Chapter 3 - Aching Fangs

“Cord, your lip is bleeding.”

A white-haired man informed, staring at the sliced bottom lip with worry. He inched forward and took out a handkerchief from his jacket in the hopes of wiping the dripping blood from the Master’s chin but he only waved him off.

“No, leave it, ” the Master answered as if he saw his right-hand’s intent. Blood continued to trickle down his chin and because of that, he swiped a finger along it and licked clean the sticking liquid with his tongue. “My fangs are behaving badly. Shit, it wants to sink in that woman’s flesh.”

“Hmm, you had already restrained yourself for many a year, why break that now? What changed?” the man stepped down the dais, tucked back his handkerchief inside his jacket, and lowered his body to sit in a sofa provided for him.

“What changed is that woman’s blood, Calvin. She is the owner of those blood bags I crave so much, ” Cord’s tongue darted out and swept the wounded lip in one go.

The one named Calvin lifted a brow. “How can you be so sure?” he asked, enjoying the sight before him. It was not always that he gets to see the Vitalis Master agitated and hassled. He had perfected a poker face for over a millennium, to see a little bit of unraveling was a rare sight to say the least.

“Her scent and how I feel our blood boils in sync, that’s how sure I am, ” Cord replied. “Even now...” he trailed off, lifting his chin and inhaling deeply, “with her this near me.”

The throne-like hall was located on the same floor as where Noman and Amanda stayed. A few twists and turns of the hallways may be present, but it was still close enough for him to catch her honeysuckle scent of blood. It was intoxicating his sense of smell.

“Woah, now those are words I hadn’t heard from you ever. Do you feel a strong connection with her?” Calvin dug deeper, lighting a cheroot already secured in between his lips with his personal lighter.

“No. Why would I?” Cord immediately replied with his brows knitted. “But her blood, fuck, it sings to me.” He clenched his fists against the armrest and controlled the fangs from extending even longer.

Calvin grinned. “From the looks of things, you really are restraining yourself cousin.”

“True, ” Cord nodded once. “I almost crawled on her last night... Almost tasted her flesh.”

The latter shrugged his shoulders. “Sounds like a typical vampire dilemma.”

“I am no vampire, ” Cord corrected.

“In denial again? Huh!” Calvin puffed out smoke from his nostrils and shook his head. “How many times have I heard those words?”

The Master clenched his jaw, irked. “Why do you use that wretched name anyway? Vampires are mere imaginative creations of humans based on an inconsistent bloody tale. We are nothing like them.”

Calvin shrugged his shoulders and crossed his leg on the other. “I use that word because it’s cool and because humans got at least two about us right, ” he answered initially. “And those are that we drink blood and we fear the sun. Well, except a certain someone that is, ” he hinted. “And oh! Don’t forget about humans calling us beautiful creatures, ha!”

The smugness in Calvin’s voice produced a twitch in the Master’s cheek.

“Calvin, you better return to your coffin now. It is almost dawn, ” he reminded, daring him. It was after all every vampire’s fear - to be greeted by the sun and die - but to Cord, he was immune to it. One of the many reasons why he still denied his dark nature.

“Ugh, I don’t sleep in a coffin, you know that, ” Calvin scrunched up his nose, the thought of even lying in one repulsed him.

“Neither do I, my cousin, ” Cord smirked.

And so, the latter stood up. He dusted the cigar ashes that had clung in his stylish coat and raised his head up. “You know what, a piece of advice, ” he started, “if you don’t want to revert back into your old self, get that woman away from you as soon as possible.”

Unconsciously, the image of Amanda flashed before Cord: her soul-searching brown-violet eyes, her long, sun-kissed beach hair, and the slenderness of her limbs and neck - most especially her neck. It got him on edge, but he cleared his throat and stated without missing a beat, “I will. That’s not a problem at all.”

Calvin grinned, believing him without hesitation. “Have a great day, cousin, ” he said and left the hall and its Master with bored strides.

On his way out of the double doors, he met another ‘vampire’ he knew so well: Trace, not because he was a cousin of Cord in the father’s side, but because he spelled of everyday trouble.

They acknowledged each other eye-to-eye, but neither of them dipped their heads or made a smile.

The double doors closed and Trace approached the dais.

“It is almost dawn, do you really have to call for me?” he stressed when he stopped near the sofa. He looked disheveled: his black shaggy hair tousled in every direction, kiss marks blotting his porcelain skin, and his dapper clothes uneven from partying the whole night in the courtyard.

Of course, Cord couldn’t see those, but Trace’s voice was enough to crack a look of displeasure from him. At least with his cousin’s arrival, his fangs have retracted and allowed the bleeding of his lip to stop and the wound to heal.

“Trace, do I have to clean up every mess you make?” Cord stated, his voice a little more of a growl.

“I don’t make a mess, ” was the other’s nonchalant answer.

“Oh, and what of that gay human?” the Master rebutted.

Trace let out an amused burst of laughter, remembering Noman. “Hmft! The squealer?”

Cord’s expression remained neutral, unreadable, but in truth, he was fuming inside. “You know that was not just a case of drunkenness. Do you really have to harm that man?” he asked, keeping acid in his words in the safe limits.

“He struggled when I bit him, ” Trace flipped a hand midair. “Almost alarmed the other guests. I couldn’t stand it so I had to do drastic measures.”

Though Trace couldn’t see, under the blindfold, Cord pressed his eyelids a little harder, angered by his words.

“I permitted you and your family a party. If you want to wallow in mortal blood, fine with me, but do your fucking business elsewhere! I can’t have a corpse in my estate. It raises suspicions which I - no - we can’t afford!”

And then it happened, Trace’s shadow and the nearby ones in the dais and sofa created by the excessive candle-lit chandeliers reacted in an unearthly way. Looking like blank ink with a consistency of oil, they crawled up to Trace’s legs and incapacitated him. Electric shocks like lightning severed his veins and this made him kneel on the marbled ground like a repentant sinner.

“Shit, argh!” he cried out, a sound, which for a greater part, Cord had delighted once upon a long time. He heaved and struggled to put air into his lungs, not because he wanted the life-sustaining oxygen, but because he wanted to block the pain.

Yes, pain. Dark creatures like him actually experience pain amidst a walking corpse.

And yes, air. Dark creatures like him actually still required to breathe.

In a heartbeat, the shadows disappeared along with the torturous sensation. Cord lifted it, remembering this one simpleton of a man as still his relative.

“Lucky for you, Calvin was there to stop you. Otherwise, I won’t take your transgression lightly, ” he said.

“I know! Fuck, I get it!” Trace strongly spat out, lifting his face up and giving the Master of the House unconcealed murderous glares.

“Get out, ” Cord ordered through clenched teeth to which Trace immediately did but not without shouting in his head.

“Tsk, fucking blind bastard!”

To stop his palms from trembling, he clenched them fully and hurried out of the hall without ever looking back.

In the throne-like chair, Cord released a deep breath to free all the pent up stress his cousin had caused. Such punishments were bound to happen, he knew that for a fact, but all this time, he had refrained from doing that. Since he had thrown his old self aside, he had taken upon himself to be as indifferent as possible... for his benefit and for the others.

The welfare of that woman’s friend didn’t matter to him really. Heck, not one bit of care sparked in him towards that gay human.

But the woman...

Amanda.

Throw her into the equation and his carefully-erected mask cracks.

“You really know how to cause a ruckus, my cousin, ” Cord whispered to himself. He heard the double doors tightly shut and then followed by another one opening on his far left - the servant’s door particularly.

“But then again, actually, I should be thanking you for doing what you did last night.”

He then pressed his index finger on his bottom lip and ghosted a dark smile knowing that his wine flute full of Amanda’s donated blood was on the way, brought by his most loyal butler.

“Otherwise, I wouldn’t have found that woman.”