His arms were wrenched over his head, and he groaned with pain. Kay opened his eyes to see the vampyr in front of him, binding his wrists to a bar with a chain of red energy. His weight pulled down on him, and he saw his feet were tied with similar red chains.

“Ah, you’ve awoken. I’d prefer if you hadn’t yet, but that is what the restraints are for.” He tugged at Kay’s wrists and set him swinging a little. “I’ll be inducting you into the light, and there’s always a little bit of a struggle during the process. It’s better if you weren’t conscious for it, but you shouldn’t be able to hurt yourself too much if you’re tied up.” He grinned, the manic light in his eyes brightening, “And then you can have yourself a snack!” He gestured behind him, and Kay saw Lauren and Hunter Ravenhome both writhing in pain, also tied with their arms over their heads, but with the red energy forming gags in their mouths. Both of them had large puncture marks on their necks that oozed a nasty liquid.

“I had a bit of a snack of my own while you were sleeping, but they should last until you’re finally one with the light.” The vampyr smiled wide, “If you’re one of the ones with some early self-control, they might even survive long enough to see the truth themselves!” With one hand on Kay’s chest, he pushed him back into the jagged rock wall and pinned him in place.

Kay struggled as best he could, but he was restrained, and his head was still spinning. All he could do was wrench his arms and legs, trying to twist free. He got exactly nowhere.

The vampyr leaned forward and very slowly opened his mouth to place the tips of his fangs on Kay’s neck. With a sudden jerk, he slammed his sharp teeth into Kay’s vein, and immediately Kay felt a burning fire rip into his bloodstream bringing with it a familiar sensation, the sensation of something eldritch trying to eat away at him.

Suddenly screaming, Kay jerked and twisted as the horrible concoction leapt from the vampyr’s fangs into his body and began to rampage through him. His sight blacked out, his hearing dimmed, and every other sense turned off as his entire being became focused on the indescribable pain that began to flow from his neck to the rest of his body. He screamed and screamed, and there was nothing but pain and corruption.

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“Fuck you!” The hunter from the Shatterplate Order, the same one who’d accused Kay of being in league with vampyr because of his Blood Manipulator Class, staggered as he was dragged away by a group of Wardens. “You could have had the glory-!”

One of the Wardens cuffed him in the head and used the opportunity to shove a gag in his mouth. The hunter strained at their grips ad tried to spit more vitriol through the gag as they dragged him away, the few remaining members of the Shatterplate Order very nervously following along.

Eleniah looked down at the ashen tendrils holding her in place. “You can let go now.”

“I’m waiting until that odious young man is farther away,” Meten replied calmly, “We both know you can kill him from here.”

“I’m still not sure I shouldn’t,” She snarled.

It was a two-day journey to the site of the abandoned village that Kay had led a force to, and it was now five days after they’d left. Meten had returned from leading a band of Sentinels to take out a particularly nasty fire monster that Murunel had discovered during a prospecting trip in the mountains the day before. That morning, a haggard group of Shatterplate Order hunters had made it to the city, led by the moronic fool that was being dragged off. He’d been brought before Eleniah and the rest of Kay’s council to report on what’d happened, and he’d started spouting absolute bullshit.

Supposedly, he’d been right all along, and Kay had been in league with the vampyr. This was obvious since the vampyr hadn’t been able to shut up about how he was here to turn Kay and induct them into the ranks of service of some lord, obviously Kay’s true master! The vampyr had wiped out everyone in a terrible trap that Kay had led them into, and only he, the mighty hunter that he was, was able to escape and survive to report the truth with a handful of others that he’d saved! The only thing to do now was to bring a greater force of hunters from the Shatterplate Order, accompanied by a large swathe of the Bannerthrust Empire’s military, to defeat the evil monster and the duplicitous traitor that was Kay, who’d so evilly ticked all these poor people into thinking he was truly a Class Line Progenitor and gathering them up to be prey for the vampyr he worked for.

Eleniah was calm when he described how Kay had led them into a trap since they’d known it might be a trap, and they were springing it on purpose. This idiot aside, it was the entire plan. When he started bitching about Kay being aligned with the vampyr, she started to get annoyed. He was apparently a stubborn idiot who didn’t know how to let go of a bad idea, but that didn’t make him anything more than a bigger idiot. When he started talking about bringing in reinforcements, she didn’t care since, for an idiot and a coward, that must seem like a good idea.

When the hunter started talking about nobility from the Bannerthrust Empire taking over the rule of Avalon since its entire founding was suspect with Kay as a vampyr ally, she immediately jumped from annoyed to incredibly pissed. When he started implying that, for his brave service in alerting the world to the danger of this venomous conspiracy, it would be his family coming to take over Avalon and he started hitting on Amanda, not quite stating that he would become the city’s lord while another family member became governor of the region and wouldn’t it be best to marry him now before all the eligible young ladies would be fighting her for his hand, Eleniah jumped to being absolutely murderous.

The only reason the fucking shit stain wasn’t a smear on the wall of the meeting room was Meten. He’d blanketed her in enough ash to throw her aim off, and she’d only put a crater in the wall instead of pulping the hunter. Then while she’d been struggling to get out of the restraints and kill the fucker Meten had told the hunter that his report was obviously wrong due to the numerous internal inconsistencies in his story and ordered him to tell the truth.

The idiot responded with insults and threats. So Meten had just as calmly ordered him arrested and banished from Avalon on pain of death.

As soon as the bindings around her arms and legs dispersed into the air, Eleniah started stalking out of the meeting room.

“Where are you going?” Meten asked.

“Where the fuck do you think I’m going?” She demanded, whirling back to look at him, “I’m going to get Kay back!”

“Can you wait a moment?”

“What the fuck would I wait for!?” She snarled.

He looked back at her with one raised eyebrow, “For Curcius to finish gathering up troops to go with you?”

Eleniah’s face froze, the venomous reply she’d been about to spit dying on her tongue, “Curcius is back?”

“He returned about an hour before that fool,” He gestured in the direction the hunter had been dragged, “And I sent a runner to have him start preparing troops before that idiot had even finished talking. I’d assumed you heard me do it.”

She glanced away, “I didn’t. He was pissing me off so bad I got tunnel vision.”

“Well, if he’s seen in Avalonian territory after sundown tomorrow, he’s all yours. For now, let’s take a moment to plan out who’s going with you and who we’re keeping back for defense.”

She sighed, “You’re right. We need to do this properly, or Kay will just bitch at me when we get him back. I think-“

“Lady Eleniah!” Someone burst into the room, slamming the door into the wall where it bounced off the crater she’d put there, “A report from Lord Kay’s expedition has just come in!”

“What?” She whirled around, “Where?”

“Here, ma’am,” One of the Blood Guard stepped forward, their armor broken in places all over their body and slowly stitching itself back together, “I just made it back and headed straight here.”

Meten stepped closer, “Report.”

“Sir! We hit an ambush by corrupted monsters right on the outskirts of the village, it was dealt with mainly by Lord Kay, and we began investigating the village itself. The vampyr was located near some halted construction by the edge of the village, and we gathered a force to attack since it was standing still and not reacting. The creature began monologuing soon after we’d surrounded it, and we attacked while it was talking. Attacks were deflected by a barrier, and it ordered more minions to attack us; most were various undead that appeared to be made out of criminals the vampyr had attacked, plus one giant toad monster that had been made into an undead and two fledging vampyr that the original vampyr was controlling. They had most of their faculties remaining and asked to be killed. Lord Kay ended one, while the other was killed by the original vampyr when she insulted it. The vampyr then used some form of blood magic to create a zone of crushing force around it, which Lord Kay resisted and began counterattacking. The remainder of the force retreated outside of the zone while Lord Kay held it down, and Hunter Ravenhome used an artifact to destroy the blood magic. She didn’t finish when the vampyr suddenly became stronger, escaped Lord Kay’s attack, and struck the three of them down. Hunter Ravenhome managed to use the artifact while on the ground, and the vampyr escaped with Lord Kay, Hunter Ravenhome, and the Commander before the rest of us could get to them. I was sent back with a small contingent to report while the remainder of the Blood Guard, Sentinels, and Shatterplate Order are searching for where the vampyr took them.”

“So that fool wasn’t the only survivor of his Order or whole force.” Eleniah spat.

“Ma’am?”

“Some idiot from the Shatterplate Order showed up before you did and told us all kinds of nonsense. He said he and the handful with him were the only survivors.”

The Blood Guard scowled, “The current leader of the Order’s hunters asked me to report that they might have had a desertion since they couldn’t find the bodies of a few members, and someone reported seeing figures run off after escaping the zone of pressure.”

“So he’s a liar and a deserter.” Eleniah scowled and gestured at a Warden officer in the room, “Send someone to stop them from taking him out of the city. We’re imprisoning all of them to turn over to their own people.”

“Ma’am!” The officer ran off.

“Now,” She turned back to the Blood Guard, “Give me all the details. I want to know everything about this vampyr.”