The machines hissed as pressure built inside them, 92%...94%...95%. Nikolai’s blood still poured into the system in violent, pulsing streams. His vision tunnelled, but his resolve didn’t falter. Slash. Bleed. Repeat.
And yet, a familiar voice
"If it isn’t the lovely boy from the market.
My, how you’ve grown. Show this sister your face."
But a familiar scent and voice caught his attention as the soft cotton shoes tapped the floor. Her every step carried weight, grace and arrogance.
Nikolai shifted his gaze away, the machines reaching close to ninety percent.
A beautiful, mature woman with faint pink skin, long tendrils that grew from her back and yet they didn’t look unsightly. Her sharp gaze, glasses and smile reminded him of the Nexus and the Djinn howorld.
If not for this woman, he would have lost his mother long ago.
"Mada?"
"No, no~ not such an uncouth na, Nikolai Volkov Patraitch of the Moonlight alliance." She perford a polite curtsy as each of her tendrils ford a unique hand sign. She held that position for five seconds before returning to normal. "I am the Seventh Princess of Al’Qutar. Her Royal Highness, Zara Al Qutara."
Nikolai’s eyes narrowed slightly as he kept his arm steady over the basin, blood still dripping into the pulsing solution. "I rember you," he said, voice tight from both concentration and blood loss.
Zara’s lips curved into a knowing smile. "Mmm~ I must say, I’m impressed. You didn’t just read it and even mastered it."
"I didn’t have a choice, and it’s not like I could do anything more than prolong her life." Nikolai winced as another deep cut poured into the conduit. "Without that book, my mother’s soul would have been gone long ago."
Nikolai exhaled slowly. "I never thanked you properly. Without your book... Mother’s soul would have been gone by now."
Zara’s smile deepened, a knowing glint in her obsidian eyes. "You paid back the mont you walked in here alive, Patriarch. But..." Her gaze swept over the runes, the vessels, the trembling scientists. "This is no charity. I didn’t write these runes for free."
Boom!
Another blast shook the mountain as he glared at the woman. He understood it in his mind that everyone had a price, but sohow it felt annoying to hear that now.
"I figured."
"I require your strength," she said simply, tendrils snapping into a complex sigil that shimred above her palm. "Al’Qutar has rotted under weak kings. The Nosferatu think to collar my people like slaves. Help claim the throne, and in return..."
Her eyes softened as she traced the runes across the tal bed his mother lay on, then leaned against his back, the cool touch of a Djinn’s body comforting the heat burning him from the inside. "I’ll give you everything, if you help sit atop that jeweled throne, my kingdom, my powers... even my heart if you desire it."
The machine ticked to 97% after her sultry whisper, leaving a heavy weight in the air.
However, Nikolai’s lips curved into a feral grin. "Let’s talk after she’s alive, and those fools outside are dead."
"Which is precisely why I’m here." Zara stepped forward, the long tendrils on her back brushing the air like extra limbs, each one forming complex sigils that made the machinery hum more smoothly. "I rarely involve myself in other clans’ or races’ business easily, Nikolai. Call this a bonus just for you." With a wink, she turned back to the table and extended her tendrils to his mother’s body.
"Do you need that much?" He asked in a slight daze, his head and vision blurring from the blood loss.
"Influence. Protection. Alliance." Her words were asured, deliberate. "The Djinn clans have been pushed into the shadows. Made puppets by the Nosferatu and their allies for too long. I intend to beco queen and free my people. But to do so, I need a force the Nosferatu fear." She leaned close, her breath brushing his ear. "I need the Moonlight Patriarch."
Sasha glanced over with a hint of distrust and tension. "Can we talk about this later... Focus!"
He didn’t respond imdiately. Blood still poured from his wounds. The machine was at 98% and climbing, his mother’s pulse stronger with each drop. But even amid the strain, he t Zara’s gaze steadily. "And if I say yes?"
"I told you earlier. I will swear the loyalty of the Seventh House of Al’Qutar to your banner and..."
"Enough with selling yourself.
If I want you, I will seduce you myself!"
Zara froze, and for a mont, her usual sisterly and confident composure honed through decades of political scheming and wars of succession cracked like thin glass.
"W-What...?" She stamred, the tips of her tendrils twitching violently behind her as a deep pink flush blood across her cheeks. "That’s quite smooth of you... hohoho, when did you beco such a lady killer?"
"Well it doesn’t matter now," Nikolai answered with a teasing smirk, even as blood stread freely from his arm. "You offered your kingdom, your power... your heart. I might just take all three."
For the first ti since she’d entered the room, the Seventh Princess of Al’Qutar, conqueror of courts, terror of the east, forgot how to speak. Her carefully woven mask slipped, replaced by the expression of a flustered woman surprised by a man she saw as nothing more than a cute child.
"Y-you infuriating wolf..." she hissed, spinning away so he wouldn’t see how red her ears had beco.
"Focus, you two," Sasha snapped.
Beep!
Beep!
Beep!
"Final resonance complete! The vessel is ready for Phase Three completion!" Anastasia happily shouted, her hands sweeping the console, tapping several buttons.
Nikolai swayed dangerously, his knees buckling from the sheer volu of blood he’d lost. The self-inflicted wounds tried to knit closed, but after several cuts, the wound beca a long, red scar.
He reached to cut again when Marianne dashed towards him and held his arm tight. "What are you doing?!" Then the machine reached 99% and the erratic bleeps and noises cald down. "Eh...? Is it over?"
Marianne looked up at him with a strange glare as she pressed her tiny fra against his chest.
"Bite . Now."
His eyes widened. "Marianne...?"
"Do it!" She yanked her collar aside, exposing her smooth, pale neck. "How can you fight like this?!"
"Don’t complain later."
Nikolai’s chest pounded in delight, and Instinct overrode hesitation. ’Sorry Alexei.’ His fangs pierced her skin, and her dangerously addictive blood flooded his throat. Power returned to his muscles like fire rushing through dry wood.
Sasha’s eyes widened at the sight beside her, while panting slightly. "Fascinating..." she whispered, watching his face return to normal and his wound heal almost instantly. "His recovery rate is extrely unnatural..."
Even Zara, still flushed and unsettled, couldn’t hide the slight shiver that ran through her. "No wonder the Nosferatu fear and want you..."
"Nn?"
He looked up while guzzling her delicious blood.
Nikolai didn’t see other vampires, so he thought this rate of healing was normal.
BEEEEEEEP!
The machines scread as the numbers hit 100%. The runes carved into the steel floor ignited in brilliant silver and crimson light, wrapping the chamber in a halo of power.
But just as the first signs of awakening rippled through the vessel...
BOOM!
The floor swayed violently beneath them as the lights flickered and Alarms shrieked through the facility as a voice crackled over the intercom. "Ergency, Lord Patriarch!" The sa maid’s voice shouted slightly, trembling. "The first defensive line has been pushed back! The enemy has heavy weapons, multiple breaches!"
The steel doors at the far end of the lab exploded open, and two squads of maids stord inside, ard with pistols, rifles, and silver-edged blades. Thier uniforms were battle-ready, with each maid’s eyes blazing with resolve.
Leading them with golden red hair, ears twitching and calm erald eyes, Leona’s eyes t his with a faint smile.
"Patriarch, I am here." Leona peeked at the breathing body on the table and gasped before she looked back at him with softer eyes. "Please, Give the order."
Nikolai wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, his eyes still glowing faintly from the surge of power. He could sense the vital energy of his mother flowing, lungs, heart and organs all working without his help.
The sight of his mother’s chest rising and falling with shallow, deliberate breaths was enough.
’We did it...’
A sense of relief washed over him.
"We must protect this compound, and crush the enemy, I am going out." He said in a powerful, low, and calm voice despite the chaos shaking the compound. "No matter what happens out there... not a single enemy sets foot in this chamber or the safe room of my wives."
"As you command." Leona’s ears flicked once, and her voice hardened. "Form a periter! Anyone not wearing Moonlight insignia dies where they stand! Alpha protects the Ladies. Beta support them. Charlie and Echo follow our lord."
"Yes, Lady Leona!" the maids barked in unison.
The split into formation with inhuman precision and speed.
Nikolai enjoyed the hum of their silver blades, the click of their rifles with each check and the faint scent of blood that lingered in the air.
Zara stepped behind him just before he left and called out. "I’ll reinforce the barriers and keep this place covered in an illusion. Do your best and don’t get hurt." Her tendrils swirled in complex patterns as defensive sigils lit up, and the mont he stepped outside the door, the lab, everything vanished.
Nikolai exhaled, rolling his neck with a crack as the ground rumbled again.
"Then... shall we have so fun, Ladies?"
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