Gentle hands shook Titus awake. With his transformation completed during the carriage ride, he had rested away the afternoon in luxury.

“Titus, awaken, my Salvator!”

His eyes opened to find Diana standing over his bed, radiantly youthful as the day the two had met. Titus smiled. He could not imagine his life without his concubine. She epitomized Roman beauty, stern and strong with a mind to match.

“Come meet our children,” she bade him.

Ah! So they have arrived! He let out a soft groan as he stretched, reaching out every limb as he prepared to rise. “Have they settle in?” he asked with a yawn.

“Not yet, but soon.”

Another thought struck Titus and his eyes again opened, this time with alarm. “You haven’t feasted upon them, have you?” He wouldn’t blame her if she had, and she still could in these tender moments of their transformation, but Goro would have strictly forbidden her their perfect blood.

“I await what you give me in the ceremony.”

Titus nodded. Good. As much love as he felt for this woman, he needed her loyalty more than her body. He threw back the sheets, silk from far away Serica, and rose ready to be dressed. The bones in his head and face had returned to their human form. His wings had also contracted inside his body.

“The boy will feed on you tonight,” he said with a smile, revealing the true reward he had brought his mistress. “He will serve me through you.”

“Oh, Salvator,” she said, eyes brimming with tears of joy as she wrapped the under toga around his waist and hips. “I can’t believe it’s finally happened. I’m now a mother.”

“Yes,” he agreed absently. After their transformations completed, these would have status in his home but could never be his heirs. These would be heir to something greater than his life as a Roman patrician. These would trace a line for him under Goro.

Diana wrapped his toga, also silken to befit his station and trimmed with the same golden edging as his carriage. The garment was long, and she began the wrap by tucking the first fold beneath the crook of his arm.

A slave entered, a young woman from the Thracian region, bearing fresh water. As she stooped to retrieve the pan from his bedside, Titus gave her an order. “Bring the children and their mother before me,” he said without looking at the girl. As soon as she departed, he realized Diana had stopped dressing him, holding the long cloth against her mouth and hiding her expression. “What is it?” he demanded.

“I thought I was to be their mother?”

“You are. I simply meant she who birthed them. I have use of her yet.” He straightened his back and stared at the far wall, waiting for Diana to resume the dressing.

“Why do you want her?” the woman demanded, a hint of jealousy in her tone.

The blow came as soon as the question left her mouth, striking a backhand across her lips. “That’s not for you to question, concubine!” He ripped the cloth from her hands, hurriedly finishing the final wraps himself.

Diana recovered just before the slave returned, ushering the children into the room. As soon as they entered, the woman curtsied then backed out again, closing the doors for privacy.

“Did you get their names?” Titus asked. “I have already forgotten.”

“The boy is Rupert and the girl Racinda,” Diana said while rinsing a bit of blood from her mouth.

“Where is their mother?”

“Had you allowed me to finish, I would have told you, no mother arrived with the children.”

Titus knew at once something had gone wrong after his departure from the farm. “Where is Marius?” he demanded. “Where is the chief of my guard?”

“I did not wish to bother you with this before, Dominus, not while you needed your rest, but Marius did not return. Only one member of your guard escorted the children, and he returned with grave news.”

“Impossible…” Titus trailed the word into his thoughts. What had gone wrong? Something surely must have, to have delayed Marius. “That’s not like him. Has this other soldier given his report?”

“He awaits in the peristylium, Dominus.”

“He awaits? How long has he been waiting?”

“He arrived an hour or two after you did, accompanying the children. I would have had him wait in the atrium, but he seemed low of class. This one is not an equestrian like Marius. Worse, he is merely an Omicron.”

Titus raised his hand, meaning to strike her insolence, but paused when he saw two pairs of bloodshot eyes staring up at him. The effects of his blessing were wearing off, and they would need to consume sanguis very soon. Other than that, they seemed unaffected by their sudden change of surroundings. No doubt they stood listening to Goro speaking in their minds, teaching them the history of their new bloodline.

“Keep them here,” he commanded his concubine, then stormed from the bedroom.

The peristylium was an open courtyard in Roman homes, meant to be a relaxing aesthetic to complete the domus, combining the surrounding rows of porches and their columns. But that was in Rome. In Aventicum, where temperatures were much cooler than along the Mediterranean, the area received little use. Other than to view colorfully potted flowers and carefully cut grasses, this courtyard was best experienced behind glass windows or closed shutters.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Titus stepped outside, immediately recognizing the soldier, but struggled to remember the man’s name. “You’re freshly turned, are you not?” he demanded. This could still be called a man, even if barely achieving his Omicron form. The only thing lowlier would be a voltur.

The soldier leapt from his chair and dropped to one knee, crossing right arm across his heart in salute “Correct, Salvator. I pledged under the last moon.”

Titus eyed the evening sky, thankful the sun had dipped low enough to make this conversation more bearable on his skin. He would still be vulnerable to its light for several more days. “Well, spit it out, then. What went wrong? Where is Marius and the others?”

“We did as you commanded, we beat the farmer until Captain deemed him dead.”

Titus listened carefully. Beat him until deemed dead. “What went wrong?” So much of the story seemed unlike his captain.

The man shrugged. “We dragged him into the forest and left the body where no passerby would stumble upon or suspect trouble within the home.”

“You beat him, but no one thought to drain an artery or sever his head?”

This confused the soldier. “I don’t understand, Salvator.”

“I’m shocked Marius failed to recognize the farmer as dragonkind. Why would Marius have believed a simple beating would have been sufficient?”

The soldier frowned and shrugged. “He was anxious, Dominus, to return to the village one more time.”

Titus froze. “He returned to the village?”

“No, Salvator, I did.”

“So you didn’t wait out the afternoon at the hovel?”

“No sir. The captain had met a girl the night before, a local gal, and wanted another run at her. He arrived just before nightfall, but had forgotten his sword. He sent me to fetch it, gave me his horse to do so, since I’m only of the first centuriate class.”

“After you returned what did you find? Where were Marius and the others?”

“He had left the woman a mess, bled her completely drained of sanguis, and didn’t bother to hide the body. It was broad daylight and I had to wait around till dark to remove it.”

“Impossible! Marius would not give in to bloodlust!” My captain controls his urges, Titus thought, ignoring his own primordial release.

“I got back late. By the time I returned to the hovel, Marius and the entire honor guard had been killed, cut into pieces.”

“Who did such a thing?”

“The farmer, Salvator, he didn’t die. He was tougher, somehow, then we expected. He awakened later, wielding iron and attacked our squad from behind.”

“Dragonkind don’t use weapons to kill. They don’t need to! The practice is beneath them, preferring their teeth and claws.” Titus paused. Something in this man’s story lacked truthfulness. “How is it,” he asked, “that you survived when the others did not?”

“By the time I returned, the farmer had buried both children and his wife. He had already gone off somewhere. I had no trail to follow.”

“Yet you claim to know it was the farmer who killed Marius and the others?”

“Yes, Salvator.”

The vampure moved quickly, faster than his guardsman could anticipate, grabbing the centurion’s throat with one hand while gripping his stomach with the other. The noble vampure could feel sanguis still bloating this Omicron’s digestive organs. “You’ve feasted,” Titus accused. “When?”

“No, Salvator!” the man lied.

“When you went back for Marius’ sword, you did not find the woman drained. Marius would never be so sloppy! I think you found her perfectly whole and wasted the afternoon violating my orders, feasting, while your comrades died!”

The guilty eyes of the soldier confirmed the accusation. “I’m sorry, Salvator. Please forgive me.”

“And when you returned, you were too bloated and sore to fight the farmer, so you watched as he buried the bodies, didn’t you? That’s how you knew where to find them. Then you waited, watching him to leave instead of finishing the only job I left you behind to do.”

“You are right, Salvator. I couldn’t fight him, not in my condition. I could barely uncover the children, but I did! Then I returned directly here and brought them to you.”

“What of their mother? Why didn’t you uncover her, as well?”

“More iron, Salvator. The farmer buried her with it, and it halted her transformation.”

“I see. Despite your weakened state, you managed to bury the girl from the village, dug up both children and the mother in the woods? You honored me by hiding all evidence of our existence?”

“Yes, Salvator!”

“What of Marius and my honor guard? Did you have the energy to bury them, or are they exposed, burned all day in the sun and revealing our secrets to the entire village?”

The man’s expression, his intense guilt and sudden remorse, confirmed Titus’ assumptions. At least he had the truth of it, but now a dragonkind was making his way here and was probably close if not inside the city by now.

“As your Salvator, what is my chief responsibility over my legion?”

“You serve as magistrate, my lord, to reward or judge your legion according to our worthiness, ensuring each form behaves accordingly as noble vampure.”

“And you have not acted nobly,” the Salvator judged. He twisted his hand just slightly, snapping the neck of his soldier.

The sinner slumped to the ground, a victim to primordial bloodlust. Fate sealed, this guardsman would not die, not from a broken neck. He would be demoted, denied sanguis as his body healed. The Omicron form would stagnate and revert to that of voltur.

Goro’s bloodline could not act like savages, killing indiscriminately, feasting without permission, or satiating the lusts of flesh—the most common ways by which lesser forms were demoted. Rarely did a higher form behave so badly, especially among the nobles. All those from Beta to Lambda had achieved their rank by deeds, their worthiness determined by their Salvator.

Of course, it was no crime to kill humans, to drain them once in a while as long as certain rules are followed. But vampure should only do so with careful measure, minimizing the impact on human society. Even worse was to draw notice to the existence of the legion and its leadership. That had only occurred a handful of times in history, and each had been dealt with swiftly.

Titus had not realized Diana had followed him into the courtyard. She ignored the heap at his feet. “Everyone is assembled, Salvator.”

“Alert my legion. A dragonkind makes his way here. A young one. I want him captured but not drained. Preserve his blood intact. I intend to gift him to Goro.”

“Is he the father of our children?” Diana asked.

“He was, until tonight.”

“And their mother?”

“Dead. You are their mother.”

The concubine smiled broadly. “Your legion awaits their Salvator.”