Chapter 256: The Taste Before the Vow IV
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They were dressed for motion rather than display, dark fitted clothing, hair tied back, every line of them efficient. The bond in them stirred the moment their eyes found Sekhmet. Not obvious enough for outsiders to name. Very obvious to anyone paying attention.
Lily paid attention.
Her gaze moved over them carefully.
Vera bowed her head first. "Master."
Vela followed a breath later. "You called."
Sekhmet nodded once. "We are going into the Void Land."
Neither woman questioned it.
Vera simply asked, "For instruction?"
"Yes."
That made Lily glance at him briefly. She heard the word instruction and understood enough not to ask in front of the others.
Seraphiel’s gaze slid toward Lily, then back to Sekhmet. "A proper lesson then."
"Yes."
Elena looked at Lily. "Do not force yourself past what your mind can hold. There is no honor in breaking for pride."
Lily met her gaze and answered honestly, "I will try not to."
That answer seemed to satisfy Elena more than false confidence would have.
Sekhmet looked at Lily then, fully. "Can you do this?"
Her spine straightened. "Yes."
He studied her face for one more second, long enough to be sure that the answer was not only courage speaking.
Then he opened the Void Land.
Darkness folded inward before them, shaping itself into an opening like a wound made in the air itself. The space beyond showed the familiar stillness of his hidden domain. Vast. Silent. Wrong in the way only things touched by void and secrecy could be wrong.
Lily had seen it before. But she never entered inside yet she stepped through without hesitation.
Inside, the silence greeted them first.
Then the dark sky.
Then the endless stretch of barren ground that made ordinary land feel crowded and childish by comparison.
Vera and Vela followed naturally. Sekhmet came after them, and Lily remained close enough to him that he could feel her awareness sharpen as the Void Land settled around her senses again.
They did not go toward Auri’s house.
They did not go toward the spirit leaf or the small spreading grass that had begun to challenge the emptiness.
Instead Sekhmet led them deeper, toward one of the holding grounds.
The captives there noticed them before a word was spoken.
Some stiffened.
Some lowered their heads instantly.
Some shifted backward in old fear, their bodies already carrying the habits forced into them by uncertainty, confinement, and the oppressive hush of the Void Land.
There were many of them.
Fifty men from Dickon’s failed robbery crew before the auction day. Men who had come with greed, numbers, and borrowed courage to rob him when they thought him vulnerable. Some still bore old bruises from resistance. Others had grown thin in spirit more than flesh. A few had learned that trying to posture inside the Void Land only made them look smaller.
These were not the only living things hidden in Sekhmet’s dark.
But they were enough for the lesson.
Lily slowed slightly.
Sekhmet noticed at once.
Her face remained composed. Calm even. But he knew her well enough now to see the truth under that surface. The way her fingers settled more carefully at her sides. The slight change in her breathing. The extra stillness around her mouth.
She was holding herself together from the inside outward.
"Good."
He respected that far more than if she had pretended excitement.
"This is where you keep them," Lily said quietly.
"Yes."
Her eyes moved over the captives, then stopped on one figure farther back.
Dickon Iron.
Even now, even worn down and trapped, there was something ugly in the way he held himself. Something spoiled and poisonous. He looked thinner now. Dirtier. More frayed around the edges. But not humbled. Pride had not died in him. It had simply soured.
Recognition hardened Lily’s face.
"So that is why Dickoff attacked you," she said softly. "You captured his son."
Sekhmet did not look toward Dickon. He did not need to. The man’s hatred was loud enough without sight.
"That is one reason," he said.
Lily turned toward him.
He continued, voice steady, cold enough that several captives nearby visibly tensed. "They were after me and Dawn House long before that. Dickoff’s pressure did not begin with the son. It only sharpened. I still do not know the true root of it, but I will find out soon."
One of the captives lowered his head further at that.
Let them remember whose dark they stood in.
Then Sekhmet looked at the twins.
"Two," he said.
That was all the instruction they needed.
Vera and Vela moved without hesitation, crossing the holding ground with calm predatory precision. The captives reacted at once, fear spreading through them like a spark in dry grass. Men cursed. Pleaded. Tried to edge away. Some pushed behind others, willing to let someone else be chosen first.
The twins ignored all of it.
They selected quickly.
Two men. Rank three among the captives. Strong enough to feed from. Now weak enough to control without fighting. One for each.
The chosen men tried to struggle when dragged forward.
Not well.
Not for long.
Vera’s hand locked onto one shoulder with absolute control. Vela’s grip around the other man’s throat was not hard enough to crush, only hard enough to erase any illusion that freedom was still part of the moment.
Lily watched it carefully. Her face did not break.
But the pulse at her throat leapt once, quickly enough that most people would have missed it.
Sekhmet did not miss it. He stepped a little closer to her, not touching, simply present for her.
"Look carefully," he said.
Lily nodded once.
Vera went first.
She tilted the captive’s head, exposing the neck. There was no theatrical flourish to it. No monstrous hiss, no exaggerated display of fangs like old stories told around frightened fires. Real feeding was more controlled than that. More intimate. More terrible because of how direct it was.
Then she bit.
The man jerked once, hard, a broken sound tearing halfway out of him before shock swallowed the rest. His whole body shuddered. Not dying. Not yet. Just overwhelmed by the sudden violation of force blood draining.
Vela fed a heartbeat later from the other side.
Two captives. Two vampires.
Two streams of living blood leaving unwilling bodies and entering changed ones.
Lily’s fingers curled slightly at her sides.
Her expression remained calm.
But inside, tension was moving through her. Sekhmet could see it. Could almost feel it through nothing more mystical than attention.
The twins did not kill.
That mattered.
They fed with restraint, taking enough to answer hunger without crossing into collapse. When they pulled back, both men were pale, trembling, half coherent, but alive. Their legs gave beneath them. Vera and Vela let them fall rather than hold them upright. Dust rose around their knees. Breath shook in them. Fear shook harder.
Lily watched them sway.
Then watched the twins straighten.
Vera wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of one hand, expression unreadable.
Vela exhaled once through her nose, eyes just a shade brighter than before.
And through all of it, Lily stayed where she was.
Calm outside.
Tense inside.
Dickon stared at Sekhmet from farther back with the kind of hatred that had long since ripened into helplessness.
Lily said, "They look terrible. I can see the fear in their eyes. Dickon Iron looking at you like he wants to..."
Sekhmet ignored him. He turned toward Lily fully.
"Forget about them," he said quietly.
Lily dragged her gaze away from the pale, shaking men and looked at him.
His voice lowered.
"Tell me. Can you do it?"
She was silent for a second.
Sekhmet did not let her hide inside false bravery.
"Will you be all right feeding like that?" he asked.