Mr. Miller shook his head slowly and said, "You've got to be kidding me. A mere fledgling thinks they can challenge a thousand-year-old vampire like myself? Hah... that's not just foolish—it's suicidal."He stepped forward, shadows writhing at his feet, eyes burning like dying stars, as a cruel smile twisted across his pale face.The air grew colder with every step he took, and the flickering candlelight dimmed, as though the very room feared him."You have no idea what I've done, what I've become," he whispered, voice like velvet laced with poison. "I've drained kings dry and danced in the ashes of empires. You? You're nothing but a breath I'll soon forget."
The blonde vampire lifted her chin, unfazed by his looming presence. Her eyes glinted with ice, calm and calculating."You've grown arrogant, old one," she said, her voice smooth as silk but sharp as broken glass. "You mistake age for power, and fear for respect. But your time has passed."She took a slow step forward, and with it, the candles flared violently, casting her in a halo of flame. "And I don't need you to remember me. I only need you to bleed."
Mr. Miller's smile faltered for a fraction of a second—a blink, a breath—but she saw it."Interesting," he murmured, now circling her like a vulture, the hem of his coat whispering against the stone floor. "You speak like someone who's seen true death… yet I don't smell the grave on you. Who taught you to speak like that?"She didn't flinch, didn't blink. Instead, she drew a thin, obsidian blade from beneath her coat, its edge humming with a dark energy that made the very air tighten.
The blonde vampire looked at him, her smirk fading into something colder, sharper. "It was my mother who taught me never to let anyone speak to me with disrespect... and never, ever let them place a hand over me."Her voice trembled—not with fear, but fury.
"So, touch this person again, I will rip your head or heart out Mr. Miller. Do you understand me?" she said, her voice laced with venom, the promise of violence simmering just beneath the surface, her eyes locked on him like a predator ready to strike.
Mr. Miller didn't flinch—but his smirk faltered. For a moment, the centuries of arrogance that cloaked him like armor cracked, revealing something darker. Older. Uncertain.
The room held its breath.
"You speak boldly for one so young," he said finally, his voice low, almost amused—but his hand hovered just inches from his chest, where her words had sunk in like claws. "Tell me... how far are you willing to go for her?"
"As long as you're near her, Mr. Miller, and I will keep my distance—because the Queen has her eyes on that girl, and I doubt you'd want to provoke her wrath now, would you?" she said, her voice low and deliberate, like the calm before a coming storm. A smirk curled on her lips, but her eyes—cold, calculating—remained fixed on him with unsettling stillness.
The hallway around them seemed to grow quieter, as if the very walls were listening. "You know what happens to those who defy the Queen's will," she continued, stepping closer, her boots echoing sharply on the stone floor. "They don't just disappear, Mr. Miller. They become examples—silent, haunting reminders of what loyalty costs when it falters."
A draft swept through the corridor, carrying the scent of cold iron and distant fire. She leaned in just slightly, her breath ghosting near his ear. "So stay close to the girl if you must... but don't pretend you haven't been warned."
Something told me that the blonde female vampire wasn't being entirely honest about who she really was—but at this time, it was just a gut feeling.
Mr. Miller hissed, "I highly doubt the Queen is even here."
The blonde female vampire sneered, her laughter sharp as shattered glass. Shadows clung to her like a second skin as she stepped closer, eyes glowing with cruel amusement. "You're so blinded by your pathetic thirst for blood," she hissed, her voice low and venomous, "you can't even recognize the Queen when she's standing right in front of you." Her smile widened, revealing razor-sharp fangs. "Pitiful. You were never worthy of her gaze."
Mr. Miller froze. A cold pressure coiled around his heart, tighter than any hand could grasp. The ever-present hunger clawed at his thoughts, screaming to be fed, to dominate, to consume—but for the first time in years, something else broke through. Doubt. Guilt. Fear.
He stared at her, trying to reconcile her face with the truth of her words, and felt the ground shift beneath everything he thought he knew. If she's the Queen... No. It couldn't be. He had hunted for her, killed for her. He had believed he was her chosen. Her weapon. And yet—
"No," he muttered, more to the fractured image in his mind than to her. "That's not possible… I would have known."
But even as he said it, he knew it wasn't true. The fire in her eyes, the authority in her presence—it reached down to something primal inside him, something that recognized its master. A deep, ancient instinct told him she was the Queen. And he had failed her.
Suddenly, she was on him. One moment she stood still, the next she was a blur of motion, her hand around his throat, slamming him back against the stone wall. Dust rained from above as cracks exploded behind his body. He gasped, choking, trying to summon his strength—but his limbs were heavy, dulled by shame and confusion.
"Look at you," she spat, her face inches from his. "All that bravado, all that blood, and still you tremble like a dying rat." Her nails pressed into his neck, black veins pulsing beneath her pale hand. "I should end you right here."
A part of him wanted her to. Wanted the guilt, the hunger, the betrayal to be extinguished in a single, final breath. But another part—fiercer, buried but not dead—resisted. Not like this. Not without redemption. Not without knowing why.
Then she paused, tilting her head, studying him like a broken toy. "No... I think I'll let her decide your fate."
She released him, and he dropped like a stone, coughing, his knees hitting the cold floor. He clutched his throat, gasping as the hunger surged again—but now it was mixed with something unfamiliar: shame. And the sickening realization that everything he had become might have been for nothing.
"Now, Ms. Moon," the blonde female vampire purred, her voice smooth as silk and laced with dark allure, "I believe it's time I escorted you elsewhere. A more private setting would suit our conversation far better, don't you agree?"