Chapter Text

P R O L O G U E

All of the centuries old scrolls and tomes, written by sage historians, sitting on the dusty shelves of the library had recorded the magnificence and liveliness of Caerdorne. The serenity and peace that wove through the city bled from page to page, in spite of her being very small and remote, and situated very far away from the rest of the world’s civilization. Her inhabitants saw nothing but good days and calm nights, fortune and prosperity. The city thrived for centuries, hidden away behind a canvas of mountains. Her people, though less progressive than the rest of the world, were happy, holding up their longing peace.

Then came the longest winter in the history of Caerdorne. It lasted for four years, trying to purloin every last silver hope for warmer days. The people of Caerdorne, who have never set foot out of the city, persisted and strove to best the brutal cold for many moons. Some even called upon witches to rid them of this cunning curse. Others turned to the God, beseeching Him for the sun again. Nothing prevailed.

It began with the death of the trees and every stalk of grass that grew on the ground. Soon, it was all nothing but thorns and ice. The witches augured that something wicked would come their way when the winter ends, and they would not longer be able to escape the real curse. Still, no one left the city for that this was their home, this was their ancestors’ home, and this shall be their grandchildren and their children’s home.

The third year, strange creatures began to find their way into Caerdorne. First, it was wild animals from the mountains came to the city to scavenge for food. The frozen woods were starving them. Then, there were wolves that stood on their hindlegs and maimed all that was in their path. Their fangs were sharper than anything. Their howls deafened those who stood in a mile’s radius. In the dark, the creatures lurked freely, searching for their next victim.

The people trembled day after day, fearing the nightfall. When the grey of the day turned to the black of the night, all would scurry into their homes and lock their doors and windows. Fathers stood guard while mothers protectively embraced the children to sleep.

It was the curse, the people started to believe. The curse the witches had foreseen. Words began to spread. Hunters from far away lands visited Caerdorne with great promises to rid the people of the wolves. All of them failed. Their guns, their crossbows, their arrows could never defeat the wolves that took a monstrous form in the night. Everywhere they went, they left traces of drool, blood and fur behind.

The people were losing hope with each passing day. But the winter, as foretold by the witches, was nearing its end. The days were not as dark anymore, though the sun never shone over Caerdorne again. The night was not as cold, but the winter left a permanent chill behind. An ominous mark. It was to last forever. They would never see a warm day again.

And the creatures never left.

The wolves prowled in the night, claiming the dark as their own. And then one day, the people of Caerdorne received the news of a family of royal blood moving to live in the abandoned Castle of Caerdorne, that had not been lived in in centuries. No one but the groundskeeper ever stepped a foot near the castle, for that it was believed to be haunted and cursed. Mothers forbade their children from getting any close to it. Even infants wept at the mere mention of the castle.

From the outside, the castle was all grey, decrepit, cobwebby, surrounded by a sinister-looking gate that was determined to keep everyone out. Thorn bushes adorned the front and back yards. No one knew who the last family that had lived there was or where they were now, except that they had lived there about eight centuries ago. That was a very long time ago.

In spite of their dire situation, the people of Caerdorne were excited about the royal family moving in. Or perhaps it was curiosity rather than excitement. Not even when the city was thriving did the outsiders want to visit such a backward place. Who in their right mind would want to live here now with the savage wolves giving everyone a hard time?

Perhaps they were not people in their right mind.

No one really saw the family move in, however, even though some speculated that they came in the dead of the night, riding in a carriage drawn by horses with deep, blood-red eyes and a hide as thick and dark as the Stygian river. They came as silent as the wind and settled without causing the sound of a pin drop.

Slowly, the wolves disappeared, one by one. The people believed that it was due to the end of the long winter. The creatures were retreating back to their dark caves. Nights, though black and forbidding, were not as threatful anymore. The people began to come out again. There were many festivities, making up for those missed in the last four years. For a brief while, the people got to rejoice and relax.

And then a man went missing.

It started with one man. Then every month, someone disappeared mysteriously. The thick grey clouds never made way for a single ray of sunshine. The days and nights were full of threats once again. And this time, it was not the wolves. This time, no one knew what their curse was.

It lurked in the shadows and struck in silence.

After that, Caerdorne was the dead city. The people cowered in dread, but they learned to live with it, too. This was home. And they were determined to stay.

It was not until many years later when they began to suspect the notoriously private royal family, who lived in the Castle of Caerdorne. Rumours started to circle around them.

Some aggressively announced that they were a family of vampires. Others knew better than to provoke the vampires and stayed silent. Those who spoke a word against the Blackthorne family disappeared, too.

Whatever the Blackthornes were, they were here to stay.

Black oozed into the streets, making the days gloomy and grey. The smell of blood forever hung in the air that roved through the city. The people no longer lived fearing the wolves, but now, they were living amongst the deadliest creatures of the night of all.

Part One

C H A P T E R   O N E

The books in the library made them sound like such monsters, he thought, slamming yet another book shut. The books always exaggerated and generalized way too much. Huffing heavily, he fell onto the desk and stared at the flickering candleflame before him. He brought a finger to the flame. His father had told him many times to not to play with fire, but he could not help it. It was the only time he could feel anything. It was not as excruciating as his father always made it sound. It really was not so bad, and it always healed, though he did not heal as quickly as his father could.

Pulling his finger back, he stared the burned skin and red, stinging flesh. It gave him some sort of satisfaction to feel the subtle pain.

“What are you doing in here?”

His head shot up to look at his governess, who strode into the library with her hands on her hips. That meant she was angry. She was always angry. Especially at him.

“I was reading,” he said, straightening up in his chair.

The governess peered at the title of the book he was flipping through. “The… Deadly Bloodsuckers,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “Why do we even have these books in the library…”

She rubbed her wrinkled forehead anxiously.

“They call us leeches,” Kai said, frowning. “Like those dirty, fat, ugly bugs in the swamp.”

His governess pinned him with a hard glower. “Which is why you should not be reading such books. They are full of nonsense.”

“They slaughter cows, goats, chickens, even rabbits all the time,” he grumbled under his breath. “Father only takes one old man or woman once a month to feed our entire house. Some months, we just drink rat blood!”

Sometimes, his father would bring him squirrels and mountain lions. One time, he brought home a bear cub, and Kai had refused to eat that night. He went to his room and cried and cried for the bear cub. He made his father promise the next day to never bring home another baby animal. He was nine then.

Then there were the pesky wolves. Kai hated them the most. They were noisy, dirty, smelly and their blood always left a foul aftertaste in his mouth. Still, his father often came home with one every now and then. Not completely dead, but dead enough for them to sip the blood out of the furry beast’s veins while it was still warm and delicious, and quite nutritious, without any fuss. He did not particularly like the taste of their blood, but he liked them all to be dead all the same.

“That’s enough,” the governess huffed exasperatedly. “Come now. Your father wants to see you.”

He groaned when she lifted him off the chair and placed him on the ground. He hated it when she and the others did that. He was twelve years old. He knew how to climb down from a chair, just like how he knew how to wipe the blood stains from his own lips once he was done feeding. He did not need people treating him like he was a baby bat. He got plenty of that from his father already.

And speaking of bats, no, vampires did not turn to bats at will. They did not possess such a ridiculous power, as the books made them out to do.

“Come on,” said the governess as she took hold of Kai’s hand.

“I can walk on my own,” Kai muttered, pouting, but did not pull his hand away.

His governess ignored him as she dragged him out of the library and headed for his father’s room.

The castle was huge and always quiet. It had five storeys and two towers. Kai had never been to the two towers. They were always locked, and when he asked his father about them, the man simply told him that the keys to those towers were lost.

They did not have many servants. Just two. Justus and Alicja, who were both human but had pledged their allegiance to the Blackthorne family to keep their lives and earn the protection of the vampires. They had been working for the family for nearly twenty years. Vampires did not always offer such protection to the humans.

His father constantly reminded him that, “A predator should be familiar with his prey, but should never be friends with one.”

Kai supposed he was right. It would be pretty awkward if you would want to eat your friends one day. Not that he had many friends. He had a lot of cousins though, whom he visited once a year during Winter Solstice. They usually had a lot of fun chasing rats, but Kai did not have any friends. Most of the days, he spent all of his waking hours in the library, sharpening his knowledge. His father told him that there was nothing in this world that wielded a greater power than good knowledge. And he also told Kai that not all knowledge was good. Some were evil. Some were never meant to see the light of day.

Anyway, most vampires had human servants. Vampires would never work for another vampire. They were all masters at the top of the food chain, and they all had serious ego problems.

Kai did not mind the humans in the castle. They did not look like entrées to him, like they often did to Father when the man had not had a drop of blood for long. Unlike his full-blooded vampire father, Kai was only part vampire. Which meant he could live on human foods as much as he could live on blood. That did not mean he did not crave blood from time to time. He did get a little fussy and jittery when he had not had some for more than eight weeks. He still liked to think that his father had a better self-control than he did. His father would never take more than what they needed. He said that overindulging could be the undoing of an entire species. There was never a surfeit of blood in the house. But there was plenty of human foods. For Kai and the servants. His father never touched human foods. He said that they made him sick if he consumed them.

Whenever Kai was hungry, he would raid the pantry until it was completely empty. Justus, the cook, would snarl at him every time the man found him crouched in the pantry, face covered in blobs of chocolate pudding.

He’d say, “You will rot your teeth!”

Kai did not care about what the man said. He was a vampire, he knew his teeth would not rot that easily. If they could, he was sure his father would have told him something about it.

“And you know how important teeth is to a vampire!” growled Justus.

Justus was not at all afraid of Kai. Kai was smaller than he was, and weaker. For now. But he shook in his pants every time Kai’s father was around. One wrong move and he could be the vampire’s next meal.

But Kai liked to think that his father was more decent and upright than the humans and the books gave him credit for. He was loyal and calm. He was not ‘a monstrous bloodsucker with no sense of morality’ as the human clerics had described vampires to be in the books. Yes, he could be scary when he was angry, but he was rarely angry. The last time Kai had seen the man angry was three years ago when a wolf broke into the castle and nearly harmed Kai in his sleep. Kai woke up to the bloody sight of his father ripping the wolf’s jaw apart with his bare hands in his bedroom. It was a mess.

Oh, did he mention? His father was outstandingly strong. Kai knew he would be just as strong one day, if his stupid human genes did not ruin it all for him.

His father was also loyal. Kai thought so because after his mother had died at childbirth, giving birth to him, his father never took another wife. He vowed to spend the rest of his immortal life with only the memories of the woman he loved so dearly. Sometimes, Kai wondered how he could have fallen in love with a human. He never asked his father, though. He did know much about their story. Everything that he knew about them was what his governess had told him. He never talked to his father about his mother, and his father never talked to him about her either. Never. A part of him had always worried that his father might be resenting him a little for being the reason why his beloved wife had died. He had killed his own mother, had he not?

Justus lived in one of the outbuildings for the servants behind the castle with his family. He had a wife and a young daughter, who was almost Kai’s age now. Kai never saw her or Justus’ wife. The only time he saw them was when they moved in. Justus must have forbidden them from stepping into the castle. Kai was not even sure if they knew the truth about the Blackthorne family. Apparently, many people did not.

Lada, his governess, was a half-human, half-vampire like Kai. Which was why she could grow old. She was already 72 years old, but she still had plenty of dark strands in her otherwise grey hair. She had told Kai that he would age differently than she did. Every vampire matured differently. It depended on a lot of factors. Bloodline, diet, the peak of their maturity. The humans had the misconception that vampires did not age. They did, very slowly once they reached the point of maturity. Kai’s father was at least 150 years old and barely looked a day older than 40. Since he had both full-blooded parents, he aged slower than half-vampires. Kai was told that he would keep growing until the human cells in his body began to die faster than they could regenerate. That was when the vampiric cells would take over his body in full swing. Kai figured that would be in his late twenties.

Lada had never told her late husband that she was a half-vampire. He died before her, of course, not knowing why his wife aged much slower than he did or why she often smelled of blood. It was one of the fatal flaws of human nature. They refused to see anything they were not looking for. Lada had no children. It was not that half-vampires could not bear children, or the full-blooded. She just did not want any children, Kai supposed.

Kai was born here, in Caerdorne, in this very castle. And he almost never left it. The only time he had ever left the castle was when his father took him hunting for squirrels. Even then, he was not allowed to wander too far away, and he was not allowed to go into the city. But his father promised him that once he was old and strong enough, he could go wherever he wanted.

They were royalty. Or at least that was what Kai was told. Most of his family were royalty. Not that it mattered much, anyway. Not to him or his father at least. Royalty did not mean crowns and jewels and chariots, like the humans did it. Royalty meant the progenies of the pureblood, the first vampires.

“Watch your step,” his governess told him as they wended their way upstairs. Kai almost rolled his eyes at her. What would happen if he did not? Fall down a few steps and scrape a knee? It would heal!

Sometimes, he hated the fact his father and everyone else were forcing humanity down his throat. His father, especially, wanted Kai to grow up as human as he could. Probably because that was his weird, twisted way of honouring his late wife’s memories. Perhaps she had wanted Kai to be more human than vampire.

But the truth was that Kai was more vampire than anything else. He did not know much about the humans, apart from what he learned through the windows of the castle, books, and his two human servants. But he certainly knew that he was not a human and would never be one.

It had not stopped his father from trying to keep him human for as long as he could. Some days, he would not even let Kai have human blood. He would tell Kai to go down to the basement and catch some rats himself. Those days, Kai would just eat human foods because he was too angry at his father to deal with annoying rats.

Lada gave the door a gentle knock before she entered. She did not really have to knock. His father heard everything that went on all five storeys of the castle. He probably knew they were on their way when they left the library.

But he was still the master of the house, and the respect was given to him.

The widower was at his desk as usual, nursing a wineglass of velvety red liquid in his hand. Like Kai, he also loved reading. But Lada had once said that no one loved reading as much as Kai’s mother did. She was a very well-read woman, who spoke her own mind without an ounce of fear of judgment, and that those qualities were what had appealed the most to Kai’s father. Well, that and her nonpareil beauty. Kai had seen her portraits. She was very beautiful indeed.

Looking away from his book, the man greeted Kai with a gentle smile. “You cannot spend all of your evening at the library,” he said. “Have you practised your piano today?”

Kai shook his head guiltily. He hated the piano. His father knew that. Just like how he already knew that Kai had not practised today.

“What about your swordplay?” asked his father.

That Kai enjoyed. Except that Justus was the worst opponent to practise with. “I will not get any better at it with Justus,” he told his father. “And you are far too busy to train with me these days.”

He was not even sure if his father were busy. Some days, the man just stayed holed up in the room he had once shared with his wife.

His father sighed. “I am aware of that.”

Kai chewed on his lower lip.

Then there was another knock at the door. Kai smelled something foreign. Unlike his father, he could not smell or hear something from a great distance. But he could easily catch a whiff of something extremely foul-smelling or delightfully nice-smelling from at least twenty feet away.

And whatever that was standing on the other side of the door smelled like Alicja and something… sweet.

Like blood lime and magnolia. Kai only got to smell those when he visited his cousins. Blood lime cordial and pickled magnolia biscuits. Kai loved those!

But they were not what stood behind that door. These smelled more… alive. Alive and wrapped in some warm skin.

It was definitely not Alicja. She smelled like damp soil and stale bread. Kai hated her. She was always so jumpy around him, like he was going to eat her at any moment. He swore he once heard her whisper to Justus in the kitchen, “I don’t trust them.” She was quite old, too. 51 years old and damn ugly. And she looked so much older than Lada. Sometimes, she stole the silverware from the kitchen. Sometimes, she stole knobs of butter. Kai caught her a couple of times, but he chose not to tell anyone about it. He doubted that his father had not already known about it for that the man knew literally everything that went on in the castle and the city. Kai would not drink her blood even if she were the last living thing in this world.

He looked at his father to see if the man had been surprised by the foreign scent. If he had, the man did not show any sign of it. He closed the book he was reading, drained the last drop of blood from the cup, and rose from his seat. Then calmly crossing his arms over his chest, he leaned back against the edge of his desk. He must have known that someone was coming to see him.

Lada got the door.

Alicja entered with a nervous look on her wrinkly face. She was always nervous, but she looked even more nervous today.

“Master,” she said with the usual tremor in her croaky voice, bowing her head.

Kai looked away from her and fixed his eyes on the small creature that was standing behind her, hiding behind her skirt. He froze completely for a moment, jaw falling slack.

It was a human boy.

Kai nearly gasped. That had never happened before. He had never been given quite a shock like this one. No human boy had ever come into this castle.

Clinging to Alicja’s skirt, the boy took a shy peek at Kai. He was not smiling, he did not look scared. He just seemed as confused as Kai was, though less shocked. They were now staring at each other. The boy looked slightly shorter than Kai, so they could as well be the same age.

Vampires were said to be the palest things that walked the earth. But the boy was paler than Kai was. Well, Kai was part human after all. But the boy was definitely not part vampire. He was all human and all pale. Except for the apple of his cheeks, nose, lips, fingers and knees. They were all pink. He had a head full of thick, dark hair, too. Browner than Kai’s. Silkier.

Kai instantly wanted to put his hands around the boy’s neck and suck every last drop of blood out of him. Would it taste like blood lime cordial and pickled magnolia?

“Is this the boy you spoke of?” Kai’s father asked the servant.

Alicja nodded. “Yes, Master. This is Sehun. He’s twelve. He is my niece’s son. The plague recently took her, and this poor bastard is now an orphan. I am his only living relative, which means I have to take care of him now.”

Kai watched his father rub his chin for a moment before he turned his attention back to the boy, who was no longer staring at him. Instead, he was frowning at the floor with a sad moue. He looked like he might cry.

Kai wanted him to cry.

“Sehun,” Kai’s father called. In an even bigger shock, Kai glanced over to the man who beckoned the human boy forward. Why would his father want to talk to this small, insignificant little pale thing? Did he not have more important matters to attend?

Alicja pried the boy away from her skirt and forced him to step forward. “Don’t be rude, Sehun,” she chided him rightfully. “Come. Greet the master.”

The boy looked nervous now as he took a step toward Kai’s father, raising his head all the way up to look at the tall man. His eyes were wide and glassy. He held his hands close to his chest, as though he were about to pray.

Kai nearly scoffed. He then mustered the dirty rags the boy was clad in. His threadbare shirt had holes in it, like a rat had chewed through it. His stained shorts stood slightly above his pink knees. And he was wearing a pair of socks, no shoes. Apart from himself, everything else about the boy was dirty.

“You don’t have to be afraid,” Kai heard his father say to the boy, arms crossed over his chest, lips curled into a faint reassuring smile.

“I… I am not afraid,” the boy replied in a soft but steady voice. Kai’s heart skipped a beat. How dare he! Every human trembled in their presence. How dare this slimy little shit meet his father’s gaze so boldly and tell the man that he was not afraid?!

Kai wanted to lunge at him at once, fangs and all, and hurt him. Show him why he should be afraid!

But then his father chuckled. “You must be very brave, then,” he told the boy. He looked… amused by the kid. “Are you going to a school yet?”

The boy shook his head. “No, sir.”

“Not yet,” said Alicja, putting her hands on the boy’s shoulders to pull him back. “He just arrived at Caerdorne today. But I will have him enrolled in the local school forthwith.”

All of Kai’s lessons were taken by his governess, whom he believed to be quite knowledgeable. Some days, his father would teach him instead, especially numbers. He could not go to the school in Caerdorne. It was conducted in a chapel by religious parsons. Unfortunately, the books were right about vampires being unholy and forbidden from stepping onto hallowed grounds. They would burn and go up in flames immediately.

“Very well,” said his father. “Then perhaps when you have returned from your lessons, you could practise swordplay with my son, Kai.”

Kai froze, his eyes bulging out at the boy, who slowly turned to look at him. He almost protested his father’s words, but he knew better than to disobey his father in front of others.

“I don’t… know how, sir,” the boy told the man, turning to him again with a frown.

“You will learn,” he said it like it was an order. For Kai. “Kai will teach you.”

“Come along now,” Alicja then muttered, dragging the boy away. “I don’t want you making any trouble for anyone here. Am I understood?”

The boy nodded his head sorrowfully, following his grandaunt out of the room. He only glanced back once to look at Kai, who impulsively stuck his tongue out at him. Gasping under his breath, the boy hurried after Alicja.

“Kai,” his father called once the door was shut.

“I don’t like him, Father!” Kai announced at once, his voice at the top of his lungs. His father stared at him with a nonplussed look. “He annoys me!”

“You have just met him,” his father said, sinking back in his seat. Kai’s vexation spiked at the way his father was defending the filthy human boy. “You keep asking for friends. Now, you can have one.”

Kai blinked. Was that why his father told the boy to practise with Kai? So that Kai could have a friend?

“I would never want to be friends with someone who’s related to Alicja! She is a slimy worm bucket and I’m sure her grandnephew is one, too!” Kai spat at him, pouting annoyedly. “Besides, I thought a predator is not supposed to befriend his prey,”

His father let out a breathy laugh. “He is not your prey.”

“He is!” Kai argued. “He is a human. I’m a vampire. I can drink his blood if I wanted!”

Lada pinned him with a disapproving look at his side.

“But you will not,” said his father with a sigh. “Perhaps the boy could teach you how to be more human. And you will never use our true identity to browbeat and threaten him. Do I make myself clear?”

The man was only making Kai angrier. So, that was his father’s plan? To use the human boy as a way of teaching Kai how to be ‘more human’? Pathetic.

His father was not going to change his mind no matter what, not when it came to Kai’s humanity. So, he furiously spat out a, “Yes, Father,” and stomped out of the room once the man had dismissed him. He did not wait for his governess as he made his way to his own bedroom.

Flopping on the bed, he screamed into the pillow before he lowered it from his face and glared menacingly at the muraled black wall before him.

He would have to get rid of the human boy himself. He would make the boy’s life a hell, he thought to himself. He had wanted friends, yes, but he did not want that boy. Not in his house, not anywhere near it or him. There was something about that immediately did not sit well with Kai. Perhaps there was something evil about him, but he was determined to be the evilest of all. He would scare the boy away. By hook or by crook.

Scrambling up to his feet, he hurried over to the foggy window and squinted his eyes to look at the outbuildings, which were not any bigger than a brick shack. The one on the farthest left belonged to Justus and his family. Alicja lived in the one near the stables. Kai rose to the tip of his toes to get a better look when he spotted the woman marching toward her home. Beside her, the boy hurried along, a hand clinging to her skirt.

Once they had disappeared into the house, Kai sank back into his bed and planted his chin despondently in his hands.

* * *

While his father could go on for weeks without any sleep, the longest Kai could go without one was a day or two. And that was on a full stomach. But he had made it a habit to go to sleep every night. Or it was more of a habit his father had forced upon him. Kai never understood why his father was obsessed with keeping Kai a human when he clearly was not one.

For the last two weeks, as soon as he was awake, he scurried out of his bed as the first thing and looked out the window. Most days, in the morning, he would catch the pale boy leaving for school, clad in the same raggedy clothes he owned. Alicja did not see him off as she was already up and about in the castle. So, the boy closed the door on his own and started for the back gate. Each time when he reached it, he would stop to glance back at the castle. He would shudder and make an odd face at it before he would hurry away down the street.

Kai would watch him until he was completely out of his sight, disappearing into the thick fog that rolled over the gloomy city in the morning.

Then Kai would get on with his own day. Though he bathed on his own now, he still needed the governess’ help to get dressed. There were just too many laces and too many buttons on everything that he wore. He was not even sure why he needed to wear these fancy, frustrating clothes all the time since no one ever came to visit him.

Then he would go down for breakfast, hoping that his father would be there, too. He seldom was. The first few years, Kai used to resent his father for always letting him eat on his own, but now, since he was twelve, he decided not to make a huge deal out of it. His father was a busy vampire, after all. And it must be a little awkward for his father to just sit there and watch him eat his human foods.

Later that evening, however, they dined together when his father came home with a bunch of knocked-out squirrels. Seated at the dining table, Kai reached for a furry squirrel and brought it to his mouth. He felt his fangs push through his gums before he sank them into the squirrel’s warm flesh. They always ate alone with the servants nowhere to be seen.

He was not sure when his father had snuck out of the castle to catch the squirrels. He did not ask. He never knew when or how his father left the castle. He just always wished that the man would take him along.

Once he was done draining the squirrel of its blood, he tossed it aside and faced his father. He watched the man feed for a moment. There was a certain grace about him, one that Kai did not think he himself possessed.

“Are we going to Rogaena this Winter Solstice?” he asked his father, leaning back in his chair.

His father lowered the squirrel and wiped the blood from his lips with a napkin before he said, “Of course, we are.”

Kai grinned at once. He was already counting the days to Winter Solstice. It was two whole weeks of fun with his cousins. Most of them were all full-blooded vampires, but they liked the half-blooded ones all the same. Or they at least liked him. He was the only half-vampire in the Blackthorne family, though. Or at least he was the first. His cousins called him flattering things like the ‘Blood Prince’, which Kai proudly accepted. Even though most of the time, he only drank rat blood. Blood was blood, he supposed, although animal blood was distinctively less satisfying than human blood.

“Father,” he called once he was full. He did not wait for the man’s response to speak again. “Will we live here forever?”

His father never let his face reveal his thoughts. But this time, his deep lour that turned the corners of lips down partly displayed the troubled thoughts that must be running in his mind.

“We will,” he said, expression returning stoic once again. “for as long as we can survive here.”

Why wouldn’t they survive here, Kai wondered, but he did not ask.

“Why must we eat squirrels and rats?” he then asked in a slightly sour tone. And why must his father be nice to a human boy when he could just eat him?

His father understood his real question. “Because humans do not reproduce as fast as squirrels and rats do. If we overfeed, we would run out of humans.”

He had a point, Kai supposed. “How do humans reproduce?”

Not that he knew how squirrels and rats reproduced, but he had seen the word reproduce countless times in books, and he never really understood it. He knew the end product was offspring, but he did not get the process.

His father looked a little flustered from Kai’s question and all the blood he had just drunk. He had had enough blood that his cheeks were able to show some colour.

“Perhaps that is a question I will answer when you are a little older,” the man said. “Or it is a question you can pester your governess with.”

Kai blinked. His father never shied away from a question. “The books say that when vampires reproduce, they give birth to demons.”

That made his father laugh softly. “Are you a demon?”

“No.”

“Are your cousins demons?”

“No.” He had seen drawings of demons. They definitely did not look like one. No wings, no tails, no horns, no ugly teeth.

“Then the books are wrong,” said his father. “Not everything written down is accurate, son.”

That was something to think about. Then how would Kai know if he was reading the right stuff?

After dinner, his father retired to his study while Kai aimlessly wandered the corridors of the castle. There was always something new to explore in this place. He was constantly surprising himself with new paintings or rooms. The outside was chillier than usual tonight. Kai did not mind. The cold had never bothered him. Not as much as the warmth did. But he could definitely tolerate the sun, which he only ever saw when he was travelling away from Caerdorne, better than his father could.

The sun did not burn vampires, not as it was speculated in the books. Another exaggeration. It did cause discomfort to the point where their skin was blistered even with the smallest exposure, but it could not set them on fire or anything. That was utter hogwash. The vampires just liked and preferred to live in gloomy and dark places. Like bats. Perhaps that was why the humans believed that vampires could shapeshift into bats.

The sunless climate was the reason why the Blackthornes moved to Caerdorne, after hearing about the long winter. The sun never shone this way, for some reason.

The wolves were annoying at first. But one by one, Kai’s father had gotten rid of them. Now, they only lurked in the woods near the mountains. Except that one wolf that had attacked Kai in the night in his room some years ago.

He came to a halt in the corridor, glancing at the outbuildings, when he heard voices. He spotted the boy first, crouched on the ground, poking at the solid dirt with a stick. His feet were clothed in the same socks he was always in everywhere he went, except when he was going to school.

“I don’t think… I know your name,” he heard another voice. A girl’s voice.

Kai slid his hands into the pockets of his pants and watched Justus’ daughter shyly make her way toward the human boy. They were both humans, and Kai did not particularly like either of them.

“It’s Sehun,” the boy said, rising back to his full height. He rubbed his hand clean on his shorts before he held it out to the girl. “I-I’m Sehun.”

Even through the fog and the dark of the evening, Kai could see the girl blushing. She looked around for her mother before she took the boy’s hand with her own and gave it a small shake.

“Marie,” she muttered. She was dressed in a blue peasant’s gown and had her honey-brown hair tied up in two braids. Kai had not known her name was Marie. Well, now he did.

“Do you know how to play Noughts-and-Crosses?” asked Sehun, crouching back on the ground. The girl, Marie, adopted a crouch at his side and watched him drag the stick across the dirt before them.

“No, I don’t think I do.”

“I can teach you,” said the boy. “I learned it at school today.”

Gripping his jaw and gnashing his teeth, Kai stomped away from there before he could lunge at them and bite them both to suck their bloods out until they were like the squirrels he had drained at dinner.

* * *

He could not shake the question from his head even after days. So, while his governess undressed him for a bath, undoing the laces of his shirt, he asked, “What is reproducing?”

Lada did not seem shaken by the question. Not the way his father had been. She peeled the shirt from Kai’s body and rose back to her full height. Folding the shirt, she carefully put it away with the rest of the dirty laundry that was to be washed.

Kai did not like getting naked in front of the lady, so he usually waited until he was alone in the bathing chamber to step out of his trousers.

“How does it work?” he asked. He had seen men and women walk down the street with children. And he had seen a man with another man, who had a swollen belly. He had also seen a woman with another woman. One of his uncles had married another man and had a child with him. Not a demon, by the way. In fact, that child was one of Kai’s favourite cousins.

His governess crossed her arms over her chest and looked down at him with a stern and expressionless face. “Reproduction is a process between two consulting adults to bear children, young master Kai.”

She always had a dull way of explaining things.

“I figured that,” Kai muttered. “But what is the… process?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well… Won’t I need to have children of my own one day? How can I do that if I don’t know how to do it?”

His governess seemed to grow impatient with his questions. Perhaps she had not had any blood in a while. “It is something you need to worry about when you are older. For now, get in the bath and scrub yourself clean.”

Kai huffed exasperatedly. He was so sick and tired of everyone treating him like a child.

* * *

The next time he met the boy, it was in the courtyard, and they were facing each other under a grim evening sky with swords in their hands. Kai’s was a double-edged children’s longsword and Sehun’s was a wooden sword, which he did not know how to wield.

He looked at it confusedly, like he did with most things, when Justus handed it to him. “I don’t know how to hold one,” he admitted to the servant with a frown.

Justus seemed rather disinterested as he ignored the boy and stepped away. He was ordered to keep an eye on them while they practised, so it was exactly what he was going to do. Keep an eye on them and nothing more.

Kai took a stance and tightened his grip on the sword. He told himself to concentrate because all that he had been doing ever since the human boy had stepped into the courtyard was stare at his socked feet. It also annoyed him that Sehun’s hair was always such a mess, like a bird’s nest, like it had never seen a comb.

With a sigh, Sehun tore his gaze from the wooden sword and fixed it on Kai. The corners of his lips tried to curl into a smile, but it came out so nervous that he might as well not tried to smile at all.

“Hi,” he said innocently. “You can call me… Sehun.”

His voice cut through the mirthless ambience of the city like a saw cutting through steel. Kai did not like how sweet it sounded. In fact, he did not like anything about the boy.

“I’ll call you whatever I want,” Kai hissed at him.

The boy’s face instantly wilted. His attempts to appear polite and friendly faltered just like that. His hands began to tremble around the grip of the wooden sword. But his eyes were steady, slightly determined. Kai wanted to make them weep.

Before Sehun even had a chance to brandish his wooden sword, Kai lurched forward and struck the boy’s weapon with his own, disarming him at once.

As the wooden sword slipped from his fingers, Sehun watched it drop to the ground. He then raised his dumbfounded gaze to Kai, who sneered spitefully at him.

“Really?” he spat at the boy. “Pick it up, pansy.”

Sehun winced but crouched and picked the wooden sword up. He held it in place again. Kai noticed the boy grip it harder this time. He lunged at him again and knocked the wooden sword out of the boy’s hand.

Sehun’s eyes began to well up with tears then. He looked so confused and out of place, like he did not know what was happening or why it was happening.

Kai did not have to tell him to pick it up again. The boy did it on his own account. Kai had another surge of pleasure disarming Sehun once more. And another. And another.

He watched the boy pant and heave for breath just from retrieving the wooden sword from the ground repeatedly. Then he began to advance with more aggression. Kai could feel his own heart pump hard as he pressed towards the boy, slamming his blade against the wooden sword until it began to split, splinters springing out of it with each strike.

Sehun retreated, though he surprisingly kept a good grip on the sword this time, until he had no more room left to back off to in the courtyard. And he finally broke into tears, eyes clenched tightly in fear.

Kai gave the wooden sword one last blow before it dropped from Sehun’s hands. He then stood up straight and watched the boy cry for a long minute.

“Pathetic,” he scoffed at the human boy before he marched past him, bumping against his shoulder on purpose.

That was how it started. From that day onwards, Sehun would show up at the same courtyard with a new wooden sword every evening. It was the only time Kai ever got to meet the boy in person. Otherwise, he would watch the boy (and often Marie) play in the backyard near their home from his window. He told himself that, one day, he would kill them both and suck them dry. He hated them. Well, he did not hate the Justus’ daughter as much as he hated the human boy, but he would still kill them both. Because he could. Because he was a vampire. Would that make him a monster like the books made vampires out to be?

Every evening, Sehun was there, in his socks, for him to torture. And Kai constantly found new ways to make him cry until they were fifteen. After that, things changed.