Page 47 of Fangs and Family
As the elevator took me to the garage, I chuckled, replaying the disappointment in her eyes when I so valiantly refused her blood offer. If she only knew how much it cost me to keep my cock in my pants and fangs away from her svelte neck, she wouldn’t question my commitment.
‘Well, she already gave me wings. Now she has me learning fucking morals,’ I huffed, jumping into my sports car, but deep down, I knew I’d made the right call. Our first encounter happened during a time of danger, with Nina being forced to accept the existence of a whole new reality, which resulted in distrust and anger. I had to ensure she wouldn’t run away this time. That Nina came to me so confidently this morning was a good sign.
‘You will be mine, my sweet Obsidian, and I will make you happy because if I fuck it up this time, I may as well turn to ash.’ I said, starting the car.
The engine roared as I burst from the underground garage onto the busy street. It would take several hours to drive to my destination, but I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t Shadow-Walk to a place I hadn’t seen before, and I sometimes wondered why my kind was given such an interesting but dangerous ability. It could be so handy to relocate in the blink of an eye if not for the fact I could end up in a brick wall or someone’s closet. Instead, like most of my kind, I only tended to use this ability to return to my resting place or, in a state of emergency, somewhere fresh in my mind.
The downside to human transportation was that I had too much time to think. My worry for Nina was a distraction during the journey, but I had no choice. I had to sort this out, as the threat to her brother weighed heavily on her mind. My promise to find Pawel and keep him safe was looking more difficult as I unearthed more and more information. Sapieha was not only old but also well-connected, and I was desperate for anything that would give me the upper hand in the upcoming struggle. I briefly considered engaging Leszek, but it would paint me as a weakling and attract all sorts of unwanted guests to my territory. Even if I could fight them all, it would cost me my men and my reputation.
Pawel gave me so much trouble that if not for Nina, I would have taken his life myself and turned him. Whilst not ideal, it would undoubtedly make protecting him easier with the added bonus of being able to force the little shit to act more responsibly in the future.
Spawning a fledgling vampire was a tremendous responsibility, one I’d avoided this far in my long life. Many vampires felt the need to expand their nests, building generations of soldiers with unquestionable loyalty devoted to keeping their master safe. Maybe because of my own spawning, I didn’t feel the need to be surrounded by my own kind.
That abandonment had bothered me for years, but after witnessing the inner workings of other seethes, I was grateful my life wasn’t tethered to my maker. Forced obedience didn’t sit well with me. All vampires sworn to me were free to leave whenever they chose. They were loyal, following my commands, but because their obedience wasn’t blind, they could offer ideas and contradict me without fear of agonising pain.
I might be a demanding master, but my nest worked like a well-oiled machine. I prided myself on being fair, giving my Seethe something they couldn’t get anywhere else. Freedom of choice.
That’s why I couldn’t let the recent encroachment slide. I couldn’t let visiting vampires run around my territory unchecked, especially when they threatened my woman. Such an event could lead to more, and before I knew it, my city would be overrun by rogue vampires, thinking they had a licence to kill here. Still, I didn’t want to start a war, especially not with Sapieha.
The best way to deal with a more powerful enemy was to learn their weaknesses. What I told Nina was just the tip of the iceberg. After crossmatching hospital footage with the patient’s name and that of my client, which Leszek so helpfully supplied, I knew he was Leon Sapieha. “The”Leon Sapieha, Prince of the Vampires.
To say learning who my opponent was sent a shiver down my spine was an understatement. Sapieha wasn’t just a Vampire Prince; he was an actual prince from medieval Poland, a man renowned for brutality and the oppression of his subjects. He’d been driven from his homeland during the Napoleonic wars whilst masquerading as his own great-grandson.
I needed to find out what was so special about the necklace Pawel had stolen and why it had enraged the ancient vampire so much that he returned to Poland in order to retrieve it.
I’d called in several favours and broken even more written and unwritten laws to track down Sapieha’s descendants. They all seemed to be mundane humans, but the difficulty tracing Polish nobles was exacerbated by the purges of the Second World War and the Communist era, neither regime wanting anyone alive that could lead a successful resistance. When I finally found someone, they’d tried disappearing, but I’d kept track of their digital signature, and this morning, I’d received a message requesting a meeting.
I’d submitted the standard visitation request to the Master of the local Seethe, and my access was instantly granted; the Elders didn’t even bother to question my petition. That was the reason I wore combat gear this morning and placed a tracking device in my hair.
I didn’t trust the vampire’s welcoming attitude. We were territorial; I was encroaching on the territory of another Seethe, and no one seemed to care. I checked the tracker’s signal, making sure the GPS coordinates were on my phone and backing up to the cloud. It was a simple tool connected to my personal network. One tap would send my location, but if I held it down, an alarm would be sent to my apartment and also immediately alert Leszek to my plight.
All because Nina asked me to not take any chances. I was going soft.
Several hours later, I arrived at the picturesque village of Koden, where Sapieha’s original settlement once stood. Its ruins were almost entirely eroded by time. I don’t know why this was listed as the residence of the family’s remnants; the largest building in the area was the local church, and the houses, whilst quaint, would be no home to any noble I knew. In fact, the only interesting part of this area was the local legend.
Every vampire in Poland knew the story, or at least part of it. Leon Sapieha, having been injured in one of his various battles, was dying from an infection and following his wife’s advice, they went on a pilgrimage to the Holyland. She returned first to manage their household and carry their child to term while he stayed behind in order to recover under the care of an Italian medic.
During these turbulent times, a neighbouring nobleman took advantage of the Prince’s absence, laying siege to Kodan. In the ensuing battle, Sapieha’s wife was killed, whilst his newborn son somehow survived his home’s destruction. The Prince returned home to find nothing but ruins, and it was said his revenge was so complete that no record of the neighbouring towns or the noble families ruling them survived.
I’d done my homework on the Prince and his family, delving into the facts behind the myth, only to find the story mostly true, the survival of the Prince’s son the only lie. It appeared Sapieha himself took on that role in later years to hide his newly acquired immortality.
None of this helped me discover why the vampire was so fixated on Pawel; my only clue was a line in a manuscript next to a description of Sapieha’s wife, mentioning Sapieha never parted with a golden locket similar to the one Nina told me her brother had tried to sell her.
It was almost dark when I exited the car, and the meeting place was deserted except for one man, who I assumed was my contact. As I moved closer, I studied the relaxed male as he leaned against a crumbling cross, seemingly without a care in the world. His face was in shadow until I was about ten metres away, and he moved, allowing me to recognise the man from my file.
I paused as he straightened, looking around and listening for any interlopers to our meeting, but seeing and hearing nothing but the natural sounds of the countryside, I stepped closer.
‘Good evening, I hope you weren’t waiting long. I set out as soon as I received your message,’ I said, and he gestured me toward the ruins that housed a small chapel.
‘Welcome to Sapieha’s ancestral grounds. Please let me show you the reason you needed to attend in person,’ he said, and I followed him at a safe distance. Something didn’t feel right. The human in front of me was acting strangely, his movement awkward and uncoordinated, making me warier the further we walked.
I reevaluated the situation, weighing up whether it was worth pushing onwards, but I’d made a promise to Nina and continued, following the quiet figure into the chapel as he opened the door.
Heavy darkness surrounded me as I entered, a strange feeling I had to admit, the sensation that the absence of light could weigh you down, but that’s exactly how it felt. The only feature of the interior was a stone sarcophagus placed precisely in the centre, a painted sculpture of a woman holding a book and a handful of lilac flowers.
‘So the reason you dragged me here was to visit someone’s grave?’ I asked, turning to leave, the confined space feeling more like a trap than a tomb, but I couldn’t move fast enough to prevent the door from being slammed shut, the sound of a heavy bar falling into place to lock it.
‘Fuck,’ I cursed with a snarl, grabbing my knives.
