Bright lights washed the grounds as the escort car squealed to a stop. Cass was hardly aware of it, his face pressed against Syrus’s shoulder as he shivered violently. The chill had crept further through him, his fingers locked in his partner’s shirt as Syrus got out of the car, and he struggled to pant misting breaths. Shouting voices were dim in Cass’s  ears, full of urgency. One of them came close, a hand touching his shoulder, and it was as if a flip had been switched in the slight man; turning his head, his teeth snapped together an inch from quickly retracted fingers.

“I’ve got him,” Syrus snapped as an animal snarl left Cass’s throat. Clinging tighter to his partner, he looked up with hazy eyes to see the man forcing a smile. “You’re okay, Cass. Just calm down- I’ll take care of you.”

His icy breath tore through his throat as Cass buried his face again, pressing himself against Syrus’s warmth- a heat he craved, feeling it seeping under his fingernails as Syrus strode across the lawns. They were met by more shouting and chaos as the grand doors to the mansion creaked open, but only one voice reached Cass’s ears.

“What the hell happened out there?” Emrys’s voice, calm and lethal, cut through the din.

Cass forced his face up, his vision blurry- but still able to see the seething rage on his master’s face as the vampire stalked down the hall. The crowded guards and shadows parting before him like a wave, bowing and terrified by the force of his fury.

Syrus’s arms tightened around Cass, his voice thin but unwavering as he said, “I’m not sure. Our task was proceeding without a hitch-”

“Without a hitch?” Emrys repeated, barking a harsh, unamused laugh. “Do you have any idea what your partner did?” He waited a beat, the hall perfectly silent, Cass shivering as the vampire lord glared at his partner. “They say a young, promising doctor slit her throat in the middle of a busy waiting room. Sprayed infected blood all over a mother and her young child, as well as one of the health center’s guards. A quarantine was enacted in seconds, and the infected won’t make it out of the center. Does that sound like ‘success’ to you?”

Cass cringed as Syrus glanced down at him, his uninjured eye wide. Taking a breath, there was finally a hint of fear to his words. “Something may have happened. Maybe he ran out of time-”

Emrys stepped forward, his dark eyes blazing as he grabbed the collar of Syrus’s shirt. Cass silent and shuddering between them, the blue pallor of his skin creeping higher as his numb fingers soaked in small amounts of heat from Syrus- not enough, and desperation was beginning to claw at his sanity. “You told me he could handle this, Syrus. The blood spilled in this household today is on your hands,” he snarled, the human’s face blanching.

Cass stirred at the mention of blood, dragging in agonizing breaths. His voice tore from him like fire, his nerves alight with pain. “Blood…. in the alley,” he panted, his bleary gaze raising to his partner’s face. “From the doctor. The pavement… your knees, Syrus.”

The man stiffened, horror dawning on his face as he realized the implication of Cass’s gasped words. Emrys shoved him back with a snarled curse, the dark fury in his eyes growing. “You were exposed? Damn you both for this mess you’ve dragged back to my doorstep,” he hissed, stepping back as he raised his voice- barking commands like the lash of a whip. “Take the mage for immediate testing. And you,” he beckoned one of the human servants, a young woman with shimmering blonde hair, “Take his partner and come with me.”

Cass’s pulse tried to race, sluggish and cold, as the servant looked at him with reluctant fear. “Damn it, I’ll take him myself,” Emrys snarled, striding forward to rip Cass from Syrus’s arms so his subordinates- vampires who were at no risk of contracting the Blight- could drag the mage away.

Absent his partner’s warmth, the cold tendrils of death sinking into Cass became agony; his voice raised in anguished screams as his numb, clawed hands reached for Syrus. Emrys hissed curses in snarling tones as the human fought to get back to his partner. It was not the first time he had dragged the senseless human, caught in the grip of his power’s hunger for warmth and life, through his mansion. Cass had pushed himself to the brink of death several times; the closest he came to losing his life, when he was just a child, he had ruined Syrus’s eye in his desperation.

Lost to the cravings of his power, Cass clung his master’s chest; nuzzling, searching for warmth where none existed. Not even a pulse in Emry’s still chest to give Cass a faint relief from the agony of hunger. He was gasping, fingers tightly gripping Emrys’s fine shirt, as Emrys descended step stairs- the air growing colder as they traveled deep beneath the manor. The room they finally entered was as cold as the grave, torches lighting with faint, pale blue flames at their entrance. 

The guards who had followed them, shadows in light armor with flashing fangs, stationed themselves on either side of the thick doors as they closed behind the vampire lord. The human servant flinched at the dull thud, her face pale as she pressed her back against the sealed entrance. Emrys carried Cass to a stone altar at the center of the room, a heavy stone slab atop flawless carved marble, manacles chained to the smooth surface. Attaching them to Cass’s wrists and ankles, the thick restraints confined the desperate human as he tried to rear away from the icy stone.

“Come closer,” Emrys told the servant who had followed him. When the human woman didn’t move, frozen with her gaze locked on Cass’s tortured face, he gave an impatient growl. “The Blight can’t touch him, there is no need to fear infection.”

Cass drew in a sharp breath, choking on the sharp pain of it; tears welling in his eyes with scalding heat, he desperately wanted to tell the servant not to listen. It was true he was immune to the disease he had seen ravage his kind- but that wasn’t the danger which threatened the woman as she stepped forward. She was too naive to see it, obediently stepping forward as her master had ordered.

Emrys moved in a blur too fast for human eyes to catch; in the blink of an eye he stood in front of his servant, her face frozen in shock and pain. The vampire’s hand had slammed into her chest- through it, his fingers buried in her flesh, blood spattered on the sleeve of his fine shirt. Placing his free hand against her chest, Emrys shoved her backward as he wrenched his hand free. A gurgling gasp of pain left her throat, blood spattering her lips, before she collapsed to the floor.

Cass’s gaze locked on her still form, guilt tearing through him. He didn’t know the servants well- he wasn’t allowed to, as most of his time was spent contained in his room. But he had seen that woman before, with children no older than the boy in Sector 8. Young, like their mother, and tears spilled from his eyes as he watched blood seep from the gaping wound in her chest.

As the blood spread, it filled small channels carved into the floor, and Cass’s breath pulled in sharply as he felt it spark the spells built into the room itself. Carved runes lit up in slow succession, spreading outward from the servant’s body; glowing a bright crimson and giving off faint heat as the torches on the wall burst into vibrant orange and red flames. The hunger in Cass surged, desperate and wanting for that slight warmth. His nails dragged along the stone altar, teeth gritted as he strained against the manacles.

An echoing step had his gaze snapping up to Emrys, his stomach twisting as bile rose in the back of his throat. The hand that had plunged through the servant’s chest was slick with blood, his fingers wrapped around an organ still beating in his fingers- kept alive by the magic in the carved runes. He stalked forward, stopping at the foot of the altar; looking down at Cass as he extended his hand outward to hover over a small basin in the dark stone between Cass’s chained feet. 

With a snarl that flashed sharp fangs, Emrys tightened his grip on the heart clasped in his hand, squeezing blood from the beating muscle to fill the hollow in the altar. New runes began to glow, sinister symbols carved along the altar, as the blood flowed through channels which outlined Cass’s straining body. His teeth clenched tightly, the taste of his own blood in his mouth, he tried to cringe away from the encroaching crimson fluid- from the warmth of it which filled him with a feral hunger.

There was no escaping it as the stone beneath him began to warm. The chill within him grew, as if fighting the dark blood magic, reluctant to release its frigid hold over his heart. Cass’s voice escaped in strangled, anguished whimpers as the warmth became a scalding heat as the flowing blood met above his head. Completing the circle, the runes glowing bright enough to suffuse the room with light, and Cass writhed against the fiery hold of the blood magic ritual.

Emrys’s face was flooded by the red light as he raised his bloodied hand, licking his fingers clean in languid motions, seemingly unaffected by Cass’s agony. His lips were stained crimson when he lowered his hand; his dark, hooded gaze latched on the tormented human. Moving around the altar, he took Cass’s hand, staring for a moment at the veins in his wrist; they were black, his skin ashen grey as the deep color spiderwebbed up his arms. There was little time left, Emrys harshly pulling Cass’s arm against the manacle so that his fingers dipped into the shallow channel full of blood.

Cass’s voice rang in a scream of pain as the ritual’s fire consumed him, battling away the freezing grip of death around his heart. The blood absorbed into his skin, the light of the runes beginning to dim as Cass absorbed the warmth, the life, which had been sacrificed in his name. The tears which built in his eyes were scalding before he shut them tightly. Gritting his teeth against groans and whimpers, he bore through the ritual; the weight lifted from his chest, his fingers relaxing from their claws as his raging power was tamed. The grip of death released, his straining body relaxed back against the altar as the stone began to cool.

The flames of the torches flickered, sparking, before dimming back to cold blue light. Cass shivered, letting out a low breath, only a flicker of pale mist visible between his lips. It wasn’t enough- but he could breath well enough to be suffocated by the guilt as he turned his head to see the corpse of the woman who Emrys had killed to feed his power. Faint, ethereal butterflies fluttered over her still form, his stomach twisting at the sign that his power had been fed by her sacrifice. Hers was not the first life given for his own… and he could only ever hope it would be the last.

A sharp pain in his hand had Cass’s gaze snapping back to Emrys; he gripped the human’s fingers tightly, his nails digging into Cass’s flesh. A scowl on his face as he inspected the human’s fingertips, still lightly tinted blue. His heart dropped as Emrys stepped away without freeing him from his restraints. “Wait-” his voice rasped, Cass swallowing as his wrists pulled against the chains. “Please, no more. It’s enough, I-”

“I decide when it’s enough,” Emrys snapped, cutting off any further protest as his dark gaze narrowed. “You have created a mess, Cassius. So you will have your fill tonight- because I will need you in days to come.”

His face pale, Cass’s pleas fell on deaf ears as Emrys turned away from him. Striding to the doors, the vampire lord threw them open. The guards on either side jumped to attention, giving slight bows as Emrys fixed his glower on them before he spoke the words which had Cass’s head falling back against the altar in bitter resignation: “Bring me another.”