Hemlock would not panic.

Evy—“of the proud House Kaalis, not that Dregan would care to teach you about us,”—had grabbed his arm and promptly guided him away from the bustle of the party and towards a wall next to the food and drinks. Hemlock hadn’t noticed it before, but as they got closer he could make out the outline of a door tucked away into the corner, likely where the servants came and went to keep the tables stocked and to rid of any dirty dishes that might mar the pretty atmosphere.

“Come,” she hissed into his ear, her cheek on his shoulder and thin form pressed against his side. Her own outfit did little to cover her body—what was it with vampires and needing to show themselves off?—but somehow Hemlock’s seemed more scandalous than hers when paired together. Looks from nearby guests burned like acid. Hemlock swallowed down his panic and followed her into the door after a quick glance back at an oblivious Dregan. He’d never know until it’s too late.

No light flickered in the cramped hallway, but his eyes adjusted to the darkness in the span of a single blink. The walls crept as high as the ones in the ballroom, but it hardly mattered when they couldn’t stand shoulder-to-shoulder, the path was so narrow. Evy hooked fingers through the dipped collar of his shirt and dragged him behind her as she walked. Hemlock had no choice but to follow; he had no clue where they were or where to go if he wanted to say fuck it to this predicament and find his own escape that didn’t involve fangs in his neck. Trapped, yet again.

He would not panic.

Through the numbing silence and darkness, the walk felt endless. Hemlock intermittently heard the patter of servants rushing through the crushing labyrinthian halls, but even that couldn’t stay the paranoia of not hearing anything else beyond the pounding of his heart. Dregan had built his home to deter escape, Hemlock was learning. Nothing made sense, and the twisting layout disoriented him into losing his sense of reality. How far had they gone already? Were they any further away from the ballroom than they had started? He felt dizzy.

Evy’s voice cut through the quiet like a jagged dagger. “Here.” She let go of him but used her overbearing presence to trap him against a wall. His pulse skipped. Her fangs somehow seemed to gleam even in the dark as she grinned, and they slowly slid fully out of their sheaths in preparation for her next meal. The sharp ends would’ve nicked her bottom lip had she not opened her mouth.

She stalked closer. Her breath ghosted over the skin of his chest, and he shuddered. Panic. He would not panic. He would endure this, he would, and then he’d be free. But gods, he couldn’t stop the images flashing across her face, replacing black eyes with icy blue, making her loom over him instead of looking up, making her him. Teeth sunk into flesh, and she smelled of iron instead of flowers.

Thick rivulets trailed down and scorched his skin. Hemlock closed his eyes against the hallucinations and tipped his head back against the wall, unintentionally baring his neck more for her. Her noise of glee nearly sent him to the floor. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. Phantom hands on his wrists and on his face and on his hips. The world tilted on its axis despite the shield of his lids hiding it away. No. No, he would not panic. Hemlock tried wrangling it back into control, but it fought against him and threatened to buckle his knees. Thrashed like a snake caught beneath a boot. It wanted to bite, to drag him down with it by its fangs, it would bleed him dry—

The whimper he let out sounded so pathetically loud in the empty darkness. Evy’s laugh reverberated against his skin, but she didn’t let up and continued to drink. It hurt. It always hurt. Whispers said a vampire’s bite could be mind-bendingly pleasurable, or create a drugged-out fog that made you never want to flee. Hemlock disagreed. He felt each drag she took from his veins, the churn of his blood rushing to meet her fangs and be drawn to her tongue. The dizziness persisted—he couldn’t think. Spots decorated his vision. Too soon, perhaps, after Dregan had indulged in his favorite snack. Or maybe the panic chose to hum beneath the surface and bring him down unawares. The fact that his mind spun in circles trying to reason with its own perceptions instead of the blood leaving his system nearly made him laugh if it didn’t mean it was steadily slipping away from him, just out of grasp.

“Stop,” Hemlock said, or he thought he did. Evy didn’t so much as flinch. He squirmed, winced at how that ripped her fangs through his flesh, and repeated himself, “Stop. Please.”

He didn’t dare touch her. The thought never crossed his mind.

Evy paused, and Hemlock’s heart pounded from both fear and blood loss. The presence of her teeth in his neck settled on his awareness like an uncomfortable weight, a foreign unwanted invading him. It echoed familiarity. He shuddered.

After too long of the world and his thoughts spinning in circles, Evy retracted her fangs and took half a step back from him, then another as she wiped a finger over the blood on her lips and licked it clean. “Very well,” she said, “I suppose we can’t have you running off if you’re half dead from blood loss, can we?” Evy’s too bright blackened stare settled on him from beneath her lashes. Her lips were stained red. “The exit is near here, and that’s as far as I’m taking you. This is your mad dash for freedom, after all. I had nothing to do with it.” She flashed a predatory grin. “Are we clear?”

“Yes.” Anything to get rid of her. Anything to collapse against the wall for just a moment and catch his breath. She hadn’t even sealed the wound, so it continued to seep blood over his neck and down his chest.

Looking him up and down, Evy’s grin turned mocking. “Aww, you really are such a good little pet. A shame I can’t keep you for myself, I’d love to have a go at you. Or maybe have my husband do the honors. Now that would be a show to watch.” Hemlock’s horror froze him to the spot, but she only laughed and waved a dismissive hand. “Poor little pup, so easily broken. Don’t worry, you’ll be left alone. Ta-ta.” And, with a wiggle of her fingers, Evy strode off and disappeared into the shadows.

Hemlock crumpled to the floor.

**

No servants walked this way. Or, at least, Hemlock had gathered that during this particular event, their efforts weren’t concerned around an exit of the mansion. No one slipped past him as he silently broke down, head tucked between his knees and arms pressed against his skull, and no one tripped over him either. Not even a whisper of acknowledgement. He heard no footsteps, no intake of breath, hardly even an insect. He was alone.

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And close to freedom. As his body mended itself back together and wrestled back control of his mind, Hemlock started to take stock of his imminent future. Being alone had started to drive him mad after Abel had… done what he did. On some twisted level, he would’ve preferred the company of his assailant than be left to his own thoughts, his own world. But once he stepped foot out of that door… Hemlock would be well and truly alone. No Venette and Mora to drift in and out of his life and stitch him back together with kind words and gentle hands. No Abel to pass the endless time with playful banter, insufferable flirting, and the occasional made-up game they could scrap together.

No Dregan, either, though. No vampire lording over him, preventing him from growing out of the newborn stage and learning about his true potential. No forced helplessness.

No cages or summonings, no overbearing fortress of pain and misery filled with vampire fledglings like him who had no hope for a future that wouldn’t loop back in on itself again and again. No making the best out of the worst. Just freedom. Hemlock could make a new life for himself, make a home, maybe even find people willing to welcome him into their lives as a friend on the fringes. He would just have to endure the loneliness for a little while longer, only until he got on his feet and learned how to be a vampire, learned how to not be a danger to others and instead be in control of himself. Then he could start dreaming for more.

But first: getting off the floor.

Unlocking his limbs from their petrified state was an agonizingly slow process. His joints didn’t want to yield to his insistence, and when they finally did, they moved with a hesitation that he would’ve taken as foreboding if his goal didn’t stand so close. Not once did he really feel his age—whatever age that might’ve been—until this moment, with bones so locked tight they groaned with every moment until he stood braced against the wall, limbs shaking. Tired. Emotions could be so tiring.

Freedom. Just a little further, and then he would be free. Hemlock would never have to collapse under the rush of fear and adrenaline again. His heart wouldn’t threaten to burst at every interaction with another.

A quick brush against his neck confirmed that Evy’s bite had healed itself, though that reminder sent a wave of nausea through him that he didn’t need. Hemlock swallowed it down and forcefully pushed himself off the wall.

“Just stand up,” he hissed to himself, “You’ll never make it if you can’t fucking stand on your own.”

Only darkness and silence answered him. Hemlock lurched forward and onward.

Thanks to his vampiric sight, he could make out an alcove set apart from the rest of the hallway and the seeping scent of outdoors. Hemlock briefly hesitated, wondered if Evy had been telling the truth or not and if it really was a door to his freedom, but he didn’t have the time to question or doubt. Dregan would go looking for him soon enough, especially with the scent of his blood on Evy’s breath.

Just as Hemlock took a step toward the alcove, he heard it. No, felt it. The tremor of Dregan’s fury. He tripped over his own feet as he spun around, eyes wide and heart pounding. “No, no, no,” he whispered, but that didn’t erase the reality of that instinctual pull in his gut. The anger rattling the very bones of the mansion. Dregan’s fury was a quiet ordeal, but that only made its effects all the more terrifying. And Hemlock… he had become the target of that fury.

“Fuck.” Stumbling back around, he bolted for the alcove. It gave away his location, no doubt, but he didn’t care when it was so close. Hemlock pushed his limbs to move, move as fast as they could, to tap into that promised vampiric speed for just a moment and get him to and out the door quicker than he could be caught. Run.

He slammed into the wall of the alcove but didn’t stop to register the pain of it, not when he could hear the screech of bats making their way closer to him and see the doorway to his freedom right there in front of him. He launched off the wall and grabbed the handle, yanked it open, and—

Hemlock screamed. His fangs slid free without his say-so as his screams tore through his already battered throat and his knees and elbows hit gravel and grass. Sunlight poured over him, seared his eyes and skin with an unrelenting ferocity like it meant to scorn him personally for abandoning it to darkness. Faintly, he caught the scent of burning flesh. Heard the thunder of armored footsteps coming to a hasty stop behind him, felt the cool touch of grass on his cheeks as he curled in on himself. Hemlock couldn’t move even if he wanted to. The sun chained him in place for its punishment, and he could do nothing but submit and surrender.

Perhaps he should’ve been considering the dream during his flight. Perhaps the words he should’ve been repeating were those of death telling him what to look for, instead of the false promise of freedom from the lips of a scheming vampire. A pawn—that’s all he’d ever be to these creatures. They watched his agony from the side through snickers and careful distance from the morning sun’s wrath.

Hemlock’s screams died down only because he lost the voice for it, instead turning into whimpers and groans as his skin burned off layer by smoldering layer. When Dregan spoke, he hardly flinched. “Insolent fool,” the vampire lord snarled, though somehow the sound came across as dignified. “I should leave you here to die for this stunt.”

He would welcome it, despite the pain. As tears dropped over blades of grass and soaked into the dirt beneath his face, Hemlock gladly accepted that fate. Death was freedom, in a way. But of course Dregan would never allow that, because suddenly he felt hands on him yanking him back into the mansion and out of the sun—away from his only chance of freedom. He trembled from head to toe from the searing pain, so awful he no longer could register it beyond the shaking and paralyzed limpness, so he made no move to fight back against the goons dragging him to Dregan’s feet.

“Look at me.”

He feared he couldn’t, but Hemlock dragged his gaze up to meet a predatory stare. Evy stood just behind Dregan’s shoulder, a glass of whine in hand and a smirk painted on her lips. When their eyes met, she wiggled her fingers in farewell and stalked away. Hemlock couldn’t dredge up the energy to curse her, only forced himself to look to the left and meet Dregan’s eyes.

The vampire lord, his master, still had his mask on and it made him look even more imposing than usual. Or maybe it was the knowledge that Hemlock had done something he’d never come back from, like Abel had. If he had never done what he did, then he’d be back to living a life full of bliss compared to whatever Dregan had in store for him.

“I should’ve known better,” the master said, “Even the most loyal of dogs can bite their owner. And here you are, embarrassing me in my own home.” He stared down at Hemlock, who knelt at his feet with the help of the two guards holding his shoulders up. “What should I do with you?”

Licking his lips, Hemlock croaked against better judgement, “Disloyal dogs get put down.”

“No.” The master stepped away and turned his attention to the guards. “I will not reward you for this. Take him to rehabilitation, and do not leave your posts for even a second. Further orders will be sent later; I have a party to continue and a mess to clean up.”

Hands roughly grabbed him beneath the arms and hauled him to his feet before dragging him away. Hemlock didn’t know to where or how far it would be, but it didn’t matter. He closed his eyes and submitted to it all.