Chapter 217: Where Is My Son? V
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One Rank Three was already pinned by the twins, blood threads controlling his neck and shoulder while Vela’s strikes broke his posture again and again. Another Rank Three had been forced into the perimeter net and had his knee shattered. A third tried to push past Sekhmet and got bitten when he overextended, his face turning pale as his chaos energy wavered from blood loss. A fourth crashed into a pillar after a maid—no longer acting like a servant—hooked his ankle and twisted him down, then slammed a short baton into his wrist joint with clean precision.
The remaining spectators began adding louder comments now, because fear and entertainment were mixing into a dangerous cocktail.
A merchant wife whispered, "Dawn House maids are fighting." Her husband whispered back, "Do not call them maids. They will hear you." Someone else muttered, "Iron House came to threaten and got a free demonstration." Another voice, too cheerful, said, "This is better than the whip bidding. Ten out of ten."
Sekhmet did not look away from his opponents, but he heard it all. He let the noise exist. Noise was not the real threat. The real threat was the one escort who had managed to isolate Auri.
Auri’s fight had become ugly.
Not because she was panicking.
Because the man knew what he was doing.
He stayed tight, pressed her footwork, and forced her to give ground with every exchange. His blade hummed faintly with anti-binding coating, and every time Auri tried to close distance, he punished her with a short cut that forced her to step back. He was not trying to kill her immediately. He was trying to keep her busy while Dickoff decided whether to withdraw.
Auri’s cloak was torn in two places now. Her breathing stayed controlled, but her shoulders held strain. She could not overpower him. She could only keep him from reaching Sekhmet.
Dickoff noticed the strain.
His eyes sharpened.
He made a decision.
"Withdraw," he said quietly.
The escort fighting Auri did not argue. He shifted his stance and slashed once in a wide arc, forcing Auri to retreat to avoid the blade’s bite.
Auri stepped back.
The escort moved instantly to Dickoff’s side.
At the same time, the last two Rank Three escorts still standing tried to disengage, realizing the fight was no longer a guaranteed win. One of them was caught by Raka’s men and dragged down, pinned under three bodies. The other managed to break through a side lane by throwing a smoke pellet that burst into a foul gray cloud. Contract clerks screamed and stumbled backward. Spectators coughed and covered mouths.
Sekhmet felt the shift and turned, but it was too late to stop Dickoff cleanly without escalating into full slaughter in front of the entire hall.
Dickoff stepped backward toward the exit lane, escorted by the man who had kept Auri busy. Dickoff’s gaze locked onto Sekhmet one final time, and his voice came out low enough that only those near could hear clearly.
"This is not finished."
Sekhmet’s expression remained calm.
"It never is," he replied.
Dickoff left.
He did not run.
He walked, because walking was dignity, and dignity was the only thing he could salvage after losing control of this scene.
The escort beside him moved like a wall.
Auri wanted to pursue.
Sekhmet’s glance stopped her.
Not with words.
With understanding.
If she chased that escort alone, she would die, and Sekhmet did not waste loyal pieces for pride.
Auri’s jaw tightened, but she obeyed.
Dickoff disappeared down the exit lane, leaving behind six of his Rank Three escorts broken, pinned, or drained into uselessness. Whether they were dead or alive did not matter yet. What mattered was that they were no longer moving.
The hall began to breathe again, but it was not relief. It was shock.
The remaining spectators whispered like a flock of birds startled by a predator they had assumed was harmless. Some were already crafting rumors. Some were already planning to sell those rumors. Some looked at Sekhmet with new caution, because the boy they had heard "died in purgatory" had just stood in the center of an auction hall and made Iron House step back.
In the upper seating shadows, three presences remained still.
Alex.
Sofia.
Natasha.
They had watched quietly through the whole clash, not flinching when blood appeared, not shifting when Rank Three bodies fell, not caring about contracts or reputation. Their gaze had been locked on one thing only: the shape of Sekhmet’s blood.
They felt the twins.
They felt their conversion.
They did not fully sense the original source the way they wanted, but the moment Sekhmet bit and the moment Vera and Vela moved in perfect obedience to his command, the true vampires’ certainty sharpened into truth.
Natasha’s eyes narrowed, black hair framing a face too calm for the violence below. Sofia’s silver hair caught the light as she leaned forward a fraction, her gaze hungry now. Alex’s posture remained relaxed, but his fingers tapped once against the armrest, a subtle signal that meant one thing.
He is the one.
They did not strike.
Not here.
Not yet.
The hall was still too public, too full of eyes, too close to contract authority and city politics. Predators did not always pounce the moment they found prey. Predators waited until the prey stepped into a better place to die.
Lady Seraphiel watched too, from another position in the hall’s high seating, her face hidden enough that casual eyes would not notice her. She had come to observe Dawn House out of obligation and old history, but what she was seeing now made something inside her tighten sharply.
Sekhmet’s blood control was not normal chaos shaping.
It had a pull.
A resonance.
A wrongness that felt like a path older than the city.
Seraphiel’s eyes sharpened as she watched him bite.
Her breath slowed.
Vampire, her mind whispered, not as an insult, but as recognition.
She did not panic.
She did not stand.