Page 39 of Captive
And prey, prey, forced him to face that truth while others watched his resistance crumble. It was his worst humiliation.
"Choose," Boarstaff commanded again. But the word carried understanding. Recognition of what it cost a predator's pride to accept truth from prey. "Before your resistance tears you apart."
Sebastian fought against the change, against the truth, against everything these ancient chambers tried to wake in him. But with each resistance, the pain sharpened. His father's careful improvements weren't just failing, they actively fought his will to keep them artificial.
"Look at him still fighting," a guard muttered. "Even now, even seeing—"
"Quiet." Boarstaff's command silenced him, but Sebastian had already caught the contempt in those shifting colors. Had seen their satisfaction at watching a vampire noble stripped of precious control.
Fresh agony blazed through his sight as his components stirred with urgent remembering. The sound he made, not quite scream, not quite snarl, sent even Ochrehand stepping back. Through wavering vision, Sebastian watched the guards' hands tighten on their weapons. Saw their fear beneath hatred. Saw everything his father's improvements had hidden.
"Let go," Boarstaff said quietly. "Or it will tear you apart trying to wake without your permission."
Sebastian wanted to reject anything the prey dared tell him abouthis own nature. But he felt it, his body wasn't just remembering. It tried to take him with it, back to something older than synthetic precision. Back to something that existed before his father's careful lies.
And his resistance alone made it hurt.
"No." The word emerged through gritted teeth as Sebastian clung to the regulated existence that separated him from mere predator. But his mind betrayed him, showing truths his artificial constraints had carefully hidden, the guards' contempt, Ochrehand's concern, Boarstaff's certainty that resistance would destroy him.
"His body fights itself," Ochrehand called out. "The transformation tears at—"
"Let it tear." Sebastian's voice hitched as metal and flesh warred within him. "Better destruction than becoming what you—"
"What we what?" Boarstaff forced him to face this new awareness. "What you truly are? What you were before your father carved out your humanity?"
Sebastian's laugh came out ragged. "You think this was done to us? That we didn't pick—" His words cut off in a sound that echoed off crystal walls.
The transformation pulled deeper, threatening to show him something he didn't want to see. Something about choices made generations ago. About what they'd sacrificed for synthetic precision. About why they truly processed everything, blood, emotion, their very nature, until nothing real remained.
"Fight then," Boarstaff's voice was gentle despite the grip that forced Sebastian to face unwanted truths. "Let your father's careful lies tear you apart. Prove his control means more than survival."
Sebastian wanted exactly that, to prove vampire nobility meant more than mere predator instinct. But each moment of resistance brought him closer to destruction, his father's careful improvements becoming weapons against their own preservation.
"His resistance makes the change stronger," Ochrehand warned. "Like a dam making the river's flow more violent when it finally breaks."
Sebastian felt the truth of her words in how his components fought their own nature. In how each attempt to maintain artificial precision made the pull toward something older, something realer,more desperate.
The chamber's magic surged, and Sebastian saw it, power flowing not just through crystals, but through everything. Through stone that remembered when vampires had been part of the natural world instead of trying to rise above it. Through ancient wards that knew exactly what they were hiding from.
"The transformation tears at him," Ochrehand said. The guards shifted uneasily. "His body tries to remember while his mind fights to forget."
Blood and bone and hunger, glimpses of something darker than mere predator flashed behind his eyes. Something his ancestors had chosen metal to escape. His own components betrayed him, forcing him to see what they'd buried beneath synthetic precision until even memory became regulated.
"Stop," he gasped, pride finally cracking. "I don't want to see—"
"What your kind really is?" Boarstaff's voice held no cruelty now, just certainty. "What still haunts you beneath all that synthetic control?"
The magic responded to his fear, or perhaps to what lurked beneath that fear. Images flashed: blood-soaked rituals, ancient power, things his ancestors had buried beneath synthetic control. His sight wavered between regulated truth and shadows of vampire memory that made his remaining components shudder with recognition.
A primal instinct rose in Sebastian's throat, but what emerged was a sound that made the bindings pulse with ancient recognition. His mind fractured through layers of careful regulation, revealing depths where forgotten power stirred. The guards raised their weapons against something awakening in him, something that had nothing to do with his father's improvements, but everything to do with why those improvements had been necessary.
The crystals' light spoke of choices made in desperation. Of prices paid not for progress, but for escape. Of truths no amount of synthetic precision could truly process away.
Boarstaff's words had broken through Sebastian's resistance, but the realization came with a terrible cost. His hunger flared to unbearable heights as the transformation accelerated, as if the act of surrender demanded sustenance. His fangs descended fully, his entirebody quivering with need.
"Now," Sebastian gasped, the word barely recognizable through the hunger. "Blood. Now. Or I won't—" He couldn't finish the thought, couldn't form words through the red haze clouding his mind.
Boarstaff understood immediately. Without hesitation, he drew his blade across his wrist and offered it to Sebastian. "Take what you need to survive this next phase. But only what you need."
