The bloodlust was a physical weight, crushing Jade's chest, pressing him into the cold stone floor. Each gasp was a struggle, the air itself feeling thick with ancient malice. He fought to keep his head up, his glacial crimson eyes locking with the identical, yet infinitely colder, pair belonging to the man before him.
The silver-haired twin watched Jade's struggle with detached, analytical curiosity, as if observing a fascinating insect pinned to a board.
"Interesting," the man's voice was a mirror of Seraphina's—a silken, melodic baritone that carried the weight of centuries. "A human. Yet you bear her scent... deeply. And you wear our colors." His gaze swept over Jade's white hair and bare torso. "An ambitious little pet, are you? Or a failed experiment?"
Before Jade could form a retort, a new voice, sharp with fury and panic, sliced through the oppressive aura.
"Cassian!"
Seraphina stood at the end of the corridor, her form radiating a chilling fury that momentarily rivaled her brother's bloodlust. The oppressive weight on Jade lessened by a fraction as Cassian's attention shifted.
"Sister," Cassian said, his lips curling into a faint, mocking smile. "I was just admiring your new... decoration. He seems to have gotten lost. And he has the servants talking. They mistake him for me. An amusing, if somewhat... vulgar, error."
He turned his gaze back to Jade, the mockery vanishing, replaced by a look of pure, unnerving possession. "Tell me, little human. What is your purpose here?"
Freed from the worst of the pressure, Jade pushed himself to his feet, his body trembling with the effort but his posture ramrod straight. He met Cassian's gaze, not with defiance, but with the cold, analytical stare of the Void-Sovereign.
"I am no one's pet," Jade stated, his voice raw but steady. "And I am no one's experiment."
A flicker of surprise, then dark amusement, passed through Cassian's eyes. He took a step closer, the air growing cold again. "Is that so? Then what are you?"
From behind Cassian, Seraphina answered, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "He is mine, Cassian. By Vow and by blood. Touch him, and the Accord between us shatters."
The silence that followed was heavier than the bloodlust. The twin vampires stared at each other, a history of rivalry and power passing between them in that single look. Cassian's smile returned, wider this time, and far more dangerous.
"Yours?" he purred, his eyes glinting with a terrifying light. He looked back at Jade, a predator seeing new, exciting prey. "We shall see, sister. We shall see."
With a final, lingering look that promised future conflict, Cassian turned and strode away, his form melting into the shadows of the corridor as if he were never there.
The oppressive aura vanished completely. Jade stood alone in the hallway with Seraphina, the silence now ringing with the echoes of the unspoken war he had just been placed at the center of.
He looked at her, his expression icy. "It seems," he stated, "I have another vampire problem."
Seraphina closed the distance between them in a whisper of silk and cold air. The fury on her face was not directed at him, but at the space where her brother had vanished. For the first time, Jade saw something raw and unprotected in her eyes: a deep, simmering rivalry laced with a flicker of genuine alarm.
"He is my twin," she confirmed, her voice low and venomous. "Cassian. The heir to the Crimson Wing. And the single most vexing creature in all my long existence."
She turned her gaze to Jade, the possessiveness returning tenfold. "He sees you now. He sees what you are. And he will want you for himself, if only to spite me." Her cool fingers gripped his chin, forcing his eyes to hers. "You will not speak to him. You will not look at him. You will not be alone where he might find you. Do you understand?"
Jade didn't flinch. He pulled his face from her grasp. "I am not a bone for two dogs to fight over," he stated, his voice dangerously calm. The encounter, instead of cowing him, had ignited a cold fire. This Cassian was a new variable. A powerful one. And Jade's entire existence was now predicated on analyzing and conquering variables.
"He is not a dog, you foolish boy," Seraphina hissed. "He is a hurricane. A force of nature that has broken beings far older and stronger than you."
"Then it's a good thing I specialize in breaking foundations," Jade replied, his psychotic grin returning, a stark slash of white in the dim light. The memory of the bloodlust was already being filed away, not as a trauma, but as data. A benchmark for a future opponent.
He looked down the empty corridor, then back at her. "You told me this was an empire. It seems the first battle for the throne isn't at the top of the Tower." He took a step towards the bath, his exhaustion seemingly burned away by this new, more immediate threat. "It's right here in your house."
He left her standing there, the truth of his words hanging in the air between them. The game had changed. The hunt was no longer just vertical. It was now horizontal, intimate, and vicious.
And Jade, the Void-Sovereign, was just beginning to learn the rules.