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The House of Callisto was never a place made for noise.
It was erected for silence: for held breath, for footsteps that do not wish to be heard. Its walls, thick and ancient, were raised from stone blackened by centuries of endless nights. The candelabras hung from the ceiling like gilded skeletons, and the corridors had the unsettling habit of stretching longer when no one looked at them straight on. There, darkness was not the absence of light: it was a conscious presence, patient, always watchful.
Cedric had been born to rule that silence.
For years he was the only young heartbeat within the mansion. The only name spoken with unreserved tenderness, the heir whom the ancient portraits seemed to follow with mute approval. Laura and Gabriel Callisto raised him as one tends something precious and fragile... but also as one prepares that which is destined to endure beyond time.
That was why, when the change came, Cedric did not understand it. He felt it.
The mansion was the first to alter.
The servants began to move with caution, as though afraid of disturbing something invisible. The curtains remained drawn even in full daylight. A room at the far end of the east wing, sealed for decades, was opened without ceremony. Cedric watched everything with the unease of one who senses a profanation, a crack in the sacred order of things.
Then it was his mother.
Laura was still beautiful, but her body no longer belonged entirely to her. Something was forming beneath her pale skin, stretching it, claiming it. Cedric did not see life; he saw an invasion.
Something that demanded space, blood, attention.
—Come, sweetheart... touch.—
She asked him one night.
Cedric laid his hand with distrust upon his mother’s belly. The movement beneath his palm unsettled him instantly.
It was not tender; it was alien.
—It’s your brother—
Laura whispered.
—He’s come to stay.—
The phrase hung in the air, heavy, final. Like a curse spoken in a low voice.
Cedric pulled his hand away.
In his childish mind there were no miracles, no promises, no joy. Only a dark, viscous certainty taking shape within him: something was being brought into the world... and it had not asked permission.
The birth took place when the sky split in two.
Rain lashed the mansion as if trying to tear it down stone by stone, and lightning set the stained glass windows ablaze, warping ancient figures until they became monstrous. Cedric remained at the threshold of the room without crossing it, watching his mother hold that small, trembling body.
The newborn did not cry like a child. He shrieked like something torn from the dark.
—He’s horrible—
Cedric said.
The word fell cold and sharp, freezing the entire room. Gabriel stepped forward; his fangs showed without him noticing.
—Don’t you ever call your brother that again!—
But Laura did not shout, did not cry.
She only looked at Cedric with a sadness that did not belong to that moment, nor even to that house, but to something far greater. A silent, heavy sorrow, as if it had learned how to exist over too many nights.
Cedric held that gaze for barely a second. It was enough.
The weight of that sadness pierced his chest like a mute accusation. He did not know what to do with it, did not know how to carry it. So he looked away.
—Nothing will ever be the same—
His mother said. Her voice did not tremble.
—Learn to live with that.—
After that came a name: “Kieran.”
It was not announced or celebrated. It was spoken with the ritual calm of one who knows that something has been sealed forever.
Cedric did not hear it as names are heard; he heard it as one hears words that cannot be unheard.
As sentences.
Like any baby, Kieran cried at night.
But it was not an ordinary cry. It did not merely fill a room; it seemed to seep through the walls, slide along the corridors, slip into Cedric’s dreams. It made the candelabras vibrate, unsettled the portraits, awakened corners of the mansion that preferred to remain asleep.
The House accepted him immediately. Cedric did not.
One night, when Aunt Carmen was left in charge of the little one, the crying coincided with a storm identical to the one at his birth. The sky tore itself open again, as if insisting on repeating the same mistake.
Cycles repeat, Cedric thought.
The idea brought him no comfort, only a bitter certainty. He sat up abruptly, anger still hot in his blood, and strode out of his room as though the mansion itself were pushing him forward.
When he opened the door to the baby’s room, darkness greeted him first.
There was no light, no comfort. Nor was there Aunt Carmen.
The cradle stood at the center of the room, solitary, motionless, too perfect. It did not seem like a piece of furniture; it seemed like an altar erected for something he was not yet ready to understand.
The crying rose from it, raw and persistent, as though the baby knew, with instinctive certainty, that he was alone.
Cedric clenched his teeth and approached, striking the wood hard.
—Could you shut up?!—
He growled.
The baby did not respond, of course. He cried louder.
Snorting, muttering curses under his breath, Cedric lifted him into his arms. He had never held anything so fragile. So alive. Too warm for a house made of cold.
The crying began to fade, drop by drop, until it became tired hiccups. Kieran whimpered once more and then fell silent. His tiny hands lifted and touched Cedric’s face without force, without intent, without knowing.
A soft laugh escaped the baby’s lips.
Cedric felt heat rise to his cheeks. And something broke inside him.
It was affection. It was possession. And beneath both, a protective instinct that had not asked to be born.
—Be quiet...—
He murmured, though there was no anger left in his voice.
He sat on the floor without realizing it, rocking him gently, humming a melody. A song his mother used to sing when the night seemed too long.
—You’re not that ugly...—
He admitted softly.
He gave him an awkward kiss on the forehead, quick, almost embarrassed. A small, stolen gesture he did not intend to repeat.
—I’m glad you take such good care of your little brother.—
Laura’s voice startled him.
Cedric rose at once, his pride flaring like a newly torn wound. He crossed the room toward his mother, who waited in the doorway like a silent sentinel, and placed the infant back into her arms. The moment the bond was broken, Kieran stirred, woke, and began to cry anew, his wail cutting through the room like a living thing.
—He’s horrible!—
Cedric spat, turning away. He left the room without looking back.
He wanted to return.
But his dignity, or what little he still retained of it, would not allow him to.
Time passed.
Cedric would never admit it, but he carried Kieran many more times than he was willing to remember. He rocked him in the half light, made him laugh with clumsy gestures, spoke to him in a low voice when no one was watching. The little one recognized him as something safe, something his own; in Cedric’s arms he calmed with unsettling ease.
When Kieran began to walk, the fears changed shape.
Because, like all children, he grew. And with his growth, the mansion began to observe him.
Doors closed on their own in his path, as though someone invisible guarded them. Shadows stretched just enough to cover him when the sun slipped through the tall windows. The House learned his steps, memorized his breathing.
Gabriel and Cedric followed him like guard dogs, alert, tense, always one step from disaster. Laura, by contrast, watched from a distance, holding a cup of blood with studied calm.
—Children explore—
She would say, without raising her voice.
But Kieran did not explore. He disappeared. And reappeared where he should not.
Each time it happened, Gabriel and Cedric roamed the mansion with their hearts in their throats, calling his name through corridors that seemed to stretch only to mock them.
—How does a child get lost?!—
Gabriel would exclaim, on the brink of breaking.
And then they would find him.
Asleep among cushions, carefully arranged, as though the House itself had taken him in its arms and decided where to leave him.
Gabriel almost cried.
The worst came when he turned six.
Kieran returned with a sunflower torn out by the roots in his hands. Earth still stained his fingers. On his cheek there was a bite mark: a faint, reddish half moon, unmistakable.
—Mason—
He said when they asked.
He said it with joy, as if the name were a gift.
Until then, Kieran had only had Marcella as a friend: a human child, noisy and harmless. But the Kanes had recently arrived in town. New neighbors, new scents. Werewolves.
Mason was the youngest of that family.
Laura watched the scene and smiled, amused, as if nothing were out of place.
—And the bite, sweetheart?—
She asked gently.
Kieran touched his cheek, thoughtful for barely a second. Then his eyes lit up.
—He said it was a kiss.—
Laura laughed.
Gabriel felt something tear loose inside his chest. An ancient, primitive foreboding dropped into his stomach like a stone.
Cedric did not laugh, did not cry. He understood.
Werewolves do not claim with words. They claim with the body, with scent, with marks that look like games, with gestures disguised as innocence.
—He’s just a child—
Laura intervened, crossing her arms.
Gabriel shook his head slowly, without taking his eyes off the mark.
—No—
He murmured.
—He’s a predator learning.—
Laura did not know whether to laugh or cry. She had never imagined seeing her husband and her eldest son aflame with panic, building tragedies out of a sunflower and a childish bite.
Even so, she smiled.
Kieran kept looking at the flower with unbroken happiness, oblivious to everything.
Just as Kieran invited Marcella to the mansion and visited her home, he began to invite his new friend as well.
The little lycanthrope wanted to do the same. He insisted, pleaded.
But it was impossible.
The leader of the Callisto coven never allowed his younger son to cross the threshold of the Kane house. There were no explanations, only an absolute refusal.
So it was always Mason who went to the mansion. He stayed until late. Sometimes he slept beside the little vampire, exhausted after running, playing, and wearing colors thin.
Today was different; today they were outside.
In the garden, Mason sniffed at Kieran as if trying to memorize him. They ran among uprooted flowers, clumsily caught insects, laughter without limits.
When the little lycanthrope bit his new friend’s cheek again, it was an innocent gesture to him. Pure instinct.
Kieran did not complain.
But Cedric stepped forward, rising abruptly from his seat.
Laura stopped him with a single look.
—No.—
It was an order.
For Gabriel as well, who watched with barely concealed horror reflected on his face.
Chancy Kane watched, amused. She always accompanied her son when he visited the mansion. She found it relaxing: that way both mothers could talk, share trivialities, pretend at normalcy.
—Your eldest son and your husband don’t look very happy—
She commented, amused.
—Are they always like that?—
Laura sighed, tired.
—They exaggerate.—
Cedric clenched his fists. The mansion creaked behind him.
And Kieran laughed, holding a butterfly between his fingers. Alive. Fluttering with delicate desperation.
He was innocent.
And that... that was the most dangerous thing of all.
As night descended over the garden of the House of Callisto, a truth was etched into its walls, its soil, its blood: blood does not always choose. But when it does... it claims.
And Gabriel Callisto was not liking it at all.