prequel to "A Lying Wake"
The crowd made it almost impossible for Shilo to hear, almost unable to but the stress of not having clear sight on any of his companions made him focus. Noise was painful, light was painful, everything was pulsing, throbbing, like the static found on all those hotel lightbox or T.V.s he had heard and seen. He was just enjoying himself, this environment, a formal party in a ballroom all dressed up amongst vampires of a higher class. This environment felt of the life he left behind, or the one he could’ve had more like. The prince was locked away in his room and kept a secret beyond the castle walls so most ballroom dances contained only castle goers like his mother, uncle and the Primogen. Even still, dancing in this way was comforting and reminiscent of home, until it wasn’t.
Overstimulating as anything could be was what just moments ago was an environment of familiarity and joy. Shattering it, the realization that he had lost sight and sound of all of his companions that he had traveled with. Arthur, Grefgor, his brother and his human companion, worse yet his dance partner was swooped away during a dance that involved trading partners. Aura was pulled away and traded for another as is the way the dance worked, so normal that Shilo barely noticed until hands that weren’t any that he was used to made their way to his shoulders.
Unfamiliarity, an unknown presence, his eye refocused, in front of him was a vampire lady dressed for the occasion. Her wrists now harshly gripped by the Prince as his breathing becomes unsteady, unfamiliar, unknown touch. He struggled with touch, either it felt wrong or he had to be in a state of wanting it, and he most certainly did not want someone he didn’t know caressing his shoulders, caped or not. His posture less straight, his stance bent at his knees and his arms shaky as he swallows his breath. “Sorry” crossed his lips as he let the woman’s wrists go once she started trying to tug away. She was speaking, but he couldn’t hear, his mind ringing a piercing noise through his skull.
His gloved hands rubbing down and up and down once more across his entire face, wiping off the mild perspiration that was forming on his skin. He gripped the side of his cape, wobbly standing up straight and ducking out of the dance ‘circle’ that wasn’t much of a circle anyway. Clacking his darkened green heels against the elegant tile, twisting between other dancers, dark yet vibrant red eye darting, looking for any features he recognized. Curly brown hair, a head full of bright dye, a dust coated blonde just slightly dirtier than his, that helmet Arthur adorned now, anything, anything at all. No such luck would grace the young prince.
Thumping, racing, a pulse he wasn’t supposed to have yet he heard so clearly. It got louder as he clattered around the other guests of this grand room. Louder and louder til his ears tuned it out, only to pick up something far more distressing. Unintelligible whispering, what sounded like snake noise, fading into words, words that he did not wish to hear. His eye settled on the direction of the voice, confirming what was once a gut feeling. A vampiric man roughly gripped the arms of his human dance partner.
Aura, who had been doing her best to stay under the radar, out of watchful eyes was now being grabbed by a complete stranger. One sharp nailed hand on her upper arm, the other around the vacant arm’s wrist. Her tan tone skin a stark contrast to this man’s pale, deathly tone, more like a corpse than the Vampire Prince himself. The dress Shilo had picked for her, a purplish magenta that complimented the moss green tones in her eyes, not excessively fluffy or big, but modest in a way he knew made her comfortable. That very dress now being stomped on the skirt end by this disturbing leech, pinning her even more whilst he whispers to Aura.
And what a whisper it was, or rather wasn’t, as the corpse-like man continued to speak a glowing haze glossed over Aura’s eyes, a thing that commonly could occur from a vampiric discipline, Dominate. The Prince was witnessing his dance partner currently being dominated vampirically, each vocal burning something deep inside him. Shilo knew this feeling, but it wasn’t the same as each time before. The beast within each vampire, his now flaring up, burning, boiling over even.
His remaining eye, the other covered by an elegantly embroidered eyepatch, widening as his pupil narrows. His gloves’ fingertips tearing as his nails became claws, piercing through the fabric. Heels louder than ever as he stomped closer and closer, picking up speed, the distance between him and her unknown as his senses hazed over in a new found rage. Everything she had told him, her past, her history with vampires, he knew she shouldn’t even trust anyone of his kind. Her experience with vampires using dominate should’ve made her fear even Shilo.
But she didn’t, she trusted him, deeply so to the point of sharing this past with him. Entrusted with knowledge that her poor parents didn’t even know, the very people she loved and knew her whole life believed she was in a car crash on prom night. But Shilo knew, Shilo knew the story of that night, of this teen girl only 17 being used as bait by her vampire slayer grandfather for a prom stalking vampire. He knew how she was turned into a nest of vampires’ favorite doll, plaything, until her 18th where she snapped out of a year long dominate and staked them all on the lawn of the manor they nested in.
Now, just in his view, another attempting to recreate this control on Aura, someone he had already decided he’d fight for to keep safe. Someone whom was close to his brother’s closest friend. Someone who had aided them in their own journey despite knowing at any moment she could accidentally, or purposefully be a meal to them. He was overwhelmed, environmentally overstimulated, emotionally overwhelmed, conflicted with guilt over bringing her into a place with so many vampires now enraged at the scene before him.
Clacking, clattering, clamoring as his shoes hit the tile floors, rushing through the crowd of people. Taking not even a moment of pause before gripping the perpetrator’s neck with a clawed hand, lifting him off of Aura. The frenzy the Prince was feeling was present on his face, but this one was not animalistic, beast-like yes, yet he kept his thoughts. Aura had landed on her backend on the floor, the dress she had joy in finding with the blonde in front of her now tossed around and slightly torn from where the man had stepped on her skirt. Sharp white fangs once seeming almost dainty and delicate in Shilo’s mouth now presented in a show of power, elongated to the point he could never simply hide them under his lip.
“I am Prince Shilo Bathory of the Ventrue Clan, True Prince of All Vampires and you have spelt your death wish by touching the flesh of your future Queen.” Shilo spoke with barely a thought behind his words, as if practiced or instinctual he had labeled Aura as something akin to his partner, likely to deepen the dread he wished to cast on this fool. Nails digging deeper into this vampire’s neck as Shilo’s grip tightened. Emizel and Theo had pushed through the crowd to see, having heard his brother bark his name and saw the crowd surrounding them.
Emizel had raised a hand in his twin’s direction, in what seemed to be an attempt to snap him out of this, but it was far too deep of a frenzy. “Shilo, dude, what are you”- his statement cut short at the swift movement the emerald coated prince made. Hand shifting from neck to hair yanking the nameless man downward. Shilo’s cape only hiding him from some of the witnesses, but not the most important of them. His teeth tearing through flesh of his own kind, the beast refusing to give the gracefulness of mere feeding. This was a killing, not a hunger, and the gore splattered onto a casualty he didn’t wish for.
Such is the way of a frenzy, a state out of control of the afflicted kindred. As he spat out the chunk of this fool’s neck, the man spasmed in the Prince’s arms, still alive. The beast had not completed its task. He gripped the man’s clothing with one hand; fingers pressed together on his free hand as he plunges it through the nameless kindred’s chest like a stake. Further he goes, ripping the still, cold, undead heart. The last blow was the rest of his neck, both hands grabbing the head as Shilo tore the remaining tissue apart, tossing the head as if he was a barrel slinging video game character.
The frenzy stopped, his knees wobbled as he collapsed, he’ll be using his cane all of tomorrow he thought to himself. The last calm thought before the agony set in, blood splattering his face, his clothing, his already torn gloves. His hands gripping the side of his face, running up to his hair, smearing vibrant blood through his blonde slick back style. His twin rushing to his side, and Theo standing behind Emizel, keeping distance for now. Next to the shaking prince sat the one witness he wished his frenzy accounted for. Her breathing erratic, blood splattered her dress but worse yet, her face had managed to be in the splash zone.
Coated in blood, she wipes off some with the back of her wrist, her mind both empty and loud. She shuffled onto her knees, trying to get close to Shilo, to comfort him, to reassure him, anything. He pulled his dark emerald cape between them, a shaky mumble being all he can manage. “go away..” his tone was full of wet disgrace as he continued, quieter now, under his nonexistent breath “I’m a monster.” As much as she’d want to, now was no time for her to fight him on this, not this soon after. That was made clear when Arthur was the one to offer a hand to Aura instead, helping her to her feet and letting her put her weight into the ravenette’s arm as she removes her snapped heels to walk better.
No one spoke a word, they didn’t need to the Prince’s quivering lip, hiccupping red tears, and the stains on their clothes was enough for them to gather themselves and leave. Emizel grabbing Shilo and carrying his twin by putting his arm over his shoulder, nodding to Theo to go on his empty side to do the same. Arthur pushing aside the gored body with his obsidian hued shoes before walking with his hands in his pockets behind Aura who was carrying her broken heels in one hand, lifting her skirt to properly walk in the other. Grefgor had been outside, now it’s clear why Shilo didn’t get help sooner.
The moment the guard saw the group he was struck with guilt, this’ll be another tally in his own book of times he’s failed his prince. But he didn’t fail, he had kept their transportation entirely safe from rigging. The transportation they now all gathered in, a ford truck, Emizel, Shilo, Theo squished into the back, Arthur in the passenger’s and Aura driving barefoot. The armored guard leaping into the back as they all drive off to whatever motel they were staying at.
