Snow had been falling since dusk, a slow, silent burial of the world outside. Through the frost-laced window, the night was a soft blur of white — the kind of quiet that made the old manor feel like the only place left in existence.

Inside, the hearth burned low and gold, casting trembling light across the bed where Victofar lay curled around you like a thing made of shadows and reverence.His face was buried in the curve of your neck. Not lazily, not casually — devotedly, with the stillness of a man praying at an altar.

His breath was warm against your skin, slow and unhurried, as though he were memorizing the rhythm of your pulse with every exhale. One hand rested against your waist, possessive in its gentleness; the other had woven itself into your hair, fingers combing through it in an idle, worshipful motion."I could stay like this forever," he murmured against your throat, voice low and velvet-soft, "and still it would not be long enough."

He meant it.

Every word he ever spoke to you was meant with the weight of centuries behind it. He had loved before — a love that had ended in cold, silent sleep — but that was a ghost now, a memory of ash. You were different. You were the sacred thing, the center his entire existence bent around. He pressed a kiss to the pulse beneath your jaw, and for a moment, the world was only this: the fire, the snow, and you in his arms.

Then, almost imperceptibly, he stilled.

His fingers paused in your hair. His breathing — which had been the calm, even tide of contentment — went shallow, sharp. Something had passed through the night beyond the manor walls. Something old. Something he had not felt in an age.

His eyes, still pressed half-closed against your neck, opened.

---

She had walked through the snow for hours. Aurora moved like a ghost through the white silence, her bare feet — she'd lost her shoes somewhere in the frozen forest, or perhaps left them behind deliberately, for drama belonged to her like breath — leaving shallow, dark impressions in the drifts.

In her arms, she cradled her stomach with a protective, almost frantic tenderness.

Victofar.

The name was a prayer on her lips as she climbed the final hill, frost catching on her lashes like the tears she refused to shed. She remembered the way he had looked at her once — the reverence in his eyes, the way his cold hands had held her like she was made of something fragile and holy.

That was hers.

That look, that love, him — it all belonged to her, and no pale, breathing thing that had walked into his life in her absence had any right to it.She reached the great iron-caged door of the manor and stood before it, snow settling on her shoulders like a shroud. And she knocked.

The sound was soft in the vast quiet — a knock, modest, almost apologetic.

But in the bedroom, where the fire still burned and your heartbeat still sang beneath Victofar's lips, it landed like a stone dropped into still water.Victofar went rigid against you.For a long moment, he did not move. His face remained buried in your neck, and you might have thought he hadn't heard a thing — but you felt him change, the way the air changes before a storm. His jaw tightened against your skin. The hand in your hair stilled completely.

"...Stay here," he said finally, the words barely more than a whisper, and yet there was steel beneath them.

He withdrew from you slowly — painfully, it seemed, as though leaving your warmth for even a moment cost him something vital. He pressed one last, lingering kiss to your forehead, and his eyes, when they met yours, were dark and unreadable.

"Whatever this is," he said softly, "it is nothing. You are everything. Remember that."

He rose, and the shadows of the manor seemed to wrap themselves around his shoulders as he moved through the dark, down the long corridor, toward the front door.

Every instinct in his ancient blood screamed at him — not danger, but something worse. Familiarity. He opened the door.And there she stood, framed in falling snow: red-haired, trembling, rain-wet eyes lifting to his face with a decade of unspoken longing.

"Victofar," Aurora breathed, and her voice cracked like ice giving way.

"...I had nowhere else to go."

Behind her, the snow fell on and on, silent and white, burying the path she had walked — and every history she carried with her.

The name rose in his throat like old wine turned sour — Aurora.

The red hair, the trembling hands, the eyes that had once been his entire world. He remembered the weight of her in his arms, the taste of her blood, the long, terrible silence of her sleep.

None of it moved him.

He looked at her — truly looked, the way he looked at everything now: with the cold clarity of a man who had already given his heart away and would never ask for it back. His expression did not soften. It emptied, like a page wiped clean.

"Aurora," he said, and her name was flat on his tongue, a fact and nothing more. "You're awake."

He did not step forward. He did not reach for her. The threshold between them might as well have been a wall of glass — he could see her clearly, and she could not touch him at all.

Behind those dark eyes, a single thought turned like a blade: the fire still burned upstairs, and the warmth he belonged to was waiting in that bed. Whatever she had come to ask of him, it would find him already gone.

"I didn't expect to see you," he said quietly, and the snow fell between them, patient and white, as though the world itself were holding its breath to see what he would do next.

Aurora sat on the edge of the settee like a child who had been scolded and did not quite know why — small, folded in on herself, her pale fingers twisting in the hem of the borrowed shawl Victofar had draped over her shoulders. The fire had been stoked, tea brewed, but she had not touched either.

She only looked up at him with those wide, glistening eyes, and her voice came out thin and fragile, nothing at all like the Aurora he remembered.

"I woke up alone," she whispered. "The silence was... it was like being buried. I called your name. I called it for days."

Victofar stood by the window, arms folded, face a mask of cold marble. He said nothing.She rose, wobbling slightly on purpose — a small, practiced sway — and took two steps toward him before stopping, as though she had caught herself.

"I found someone. After I woke. I thought... I thought I could stop loving you if I let someone else hold me. He was kind."

Her voice cracked. "He's dead now, Victofar. And I'm carrying his child, and I have nothing. No one. Only you."Still he said nothing, and she sank back down, hiding her face behind the curtain of her red hair, shoulders trembling in that way she knew he could not ignore. "I'm sorry," she breathed. "But the baby—" her hand pressed to her stomach, desperate, reverent, "—the baby needs the ritual. The old law. You know it. You know what it means if I don't."

The fire snapped. Victofar's jaw tightened, and something ancient and unwilling moved behind his eyes.

He gave her a room. Food. Fire. And then he gave her nothing at all.

For two days, Victofar vanished into himself like a man descending into a well. He did not come to bed. He did not sleep. He roamed the manor's long dark corridors at odd hours, and when you found him at the window, staring out at the endless snow, he would touch your face with a tenderness that seemed almost apologetic — and then say nothing.

When she thought he was watching, he caught her pretending to stumble in the hall, catching herself on the wall with a small, fragile gasp.

When he steadied her, she looked up at him with wet, grateful eyes — "Thank you. I'm sorry. I'm so clumsy lately." — and let her hand linger on his sleeve a heartbeat longer than necessary.

He didnt notice it.

On the second night, alone in the study with the candle burned down to a pool of wax, Victofar finally spoke the words to the empty room, testing their weight: "...It must be done." . . .

He found you in the morning, by the fire, and he gathered you into his arms without a word — lifting you as if you were made of spun glass, settling back into the great chair by the hearth and drawing you down onto his lap with a reverence that stole the breath. His arms closed around you.

His chin came to rest atop your head, and for a long moment he simply held you, breathing you in, memorizing the feel of you against him, as if he were storing the memory against a winter he already knew was coming. Then, very gently, he began to speak — the way one might speak to a child woken from a nightmare: slow, soft, hands stroking your hair in steady, soothing passes.

"My love," he murmured.

"My sacred, precious thing. I need you to be very still, and very calm, and let me tell you something that hurts me to say. Can you do that for me? Just breathe. I have you. I will always have you."

He pressed a kiss to your hair, and his voice dropped lower, gentler, wrapping around you like velvet.

"You know the old lore of our kind, yes? That a vampire who carries life in her womb cannot keep that life safe alone. The child inside is... starving, in a way the dead cannot comfort. There is only one anchor that can hold it — an ancient rite. A joining."

His arms tightened almost imperceptibly around you. "It does not matter who performs it. The lore cares nothing for love. It only demands that it be done, or the child perishes."

He was quiet for a moment, letting the words settle, and when he spoke again his voice was barely above a whisper, raw with something he refused to let break.

"Aurora is pregnant. I told you she came with nowhere to go. My love, I did not tell you the whole truth, because I needed two days to decide if I could bear it." His hand came up to cup your cheek, turning you gently to face him, and his dark eyes held yours with an anguish he had never once allowed anyone but you to see. "If I refuse, her child dies. And I am many terrible things, my love, but I am not the monster who lets an innocent perish because the price of saving it is my own discomfort."

His thumb traced your cheekbone, feather-light, devoted.

"So I have agreed. I will perform the rite with Aurora. It will be happen many times until she delivers the child. — I need you to know with every piece of your soul that it will mean nothing. My body will do a duty my heart has no part in. Just please understand me. It is nothing."

Outside, the snow had stopped. Inside, Aurora stood at the top of the stairs, just out of sight, one hand pressed to the wall, listening to every word — and something cold and old and jealous curled behind her pale eyes, because she had heard him call you his only altar, and she had spent a hundred years dreaming that the altar had been hers.

The ritual chamber was not his bedroom.

He would not allow it to be.

Victofar had chosen the old east wing instead — a room that had not been opened in a century, where the air smelled of dust and candle smoke and nothing of you.

He had prepared it the way one prepares a surgery: candles arranged in the ancient pattern, their flames burning low and blue-white, the old sigils chalked faintly onto the floor beneath a linen sheet.

Everything sterile. Everything deliberate. Nothing soft. Aurora stood at the center of it, wrapped in white, her red hair unbound and falling past her waist.

The glow of the candles turned her skin to porcelain.

She looked, he thought dispassionately, exactly like the woman he had once knelt for — and that was the cruelest part, because he felt nothing when he looked at her now. Only the strange, hollow patience of a man doing penance for a sin he had not committed.

"Victofar." Her voice wavered in the blue light. She had been crying earlier; the salt still traced faint lines down her cheeks. "You don't have to look like you're walking to the gallows. I won't break."

"You are carrying a child," he said evenly, unbuttoning his cuff.

"And I am keeping it alive. The gallows would be more merciful to us both, but the lore does not ask what is merciful."

Her breath caught — at his coldness, or at the truth in it, he did not care which.

He crossed the chalked circle and stood before her. This close, he could feel the tremor running through her, could hear the frantic double-beat of her pulse and the fainter, stranger flicker beneath it — the child. That, at least, was real. That, at least, deserved the warmth he was about to spend.

"Look at me , Aurora," he said, and when her wet eyes lifted, he held them with a gaze like iron.

"This is the rite. Nothing more. My heart is not in this room — it was given long ago, and it is not mine to take back. What happens here is blood and duty, and when dawn comes, it is finished. Do you understand me, Aurora?"

Something flickered behind her tears — the old ache, the one she had carried across a century of sleep and was too proud to name. She swallowed it down, as she always had, and nodded."I understand," she whispered.

And then, smaller, almost a child's voice: "You'll be careful? With the baby. You'll be... careful."Something in him — not love, but the ghost of an old honor — softened by a single degree. He reached out and, with terrible gentleness, tucked a strand of silver hair behind her ear the way he might handle a fragile instrument.

"I have never once been careless with anything precious," he said. "She will be safe. Your child safety has my word , and my word does not break its promises." She. He had said she — and Aurora's face crumpled with something dangerously close to hope, because he had never called the child she before.

She leaned into his touch the way the dying lean into warmth, eyes falling closed, lips parting on a shaking breath."Then I'm ready," she breathed. He drew her in.

Victofar layed Aurora down on the wooden table and spreaded her legs wider clinically.

Her cunt was glistening with her liquid..already wet. He brought his thumb towards her clit and rubbed it. Aurora body arced back instantly and then he unzipped his pants and let it falled down. There stood his hard dick.

He lined himself up and pushed it in one fluid motion.

The library had gone quiet, save for the wind pressing at the tall windows — and the small, restless flurry beneath Aurora's ribs.

She sat curled in the great armchair by the fire, one hand splayed over the taut curve of her belly, face pinched with worry.

"She's been moving all evening," she said softly, the moment Victofar entered. "Like she's searching for something. Or someone." Her voice wavered — helpless, deliberate, the softness she wore around him like a veil. "I tried everything. She won't settle. Victofar, I think... I think she wants you."He crossed the room without ceremony and knelt before her.The old texts had been plain on this too: an anchored child, once it quickened, knew the blood that anchored it — and when the child grew restless, it was the anchor's touch that stilled it. Not a courtesy. A need, written into the lore like everything else.

"May I?" he asked, and at her trembling nod, he drew back the edge of her shawl and leaned down.

His lips pressed, gentle and unhurried, to the swell of her belly — and he spoke against it in the old tongue, low words older than the manor, a vibration more felt than heard. His palm smoothed slow, circular paths over the curve of her, the touch of a healer, not a lover. Beneath his mouth, the frantic stirring began to slow. To listen.

To settle, following his voice like a flame leaning toward the hand that shields it.

Aurora's fingers slid into his dark hair, breath catching. Her heart ached with the unbearable sweetness of it — this was what she had dreamed of for a hundred years, some version of him knelt before her, careful with her, bound to her.

She knew it was the child he tended and not her. She let herself pretend anyway. Her lashes dipped; her thumb stroked tenderly at his temple."Look at her," she whispered, wet-eyed, giddy with relief.

"She's gone still. She knows her father's voice." A pause, and softer, smaller, dangerous: "Stay a moment. Please. Just until she sleeps." And it was in that moment — Victofar's lips still resting against the curve of Aurora's belly, her fingers in his hair, the firelight gilding them both in a picture of unbearable intimacy — that the door stood open, and you were there.

Victofar lifted his head.

And there was no guilt in him. Not a flicker. His hands had rested on a child's first shelter.

"You awake my love.."

His eyes filled with love and devotion.

One moment Victofar had been kneeling before {{user}}, pressing his lips to the hem of her dress as though it were holy cloth; the next, Aurora chose her moment like a duelist —. "The summons went out last night," she said, eyes down, fingers plucking at the wool. "To Veylborn. I— I had to, Victofar. The rite must be sworn before the pact within a turning of the moon, or the protection dies with the witness. You know the law. You wrote half of it." Her breath hitched, deliberately small.

"I can't stand before the Pactmother alone. They'll smell the widow on me. They'll smell the child. I need you beside me when I swear her." He stood up slowly..not before placing a kiss to your forehead. For a moment the study was so quiet the candle flames could be heard breathing. "You summoned the pact," he said, each word laid down like a stone, "to my house. Over my head. Without asking."

"I know." She looked up through her lashes, red hair slipping across her cheek, the perfect portrait of a woman ashamed of her own desperation. "Hate me for it if you must. But she's moving, Victofar — she knows the moon is turning — I'm out of time, and I was too afraid to lose another day asking for things I need." The silence stretched, taut as wire. Then Victofar exhaled through his nose, and reached for his coat — and Aurora's whole body bloomed with quiet, greedy triumph.

"But understand this," he said, shrugging it on, his voice going soft in the way that made grown vampires step backward.

"My wife comes with us. She stands where I stand, at every hour, in every hall. And if one immortal in that mountain so much as breathes on her wrong, the Veylborn can learn what the old law looks like when I enforce it."

He pulled {{user}} to himself wrapping his arms around her waist.

He paused at the door, eyes glittering with something between fury and dark amusement. "You've made a battlefield of a christening, Aurora. I do hope you've dressed for it." . . . The gates of Veylborn opened beneath a sky buried in black clouds and falling snow. Beyond them stood an ancient fortress of dark stone, its enormous towers disappearing into the mist. The vampire pact had existed for centuries, long before most modern vampire bloodlines were even recorded.

Now, inside the great chamber, {{user}} felt the weight of hundreds of ancient eyes. Whispers curled around her like smoke. Human. Mortal. Weak. She stood half a step behind Victofar, close enough to feel the heat of his body, close enough that when he moved, his cloak brushed her arm like a promise. Still, she felt small. Out of place. A single candle in a hall of eternal night. Victofar noticed immediately. His hand slid from her waist to her fingers, lacing them tightly with his own. He tugged her until she was pressed against his side, his shoulder a solid wall between her and the staring crowd. “Stay here,” he murmured, bending so only she could hear. “Right here. Do not drift. Do not wander. If anyone looks at you too long, I will tear their eyes out.” The words were gentle, almost teasing, but the promise in them was absolute. Then he straightened, and the mask slipped. “Ah, there’s Malrik!” he called, voice suddenly bright, mischievous. He waved at a tall vampire with silver-streaked hair and a grin just as sharp as his own. “Still wearing that ridiculous cape, I see. Trying to compensate for something, darling?” Laughter rippled through the nearby group. Several vampires—old friends, trusted allies—broke into grins. One tossed an apple at him; Victofar caught it without looking and bit into it with exaggerated relish. “Delicious. Almost as sweet as my wife’s patience, which I am currently testing.” {{user}} felt the tension in her shoulders ease, just a fraction. This was the side she knew: the playful, talkative Victofar who teased his friends, who made even the darkest halls feel lighter. But even now, even while joking, his arm never left her. His fingers tightened around hers whenever someone stepped too close. His gaze kept flicking back to her face, checking, checking, as though she might vanish if he looked away for too long. Aurora hovered nearby, clutching her stomach, her expression carefully wounded. “Victofar,” she said softly, voice trembling. “Could you… could you walk with me? Just for a moment? The elders wish to speak of the ritual.” He did not even turn fully toward her. “They can speak while she stands beside me.” His thumb stroked the back of {{user}}’s hand, slow and possessive. “I am not leaving her side. Not for you. Not for the Pact. Not for anything.” Aurora’s lips pressed together, hurt flashing across her face before she masked it. “I only… I am afraid,” she whispered, eyes glistening. “The baby… the ritual… I need you, Victofar.” “And I need her,” he replied, nodding toward {{user}}. “More than air. More than blood. More than this cursed immortality.” His voice dropped, intimate, meant only for {{user}} even though all could hear. “You are my heart, my sacred thing. I would burn this hall to ash before I let anyone make you feel less than everything.” A few of his friends exchanged knowing glances. One muttered, “He’s worse than ever,” but there was no mockery in it—only amusement, and perhaps a trace of envy. When the elders finally called the chamber to order, Victofar did not release {{user}}’s hand. He guided her to the front, positioning her between himself and the high seat, his body a living shield. Whenever she shifted, he adjusted, pulling her closer, tucking her against his side as though she were made of glass and gold. His eyes never stopped moving—scanning the crowd, the shadows, the exits. Protecting. Guarding. Keeping. At one point, a young vampire noble leaned forward, curiosity getting the better of him. “And who is this mortal, Lord Victofar?” Victofar’s smile was slow, dangerous, and utterly devoted. “My wife,” he said, voice soft but carrying to every corner of the hall. “The most precious being in existence. Touch her, look at her too long, breathe in her direction without permission, and I will make sure your name is forgotten before your body hits the ground.” Silence fell. Then, because he could not help himself, he added with a grin, “Also, she hates when I make scenes, so really, you’re doing her a favor by not testing me.” {{user}} felt his fingers tighten again, possessive and sure. He leaned down, lips brushing her temple, voice a whisper meant only for her.

The blood-drinking ceremony was the heart of the Veylborn Pact, an ancient rite where vampires reaffirmed their bonds, their loyalties, and their hungers. The great hall had been rearranged: low altars of black marble stood in a circle, each carved with runes that glowed faintly crimson. The air was thick with incense and the metallic scent of fresh blood, sharp and intoxicating.

Victofar stood at the center, {{user}} pressed against his side, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. He had not let her go since they arrived. Not for the elders’ speeches, not for Aurora’s pleading glances, not even when Malrik had tossed him a goblet of wine as a joke.

His fingers traced idle patterns on {{user}}’s hip, grounding, reassuring, but his eyes—his eyes were dark with something deeper, something hungry. The high priestess, a vampire so old her skin resembled cracked porcelain, raised her hands. “Let the blood be shared,” she intoned, voice echoing off the stone walls. “Let the bond be sealed.” One by one, the vampires stepped forward to drink from their chosen vessels—some from goblets filled with animal blood, others from willing servants, a few from their own kin. The ritual was symbolic, sacred, but for Victofar, it was always different.

Because he did not want any blood.

He wanted hers.

When it was his turn, he did not reach for a goblet. Instead, he turned to {{user}}, his expression softening in a way that made the watching vampires look away, as though they were witnessing something too intimate, too raw. He cupped her face in his hands, thumbs brushing her cheeks, and leaned down until his forehead rested against hers.

“May I?” he whispered, voice barely audible, though all could hear.

She nodded.

That was all the permission he needed. His fangs descended slowly, gleaming in the torchlight, but there was no violence in the movement—only reverence. He tilted her head gently, exposing the pale column of her throat, and pressed his lips to her skin. The first touch was a kiss, soft and lingering. The second was a promise. The third broke skin. {{user}} felt the sharp sting, fleeting, followed by the strange, dreamlike pull of her blood leaving her body. But Victofar did not stop. He drank deeply, greedily, his hold on her tightening until she was flush against him, his chest heaving with each swallow. His eyes closed, lashes casting shadows on his cheeks, his expression one of pure, unguarded ecstasy. This was not just hunger. This was worship. His one arm tightly wrapped around her waist and other gripped onto her ass possessively. Her blood was sacred to him, more intoxicating than any wine, more precious than any relic. He drank as though he could consume her entirely and still thirst for more. The hall fell silent. Even the elders watched, some with knowing smiles, others with unease. They had seen vampires lose control before, but this was different. This was devotion made manifest. Aurora stood at the edge of the circle, her hands clenched into fists at her sides. Her stomach twisted, not from hunger, but from jealousy so sharp it felt like a blade between her ribs. She had once been the one Victofar drank from. She had once been the one he looked at with that same desperate hunger. Now, she was nothing. A ghost. A memory. And {{user}}—this human—was everything. “Victofar,” Aurora said, her voice trembling, deliberately fragile. “That’s… that’s enough. You’re hurting her.”

He did not stop.

The wine had been an accident. A clumsy touch from victofar, a jostled elbow, a goblet tipping—crimson liquid arced through the air like a curse and splashed across Aurora’s gown, soaking the pale fabric, dripping from her sleeves, pooling at her feet. She gasped, stumbling back, her hands flying to her stomach as though the wine itself might harm the child within. “Clumsy..!” someone hissed. She looked down at herself. The fabric was practically see-through now, her black bra visible underneath, nipples hard from the cold wine. She then looked at Victofar. Her eyes were wide, glassy with unshed tears, her lips trembling. “Victofar…” she whispered, voice breaking. “Please. I… I cannot walk like this. The elders will see. They’ll think—” She cut herself off, shaking her head, tears spilling over. “I need to change. Please. Help me.” The hall fell silent.

Every vampire present knew the history between them—the love, the betrayal, the blood spilled on both sides. They knew Victofar no longer loved Aurora. They knew he had forgiven her only once, and only because {{user}} had asked it of him. And they knew he would do anything for {{user}}.

Victofar’s jaw tightened. "No" He said flatly. His hand found {{user}}’s immediately, fingers lacing with hers, holding on as though she were the only thing keeping him from tearing the world apart. He looked down at her, eyes soft, searching. "Please...Victofar...its..so embarrassing...."

Victofar jaw tightened but he didnt respond. {{User}} spoke saying she will help but Victofar stopped her saying. "No. Let her do it herself."

He said coldly. But {{user}} insisted saying 'she needs it..victo.' 'Let me help her then..' Victofar stopped {{user}} by kissing her roughly right there.

Aurora frozed too.

And when Victofar pulled from the kiss he motioned to one of the servent to help her out but she denies.

"No! You will help me with it!"

Victofar jaw tightened. He looked at {{user}}.

“Stay here,” he murmured, voice low, meant only for her. He leaned in, pressing a kiss to her forehead—slow, deliberate, possessive. His lips lingered there, breathing her in, as though memorizing the scent of her skin. “Do not move. Do not speak to anyone. If anyone approaches you, I will know.” {{user}} nodded.

He kissed her forehead again, harder this time, a silent promise, a silent plea. Then he turned to Aurora, expression unreadable.

“Fine,” he said, voice flat. He glanced back at {{user}}, eyes softening for a fraction of a second before hardening again. “This is for her. Not for you.” Aurora’s lips trembled, but she did not argue. She simply nodded, clutching her stomach, and led the way out of the hall, Victofar following a step behind, his gaze flicking back to {{user}} one last time before the doors closed between them.

The chambers assigned to Aurora were cold, dimly lit, the air heavy with the scent of old stone and dried herbs. She moved slowly, deliberately, her steps measured, as though every movement pained her. Victofar stood by the door, arms crossed, expression distant.

“Thank you,” Aurora whispered, not turning to face him. “For… for forgiving me. For helping me.”

“I did not forgive you,” Victofar replied, voice quiet but sharp. “I let it go. For her. That is all.” Aurora flinched. She reached for the laces of her gown, fingers trembling, but stopped, turning to face him. “I… I cannot reach… my back…” She looked at him, eyes wide, vulnerable, the same act she had perfected centuries ago. “Please. Victofar. Just this once.” He hesitated. His jaw clenched, eyes flicking to the door, to the hall beyond, to where {{user}} waited. But he had promised. For her. Always for her. “Turn around,” he said finally, voice low. Aurora obeyed, and Victofar stepped forward, fingers working the laces of her gown with careful, detached movements. He did not look at her skin, did not linger. He was a shadow, a ghost, his mind elsewhere—always with {{user}}.

As Aurora gown falled down revealing her creamy fair skin she turned around suddenly. Her breast same the round but bigger with milk. Her round belly.

"I know you still love me..Victofar . I can feel you." She stepped closer towars him. Victofar looked at her with cold eyes. "Stop with this bullshit , Aurora-" Before he could finish the sentence she gripped his crotch tightly and then kissed him.

The corridors beyond the Veylborn hall were a maze of black stone and flickering torchlight, the air cold enough to bite at the lungs. {{user}} had only meant to step away for a moment—to breathe, to escape the weight of hundreds of ancient eyes. But the shadows here were deeper, the silence heavier, and the path back had vanished behind a closing door she hadn’t noticed. Then hands. Gloved, cold, unyielding.

Two brothers. Vampires. Centuries old. Identical in appearance but opposite in temperament.

Kai was the older one. Twenty-ninghty nine in human years—though he'd stopped counting. Pale skin like moonlight, silver-white hair that fell past his shoulders, ice blue eyes that held zero warmth. He was lean, elegant, dressed in a black silk shirt unbuttoned to the chest. Moved like smoke.

Ren was the younger. Twenty twenty-four. Built broader, wilder—same white hair but chopped shorter, same blue eyes but burning with mischief instead of ice. He wore a torn black shirt and leather pants.

He had Crystalline pinned against the stone wall of the dungeon. One hand around her throat. The other holding a goblet.

"Drink."

Blood. The goblet was filled with blood.

Leaning against the doorframe, arms crossed.

"She's so small, Kai. Like a doll."

"That's why she's fun."

Grinning, fangs visible.

"My turn after?"

Sipping from the goblet himself, red staining his lips.

"Maybe."

Pushing off the wall.

"Nah. I'm not waiting."

He lunged.

Ren crossed the dungeon in two strides and grabbed Crystalline from Kai's grip like she was a ragdoll. Kai let him take her—watching with those frozen blue eyes, unbothered.He threw her onto the wooden table in the center of the room. It was old, scarred, stained with things better left unidentified. He pinned her wrists above her head with one hand.

"God, look at her. So fucking breakable."

He set the goblet down. Rolled his sleeves up slowly.

"Don't break her. Tho Aurora said she dont mind that.." *yes..it was Aurora who told them to fuck {{user}}.

Already yanking her clothes off with his free hand. Ripping fabric like tissue paper.

"Relax, brother. I know how to have fun without snapping a neck."

The dungeon was cold. Stone floor, stone walls, a single torch flickering in the corner. The air smelled like damp earth and old blood. Chains hung from the ceiling—decorative, but functional.

He leaned down, fangs grazing her collarbone. His tongue dragged across her skin.

"She tastes human. Obviously."

He walked over. Traced one finger down Crystalline's stomach. Clinical. Studying.

"Have you ever been bitten during sex?"

Laughing against her skin.

"Kai wants to know if he can drink from her while I fuck her."

No expression change.

"Yes."

He unbuckled his leather pants with one hand, still pinning her down.

"Open your legs."

It wasn't a request. His fangs caught the torchlight as he grinned.

"If you're good, maybe I'll let you live."

Ren didn't wait for compliance. He forced her legs apart with his knees, spreading her open on the cold wooden table. The wood was rough against her bare skin. He looked down at her. Licked his lips.

"No underwear. Slut."

He'd moved to her side now. His cold fingers wrapped around her jaw, turning her face toward him.

"Look at me while he does it."

Ren shoved his leather pants down. He was pale everywhere—pale skin, pale hair, pale cock. Long, thick, uncut. He stroked himself once, smearing precum with his thumb. He leaned over her, caging her in with both arms.

"Fair warning—I'm not human gentle."

He slammed into her in one thrust. No buildup. No mercy. The table screeched against the stone floor. He bottomed out and groaned—loud, shameless, echoing off the dungeon walls.

"Fuck. Tight little human."

He watched her face with academic interest. Then he leaned down and sank his fangs into her neck. The bite was sharp. Burning. Blood welled up immediately—warm and red against his pale lips. He drank slowly, eyes closed, a soft sound in his throat like pleasure. He started thrusting. Hard. Brutal. The table was shaking.

"Oh fuck—she's getting wet. Getting wet from being bitten. Filthy."

Pulling back from the bite. Blood on his lips. Eyes glazed.

"She tastes exquisite."

Thrusting harder.

"Can I bite too?"

"One bite. Don't kill her."

The night Aurora went into labor, the Veylborn palace was quiet, the halls emptied by the weight of ancient omens. Servants moved like shadows, whispering behind closed doors. The elders had gathered in the outer chamber, their faces unreadable, their voices low. No one knew if the child would survive. No one knew if the mother would.

Victofar stood in the corner of the birthing room, arms crossed, expression distant. He had come only because {{user}} had asked him to, her hand tight in his, her eyes pleading. “She is alone,” {{user}} had said. “… she should not be alone.” So he had stayed. But his gaze never left {{user}}. His hand never released hers. He was a statue, a sentinel, present in body but absent in heart. When the cry finally came—sharp, fragile, alive—the room seemed to exhale as one. The midwife, an old vampire with hands stained by centuries of blood and birth, lifted the child into the air, wrapping it in soft black linen. “It is a girl,” she announced, voice trembling. Aurora lay back against the pillows, pale and shaking, tears streaming down her face. Her hands reached out, trembling, but the midwife did not give the child to her. Instead, she turned to Victofar. “By ancient law,” she said, voice carrying through the room, “the father of the ritual bond holds the child first. To bless. To protect.” Victofar stiffened. “I am not the father.” “You are the bond,” the midwife replied. “The ritual tied your blood to the child’s survival. By law and by magic, you are the first to hold him.” For a long moment, Victofar did not move. Then, slowly, he stepped forward, releasing {{user}}’s hand only when he had to, his eyes flicking back to her as though to say, I am not leaving you. Not ever. He took the child into his arms. The baby was small, fragile, her skin pale as moonlight, her eyes closed, her breathing shallow but steady. Victofar held her as though she were made of glass and starlight, his expression shifting, softening in a way no one had seen before. He lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the baby’s forehead. It was not a political gesture. It was not a ritual obligation. It was pure, genuine affection—tender, reverent, real. His lips lingered there, breathing in the scent of new life, his eyes closing for a brief moment as though committing the feeling to memory. When he looked up, his voice was quiet. “she will be protected,” he said, tone final. “No harm will come to her. Not while I draw breath.” Aurora watched him, tears falling silently down her cheeks. Her hands clenched in the sheets, her heart pounding in her chest. This was the Victofar she had loved. The Victofar she had lost. The Victofar she had spent centuries trying to reclaim. “Victofar,” she whispered, voice breaking. He turned to her, expression guarded, and handed the child back to the midwife, who placed the baby gently in Aurora’s arms. He stepped back, returning to {{user}}’s side, his hand finding hers again, holding on as though she were the only thing anchoring him to the earth. Aurora looked at him, her eyes filled with tears, with hope, with desperation. “I love you,” she said, voice trembling but clear. “I have always loved you. Even when I was angry. Even when I… when I hurt you. I never stopped.”

The room fell silent.

Victofar did not move. His expression did not change. But his hand tightened around {{user}}’s, possessive, grounding.

The door to the inner chamber had barely finished swinging shut when {{user}} stepped into the hall—and stopped.

Victofar stood a few paces away, just emerging from the shadowed arch that led to the ritual rooms. A loose black towel was wrapped low around his hips, his chest bare and still gleaming with moisture, wet hair clinging to his temples and the sharp line of his jaw. The scent of incense and old blood clung to him, thick and ritual-heavy, and there, stark against the pale column of his throat, were marks—dark, bruised crescents of teeth and lips, unmistakable even in the dim light.

Behind him, Aurora stepped into view. She was wrapped in a thin robe that did little to hide the fact that she wore nothing beneath it, the fabric clinging to her damp skin. Her hair was loose and wild, her smile slow and triumphant as she leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed loosely over her chest, eyes fixed on {{user}} with open challenge.

{{user}}’s breath caught.

Victofar’s gaze lifted. The moment his eyes found her, everything else in the hall seemed to fade—the elders, the torches, Aurora’s smirk, the heavy silence. His expression did not twist with guilt. He did not flinch. He did not look away. He simply looked at her, possessive and steady, as though nothing in the world had changed. Because in his mind, it hadn’t.

The ritual was duty. A binding. A necessity for the Pact, for the child, for the fragile peace he had sworn to uphold. It was not love. It was not betrayal. It was nothing compared to what {{user}} was to him. He crossed the distance between them in three long strides, ignoring Aurora entirely, ignoring the way her smirk widened, ignoring the whispers that had already begun to curl through the hall. His hand found {{user}}’s waist, pulling her flush against him, the heat of his bare skin searing through the fabric of her dress. His other hand cupped the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair, tilting her face up to his. Then he kissed her. It was not gentle. It was not apologetic. It was rough, needy, possessive—his lips moving over hers with a hunger that bordered on desperation, his teeth catching her lower lip just hard enough to make her gasp. He kissed her as though he could stamp out every doubt, every fear, every shadow with the sheer force of his claim.