the faint flicker of shadow crawling just beneath his skin, pulsing faintly like veins made of smoke that danced at the end of his fingertips.
“But it came with this. A darkness that isn’t just part of us…
It is us… A living, breathing entity that feeds on anger, pain, and blood.
It gives us power beyond measure but hungers for control in return.
We are now bound to it, chained by what our father summoned.
” A shiver ran through me at the sight of the shadows coiling faintly along his arm.
“And your brothers?” I asked quietly.
“The same,” he said with a deep sigh.
“We all bear it. A curse wrapped in the guise of a gift. Our father believed he could contain it, that he could use it to elevate our name among the Fondatori. But power like that… it doesn’t like to be contained. It consumes. Him… Then us all.”
I swallowed hard.
“And you have no clue at all what this demon wanted in return?”
He finally looked back at me, and for the first time, I saw something that looked close to fear in his eyes.
“That is what I still don’t know. Whatever price he paid, it hasn’t come due yet… or maybe, it already has… perhaps it feeds from the destruction of our blood vows, the ones made to each other even in the darkest of times.” I swallowed hard before asking,
“Blood vows?”
“My brothers and I used to be close… close enough to believe that nothing could ever come between us… that nothing, not even when the darkness would pass down to us… could come between blood.” Silence fell between us, heavy and suffocating.
The shadows around him seemed to pulse faintly in rhythm with his words, almost alive, like they too were listening.
I found myself whispering,
“And you… You’ve lived with that darkness ever since?” His voice dropped low, rough with something that sounded like regret.
“No, Nessa. I haven’t just lived with it.” His gaze locked on mine, dark and endless.
“I’ve become it.”
“And all because my father wanted power like no other Vampire the world had ever seen. He wanted recognition… a seat among the Fondatori.”
“The what?” I asked, frowning softly. He looked at me then, the faintest curve of his lips returning, though it held no humor.
“The Founders. An ancient council of the strongest vampires to ever walk this earth. Each ruled over a sector of the world, their territories spanning across continents. They were the first to master their hunger, the first to carve empires out of shadow. My father wanted to join them. To rule beside them… until one day, he wanted to take over it all.” I swallowed hard, listening as his voice dropped lower, the words thick with old resentment.
“He thought himself worthy, but he was nothing more than age old mortal ambition wrapped in immortal flesh. He sought them out, demanded his place. And they… amused, perhaps, or curious… granted him an audience. Then once they witnessed his power, one beyond comprehension and a strength that could rival gods, they were quick to submit to his demands.” He paused, his eyes flickering with memory.
“But it came at a cost.” Something in the way he said it made my pulse quicken. His voice had dropped lower, rougher, like the memory itself scraped against old scars. My chest tightened as I asked,
“What kind of cost?”
He drew a long, unsteady breath, his gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the room.
“A power that cannot be controlled comes with its own leash. What they gave him wasn’t a blessing, Nessa.
It was a curse dressed in gold. The strength he craved…
what he thought would make him untouchable…
it was unstable. It turned on him when left unchecked, feeding on greed, cruelty, and blood.
And the more he indulged it, the stronger it became.
Until he was no longer the master of it…
But its servant.” A chill crawled up my spine.
“So how could he stop it?” I asked quietly.
He finally looked at me, and though his tone was calm, his eyes burned with the ghosts of memory.
“He couldn’t,” Vas said.
“Not alone. The only thing that could temper the hunger… the only thing that could bind it… was balance.”
“Balance?” I echoed, frowning.
He gave a faint, mirthless smile.
“Love. Compassion. The heart of a Fated. True balance could only be found through the one destined to see the man beneath the darkness, to remind the beast of its humanity. Without that… the power consumes everything.” The words lingered between us like smoke, heavy and tragic.
I felt the weight of them settle deep in my chest, as though some invisible thread had tightened between us.
“You sound like you have experienced it firsthand,” I braved to point out. His lips twitched, but it wasn’t quite a smile, more a shadow of one, faint and self-mocking.
“Experienced it?” he echoed, his voice low, distant.
“I’ve lived it, Nessa. Every moment since the night he died.
” I sucked back a quick breath as I felt the weight of his words.
The way the air shifted as he rose from his seat, the strength of his presence filling the room.
He began to pace slowly, one hand dragging through his dark hair, the other clenching and releasing at his side as though even now the shadows were restless beneath his skin.
“When he fell, the power didn’t die with him like we all hoped it would,” he continued.
“It needed somewhere to go…something to anchor itself to. It passed to us. To me and my brothers, recognizing our blood as the next in line.” He stopped pacing, his gaze turning inward, haunted.
“At first, I didn’t understand what was happening.
The strength, the speed, the shadows that whispered in my ears and obeyed our command.
I thought it was a gift, my brothers no doubt believing it to be the same…
We were fools. It wasn’t long before we realised that what gave us power…
also demanded a price. The darkness inside us…
inside me, it wanted more… more blood, more pain, more dominance and every time I gave it what it craved, it grew. ” I swallowed hard, my voice soft.
“And the balance? You said your father never found his Fated… but what about you and me?” He laughed then, quiet and bitter, the sound slicing through the silence.
“I told myself for many years that it was just a myth. That fate wasn’t something meant for monsters like me. That if I ever did find her, she would only destroy me faster… but then…” he paused, shaking his head as if reminding himself of recent events.
“But then?” I questioned, and his gaze found mine, the raw honesty in his eyes leaving me breathless.
“But then… You happened.” I froze, the pulse in my throat fluttering wildly. He stepped closer, each measured stride a careful defiance of his own restraint.
“From the first moment I scented your blood, I felt it… the pull. My darkness recognized you before I did. It quieted around you.” His voice softened to something almost reverent.
“You made it stop, Nessa. For the first time in decades, it wasn’t screaming for death or vengeance. It was… calm.” The words hit me with the force of a revelation, stealing the air from my lungs. He stopped just in front of me, close enough that the air between us seemed to hum.
“You ask if I’ve experienced it firsthand,” he said, his tone low and unsteady.
“I am living it now. You are the balance, the light my darkness was always fated to find.” I could barely form words.
“And what happens if the light leaves?” I dared to whisper.
His expression darkened, the shadow within him flickering in his eyes.
“Then the darkness wins.”
“Is that what happened to your father?” I asked, already knowing the answer from the pain flickering behind his gaze.
“He never found her, and in the end… the darkness devoured him whole, before he became unrecognizable,” Vas said softly.
“But that wouldn’t have happened had he found his fated?”
“The one soul capable of tempering the hunger that grew with that power. Greed feeds it. Cruelty fuels it. And blood…” He looked down at his hand, flexing it slowly, the veins darkening faintly beneath the surface.
“…blood makes it stronger still. But love… true love… that can tame it. Only that can silence the craving, can stop the darkness from consuming everything in its path.” I sat frozen, watching the shadow of the firelight crawl across his face, splitting the light and dark like two warring sides.
“But what about your mother, wasn’t she…?” I let that painful question linger in his mind, unable to continue to speak the words. His jaw clenched, his voice a low growl when he answered.
“No, she wasn’t his salvation. She became his prison. And when her love wasn’t enough to keep the darkness inside him at bay…” He trailed off, the rest of the sentence strangled by memory. My breath caught, the pieces beginning to form in my mind like shards of glass.
“He turned cruel…” I finished for him, and he gave a slow, heavy nod.
“The power consumed him. What began as a blessing for our House became its undoing. The same strength that had promised our rise burned us from within. His greed grew, his cruelty deeper, his hunger impossible to sate. He slaughtered without care, all to feed the darkness he carried. It changed him. Changed us all in the end as his destiny for destruction didn’t leave our bloodline.
” He turned and walked back towards the fire, as if afraid to touch me during such a deep and painfully raw conversation.
“But the day I inherited that same darkness, I swore I would master it… or die trying.”
“And have you?” I asked softly.
For a moment, his gaze softened, tracing the line of my face. His voice dropped to something barely audible,
“I thought I had… until there was you.” The air in the room shifted again, thick with tension and something heavier. I could feel his confession hovering in the quiet, like the crackle of static before lightning.
“Because you think I am your fated.” I tested, needing him to be sure. Something that gave him reason enough for his intense gaze to find me once more.
“Because I know that you’re my fated, and what I once believed would be my weakness has turned out to be my strength.” My eyes widened at this.
“But after everything you’ve told me, why did you think it would be your weakness?”
“Because I was foolish enough to believe that taming it would make it weaker and the person who wields such power, even more so.” He admitted, surprising me with his honesty.
But before he could say any more,
Another scream tore through the house, and this time…
I was determined to find out who it was.