Shadows coiled and released, depositing Primus in the grand hall of his ancient palace with the faintest whisper of air. Torchlight flickered across vaulted ceilings of black marble veined with silver, and every candle in the vast chamber flared brighter the instant he arrived, as though the palace itself exhaled in relief.
His subjects were already there—hundreds of them—kneeling in perfect silence along the crimson carpet that led to the obsidian throne. Vampires of every rank: nobles in velvet and lace unchanged since the night he fell into cursed sleep, warriors still wearing the armor of forgotten wars, courtiers whose eyes gleamed with centuries of cunning. They had felt the breaking of the curse ripple through the bloodlines like a thunderclap. They had come running.
Primus did not acknowledge them yet. He walked the length of the hall with measured strides, boots silent on the stone, until he reached the dais. There, arranged like offerings, waited three human maids—pale, trembling, throats bared in ritual submission. A gift from the stewards who had kept his household through the long dark years.
He chose the nearest without looking at her face. Fingers gentle but unyielding at her chin, he tilted her head and sank his fangs into the soft warmth of her neck.
Blood flooded his mouth—rich, hot, mortal. Enough to restore strength stolen by five centuries of stasis. Enough to make his skin glow faintly, to sharpen every sense until the heartbeat of every creature in the hall thrummed in his ears.
Yet it tasted… wrong.
He drank deeply, almost to the point of draining her frail body entirely, until her knees buckled and the stewards stepped forward to catch her limp form. Only then did he release her, licking the last crimson bead from his lower lip.
It was not enough. It would never be enough again.
Hazel.
Her blood—only that single stolen drop—had tasted like starlight and summer rain, like the first breath after drowning. It had sung through his veins in a way no other ever had. He craved it now with a ferocity that startled even him.
He closed his eyes and saw her: ginger hair catching moonlight like living flame, green eyes fearless and bright, staring into his darkness as though it were home. For five hundred years he had dreamed those eyes, fragments granted by the curse that bound him. Now he had seen them awake, alive, looking back at him.
"Oh heavens," he muttered under his breath, the words half-prayer, half-curse. "Focus, Primus."
He straightened, turning at last to face his waiting court. Hundreds of immortal faces lifted toward him in perfect unison—adoration, relief, hunger for the old order restored.
"My loyal ones," he said, voice carrying effortlessly through the vast hall, deep and commanding as it had always been. "I have returned. The long night is ended."
A murmur of reverence rippled through the assembly.
"To celebrate my awakening," he continued, "prepare a grand banquet three nights hence. The palace will open its gates once more. Music, wine, every luxury we denied ourselves in mourning. And at that feast…" He paused, letting anticipation build. "I will present my bride. The woman destined to stand at my side."
Gasps and whispers erupted—shock, curiosity, excitement. A bride? Their lord had never taken a consort in all his long reign. Eyes gleamed brighter; speculation already bloomed like nightshade.
Primus offered no further explanation. He simply inclined his head in dismissal, then turned and vanished from the dais in another swirl of shadow.
Moments later he materialized in his private chambers—untouched by time, heavy velvet drapes still drawn against windows that overlooked eternal night, a massive four-poster bed carved from ancient ebony, books and artifacts exactly where he had left them five centuries ago.
He crossed to the tall mirror framed in silver and stared at his reflection: pale, flawless, powerful. The same face that had ruled empires of shadow.
Yet the rooms felt hollow.
He had missed this place fiercely during his imprisonment—every stone, every echo. Now that he was here, the palace seemed to echo with absence. The bed was too wide, the silence too deep. It was missing warmth. Missing ginger hair spilled across his pillows. Missing green eyes laughing at him in the firelight.
Primus pressed a hand to the cool glass of the window, gazing out over his sleeping domain.
Three nights until the banquet. Three nights until he could decently claim her without terrifying her fragile mortal heart.
He could wait three nights.
He had waited five hundred years, after all.
But gods help him, it already felt like eternity.