Page 40 of Captive
Sebastian's mind teetered on the edge of control as the scent of fresh blood hit him. With agonizing effort, he pulled back from the precipice of pure predatory instinct. His feeding was rough but measured, taking exactly what was required without surrendering completely to hunger.
As the blood flowed into him, the final transformation began in earnest. Sebastian no longer it. He surrendered to the change, let it flow through him like blood through veins, and for the first time in two centuries, he felt something beyond horror at what he was becoming.
He felt, perhaps, the first uncertain step toward what he might become instead.
***
The blood Boarstaff had given moments ago began to work right away, fueling the transformation rather than just keeping the vampire alive. Something deeper was happening now, not just metal failing or changing, but Sebastian himself reaching toward something his ancestors had buried.
"Warchief." Fear edged Thornmaker's voice. "The stories tell what happened when the first ones remembered. When they turned from synthetic precision back to what lived in their blood—"
"I know the stories." Boarstaff maintained his steady grip despite the danger pulsing beneath his fingers. His people weren't the only ones who remembered why vampires had chosen the path of metal. Why they'd hidden certain powers behind processed blood and careful regulation.
The chamber's light split into vibrant hues. The wards sensed something awakening in vampire nature when raw need burned through synthetic barriers, when hunger stripped away processing to wake what waited in Sebastian's veins.
"If he keeps fighting the change, he'll be lost to us," Ochrehand warned, concern evident in her gaze.
Boarstaff didn't take his eyes off the vampire's face. "I don't think he will. Not now. Not when he's so close to seeing what his father's improvements were meant to lock away."
A sound tore from Sebastian, half-snarl, half-recognition, making the guards raise weapons against memories older than their training. They were facing knowledge of what vampire nobility had given up for their pretense of civilization.
The transformation's battle resembled water flowing uphill, each resistance only strengthened its pull. Boarstaff had seen other vampires choose death over remembering what lived in their blood. But something in this one burned differently against his palm, a core that had survived two centuries of synthetic enhancement unquenched.
Boarstaff thought of the Wall of Names, where his people recorded everyone lost to vampire expansion. His brother's name among thousands, carved with ritual care into living wood. Each death marked, each life remembered. Not processed away like vampire nobility did with inconvenient truths.
"The shaman's vision reveals truth," Moonsinger said from the threshold. "But at what cost to our people? If Sebastian sees too much, remembers too much—"
"Then we contain it." The pulse beneath Boarstaff’s fingers leap at their casual discussion of fate. "These chambers have held the first ones. They'll hold him."
Sebastian twisted, each movement a war between centuries of noble bearing and ancient magic dragging him toward truth. The metal beneath Boarstaff's fingers responded to understanding of what waited behind those changed eyes.
"You can't..." His raw voice had lost its synthetic smoothness. Red light caught his fangs as another wave of change tore through him. "You don't know what we—"
"What you are?" Boarstaff pressed the point where brass burned with renewed life. "What wakes when hunger strips away the lies? When need shatters every careful pretense until only truth remains?"
Magic surged at his words, at knowledge passed through generations of watching vampire nobility bury their nature. Sebastianarched against his bindings as ancient power recognized what those transforming eyes would reveal.
"The change goes too deep," Ochrehand cautioned, unease rippling through the crystal formations. "His body shows what the first ones became when they remembered."
"To what they'd always been." Boarstaff's hand remained steady as skin blazed hotter with each surge of power, flesh and metal warring as magic stripped away pretense. "Show him what vampire nobility sacrificed for their mechanical lies."
Through his hold on Sebastian's jaw, Boarstaff felt the moment something deeper fractured. The body went rigid beneath his touch, painting fear and recognition across features no longer masked by synthetic control.
"Warchief." Thornmaker's voice carried generations of warning. "The legends say they chose this path for a reason. That the hunger led them to become something even they feared."
"I know why they chose it." Boarstaff watched truth erode more of Sebastian's careful facade. "Just as I know the price. What it cost them. What it's still costing."
Sebastian tried turning away, his transformed eyes closing against revelations. But Boarstaff held firm, forced him to face what stirred in his own blood, what his ancestors had buried beneath processed existence.
"Stop." His voice caught between snarl and plea, belonging to neither noble nor machine. "You're waking something that should stay buried. Something we locked away for good reason."
"And what's that?" Power thrummed beneath Boarstaff's fingers as he caught the desperate edge in that resistance. "Something your kind can't handle? That drove you to brass and steam?"
Sebastian's next breath carried something ancient, a scent that made the chamber's light flare violet in warning. His remaining components responded to more than magic now. They answered truth that lived in vampire blood before they'd chosen synthetic precision over power.
"The cost..." History weighted Moonsinger's voice. "If we wake what they buried—"
"They buried it for reason," Thornmaker interjected, spearunwavering. "Our ancestors saw what the hunger birthed. What they became when power consumed control."
