Chapter 9: Food

Aria couldn’t find the strength to speak, even if she had wanted to. Her head dipped low, strands of hair whipping across her face as the horse galloped faster, the wind battering her cheeks and stinging her eyes until they burned.

A grimace tugged at her lips. Her thighs and backside throbbed with a deep, raw ache from being pressed against the saddle for so long. The rapid pace only made the pain worse, but she bit down on the discomfort as her eyes narrowed—because up ahead, roofs began to appear through the trees. A town.

Her expression soured as the horses thundered through the outer roads, not slowing even a bit as they approached the heart of the town and headed straight for what appeared to be a large inn—a sprawling stone inn with red shutters and, clearly familiar to them. They’d been here before.

But what caught her attention most was not the building itself—it was the faces of the vampires around her. Even with the hoods pulled low over their heads, she could see the angry red welts swelling on their pale skin. The sky had begun to brighten, and a faint sliver of sunlight was just now slipping through the thinning clouds. They were burning.

"Get in," the cold voice behind her barked. She felt herself being lifted, weightless for a moment like a doll caught in a gust of wind. Her feet hit the ground before she even registered that Zyren had dismounted.

Aria yanked herself out of his grip with all the stubbornness left in her, only to stumble her limbs barely obeyed her. Her leg muscles were stiff, numb, almost useless. It was like trying to run in a dream.

"We’ll rest here," Zyren announced calmly as Aria tugged at the folds of her skirts, frantically smoothing the rumpled fabric down to her ankles. Only when every inch of skin was concealed again did she let out a silent breath. She had been raised in a village where modesty was second nature, burned into her bones. Just thinking about how exposed she had been on that ride made her stomach churn.

Still fighting off the residual nausea, she barely resisted when smooth hands pulled her along and into the inn.

Inside, the atmosphere changed entirely.

The innkeeper—a stout, middle-aged man with heavy wrinkles etched deep into his face—caught sight of Zyren and immediately dropped to his knees just inside the doorway. His entire body trembled as he lowered his forehead to the ground.

"My King!" he cried, voice thick with reverence and fear.

Aria froze. The title clanged through her mind like an iron bell. Of course she had known what Zyren was. She had seen the deference, the fear in others’ eyes. She had seen the way even guards had bowed before him. But it wasn’t until that moment, when everyone

in the room fell to their knees as if compelled by instinct, that her heart began to pound.

He was no mere noble. He wasn’t just a powerful vampire. He was the King—the ruler of the Left Realm.

Her pulse roared in her ears, but even that didn’t wash out the red-hot wave of fury she felt towards him but it did increase her fear of him.

Zyren barely spared a glance at the prostrating figures around them. "Food," he commanded, his voice cutting through the thick silence like a blade. "My men require food."

"Yes, Your Majesty," the innkeeper stammered, already rising, clearly eager to obey. "I will have an assortment of dishes—"

"The people here will suffice," Zyren interrupted coolly, raising a gloved hand and motioning toward the surrounding crowd.

Before the innkeeper could utter another word, the vampire guards began to move. One moment they were still, and the next they blurred into motion—inhuman, too fast for the eye to follow. Blades clinked at their hips but remained untouched. They didn’t need weapons for what they intended.

Aria’s mouth opened, but no sound escaped as she watched the first guard seize a man near the fireplace, sinking his fangs into the man’s neck with brutal precision. The scream was cut short, replaced by a disturbing moan.

What horrified her more than the act itself was the change that came over the victims.

They writhed. Not in pain—but in pleasure.

The first resistance was short-lived, and it gave way to something entirely obscene. They clung to the vampires, their fingers digging into them, bodies pressing close, grinding. Aria’s skin prickled with horror. She had heard tales but never imagined it could manifest like this.

Gender made no difference. Men and women alike melted under the vampires’ touch, eyes rolling back, breathless, begging them not to stop.

She stood stiffly beside Zyren, eyes wide, lips parted but unmoving. She hadn’t spoken to him since the moment they left the village—hadn’t dared to—but now, faced with this carnage wrapped in ecstasy, she couldn’t remain silent.

The innkeeper still knelt nearby, though his eyes flicked again and again toward a young woman in the corner—one of the victims. His wife? His daughter? Aria couldn’t tell, but his agony was unmistakable.

"Are... are they going to kill them?" she asked. Her voice came out low, nearly inaudible. She didn’t turn to look at him, but she felt Zyren’s gaze settle on her, heavy and unrelenting.

"You speak," he said mockingly. "For a moment there, I thought you’d gone mute."

The derision in his voice was sharp enough to cut, thick with condescension, as if he could see through her thoughts, down to the bone.

She bit the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood. She should have kept quiet. But it was too late—the scene in front of her had triggered something buried deep.

She remembered her father at the dinner table, stern as he spoke to them. "All vampires are parasites," he had said. "They’re like mosquitoes. The faster they’re eradicated, the safer we’ll be. Before they drain us all dry."

Now she watched through blurred, horrified eyes as a vampire guard pulled away from a middle-aged woman, his fangs dripping with red. His eyes were glowing, bloodshot and wild, and to Aria’s horror, his hands went to his belt.

He began to unbuckle it.

The woman didn’t recoil. Instead, she clung to him in a daze, skirts already torn in half as if they were paper. He ripped her undergarments with a single motion, completely unaffected by the public setting or the eyes watching.

Aria’s entire body went rigid. Her jaw dropped, and she jerked her gaze to Zyren, expecting him to stop it. To order it end.

But he was watching too—with a faint smirk curving his lips.

Her stomach turned.

The vampire guard pushed into the woman with a savage thrust, and still, the woman clung to him tighter, moaning with abandon. Aria’s insides twisted, her trembling hands clenched into fists.

Beside her, Zyren’s smooth voice broke through the buzzing in her ears.

"Some call it blood-lust," he said, almost conversationally. "Feeding creates intense pleasure—for both vampire and prey." He chuckled quietly, clearly savoring the horror on her face, even as his red eyes burned with something Aria refused to acknowledge.

She simply stood there, seething and sickened, the image forever burned into her mind.