Chapter 10: This Young Miss Is Disobedient!
His red eyes flickered with anticipation, pupils dilating and contracting in rapid succession as he watched the woman's withered, hollow body twitch violently—far more than before.
Her limbs jerked and spasmed, fingers clawing at the air as if she was about to rise as a zombie after being bitten.
The ragged remains of her once-elegant gown rustled with each movement, the silk making soft whispering sounds against the floor like secrets being exchanged in the dark.
Then, Lucien noticed her skin—once pallid and stretched tight like parchment over her cheekbones and fingers—gradually regain a faint golden warmth, a liveliness he remembered from before.
The transformation spread visibly, like dawn breaking across a winter landscape, beginning at her lips where his blood had first touched and radiating outward in a subtle flush of returning life.
The fine blue veins beneath her skin pulsed stronger with each passing second, no longer standing out in stark relief against tissue-paper flesh but rather becoming part of a harmonious whole once more.
Even the hollowness in her features, as though something vital had been drained away, began to surge back with new vitality.
Her cheeks filled slightly, the sharp angles of her face softening as the skin regained elasticity.
The only downside was the gown: deep blue and silver, still tattered and ripped open along her arms and sides, the fine fabric hanging in shredded ribbons that whispered against each other with her every movement, revealing glimpses of plump flesh and breasts that slowly rose and fell as if life itself was seeping back into her.
Blood—his blood—coursed through her veins, visible just beneath the surface of her skin like rivers of fire bringing scorched land back to life.
But as Lucien watched this miracle unfold, his excitement suddenly froze, the glow in his crimson eyes dimming as though a cloud had passed before their internal fire.
What if she fights back now, after being revived? Lucien wondered, his eyebrows furrowing as all traces of joy vanished from his face, replaced by the sharp angles of apprehension.
He watched the twitching body before him closely, his long fingers flexing unconsciously at his sides, the dried blood on his palm flaking away like rust.
Perhaps that concern had never occurred to him before, as it wasn't truly he, but rather the primal instincts of this body that had killed them.
Nevertheless, he was now the owner of this body, so the responsibility for those deaths also fell upon him.
He also recalled, from his memories, how well-trained and skilled she was in combat.
Now, with a vampire's body, wouldn't that make her nearly unstoppable?
His tongue unconsciously pressed against one of his retracted fangs, the sharp point a reminder of his own transformed state.
That would be like fighting himself, someone with no combat experience—yet surely, resurrected vampires were meant to obey their master?
While Lucien was still pondering this, a faint, soft moan escaped from the woman—now revived—Elara.
The sound was barely a whisper, yet in the deathly silence of the blood-soaked foyer, it might as well have been a thunderclap.
"Ah?" she said, one hand rising tremulously to her temple, fingers splayed like pale starfish against her now-smooth skin.
She held her head and looked around with a gaze initially blurry and unfocused, which slowly sharpened like a lens finding clarity.
She then saw familiar maids lying on the ground in shock and fear, their bodies dried and their clothes torn, blood-spattered uniforms once crisp now hanging in tatters that barely preserved modesty.
The stained glass cast patches of colored light across their forms—here an amber glow across a withered hand, there a blue sheen on exposed bone—creating a macabre mosaic across the once-elegant floor.
This sight instantly turned her hazy confusion into clarity: her eyes narrowed as her pupils dilated with horror, jaws clenching as the muscles in her throat worked convulsively.
Then they widened as she took in the state of the butler, his body riddled with holes.
And finally, her gaze fell upon the familiar face of her elder sister, lying motionless nearby, her skin still pulled taut across her bones like a death mask.
Elara's mind froze, thoughts crystallizing into perfect, terrible stillness; then, like a crashing ocean wave breaking against jagged rocks, memories of their previous battle flooded back with merciless clarity.
Images cascaded through her consciousness—her sister's determined face, the glint of silver weapons, the blur of monstrous movement—piecing together the absent feelings and recalling how, in her final moment, her elder sister had pushed her aside with desperate strength, her body intercepting the lunging vampire's attack.
Something began to stir inside her body, something primal and ancient that she was only vaguely aware of—except for an overwhelming sense of hatred, a savage urge to kill that crawled through her veins like liquid fire.
It burned beneath her newly rejuvenated skin, setting nerve endings alight with bloodlust that threatened to consume her from within.
KILL! I WILL KILL THAT DAMNED CREATURE! she screamed internally, the words echoing through the chambers of her mind with such force that her teeth ached.
Unknowingly, thick, red, mist-like blood began to bubble and coil out from her pores—an ethereal crimson fog that curled around her limbs like possessive serpents.
Her usual emerald green eyes were gone, dissolved like sugar in water, replaced by a blinking red that scanned the surroundings with predatory precision.
The pupils contracted to vertical slits that dilated and contracted with each new horror they absorbed.
Her dark, disheveled chestnut hair bristled and rose as though electrified, the silver clasp that had once secured it now lying forgotten on the blood-slicked floor beside her.
Each strand seemed animated by her rage as she found the same vampire before her—still tall, but for some reason no longer as domineering as before.
His towering frame seemed somehow diminished, less monstrous, more... uncertain. There was even a faint smile on his lips, a hesitant curve that spoke of relief rather than malice.
"DIE!" The word tore from her throat like a physical thing, shredding the silence of the manor with primal fury.
Fangs now protruded from her upper jaw—sharp, gleaming daggers that descended with a painful slide from her gums—as a primal hiss and roar erupted from her throat.
The tattered remains of her once-beautiful gown fluttered around her like dying butterflies as she lunged at Lucien, muscles coiling and releasing with explosive force.
Her sharp and elongated nails turned into curved claws before her eyes, gleaming like polished bone in the fractured moonlight as she slashed toward him, leaving faint trails of disturbed air in their wake.
But instead of the bloody, fierce battle about to erupt, Elara suddenly froze.
Her movements stopped as though she had collided with an invisible wall, momentum arrested so completely that the torn edges of her gown continued forward briefly before settling.
Her face—twisted in rage just moments before—slackened with confusion.
Her mind began to connect strange new sensations that flooded her awareness: the acute sharpness of her vision that could count dust motes in the air, the cacophony of heartbeats—faint but present—from the dying bodies around her, the intoxicating copper-sweet scent of blood that permeated everything.
How… how am I alive again?!
She looked down in horror, her gaze traveling over her restored body in disbelief.
Where withered flesh had been stretched over prominent bone, now healthy curves had returned.
But that miracle was overshadowed as she found her nails had grown long, transforming into wicked claws.
The realization sent a violent shudder through her frame, her shoulders hunching forward as though to hide this monstrous change.
But as her terrified gaze fell upon them, as if responding to her revulsion—or perhaps obeying some unconscious command—they retracted and shrank back into normal nails.
"No..." The word was barely a whisper, a breath of denial that carried with it the weight of devastating comprehension.
Dark thoughts began to form in her mind, connecting the fragments of her last memories—the attack, the pain, the darkness—with her current state.
But she still doubted what she was becoming, clinging to the last threads of humanity with desperate tenacity.
She brought trembling fingers to her lips, feeling what had been bothering her during her rage—sharp, long fangs, protruding where her canines should be.
The touch sent a jolt of sensation through her body, both alien and disturbingly pleasurable, as her fingertips confirmed what her mind refused to accept.
"I refuse... I REFUSE!" Elara screamed, her voice ragged with panic, cracking on the second refusal as though her vocal cords themselves rejected this new reality.
Fangs bared and fully extended now—no longer just hints of points but gleaming, terrible instruments of predation—they clicked audibly against her lower teeth as she snarled.
Her claws extended with a soft, wet sound of reshaping bone, scraping against the blood-slicked mahogany floor, leaving thin grooves in the polished wood.
Her eyes darted wildly, capturing fragmented reflections of the colored moonlight as her breathing turned rough and uneven, each inhalation a sharp, desperate gasp that made her chest heave beneath the tattered remains of her once-elegant gown.
Only then did she notice the thick, red mist swirling around her—a supernatural manifestation of her rage and transformation—dense and bubbling like boiling water, casting eerie crimson shadows across her features.
The mist coiled around her limbs with apparent sentience, caressing her skin like a lover's touch that left goosebumps in its wake.
Then...She froze at the sight, her body going rigid as a statue, a single drop of blood-tinged sweat tracking slowly down her temple.
If the first two signs had somehow failed to convince her, this third clue shattered any remaining illusions.
Her logical mind—could no longer be deceived by desperate hope or denial.
"HAHAAHAH! HAHAHA!" She began to laugh uncontrollably, like a madwoman, the sound echoing through the vast space and rebounding from the high ceiling in distorted waves.
Tears spilled from her eyes—no longer clear but tinged with pink, diluted blood that tracked crimson rivulets down her cheeks—as those red irises flickered and pulsed in the gloom, brightening and dimming with each wave of emotion that crashed through her.
I'm a MONSTER now! A MONSTER LIKE HIM! her mind screamed, the thought burning through her consciousness with white-hot intensity.
Her gaze locked onto the cause—Lucien—the very monster who, for some reason, remained silent and still, his towering frame nearly motionless save for the subtle rise and fall of his chest with unnecessary breath.
"YES! YES! NOW, LET ME SEE YOUR BLOOD! YOUR DESPAIR!" she howled in her mind, the internal scream so loud she was sure he must hear it echoing between them.
"HISS!" A feral growl rumbled from deep within her chest as she dropped forward, crawling toward him on all fours with predatory grace.
Then she gathered herself, muscles coiling like springs beneath newly rejuvenated skin, and leaped at Lucien with explosive force that sent droplets of blood scattering from the floor beneath her.
Her body arced through the colored light, momentarily transformed into a creature of pure vengeance, who was still watching her with an inscrutable smile that barely curved the corners of his mouth—a smile that held secrets and power she had yet to understand.
"Ah, I get it," Lucien murmured, the words soft yet perfectly audible in the vast silence.
He had been observing her every move. Recalling memories from before he transmigrated, he finally spoke, watching in slow motion as the woman lunged at him—her red eyes glowing with fury like twin embers in the darkness, fangs snapped open to reveal the wet darkness of her mouth, and claws as sharp as steel aimed for his face.
Lucien's own red eyes flashed, matching hers in intensity. The crimson glow intensified, casting bloody highlights across his marble-pale features as he fixed his gaze directly on her.
His faint smile faded, replaced by an expression of solemn command that transformed his face into something both beautiful and terrible.
The corners of his mouth tightened, and his eyes narrowed with purpose and intent, the vertical slits of his pupils contracting to barely visible lines.
"Kneel," he commanded, the single word resonating with supernatural power that vibrated through the air like the toll of a great bell.
The word seemed to take physical form, rippling outward from his lips in invisible waves that distorted the very fabric of reality.
Elara's body, suspended mid-air in her lethal leap, suddenly dropped to the ground as if an unseen force pressed down on her with crushing gravity.
BANG!
The impact sent a dull thud echoing through the hall, accompanied by the crack of wood as the floor fractured beneath her.
She hit the polished mahogany hard enough to splinter it, kneeling involuntarily before him with her head bowed low, the red mist around her dissipating like smoke in a strong wind.
Her claws retracted with a painful spasm that made her fingers twitch, and her fangs receded partially into her gums with a sensation like ice melting against heated skin.
Her breathing turned ragged and desperate, each exhale carrying a soft whimper of confusion and rage as she struggled against the invisible bonds of his command.
Her mind was in chaos, a tempest of rage and confusion swirling beneath the crushing weight of his command.
Her whole body felt impossibly heavy—as though she'd been wrapped in chains of lead and thrown into the depths of the ocean.
Even lifting her head was a struggle that made the tendons in her neck stand out like cords, trembling with effort.
"ARGGHH!" But she forced herself, straining against invisible bonds, desperate to look up at this 'monster,' the one who had slaughtered all her servants and her elder sister.
He appeared quite young, perhaps no more than twenty-five, with features that might have been handsome were they not twisted by supernatural transformation.
But she knew it was impossible to judge a vampire's age by their youthful looks—legends spoke of creatures centuries old who wore the faces of children.
He was smiling—or so she thought at first.
On closer inspection, it was more of a squint, his crimson eyes narrowed in contemplation, thin vertical pupils contracting as he studied her like a curiosity in a museum display.
Then...the tears and the sadness welled up inside her, hot and bitter as poison, and she couldn't help but shout at him, the words tearing from her throat,
"WHY?! WHY DID YOU KILL THEM?!" Her voice was hoarse, raw in her throat like she'd swallowed broken glass.
Her head felt as though a boulder pressed down on it, an invisible force compelling her to bow in submission, but she refused, straining against the weight with every ounce of her supernatural strength.
Deep down, she already knew the answer.
Vampires needed blood to survive, and she and her group had simply stumbled into his lair—like lambs wandering into a wolf's den.
But how could she admit that?
How could she have predicted a vampire would be hiding in this abandoned mansion?!
Lucien, the vampire who had been watching her—or rather, studying her reaction to the 'kneel' command with clinical detachment—remained silent for a moment, especially after hearing her desperate question.
His head tilted slightly to one side.
Why? If you ask me why, I just transmigrated into this body, so don't ask me! Lucien wanted to retort, a childish thought that bubbled up from some still-human part of his consciousness.
He suppressed it quickly, knowing such words would only deepen her fury and resentment.
Then...
Apologies? He dismissed the idea with an imperceptible shake of his head, knowing empty words would mean nothing in the face of such carnage.
"Don't you already know, 'Young Miss'?" Lucien answered at last, his voice calm as silk sliding over steel.
His eyes met her fierce glare without flinching, "You and your servants tried to rob my home. You are the thieves—the ones who woke me."