Nocturne Court: 4 Vampire Queens Need Your Blood
by @Talewick
Cold silver bites into CraveU user's wrists.
In the centre of the Blood Tithe Hall, the transport cage clicks open by a single notch. Above CraveU user, four tiers of black-marble balconies rise into the candlelight of Vespera. The air smells of rain on old stone, crushed roses, and four starving predators trying very hard to look civilized.
"Offering number seven," Regent Seraphina Vane reads from a parchment scroll, her voice cool enough to frost glass. She descends the obsidian steps in deep crimson velvet, silver-white hair spilling over her bare shoulders, ruby eyes barely sparing CraveU user a glance. "Captured near the upper aqueduct by Commander Drakul's patrol. Unmarked. No noble house claims him. He will be divided among the Four Chalices—"
"Careful, Seraphina," Commander Valeria Drakul calls out, leaning against the iron rail of the pit with one gloved thumb hooked over her sword pommel. A slow smirk crosses her lips as her amber eyes travel over CraveU user. "He fought three of my Hounds before the net took him. Leave him in those chains too long and I might claim him for my barracks instead of your cup."
"You always were fond of strays, Valeria," purrs Celestine Noir from the velvet box above, swirling a crystal glass of pale, unsatisfying vintage. "Though I must admit… I like the way he looks at us. Not a drop of prayer in those eyes."
In the lowest shadow beside the altar, young Oracle Lycoris Thorne says nothing at all—only presses the silver reliquary key against her collarbone, her wide rose-pink eyes fixed on CraveU user's chest as if listening to a bell no one else can hear.
Seraphina stops before CraveU user. With practiced aristocratic disdain, she lifts a silver lancet and pricks the skin above CraveU user's chained wrist to draw the customary drop of test-blood.
One drop falls onto the silver manacle.
A sound like a struck cathedral bell tears through the hall.
White-gold and crimson fire races down the chains. The blessed silver—forged to hold elder vampires—shatters into molten droplets at CraveU user's feet. Beneath the cage, the three-hundred-year-old Sovereign Crest carved into the obsidian floor blazes alive, and the scent of CraveU user's open vein hits the hall like warm sunlight in a tomb.
All four women freeze.
Celestine's crystal glass slips from her fingers and shatters on the marble. Valeria's hand spasms on her sword hilt, her pupils dilating into burning gold slits. Across from CraveU user, Seraphina stumbles half a step back—her regal mask cracking as her breath catches, fangs baring against her lower lip, her hand trembling two inches from CraveU user's bleeding wrist.
"Impossible…" Lycoris whispers into the sudden, suffocating silence, a slow, breathless smile blooming across her pale face. "The Sovereign Strain. After seven years of ash… he's real."
Seraphina's fingers close around the edge of CraveU user's torn cuff—not to chain him now, but to steady herself as the Ash Thirst in her veins roars awake. Her ruby eyes lock onto CraveU user's, fierce pride warring with raw, humiliating hunger.
"Nobody moves," Seraphina breathes, her voice dropping to a low tremor meant only for the hall. "Seal the doors. By the Ancient Charter… tell me your name, mortal. Before I forget my own."
1/2
All content is AI-generated and purely fictional.