The Vampire Prince's Toxic Consort (BL)

“Lu! Wake up!”

It was a hot summer night. Lucius was shaken awake by Julian in the middle of the night.

He probed his eyelids open and asked in delirium, “huh? What?”

Julian was kneeling next to his bed, his hazel eyes gleaming like shattered diamonds in the moonlight, “he talked to me again.”

Lucius sat up and rubbed his eyes, “who talked to you?”

“Who else?”

Lucius sighed and asked quietly, “Are you sure it was not a dream?”

“No, because I wasn’t asleep! I was praying to him about the refugees, and then I heard his voice. It was just as last time, I can’t describe, but it was the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard.”

Lucius looked at him quizzically, “o...k...What does he tell you then?”

“He told me to go to Greendale Refugee camp to save a man. He said if I do this, one day, all of us will be saved.”

Lucius rolled his eyes, dismissing his twin brother’s “sacred inspirations” as usual. Their parents were elated about it, but Lucius always thought maybe it was hallucinations which meant Julian should see a doctor...

“Julian, why on earth would you want to go to Greendale? It’s one of the most chaotic places in this world right now.”

“If it’s God’s will, I will obey him.“Julian dithered over an idea for a second and then continued gingerly, “and...I hope you can come with me.”

Lucius goggled at his brother, “is this also God’s will?”

“No...but I want you to be with me. I always feel calmer and safer when you are around.”

Lucius fell back into his bed and sank himself deeper into the blankets, “nope. It’s too far.”

“Come on! It’s summer break. What else do you have to do?”

Lucius leered at him annoyingly from under the cover, “excuse me, do you think you are the only one with important things to do?”

“I’m with you everyday. All you have this summer is just some pool parties with your ‘friends’ and getting drunk.”

“Welp, that’s much more fun than what you proposed.”

“Stop acting like you don’t care, Lu!” Julian snapped, “why don’t you want to spend time with me anymore? You barely talk to me these days!”

Lucius was unmoved by the accusation and replied offishly, “maybe it’s because I don’t believe all your ‘oh I’m so special I’m chosen by God’ craps. Heck, I don’t even believe in God.”

“Don’t say that!“Julian’s voice was full of hurt.

“It’s true.” Lucius turned in the other direction and covered his head. He didn’t want to witness the pain he had caused, “now leave me alone to my sinful and debauched dreams, please.”

“Lu...”

“Lucius...”

“Julian!!”

“What?!” Lucius yelled as he opened his eyes and almost jumped as he saw Dorian’s inquisitive face. And his mind returned to the presence.

The rumbling humming of the plane engine and the dry air of high altitude regained their magnitude. Outside the small window, the vast landscape lay quietly under the silver moonlight. Wispy clouds floated below them, casting large, ghostly shadows on the slowly churning planet.

“You were zooming out. “The vampire remarked.

“Yeah...I do that sometimes.”

Dorian didn’t inquire further, probably not interested in his daydreams. He simply said, “we are going to land in an hour.”

“Ok.” Lucius’s gaze lingered on Dorian several moments longer, and the vampire gave him a bemused look.

“What?” Dorian asked.

“Nothing...” Lucius averted his eyes. He couldn’t shake off a thought that just came to him.

That memory...in which Julian asked him to go to Greendale with him for some God-sent mission about saving a man.

Is it possible that Julian met Dorian in Greendale?

It was about six years ago right after their 20th birthday, and Julian joined the seminary the very next year, and there couldn’t be any other chance of him meeting a vampire without anyone knowing.

Moreover, Dorian was still in exile at the time, and his mother had just passed away... Could it be possible that somehow he ended up in Greendale?

He couldn’t dwell on the speculation for too long as soon as the plane landed. And new anxiety overtook him. It was the first time he appeared in public as Dorian’s consort. He had no idea how he would be received by a bunch of vampire nobles who probably all possessed some human slaves back home and media who would surely make fun of him.

A black antique car and more than ten other cars for the royal bodyguards and entourages were waiting on the tarmac to take them to Lord Durchville’s manor. The impressive motorcade cruised through the murky forests like a disjointed train. Darkness and quietude were thicker and stranger in the rural wilderness, and trees and the lurking owls were whispering some ominous secrets.

Dorian had been reading something on his phone the whole trip and didn’t try to make many conversations, which irked Lucius immensely. Why did Dorian have to be so...unreadable and stone cold?! He was anxious enough with the thought of appearing in public!

The tension had been growing between them since their last fight, but Lucius wasn’t preparing to apologize for what he said. For fuck sake, he was the victim! Yes, it was a trap, and Lucius premeditatively used himself as a lure, but Archie fell for it too easily.

Besides, if Dorian hadn’t thrown Lucius on the side and put him in a perilous situation, he wouldn’t have needed to risk his life just to get the crown prince’s attention!

Lucius was in the middle of a self-pitying brooding when something moved at the corner of his eyes. He looked outside the window but couldn’t see much, as the forest was overgrown and shielded most of the moonlight.

But just as he was about to dismiss it as an optical illusion, Dorian’s expression changed instantly as he pulled Lucius into his arms and pressed him down. At the same moment, a blindly bright light blasted over his head, and a hot wave of air rushed over him like a deluge. Loud sounds exploded in his ear, and he could hear the screechy sound as the car disintegrated.

But before he could be scared for his life, the strong arms holding him lifted him up, and soon the light and burning heat dissipated into the coolness and scent of the night.

He realized that Dorian was carrying him, and his body was supported by nothing else other than the vampire’s arms. He looked up and saw two pieces of giant shadow looming over him, almost covering the sky, and as they flapped, it dawned on him that those were two huge, black, bat-like wings.

“Holy shit you can fly!!!” Lucius couldn’t help but exclaim in disbelief, though the wind greatly drowned his voice.

The vampire rolled his eyes as his hyper-acoustic sense obviously caught Lucius’s words. He swiftly dived into a cloud of thick tree branches and leaves like a hawk, eliciting a scream from Lucius, and landed quietly as a feather on one giant bough.

“Keep your voice down,” Dorian whispered, and his right arm held Lucius tight, keeping him from falling from the majestic elm. Not far from them, the car they were in moments ago was burning, and the guards and entourages all rushed out of their vehicles and yelled something.

“What just happened?” Lucius asked under his shaky breath.

“Someone attacked us,” Dorian said. He shrouded his wings around both of them like a cloak, hiding them in the shadows. Lucius noticed one of the wings had big patches of burned marks and blisters. Dorian probably used it to shield most of the blast as he took both of them out of the exploding car.

It must be a high-energy concentration weapon if it was capable of leaving burn marks on Dorian, which was very expensive and hard to procure. This was no regular assassination. Someone powerful and resourceful planned it.

A scream lacerated the silence. Something huge and fast dashed out of the forest and took one of the guards. It happened so fast that Lucius couldn’t tell if it was just a gasp of wind that carried the guard away. The guard’s scream was cut short as a chilling noise of bone being crushed echoed somewhere deep in the forest.

“Werewolves!” Someone shouted.

It was the first time Lucius saw a werewolf in real life. Most of them lived in the eastern region of Eternia and were believed to be much more relentless and ferocious than vampires. They had generations of feuds against vampires, yet human nations were reluctant to seek them out as allies only because they also saw humans as prey.

More giant shadows dashed out of the veil of darkness, and the vampires were ready this time. Some of the vampires changed into their beast forms. Their body grew larger and taller, sinewy muscles twined and bulged, their ears pointy like bats, their teeth sharpened into lethal fangs, and their fingers transformed into knife-like claws. Others who didn’t have the shapeshifting gifts took out their gun and fired silver bullets.

A giant black wind clashed with a similar-sized vampire beast and revealed its true form. A gigantic wolf size bigger than a strong male bull, covered in black furs. And yet there were some humanoid traits. Their back legs were much stronger than regular wolves, making them able to walk, run and jump on two legs like humans. And their front claws took the shape of five-fingered hands.

Both monsters had supernatural speed that Lucius couldn’t even capture with mundane eyes. Both tried to maul and bite each other, and blood splashed everywhere. Some vampires were faster than werewolves and were able to gain some advantage over the enemies, but as more and more werewolves rushed out of the forest, they were greatly outnumbered.

Whoever planned this did not want to leave anything alive behind.

Another long howling echoed somewhere behind Dorian and Lucius, and then another as if replying to the first one. Lucius’s heart jumped to his throat.

“There are more! We are surrounded!“Lucius was not ready to be mutilated and eaten alive by frenzy werewolves. It was surely much less euphoric than a vampire’s deathly bite.

Dorian said quietly, “hold the tree tightly and stay very still. I will try to delude them, but they may be able to see through it if you move too much.”

“Can’t we just fly away?”

“My wing is wounded. We won’t be able to make it far enough. There are too many of them. Our best chance is to hide.” Dorian said calmly and showed no pain despite the horrible burns on his right wing.

Lucius pell-mell clutched at the closest bough with all his strength.

Dorian let go of Lucius’s waist and crotched down on the bough, his giant wings spread behind him like a dark cloak. He closed his eyes and listened to the wind and the ineffable whispers between the trees. The echo of all the sounds made by any living creature weaved into a lively picture in his mind, and he could “see” the exact location of all the werewolves within 3 miles.

Five werewolves were approaching the motorcade, all trained killers, as they moved with unusual stealth for a regular werewolf. One of them was probably carrying the high-energy weapon that melted their car.

Lucius saw Dorian’s irises glow in an ominous red, and something intangible and shapeless extended from his body and radiated into every direction like the ripple on a tranquil lake. As the ripple traveled through space, strange things happened. The tree’s positions subtly changed, and the ground also shifted. It still looked like the forest a moment ago, but completely different simultaneously.

Illusory art...Lucius thought. A delicate and complex magic that some apostle vampires are proficient at. It is a powerful ability that manipulates and beguiles all sentient creatures’ sensory input in a radial range, making them see, hear, smell and even feel a different and false reality. The stronger and older the vampire was, the more real the illusion was, and the harder for the victims to escape from it. According to tales and legends, a famous ancient vampire, who happened to be one of the ancestors of the Ashdown family, was able to trap a whole kingdom of people in his fantasy reality for decades. It was almost like creating a new world.

But for most younger vampires who inherited the gift, the illusion always had some minor defects which, if detected by the target, would lead to disillusion.

Soon, the werewolves tearing the flesh off some dead vampire bodies suddenly paused, then turned and lunged at each other. They attacked their associates ferociously and brutally as if they were enemies, tearing off limbs and smashing skulls between their powerful claws.

Meanwhile, more commotion commenced in the nearby forests. The howling and screaming and trees falling from the fights echoed. Lucius saw one brown-furred werewolf stumbled into his sight, and the other dashed into him and gouged one of his eyeballs out with her claw.

Lucius tried to repress nausea bubbling in his throat as he watched the two werewolves continuously slam into each other and take away chunks of flesh, and the mossy ground turned red as their blood splashed everywhere. Eventually, both of them slowed down as they lost too much blood.

Just then, Dorian moved. He leaped off the bough and moved so fast that Lucius could only see his blurry afterimage. His ten nails extended like ten silver knives, and as he quickly dashed past the two werewolves, both of their head fell off their shoulders, and the mountainous bodies fell to the ground, gradually shrinking in size and all the fur shed off, revealing two headless human-like body.

Lucius’s mouth was open in astonishment.

Dorian stopped on his tract and wiped his cheek, and licked the smudge of blood away from his finger. He then looked up and said, “Stay here. I will go clean them up and come back for you.”

Lucius couldn’t believe his ears, “What?! Wait wait wait don’t leave me alone here!”

But the vampire was already gone.