Chapter One
“Sebastian!”
The scream tore through the night, raw with terror.
Sebastian’s head snapped up, every sense suddenly alert. A child’s voice. Calling his name. The brass beneath his skin heated instantly, a liquid warmth that spread from his collar down through his chest.
He’d been prowling the settlement’s outer boundaries, testing the limits of his freedom in the moonlight. Three weeks since the council had reluctantly granted him residence in the eastern caves; three weeks of cautious liberty after nearly a month bound in the Heart Tree’s chamber while its magic transformed his father’s mechanical improvements into something new. Something neither vampire nor orc. As far as any of them knew, he was something that had never been seen before.
He moved without conscious decision, rushing toward the cry like a predator to fresh blood.
The hunger, he constantly fought to control, surged with violent force. It always did when he sensed fear. His fangs lengthened reflexively, saliva flooding his mouth with the remembered taste of terror-laced blood. Two days since he’d last fed. Too long.
The brass beneath his skin had once regulated his feeding cycles with mechanical precision - exactly six point four ounces of processed blood every thirty six hours. But the Heart Tree’s magic had stripped away those regulators, leaving himwith hunger that grew increasingly unpredictable. His vision sharpened to predatory focus, colors fading as movement became more pronounced. His muscles tensed with the need to hunt, to chase, to feed. First warning signs that control was slipping.
But beneath the hunger came something else; a recognition that cut through predatory instinct. That particular quality of fear, the specific pitch of nightmare terror. He knew it. Had lived it. Had screamed that same way so many times when strapped to his father’s improvement table.
He was across the settlement boundary before he realized he’d moved, boots silent on packed earth as he raced between sleeping dwellings. The watch horn blared behind him, urgent and sharp. Guards shouted, weapons rattling as they scrambled to intercept. Too slow. Much too slow. After what the Heart Tree had done to him, he moved faster than anything alive.
He followed the sound through the outer ring of warrior dwellings, past the central gathering area with its massive Heart Tree, toward the inner circle where those needing greatest protection lived. The small dwelling appeared ahead, set apart from others, positioned where healers could easily access it. The council had placed the rescued human child there deliberately, close enough to guard, far enough from others should she prove dangerous in ways they didn’t yet understand.
Sebastian didn’t pause at the threshold. He pushed through the doorway, sending the door crashing back against the wall. Women scattered before him with strangled cries, their faces transforming from concern to horror as they recognized what had entered their home.
His senses locked onto the small figure thrashing on a narrow cot. Dark hair matted with sweat. Small fists clenched around a wooden doll. Her body arched against invisible restraints as nightmare held her in its grip.
Her scent pulled at him, sweet child-blood, terror-sweat, and something else that made his hunger roar. The citadel’s mark. His father’s laboratories left chemical traces that clung to the skin for months. Traces only another vampire would recognize.
He knew this child. The human girl Boarstaff’s warriors had rescued from his father’s citadel last month, following Sebastian’s instructions. The one he’d temporarily claimed as his own to protect from his brother Zarek’s immediate hunger. She’d been scheduled for improvement; brass integration that would have gradually replaced her natural functions with mechanical precision. Sebastian had helped the orcs save her, though his motivations had been more about sabotaging his father’s plans than saving one small human.
Prey, his instincts screamed. Perfect prey. The hunger clawed at his insides, demanding satisfaction.
But the sight of her small body fighting against nightmare restraints dragged up buried memories. The table. The straps. The first cut. His father standing over him, face impassive as technicians worked brass into raw flesh.
Sebastian moved before the women could stop him, scooping the child into his arms in one fluid motion. She felt impossibly light against his chest, all fragile bones, and paper-thin skin. His arms tightened around her; protective rather than predatory, though the distinction felt paper-thin.
He was out the door before anyone could stop him, the child and her wooden doll clutched against his chest. Night air cooled the sweat on his face as he carried her toward the center of the settlement where the communal fire pit still glowed with dying embers.
Sebastian knelt on the ground, cradling her as she whimpered and fought the horrors in her dreams. The firelightcaught the tear tracks on her cheeks, the trembling of her lips as she called out again, softer, but still his name.
“Sebastian… please…”
“Wake up,” he said, the gentleness in his voice surprising even him. “You’re safe.”
Her eyes flew open, pupils dilated with terror. For one heartbeat, pure animal fear flooded her scent as she registered a predator’s face above her. Sebastian prepared for her to scream, to struggle against his grip. It would be the natural response. The sane response.
Instead, recognition dawned. The fear-scent shifted, transforming into something else entirely. Relief. Her small arms shot around his neck with surprising strength, fingers digging into his skin.
“You came,” she whispered, voice raw from screaming. “I knew you would.”
Sebastian went still. Her pulse beat against him, quick, but no longer panicked. Her breath warmed his throat in small puffs. The predator in him cataloged her vulnerabilities, the exposed neck, the delicate spine beneath his palm, the perfect weight for feeding.
But something else stirred beneath his hunger. Something that responded to her impossible trust with bewildered protectiveness. The brass at his collar warmed, responding to emotion rather than suppressing it the way his father's components once had.
She trusted him. She shouldn't. She couldn't. He was the most dangerous creature in the settlement. Yet there she was, clinging to him as if he represented safety instead of death.
“Of course I came.” The words emerged before he could consider them. “I heard you.”
She pressed closer, small face buried against his shoulder. “They were coming back for me,” she choked out. “With the machines. The brass. They wanted to put it in me.”
