The Vampire Prince's Toxic Consort (BL)

Three months ago:

“I can’t do it!” Lucius paced around the room, ruffling his hair in distress, “I’m just a regular guy! Actually, I’m less than a regular guy! I’m a proper coward! I couldn’t even kill a rabbit during the autumn hunting! Why can’t you get one of your spies or agents to do it?!”

“Unfortunately, none of them managed to become the Crown Prince Consort of Eternia.” Dan Emerson, one of the top agents from Division Nine, lit a cigarette and crossed his legs, “bloodline is very important to vamps, and certain secrets they will only let royal family members know. The more they underestimate you, the higher chance you will succeed in discovering the secrets of the Elders.”

“You all are unbelievable!” Lucius exclaimed angrily, “isn’t it enough that I’m marrying the devil himself in my brother’s place?! Now I have to somehow find an Elder, of whom not even vampires knew their whereabouts or even if they still exist in this world, and steal their blood for your mad scientists. Do you know how crazy you are sounding?”

“We know it is a lot to ask. But this is humanity’s last hope.” Dan exhaled a puff of smoke, his countenance unflappable with a smudge of gloominess, “even if you can’t find an Elder, a First Generation can be helpful, too.”

“And I suppose those First Generation vamps are super nice people and will just let me take their blood so humans can invent some sort of bioweapon to terminate their kind?” Lucius gruntled sardonically.

Lord Rosenfield put down his scotch and raised his piercing hazel eyes, staring at his son intensely. Lucius squirmed under his father’s gaze as Lord Rosenfield rarely gave him full attention.

“Son, it’s ok to be scared. But I know you have courage.” His voice was deep and sonorous as always, naturally muting all other noises in a room whenever he opened his mouth, and even the plain words became profound and meaningful when he stared at you with his affirming, elegant eyes, “I know you won’t let the Crown down. And you won’t let me down because you are my son. You are a Rosenfield.”Text property © Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org.

Lucius was transfixed under the weight of those words.

God knew how many times he had tried to impress his father, wishing to hear something like this. And now, he finally got it, but he wasn’t even sure if it was sincere.

Three months later, when Lucius descended deep into the darkness, surrounded by ancient sleepwalking vampires, and stood in front of the Durchville Witch, the memory suddenly returned to him.

Was all of this craziness just another pathetic attempt to impress his father?!

“Hey...Florian, are these things running in the veins of her blood?” Lucius took a few stealth steps and studied the tangled veins on one of the branches extended in front of him.

Florian nodded, “possibly, she seems to have integrated herself with the earth around her. Her blood is probably running across this area, protecting the entire Durchville family’s land.”

“This is easier than I thought.” Lucius took out the knife and a small vial. The sharp edge broke the vascular wall easily, and some thick, almost black syrup-like liquid oozed out, slowly filling the small vial. Lucius glanced at the face on the tree trunk nervously, but her eyes were still closed.

Before he could relax, Florian suddenly warned quietly, “do not move.”

Lucius looked back and saw Florian staring at something above. He followed the gaze, looked closely, and detected movement on one of the lower boughs above them.

It was a vampire, pale and lanky, just like the figures they saw, and his elongated body was barely covered by some half-rotten tatters. He crawled onto the branch and licked something red seeped out of the bark.

Lucius looked further and saw several other vampires clutched on the boughs and branches, almost invisible at first sight. These sleeping vampires were drawn to the Durchville Witch like bees were drawn to their queen.

The vampire close to them raised his head, and his nostrils moved as if caught something in the air. He was unconscious, yet his movements were swift and silent, like a spider moving across its web. He approached the three interlopers with alarming speed, obviously drawn by the young slave man’s bloody wound.

In terror, the young man let out a desperate whimper, knowing he was doomed. And in panic, he suddenly lunged at Lucius, who was smaller than him in size, and seized him by his wrist, ripping the knife from his hand and pressing it against his throat.

“What are you doing!” Lucius was caught off guard.

“Give me your talisman!“The young man yelled loudly, lacerating the silence like lightning in a dark sky. All the vampires in sight snapped their heads in their direction, and the eyelid of the face on the tree moved.

“Shit!” Florian put his hand on the hilt of his sword, “let him go! That talisman won’t be able to hide the smell of your blood!”

Fear overtook the young man’s mind, and he would do anything to buy himself a bit more time. He instantly dug the knife deep into Lucius’s shoulder. Lucius cried in pain and disbelief as the young man pulled the knife out, and his blood splashed on the branches.

The vampire closest to them let out a bone-chilling growl and darted toward Lucius, but before he could reach him, a silver light flashed before Lucius’s eyes, and the vampire’s head was cut off. The head rolled on the ground, but its eyes were wide open and blinking quickly, brimmed with a crimson madness. And the headless body fell to the ground, fast crawling in its head’s direction.

Like a tower, Florian stood before him with the sword out of the sheath. He looked over his shoulder, “are you ok?”

Lucius could barely utter a word as the pain flared across his body, “I guess I’m alive...for now.”

Another vampire jumped off the branch with eyes wide open, and the same berserk redness glowed in her eyes. Her long hair waved in the air without wind like snakes, and she bared her teeth in blood-thirst rage. Behind her, more vampires woke up, letting out hellish shrikes that almost pierced Lucius’s eardrum.

As more vampires dashed at them, Florian’s long sword morphed into a splashing web of silver lightning with his clean, swift and deadly sword dance. He was so fast that even the vampires’ preternatural speed couldn’t match, and the thick, black vampire blood bloomed and splashed around him. However, despite most of these vampires being Neophytes, several were ancient Apostles and wouldn’t die easily. Even if their head or limbs were cut off, they could still move their severed body pieces and put themselves back together.

Worst of all, the Durchville Witch’s eyes slowly opened, and tears of black blood oozed out from under her long eyelashes. The air in the cave shifted and vibrated with malignancy.

Florian cursed and readied himself for a blood bath and inevitable death. However, the vampires’ attention shortly shifted to somewhere else. The slave man thought Lucius’s wound and the commotion Florian started had created a perfect diversion for his escape, so he ran into the tunnel with all his might.

Little did he know, to a predator, the more a prey tries to run, the more they want to chase after them. The vampires moved with lightning speed and pounced upon him like a pack of wolves besieged a lamb.

The young man’s scream resonated in the cavern as his limbs were torn off, half of his face was mauled off, his eyes crushed.

It created a short respite for Lucius and Florian. However, the only exit was out of reach now. Florian inhaled deeply, and his continence was overtaken by a pugnacious determination. He said to Lucius, “stay behind me. I will try my best to get you out.”

“No.”

Florian wasn’t prepared to hear a no under such an exigent circumstance. He looked back at the ex-priest, “what?”

Lucius shoved the small vial into Florian’s hand and said in an exceptionally calm voice, “you have a better chance than me. I will only get us both killed. Take this to Anthor and give it to Dan Emerson from Division Nine. I will try to draw them away from the exit.”

Florian blinked in shock, “you will die!”

“I will die anyway! Just promise me you will try to deliver it!” Lucius knew he didn’t have much time left. The vampires had drunk up the slave’s blood and began to turn their soulless eyes to them.

Lucius shoved the hangman’s finger into Florian’s hand and dashed toward the other side of the cave. He did everything so resolutely that, several days later, when he looked back, he still couldn’t believe he had decided to die in such a short time.

As he predicted, the ancient vampires turned to him and came like a flood as the Durchville Witch also let out a long, macabre wail, and the ground began to shake and undulate as if the rock was turning into mud.

Lucius’s feet sunk into the ground, and he couldn’t move anymore. He saw the Durchville Witch’s ancient hollow eyes fixed on him and all her scions approaching him from every direction like an incoming flood. He closed his eyes, hoping it would all end quickly.

Everything happened so quickly, and Florian knew he should take the chance and ran since the exit was clear. But he couldn’t. He knew it was too late to stop Lucius from sacrificing himself in his place, and the best thing he could do now was to deliver the blood as Lucius beseeched, but he just...couldn’t leave Lucius alone to his doom.

He had been risking himself to save others throughout his hunter life, but it was the first time someone was willing to die for him. And it shook him to the core.

Just as he thought it was all over and that scrawny little priest with beautiful hazel eyes and wavy red hair was going to be torn into pieces, something incredible and strange happened.

Lucius’s shadow abruptly grew behind him, longer and longer, and its shape completely deviated from its owner’s slender form. It looked like a giant humanoid form at first, but soon myriads of long, snaky tentacle shapes spread behind him like an exploding firework, and all those waving shadows eventually covered almost all of the cavern. Spontaneously the air in the cave went still and extremely sultry and hot. A smell of pungent sulfur arose from the ground.

All the vampires froze in place for a short while, and then they let out a horrifying scream and scattered and ran away like a mischief of rats getting spooked. Within seconds, they disappeared without a trace. And the Durchville Witch also closed her eyes once more, and the ground was no longer shifty and returned to its original hard, rocky form.

And then the shadow dissolved as if it was never there. The sulfur smell also dissipated. Silence and stillness returned to the cavern.

Lucius waited for his imminent death, but it never came. He tentatively opened one of his eyes and found no vampires. The only one who stood in front of him with a dumbfounded expression was Florian.

Lucius blinked in confusion and looked around, disoriented, “what happened?”

Florian was wordless for a long moment and eventually squeezed three words out, “a miracle, perhaps.”

“Stop messing with me!” Lucius gaped at the ex-hunter, “what did you do?”

“That should have been my question.“Florian regarded him indescribably, “they ran away. They seemed...scared of you.”

“Scared of me?!”

“Or your shadow.” Florian couldn’t make sense of any of it, but he knew one thing for sure, “we should get out of this damn place first.”