“The Cleanse was a tragedy, but it was something that needed to happen. Let me be clear, I will never argue for the morality of a genocide, but there comes a point where necessity overcomes morality. Regnum Caeleste was a kingdom crafted painstakingly over the course of the entire Seraphic Dynasty to subjugate and eradicate those they deemed lesser. They slaughtered and enslaved the giants, pushed the dwarves back to their mountains, and dictated the behaviour of every other nation on the continent with an iron fist. We can only be thankful that Venustaluna was as uncaring as they were, for I dread what could have happened if it were a different seraphim that achieved apotheosis in their stead.”
-Alwin Friedrich, founder and first Chancellor of the Dwergaz Republic
Valentina could feel the tension within her as though she were a strung bow; all that was left was for one single trigger and she knew that the room would collapse into a riot of violence. A part of her ached for the excuse, yet no such excuse came. Instead Sabrina, the cause of it all, reclined into her nest of pillows, tired, smug, and oddly relaxed.
“Well, Your Grace? You wanted to know who I was so don’t go getting upset at me now that I’ve done as you asked. Now tell me, what do you know?”
The Archduchess worried her lip, each and every sense straining to see if the woman might be about to suddenly attack, make a movement, or cast a spell, but no… she just sat there. And so Valentina sighed and humoured her.
“I know about as much as the rest. The Cleanse was before my time but you still hear stories.” Her gaze flickered to the six wings before returning to meet a few of the many many eyes. “Six wings, metallic eyes. Other typical angelic features like the halo too, but that’s less unique. The seraphim may as well be legends or faerie tales for how much kids are told about them.”
“And yet,” Sabrina’s smile shifted to something far more brittle, “the actual history is hardly something that should be taught to children.
Valentina nodded slowly: “No, I suppose not… Mass slaughter probably isn’t something we should be telling stories of, but that still begs the question: how are you here? Regardless of how child-friendly the story is, the truth remains that all four other nations on Gitontitán dedicated themselves to the culling or your bloodline. That’s not the kind of thing someone can simply escape.”
Sabrina shrugged and wiggled a hand. “No, but I think you’re somewhat underestimating the seraphim. Oh, don’t get me wrong, the combined might of the four nations was horrifying but I’ve come to think of ways others might have escaped and survived. Not that I’m aware of any beyond my own family mind you, but I do think it’s possible.” Seeing the vampiress about to speak up, Sabrina waved her down. “You’re just going to pester me to answer you and I’m getting there, but there’s something you need to understand first: if you truly care about that girl, then you need to actually pay attention to what I’m about to say. Not surface level details and not with the world’s bias towards seraphim. Fucking listen.
“At the time of The Cleanse, my father was already dead — one of the first to go actually, towards the start of the rebellion. It was just my mother, two siblings, grandmother, and myself when everything started to escalate. By the time we came to understand how desperate things truly were, we were already well past having any means of escape. My mother… she gave up —was always good at that and I think the start of The Cleanse is where she perfected it— and my siblings were either older but useless, or too young to do anything. We all assumed it was the end as news came and told us time and time again how our death marched closer by the day. And then my grandmother told us she found a way out.”
She smiled then, staring into the middle distance as she recounted it.
“I don’t remember her well but she was old, even for an angel, and that old bat was once one of the Holders of Secrets. Effectively a fancy librarian, really, but in this instance it mattered. She knew things —held onto knowledge she learned a century prior with a mind like a steel trap— and she knew secrets. I was always under the impression that they were secrets of the giants, stolen from their own culture and censored and stricken from public record, but who knows. What matters is that she knew about something —some kind of ancient creature— that she could make a pact with.”
She watched as understanding gradually began to flood the Archduchess. As her eyes gradually widened and her mouth parted just a tad.
“Yeah, there you go, you’re picking up what I’m putting down. My grandmother forged a pact with this… this thing. She refused to tell us what it was. Refused to let us see it, or the way she contacted it or anything. Said it was for our own good. It didn’t stop us from feeling it though. Grandma was on the other side of a wall of stone and in the basement below besides, and yet I could feel its presence, like its attention alone had a metaphysical weight. I could feel it crawling beneath my skin, slipping into my veins, and getting in my head. It turned the world into a sensory cacophony only to gradually numb us into senselessness. I don’t know how long I stood there frozen on the periphery of its attention, and I know even less after a certain point. All I know is everything just grew more and more frayed until I lost sense of everything altogether, and then suddenly I was normal, fully aware like nothing happened, and suddenly very very far from home.”
Valentina had been frowning for a while by the time she finally spoke up: “What would that have even been? A deity’s servitor? Maybe something like an archfiend could form a powerful pact or I guess one of the Qlippoth would be more likely to have that kind of presence? But that wouldn’t make sense…”
Sabrina only smiled wider, and there was mania in each and every one of her eyes.
“That’s the best part! It has been half a millenia since The Cleanse and I still have no idea what it was that my grandmother called. Not a fucking clue!” She waves a hand towards Dahlia and with it some of that manic energy bled away, “might figure some things out soon though.”
Glancing down, Valentina looked at the girl. She looked remarkably like her mother and for a moment she could feel a hint of dread sink in. That is, until Sabrina quickly dispelled those concerns.
“She’s not a seraphim, that’s part of why this is so important for you to understand. If you really plan to help her —if you plan to take her in like you seemingly want to do— then you need to understand that despite who I am, she is not a seraphim. I want that to sink in: seraphim have an overwhelmingly dominant bloodline and should leave something like Vincent’s burning lion in the dirt. And yet she isn’t a seraphim. She’s not anything that my informants could determine. You get it? That thing that my grandmother summoned, whatever it was, left a mark on my bloodline. My grandmother’s pact re-defined the bloodline of my family’s descendants and now Dahlia’s the one who’s going to finally pay my family’s due.”
The vampiress stared down at the girl and she could practically feel the weight of the information. There was a heaviness to it that she couldn’t even fully comprehend, but if what the Baroness said was true…
“Why are you telling me this? No, more importantly, why do you even care? You said it yourself, you watched her get beaten. You might not have said quite so much, but I hardly believe you were a good parent either, so why?”
The seraphim tilted her head, watching and waiting for something though Valentina couldn’t tell what it was she saw, and then finally the woman sighed and began to stand up. She began to flex and stretch even as her seraphic traits began to melt away and blend back into a more human facade.
“Alright, I guess we’re getting to that part of the conversation… I’m not trying to stall here, but I figure I should mention a couple things first. If you’re planning to take the girl with you then you don’t need to worry much about things she owns. She doesn’t have any attachments to clothing or anything like that but she does have a collection of books and notes tucked away in her room that she would probably commit murder over if she lost them, so I’d collect those if I were you.” A small teasing smile began to form as the Baroness paused and thought for a moment, “She’ll want to take the whole greenhouse with her too but you can’t do that and she’ll know it… the brat will probably throw a fit about it when she thinks no one is looking though. Bring her two favourite plants and you’ll win her over; you want the small shrub on her desk as well as the lilly in the greenhouse in the cyan pot. You won’t be able to miss either of them and—”
“I thought you said you weren’t stalling.”
Sabrina’s shoulders slumped at the interruption and she couldn’t stop herself from levelling a glare at the Archduchess. Regardless, with the previous playfulness wicked away, she instead shrugged and resumed getting herself back in order, using some scattered blankets as a means to cover up any nudity her previous transformation caused.
“You can’t blame me for trying to buy some good will before things inevitably go south. The long story short is that I need her alive. I don’t need her to love me but, now that I’ve learned that she’s inherited the legacy of my grandmother’s pact, I need her to survive no matter what.”
The Archduchess’ eyes went hard at that and she could feel herself preparing to pounce: “What I’m hearing then is you just want to use her, is that it? Then I can’t see why I need to let some abusive seraphim go wandering free now, do you?”
She could feel her claws lengthening, her blood pumping, and her adrenaline spiking as her body primed itself to leap into combat. But then—
The spark of radiant light, the rattle of linked chains, and the tired smile of a woman who was resigned to the current situation as if it were an inevitability. Sabrina stood before the vampiress, moments before a fight could break out, and held a glowing chain of light that stretched directly from herself to her daughter. “You don’t want to do that, Your Grace.”
“What—”
“It’s a chain you dumb impulsive bitch.” At that the Archduchess reeled back as if she were struck, looking at the Baroness like she was insane, though that only dragged a chuckle out of her. “You were scouting before you arrived — I saw it. I watched as you were oh-so careful on your approach and you scouted out every part of the estate so you should know that a magical effect has been centered on this room.”
Sabrina glanced at the chain, still binding her and Dahlia, and shook it with a free hand.
“This is it. This is the basis of what I’ve been doing. It’s fate magic. A chain of fate that I can bind between people to split harm, or healing, or anything really. So, for example, if a particularly irritable vampire had the sudden impulse to kill me then…” Again, she jangled the chain, almost mockingly at the Archduchess, “I can use this to keep my daughter as a hostage so you don’t fucking kill me before I can get the hell out of here. Pretty smart, right?”
Valentina could feel the rage inside her like a physical thing. All those hexes she used to calm herself were removed once she prepared for a fight and the sudden whiplash of that bloodlust carried the kind of momentum that was near impossible to simply put an end to. Her eyes desperately flitted over the woman, peered at the still unconscious and recovering girl on the floor, and analyzed the glowing chain of fate’s mana output and despite every single fiber in her body screaming to attack, the last remaining sliver of her rationale stayed her hand. No magic was perfect. Never. There were always efficiency losses or intentional caveats in order to make a spell better at the sacrifice of some other function, but Valentina didn’t have time to analyse it, nor could she afford to experiment either. If the cost of failure was simply herself being harmed then she would have leapt at the woman in a heart beat, but with Dahlia being the one threatened…
A growl began to slip out of the vampiress and Sabrina could only cock an eyebrow at that. “Oh my, you know, I’ve heard about vampires being a feral bunch but it really is something else to see it in person. Considering I’m only doing this in order to not be murdered by you though, I’m sure you can find it in yourself to forgive my heavyhandedness. I promise I’ll have left the estate and will be out of your hair before the hour’s over and then my daughter is all yours; it’s a fair trade, no? I hand her over to you no fuss and all I get in return is the chance to go run off into hiding.”
Perhaps predictably, Valentina’s hackles were still raised by the end of that, the vampiress’ eyes constantly scouring the chain and seraphim for any outstanding weaknesses. And yet it was the ferocity bordering on madness in her eyes that had Sabrina’s grin widen. Valentina was like a fully wound spring, moments from snapping or exploding in a torrent of violence at anyone who offered an outlet, and if Sabrina wasn’t about to step forward as a target…
“You know, Your Grace, there is one other target worth your anger even more than myself, don’t you think?”
Sabrina’s words dripped with honey, but she knew there was no need for it. It wasn’t that the Archduchess was easily manipulated, but now? At this moment? All it would take was a push in the right direction. The Baroness could see the threads of fate surrounding her — feel the vibrations and growing tensions like they were a physical thing. And she could see those ephemeral golden strings and how easily Valentina could be released and cause oh-so-many of those threads to sever.
The Archduchess herself wore a shawl of the threads, so much more vibrant and dense than an ordinary person, and at this moment so many of those threads were pulled taut. Sabrina could practically see the bloodlust radiating off of the woman and yet… she glanced at one specific thread, the one binding Valentina to herself, and very nearly laughed. Despite her rage and the countless glares, the moment Dahlia’s own safety came into play the chances the vampiress would actually attack Sabrina had disappeared almost entirely; it would have been almost comical were it not so convenient. With so much bottled up rage however, the Baroness felt that it would be a waste to not use it. And so she smiled as she gave the slightest of nudges.
~~~~~
Vincent frowned at the sound of footsteps approaching his office door and set his brandy to the side. It was late —too late, if he had anything to say about it— but after the catastrophe that was the debutante, the man had needed to actually sit down and get some work done. The girl had ruined everything in every way that mattered and, after receiving the beating she deserved, she wouldn’t even be attractive enough to sell off to any bidder worth the effort. That was, except for Count Zmeul, whose interest in the girl had only grown in the recent week. It was another one of the Count’s correspondences that had the Baron still in his office so late at night and, if he were to be frank, the man was well past sick of working such late hours and the fact that the rest of the manor’s servants were ill only wore on his patience further. He didn’t care if it was the curse like the rumours said or, more likely, some peasant’s disease wreaking havoc through his staff. All he cared about was how more and more things were falling to the wayside as the manor’s upkeep was being maintained by a skeleton crew. Just the thought of how the Count might pay him a visit with the estate in its current state was enough for the man to want to wring someone’s neck; something which became progressively more likely as he heard the footsteps pause outside his door.
“Oh for gods’ sakes, what do you want? If this is about receiving pay for when you’ve been stuck in bed doing nothing, then I’ll hear none of it!”
There was another pause and Vincent sneered at the closed door. If they didn’t want to ask to enter or speak up at all then they deserved nothing in turn. He had already written it off and begun to turn back to his work as the door creaked open and the Baron felt another flash of irritation.
“Did I say that you could—”
The words stopped short as he saw who entered. The woman was a mess, caked in mud, blood, and stinking from what he could only assume was days of hard work on the road, and yet despite the humiliating state she was in, he recognized the Archduchess in an instant. Memories from a week prior had him want to lash out at the woman, maybe throw something or just yell and tell her off for everything she ruined. It wouldn’t even be wrong. He would be in the right if anything, with her now trespassing and entering his office without his permission. The bitch probably needed it, if anything. Was probably spoiled her entire life and never even disciplined properly by her parents before they kicked the bucket — but no. No, Vincent was better than that. Unlike her, he could show restraint and if she was here, in his office, that could only mean one thing. He put on his most genteel smile and stood at the Archduchess’ entrance, even bowing slightly deeper than a Baron like himself should.
“You Grace! It is an honour to have you in my humble manor; I only wish I could have known in advance so I might make your stay even better. Please though, come in and have a seat. I can grab you a drink as well if you like? I have the finest of brandies, distilled straight from a Carphopoulan vintage not far from here. I’m certain you would love the taste! Now come come, sit!”
He did his best to ignore her stink as she stepped further into the room and had to grit his teeth to hold back from commenting on it. To think the woman had the audacity to show up, not only uninvited, but in such a disrespectful state as well. He forced his smile as she began to step forward, not even so much as greeting him or thanking him for his hospitality.
“I apologise for not being prepared to receive you; there’s something of a flu going through the staff you see, but I’ll do my best to help you however I can. Now, and I apologise if this comes across as somewhat presumptuous of me, but would you happen to be here regarding my daughter?”
The woman paused again, eyes locked on Vincent as if considering something before taking a seat and taking the entire bottle of brandy for herself, tossing back a swig before finally responding.
“Yeah, something like that. I wouldn’t worry much about hospitality by the way, that’s not the kind of thing that would change much.”
Vincent’s smile remained stiff but still he nodded along: “Yes, of course! Hospitality is good but you’re a woman who won’t be distracted from what she wants, I fully understand — I appreciate that mentality really. The only issue is… Well, I hope you don’t take offence to me saying this, but are you intending to take my darling of a daughter for your… what would it be called? Harem?”
Seeing the twitch in the woman’s eye was enough for Vincent and he was quick to continue, practically champing at the bit as the shape of things started to become clear. Oh, the Count would be furious but if an archduchess wanted to outbid him, how could Vincent refuse?
“You see, Your Grace,” he began, gesturing towards the piles of paperwork and correspondences on the desk, “You’ve arrived after someone has already staked a claim on Dahlia. Now, that’s not to say I can’t offer her to you —not at all!— but, as a humble baron, surely you must understand how I would hate to disappoint a count who’s already had his sights set on her. I would love to hand her over to you, truly, I would, but with the financial consequences…”
Another long swig of brandy later and the Archduchess met his eyes, cocking an eyebrow and looking somewhere between baffled and amused.
“You can’t actually be serious here; there’s just no way. Listen, —can I call you Vincent?— eh, whatever. Listen, Vincent, I don’t know who the fuck you think you are or how slick you think you’re being, but what you’re trying here? It’s fucking pathetic.”
Rumaging around and pulling out a small box moments later, the Archduchess nonchalantly pulled out and lit a cigarette, eyes bouncing in joy as she watched Vincent grow progressively more irate, all while trying to restrain himself. As she finally took a long drag, only to blow smoke out at the man in front of her, she didn’t even bother restraining her grin, delighting in the man’s own rage. He was mere wicks away from sputtering and spitting out some kind of flaccid insult, she was sure, but couldn’t be bothered to wait for him to have his turn.
“Now Vincent, listen closely. I’m currently in a very bad mood and am currently looking for any excuse I can get to add another mark onto my already tarnished reputation. Get me every single peace of information you have on your daughter, hand Dahlia over to me, beg for fucking mercy before I snap, and we’ll see where things go from there, understood?”
Oh, and then he sputtered, confused and indignant. Typical.
Valentina didn’t register at what point the facade dropped; only that by the time she noticed, her grin was already far past civil and she had a hand in his hair, pressing the bastard's face into his desk. Unsurprisingly, at this moment, she couldn’t particularly bring herself to care.
“You know, I did say I’d be looking for any reason.”
She tossed her cigarette aside then as, to her delight, the man didn’t just roll over and apologise either — no, he fought back and the vampiress couldn’t have asked for more. She needed this. Vincent was clearly shaken, even as he stood back up but she let him get back on his feet, she simply watched it happen. Even as his hair, eyes, and hands began to spark with a turquoise flame, the Archduchess could only feel her eagerness grow. Of all things right now, she didn’t need some clean and easy execution: she needed a fight. Something to take out all her stress and rage and bloodlust on, and the more of a fight Vincent put up, the better.
Her smile didn’t even waver as he made the first move.
The man lunged forward, blinded by his own rage. After everything he had gone through; all the hoops he jumped through, the countless times he demeaned himself to curry favour, and the miserable decades he had to put up with his failure of a daughter, and now all of that was falling apart. All culminating at the sheer disrespect of this wannabe archduchess, who was nothing more than an egotistical brat, addicted to throwing her power around. No, he wouldn’t have it. He’d rather put her in her place, drive the bitch into the ground and make her beg for mercy; finally give him respect the way he deserved to be treated. And all it would take is brutalising her. He knew he could do it. He knew that all it would take was for him to burn her and beat her bloody and then finally she would start acting the way a slut like her should! All it would take is some ruthlessness and—
Valentina watched as the man worked himself up into his little battle-rage. She watched as he channeled more and more mana with his horrifically wasteful schema, as mana burned off in harmless and uncontrolled fumes while the Baron coated himself in ever-denser turquoise flame. It was poorly done, no matter how she looked at it. Largely undirected and unrefined, with only the occasional sliver of burning copper acting as a concentrated point of power. As he leapt for her, charging while he roared and fucking telegraphed his attack to hell and back, the disappointment was a tangible thing. He was so in his head that by the time he even registered she dodged, he was already tripped and falling to the floor. And by the time he stood again, practically clambering to attack her once more, the Archduchess clicked her tongue, reconsidering what was about to happen even as she dejectedly pulled a fresh cigarette out to replace the old one, frowning at the need for another light.
She hardly needed to dodge what came next, even as the Baron tried more variety than a charge and flung slivers of burning copper at her. It was just so sloppy. A part of her almost wanted to watch him flail against her until he collapsed. To rub in how pathetic he was for failing so miserably against a single opponent who was running off of one candle’s sleep in the last week, and had been running on fumes even before she had dedicated hours to healing the man’s daughter. But then there was a sudden spark of green, a look of desperation and triumph, and a voice that was not a voice.
Consuming Pride: Patinated Immolation
Vincent’s back hit the ground half a wick later, knocking the air out of him even as half his office became coated in a layer of burning green copper. It all happened too fast for him to even see the burst of copper his spell made, but he almost laughed as he saw the Archduchess standing over him, pinning him even as her right arm burned, encased in the same smoldering patina as the rest of the room. The laughter quickly left him however, as he watched the woman’s own blood begin to pour out and smother his flames. Not even stopping with her arm but soon enough extinguishing the rest of the office too, done with so little effort —such a casual nonchalance— that he finally started to register who it was that stood over him. An understanding that arrived far too late.
“You know,” the monster said, smiling over him even as she lit her new cigarette off of Vincent’s own flames, “You were so pathetic I just assumed you wouldn’t have a named spell in you. That one's on me, yeah? Might’ve even been effective if your mana efficiency wasn’t absolute dogshit. Now then… what am I gonna do with you?”
Valentina looked over the man and tried to dredge up even the faintest sliver of remorse and yet all she felt was a cold unsubsiding fury. She had been doing all she could to ignore it —to set aside all those intrusive and impulsive instincts— and approach the issue with more detachment, but she just couldn’t. Oh, the disrespect he showed her she could have waved away easily enough. And the burns, while painful, were minor compared to the kind of injuries she had long-since gotten used to. No, disrespect and pain she could move past easily, but this man —this piece of utter filth— had tortured her Dahlia. Had abused her for years and had the gall to drive her so close to death that she would suffer for days. To deny her healing only to make it worse. He was scum, worth less than the dirt on her boot, and he deserved no quarter.
The cracking of bones is what dragged the woman back to the present, only to find her own hand crushing his. The sweet sound of snapping cortical bone and the crushing of trabeculae met her ears like a swan song, and as his own cries bled into the mix, it turned into a symphony. She let herself enjoy it, taking a long drag of her smoke as she felt some of the tension fade away. And then she squeezed harder.
“Tell me, My Lord, what gave you the idea that when I entered your office that there would ever be an opportunity for you to barter?” She reached down to grab his wrist next, crushing and pulling in equal measure, even as her foot remained planted on his shoulder. “ What made you think that I came for anything other than hearing you beg for forgiveness? What made you think, for even a fucking minute, that I gave a shit about what you wanted?”
Behind his agonised screams, Valentina could hear as his wrist cracked, as his shoulder blade snapped, and as joints popped out of place one after another. Her hand shifted up further, crawling forward as she relished the sensation of breaking him.
“Did you think, after seeing what I did to the Duke and his son, that I would have a change of heart? That you could take out your petty little rage on what I declared is mine and then get away with it?”
She could feel the rage building, reaching a boiling point as her actions grew less and less controlled as time went on. Less patient. Less clinical. The thought of what he did. The fact that she could have stopped it if she had just done a little more. Even the fact that she was forced to let the Baroness go. Every. Single. Thing. The whole of it dredged up rage in a way that the constituent parts failed to match and, now that she could hear his cries, smell his fear, and taste his blood on the air, it was impossible for her to restrain herself from indulging in her cruelty.
She was so blinded by it that she almost missed how the man had gone limp, no longer begging for mercy or screaming in pain. No longer tensing and resisting or trying to pull away. It was enough to snap her back to the present and actually look at what she’d done. Vincent was a mess; a heap of torn flesh, spattered blood, and shattered bones. He was breathing, though barely, but the Archduchess knew medicine well enough to know that that would end soon. The damage she inflicted wasn’t the kind of thing a person survives — not without magical intervention at the very least.
It was, she considered, a particularly enlightened idea.
Without waiting for fear of the Baron bleeding out or dying of shock, Valentina began to get to work. She began to feed some of her own blood into the man, imbuing dozens of hexes and curses into him, gradually dragging him back from the edge of death whether he liked it or not. A curse to prevent him from bleeding out, another to keep his body running past the point of failure, hexes to keep his blood oxygenated and healthy and most importantly, filled with a cocktail of stimulants that would deny him the ability to lose consciousness or even so much as dissociate. And then she waited, watching as her magic did its work and, ever-so-slowly, Vincent began to become aware again. At the first twitch he made, the first sign he was fully conscious again, the Archduchess slapped him, only to grab him by the chin a moment later.
“Don’t you fucking drift off on me; you’re not allowed to do that. Now look at me —I said look at me!— that’s better.” She met his eyes now, enraged all over again at the realisation that, even after all the damage she caused, his eyes still remained healthier than Dahlia’s, and she mentally added another torment to her planned list. “Now listen closely, yeah? I want you to fucking listen and understand. You don’t get an easy way out. You don’t get to escape and fall unconscious and you don’t get to fucking die until the last possible moment. What you did to Dahlia? Breaking her to the edge of death only to suffer a week’s worth of agony? To give you something similar is nothing short of a kindness, Vincent. Did you think I couldn’t smell the traces of blood you have in this fucking room? Did you think the vampire didn’t notice the scent of years worth of torture in your own fucking office?”
She took a deep breath then, steadying herself as best she could even as the rage never stopped roiling.
“There is no room for negotiation here. No way for you to escape. The only olive branch you’ll get is that your execution will be a swift one; be thankful that I’ll only keep you alive for days rather than the years that you deserve.”
She let go of him then, letting the man collapse to the ground and let out a guttural whimper and she had to catch herself from licking her lips at the sound. There was an urge that kept begging for her to pay attention to that; the scent of blood and sounds of pain only grew more pronounced and further whet her appetite, but she stamped down on the urge. Violence, she could accept. Cruelty, for someone who deserved it. But the instinct to feed? She refused to humour it, even as the continuous whimpers endlessly added to her thirst. She sighed then, walking over to the table and collecting the half emptied bottle of brandy that lay on its side, taking a long drink before returning to crouch before the Baron.
“Tell me, Vincent, would you prefer having every bone in your body shattered beyond recognition first, or would you rather have your skin flensed?” She took another long drink before smiling wide at the man, “Don’t worry, we’ve got plenty of time so I’m sure we’ll get around to both.”