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I ensure Movarth Piquine sleeps, at first. So he does not escape either my presence or the gift and curse I’ve left him with.
Is that not the way of the grand deals my strain was made of? The bait and the hook, intertwined.
I can see the disease take him, the dreams growing bloodier and strange. How distant those first ones are for me now, the remnants of a world long left behind. His features sharpen, his cheeks hollow, and I leave a kiss upon his forehead for the first two nights that pass, upon his lips for the third.
And it is only when he has become one of us, when this sly strain of vampirism has fully taken hold, that he awakens. That my spells no longer hold him. That I release my acolytes from their duty of guarding him.
He charges me again, still caught in the rage of betrayal, not letting himself become aware of all that he hates.
But he is young, weak. I halt him almost as easily as before.
“You wanted your answers, hunter,” I say, and my teeth are sharp again as I smile at him. I lift him up, he takes my hand, and I run my fingers ever so gently against his cold cheek. No pretense of mortality for him. Not until we’ve come to an agreement.
He is silent, still. Fire burns in his newly-crimson eyes. He bares his fangs, then forces his mouth shut as he realizes what he’s done.
How beautiful he is, like this. How much time I’ll have to make him understand.
He lowers his arms.
“What will you do with them?” I say, as I pour myself a glass of blood. I can see the hunger rise in him, the desire with it. “I may have a need for someone keen to remove certain...interlopers from Cyrodiil. If you’d be interested.”
Still he does not speak, but he takes the glass when I offer it to him, and lets his hand brush mine. I can see how his mouth waters at the promise of blood. He will have time to contemplate all these new desires.
So very much time.
He drains the glass in reflex, then shatters it on the old stone of the tomb. I do not flinch, and his brow furrows at that.
“You wanted to learn of vampires.” I’m needling him and I know it, but oh how I want to see every sharp edge of his reactions.
There’s a line of blood on my face from the glass, and he leans in to taste it. How easy it is to wrap my hand around the back of his neck. How easy to hold him close.
“I’m glad it was you,” I say, once I’ve pulled my lips from his. “I have such hopes.”
“And more secrets.” There’s a bitterness in his voice, as deep as the sky above. No doubt he is contemplating his options. The question he now knows he should have asked: why I understood so much of vampires. Or that single sharp blow, if he believes himself fast enough for it now.
But he does not strike as we separate from each other.
He does not strike yet, I think. He’ll wait until he thinks I trust him, until he believes I’ve left myself unguarded. If his new nature does not take him first.
It remains a fascination of mine to watch how vampirism make its claim on such souls.