Chapter 53 - Vampyres (2)

“You will pay for this,” the head vampyre said weakly, causing the blood in his mouth to gargle. It made his words almost incoherent.

I said nothing in reply. There was nothing to be said, for the vampyre died as soon as he finished saying his last word.

As for the other vampyre beside him, he had died long before, not even able to say anything.

I turned back to call out to my guest who had a fearful and surprised look on his face. But before I could say a word, the vampyre went on a knee, surprising me enough to stop short what I was about to say.

“My lord,” Marius Whitewill said, his voice strange and low, mixed with a little bit of fearful surprise and respect.

“Lord?” I asked, wondering at the term.

“Yes, kind dragon host, you are now my lord since you have defeated my previous lord in battle.”

“Interesting. The notion of me becoming your lord through battles leaves me speculating as to whether or not your society is battle-oriented. You shall have to inform me of that on a later time.”

I gave Marius a sharp glance to show that I had not missed this obvious point. “You shall also tell me why you were escaping from your previous lord. Also, it is quite strange that I can be your lord even though I am not a vampyre.”

Marius gave a simple shrug, before saying, “I do not make the rules.”

“Well then, Marius, shall we have dinner?” I said, gesturing toward the seven vampyre corpses. Then I ventured a guess. “I trust you have no aversion in drinking from your own race?”

“None at all, my lord. In fact, the blood of my race's purebloods taste the best.”

“That is good to hear, Marius Whitewill,” I said softly to my retainer. “I am wanting to try the flesh and blood of these vampyres. I am quite curious as to whether or not they taste like human flesh.”

I paused briefly before continuing. “And who knows, they might turn out to be a delicacy indeed.”

I left my other thoughts unspoken, however, and only chuckled softly to myself.

Little did my vampyre guest know that he was going to be killed after my story was finished. But perhaps I might just, in some small infinitesimal chance, keep him as a retainer.

An unlikely possibility, but nevertheless quite possible.

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My dragon host.

A white haired man around six feet tall and who looks to be around his mid twenties. He had remarkable features and an impressive build with muscles that showed off his lethal strength, a strength that seemed suppressed, as if it was waiting to be unleashed at any moment.

He was pure muscle—there was barely any wasted fat on him.

And the way he moved was coldly efficient, predatory in nature. Yes, like a dragon, a top carnivore, a beast of prey.

Seeing him at this moment tearing into the flesh of my former vampyre lord, who was impaled upon two earthen spikes, it finally dawned on me that he was unlike any dragon I had ever seen. I also realized that no mere dragon could transform into a humanoid. Or was it human?

At first, I had thought the story he had been telling me was all pure lies, a design to hold my attention. But now that I had seen his transformation and what he had done to those vampyres, I realized that his story was indeed truth.

How did that saying go again? Seeing was believing...

And what had my dragon host—no, my lord—called those dragons?

If I remember correctly, he had said something about lesser dragons. So, did that made my lord a greater dragon?

It must have been true, for I had heard stories of the rare dragons in the wild being beaten easily by just a group of halfblood vampyres, let alone a group of seven pureblood vampyres. Especially if that group of pureblood vampyres had a pureblood lord leading them.

But my dragon lord had killed them all in an instant; a mere five seconds was spent on the first three vampyres and a bare three seconds were spent before the rest were killed by a field of earthen spikes that had suddenly jutted upward from the rocky ground.

When I had first my dragon lord in his lair, I was already fearful of his abnormal size; this fear was made even more so when the dragon had actually spoke in an unnaturally deep rumble of a voice.

He, the black dragon, had been well over a hundred feet tall, and his size only made his ferocious presence ever more felt, especially when those unnaturally bright and piercing green eyes of his deigned to look upon me with clear indifference.

And dare I say, some withheld mirth?

The black dragon in his human form turned to look at me, who was patiently waiting since I had finished draining the sweet blood from one of the vampyres. His piercing, green eyes met my own pair of similarly colored eyes, though of a darker and more natural hue. The indifference in those eyes made me felt like a lowly worm crawling on the ground, almost wanting to run away in fear.

But I realized that fleeing would only be a futile action when my dragon lord could have killed me in a matter of moments. He would not even blink an eye in doing so.

My life, which was obviously quite dear to me, was now in his hands.

It was an unlucky turn of the dices of fate. It was like escaping from a battlefield only to find yourself in the jaws of a monster.

My luck was a piece of shit, something shat out by a lamed donkey, especially since I had meticulously planned my escape from my coven, where I was only a blood punching bag.

Known as The Scarlet Brotherhood, that was my coven's name. It was one of the largest multifaceted vampyre covens that resided over this area close to the edges where human civilization just about stopped.

This place was close to the edges of the unexplored northern central area of Valian continent, the in-between of human civilization and the Wilds. Alongside our race of vampyres (though I was not really one since I had been unluckily converted into a half-blood by a pure-blood), there lived many various other races such as the humanoid beast tribes.

And we tended to leave each other alone for the most part, though fights did break out, but with infrequent occurrences. It was for the usual reasons that invariably resulted with neighboring rivals; territorial disputes, claims, pride, etc.

As I was reflecting upon my recent past, I was interrupted by the soft, deep voice of my dragon host.

“Well now, Marius Whitewill, I shall continue on with my story now that our appetites have been sated. I must say, though, the flesh of your kind tastes quite similarly to human flesh, a bit sweeter perhaps.”

“Yes, I agree, my lord dragon. The purebloods are a true delicacy, especially their blood. And I am all ears for your story, my lord dragon,” I said respectively.

My lord nodded at that and took a small breath before continuing where he had left off, which was well before the ten months later scene, which he had used to “wet my appetite.” He continued his story from where he had just met Lady Iona and Baron Serle inside the luxurious room.

And on a related note, I realized that there were many discrepancies in his story. Perhaps my dragon host had left out a few integral parts in his story, the parts about dragons?

It didn't matter now anyway. I knew that my dragon-host did not lie. And I would, for the most part, believe in his story. You would too if you were in his predatory presence. It was with a fear-driven belief and attention that I listened to his life story.

It also helped since he was a good storyteller, and the fact that his story was intriguing.

My conclusion was that he was definitely not a deluded dragon who thought he was a human that had reincarnated into a dragon. No, my dragon lord was definitely not deluded.