SURPRISE DOUBLE UPDATEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! 

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Luciel’s POV

I am the first in attendance, a blessing I do not take lightly as I let my gaze pan over the surrounding walls. In close enough time, the others of the clan would fill the overhead alcoves, same as those below would flood the depths of our largest Hall. All present for the first Calling of the new millennium, but also our first Calling in over a century.

The last time we had gathered for one, it had been after receiving the First’s invitation to join his side of the war, and fall under his order.

It was no surprise that we were wanted in the war, as the strongest, independent vampire clan at the time, but that did not mean all were eager to enter worldly conflicts from which we had purposefully separated ourselves.

The dialogues had lasted for days, with none permitted to leave until the entire clan was in agreement.

Few had been keen to fall under the order of another who was not of our own ways. It only came to be because Lincoln had met the terms so many within our algid walls did not think he would.

Unlike many others that fell under his fold, members of the Amaris Clan were our own people, free to delegate and rule ourselves as we had always done, but for matters that concerned the entirety of our species, we fell under his jurisdiction. Additionally, I had been awarded one of the five seats on his council.

Against all odds, the Calling had led to a better future for us, but the one that was on the horizon now was for an entirely different matter, and I could not be certain that it would yield the same results.

Walking across the barriers of carved ice, I find the space at the centre where a slate of smooth ice stands above the rest— a sculpted podium that I take with heavy steps.

The moment I stand upon it, the clan begins to pour in.

One at a time, they find a perch to call their own, falling into natural groupings long carved out by passing time. They do not speak as they do, which is not common for us, but on this day, when all know where the topic of conversation lies, there is not a sound but the final set of approaching steps before they too fall silent.

Silence is a cruel judge, but I withstand its appraisal, mourning Maeve’s presence at my back as I do. But she could only be here if the boy were too, and I can not quite picture anything worse than allowing Peter to be present while we discussed him.

Staring out at the members of my clan, I meet the curious gazes staring back at me, and maintain the calm that I wear like snakeskin.

This would be done calmly and without prejudice.

I touch a finger to my scalp, and wait as the masses return it. The Calling, initiated.

“We have been found by another,” I begin, illustrating what they know without bothering with opening remarks. They would only extend what we already had an eternal bounty of. “A werewolf who found and then journeyed his way into our tunnels, travelling deep enough on his own that he was guaranteed to have reached us if we had not confronted him first.”

A noticed tension enters the spaces between all present, conveying the concern none yet wish to show themselves.

None had ever ventured into our tunnels and found us. None.

They were laced with the magic of generations of sovereign mages, and strengthened by the will of each vampire who had ever been allowed inside. Even the permitted required a guide, down to the First, and those who were not, but entered anyway, died somewhere far enough away that they passed on without the knowledge of how terribly they had failed.

Peter had not suffered such a fate.

Peter had done the impossible. A feat he did not know the magnitude of.

“It was achieved in pursuit of me,” I continue, speaking the words without any of the affliction they cast upon me. “He scented me above the surface and tracked me here. He claims me to be his mate.”

The silence remains, but only because while their lips remained shut, a plethora of sideways glances are exchanged. The news had undoubtedly travelled to them all already in speckled details, but confirmation of it was another matter entirely. It spoke life into a space that only knew death.

“The bond between us is one he wishes to pursue and one he will not be swayed from,” I report calmly as though I do not have to fist the irritation that swells between my ribs. “I do not feel the same.”

If the clan read my stillness as discomfort linked to Arraya, then they are kind enough to keep the plague of mourning from rising.

“We can not remove him,” I continue bluntly. “He is heavily warded and also connected socially in ways that could bring danger upon the clan in ways we can not face.”

The admission is not one I wish to make, but a leader who refused to acknowledge their shortcomings was no leader at all.

Still, the fixed stares that gaze up at me share their will to challenge, to make claims at strengths that would not matter if we poked a beast well beyond us.

“So, he stays for the time,” I finish, my tongue like stone, “as a guest.”

A bitterness rises within the Hall to replace the earlier tension as understanding finally dawns. We were in a stalemate with an outsider, and unless a solution was offered here, we would be until he decided otherwise.

A click of the tongue rises after a moment from within a section of aged vampires near the middle pillar, and while all surrounding the Caller bow to allow her a platform, she mirrors it with a half bow before she straightens.

It is Melviena, a wise voice and trusted confidant within the clan. She touches her fingers to her painted forehead while her gaze seeks mine. I return the gesture, and with a nod, she speaks.

“The word that spread after the werewolf’s arrival suggested that he fears us, and what we are. That his fear was so great, that he could hardly speak,” she states with deliberate articulation. “Why would he stay among us if this is so? Or have these reports been exaggerated?”

I struggle to contain my sigh. I had done more than enough of that as it was for the day.

“No, they have not,” I admit, and her expression is quick to tighten just as many others do. “But he is willing to suffer his fear for it.”

“‘Suffer’?” She repeats, spitting the word. “He suffers to be amongst a people he chooses not to leave.”

I hold my tongue as I struggle to find a proper response. I can not fault Melviena, but I had no defence for Peter either. I had almost hoped that he had a reason behind his fear, but when I had asked for it, he had offered none.

All I could say was that his fear did not seem ill-intended, but that was as feeble a reason as it was an excuse.

“He wants the bond,” I say in the end, because as annoying as it is, it is as simple as that.

Peter wanted a chance to chase his love bond, despite the fact that I did not, and he was not willing to give up so quickly. If I weren’t the one involved, I might find it admirable, his sheer determination, but as it came at the expense of my own comfort, it grated instead.

“So, we are to live amongst a creature that fears us in our own home,” she says, and since it is not a question, I do not answer it. Melviena’s dark eyes sharpened beneath his golden lashes. “Forgive me, Pylen, but is that not why we left the world and came here to create one of our own?”

The reminder scalds as intended, and I can not pretend that it does not as I hold her unflinching gaze.

The origin of the Amaris Clan was not a matter of legend, but a tale we all knew and lived.

Four thousand years ago, the world hardly resembled its current shape. Entire civilisations could come and go without their neighbours ever knowing of their existence, and at its centre was the continent we all derived from.

We had not yet been given a single name, nor had we been pulled together as if we were one instead of a vast and aged network of different kingdoms, cultures and empires. We were not yet Africa.

But we were at the centre of the world and at the time, so were the supernatural.

In a world that was discovering itself, ‘the Other’ had not yet been something to be afraid of. The Other brought wealth, trade, and knowledge, and those who already gorged on the first two sought after the last all the more.

In the lowermost regions, where the mages once reigned along the coast, and the newly discovered gold mines peaked, vampires had appeared amongst a dotted few kingdoms. I, a child at the time, remembered hearing the first stories of them— the cold creatures that did not want food, but blood, and would dig the gold themselves for ours. The ones that rose strongest at night like the lions, but proved themselves to be far tamer.

The first time I saw one under a night sky, it was not fear that I felt. Fear had been the furthest thing from it. I had only considered the man who walked before me as the most majestic creature that ever lived.

Our villages had boomed after their arrival, mine in particular, as the vampires traded in our goods and paid more for them than the traders from the east. They took only the blood we offered and nothing more, and most significantly, the vampires looked like us.

They made the traders from the east unnecessary, but those traders would not have that.

The stories came soon after, from the coast and from the villages up north, all carrying tales of the vampires in other regions and all the horrors they’d suffered at their hands.

The tales of Diablos before we even knew who he was.

It was of no consequence that the vampires who had taught us strength had nothing to do with the terror Diablos and his counterparts spread across the globe, for only a drop of poison was needed to infect a well.

“The boy is not our enemy.” My words carry across the Hall, finding all ears and ensuring that they hear them. “He does not seek to take what is ours, or take anything at all. Nor does he wish to bring ruin to us or what we have built. He is young and following the will of his heart.”

Melviena’s lips remain downturned, but she does not speak again. She bows, and the rest of her grouping stand, blending her back into the crowd.

The next Caller comes from closer in, and it is Zawnté, a mage bested only by Atieno.

“Is the plan then to allow him to stay in his rooms and do nothing but keep to them until he grows tired of his pursuits?” He asks, after he has performed his rites and I have returned them. “Would that not make him closer to a prisoner than a guest?”

“He has not been confined to his rooms.”

“Neither has he been invited out of them, I am sure,” Zawnté is quick to return, and my lips seal shut. “I am not saying that he should be, because he should not. It would be foolish to allow him to see the inner workings of our clan if we are to allow him to leave afterwards. But he is not our guest for we do not entertain guests. This clan is for those who belong to it and those alone.”

There is an unspoken murmur of agreement that follows, and Zawnté lets that be his final word, as he settles.

The next rises before I can speak and it is none other than Atieno.

“Zawnté speaks wisely. We do not entertain guests,” he muses, and my gaze is sure to harden.

While all were free to speak, that did not mean that they had to, and Atieno certainly did not have to. He knew more than most— he was there to see the boy. He did not need to speak and make this harder, and yet he does.

“Our only guest, if one is to call him that, was the First, and he earned his place here when he rid this world of the plague that was Diablos,” he says firmly, and another tremor of agreement passes through us all. “So if this werewolf is not to be a guest, or our prisoner, I myself see only one path forward.” He pauses and waits, letting every open ear thread their interest to his unspoken words. “It is the one we have all walked to earn our place, so should the werewolf not do the same?”

A proper murmur begins then, and it is not one soon culled for we all knew what he left unspoken.

The Trials.

We all endured them, and we had all survived them to be here and claim our place in these walls. All but the boy sleeping in the night while we were most awake.

“You suggest the Trials?” I say, making it plain while I try to find his angle.

Peter would not survive it; few hardly did, and those were ones better made for the brutality.

Peter was warm-blooded and the Trials were made for those who held a heart that did not beat. It was a death sentence.

“His wards would return him to his people if his life was at jeopardy, which would expel us from any wrongdoing,” Atieno continues, his explanation his confirmation. “If he completes it, then he would hold every right to stay among us, as not a guest or a prisoner, but as one of us.” Conversations rise from the offended, but Atieno is not yet finished. “But if he does not… then would we not be well within our rights to ask him to leave? And wouldn’t we still hold that right, should he not agree to them at all? This is our law after all— the law we are permitted to keep”

I consider the mage before me anew, my initial irritation forgone.

Atieno. Wise beyond his years.

“He asked for time from me, and I permitted it,” I counter, making the only argument Peter could make if we did present him with the Trials.

“That was before you spoke to us, your clan,” Atieno returns without hesitation. “The decision is not yours alone, especially if he is to live amongst us just as we are to live with him. To be granted his time, as promised, he must earn it.”

I hum, but keep my pleasure contained. It would be inappropriate as Pylen, but Atieno does not suffer my restrictions, so he lets his show.

“Very well,” I say, nodding towards the sentry posted closest to the outer tunnel. “Have Maeve bring him here.”

──────────✧──────────

The boy’s rattling heart forgoes his path, telling of his fright and the way it reaches for the surface when he enters the Hall ahead of Maeve and becomes the nectar of every present gaze.

If he were fearful before, I do not know that there is a way to word how he reacts now.

Peter trembles, bones practically rattling together as he takes minute steps, only forced forward by the hand Maeve seems to maintain on his back, and while his head remains bowed, hair hiding his face, I can already spot the tears as they fall ahead of him to lead his path.

By the time he reaches my frozen dais, he has lost a third of his height by how he cowers, his heart the only sound to be heard.

Maeve’s gaze meets mine over his fallen head, and it carries her unspoken disapproval.

She surely heard the clan’s conversation and Atieno’s suggestion, but did not appear a fan of it. But Maeve did not lead this clan, and she was not the one bound this bond.

“Peter Heil-Calderon,” I speak his name into the quiet Hall, and he jolts before his shaking worsens.

I mean to continue, but to my surprise, Peter braves lifting his head.

His long hair slips from his face, allowing a glimpse of the tearful mosaic waiting beneath. He sets it upon me, and there is a sharpness that means to wound me as his tearful blue eyes find mine.

“You have come to the Amaris clan because of me, and while I understand your plight concerning our bond, this is not my home alone.” Peter’s wet eyes plead with mine to free him from this room and speak to him alone, but that would require the empathy of a man who has long been put to bed. “I have granted you time here, but as the clan has argued, every vampire and mage you see before you had to earn the right to stand in these walls, and if you are to stay and be awarded the time you seek, then you must do the same.”

I watch the blood drain from his face, and feel untoward guilt for it, but I do not stop, not even as a new strain of fear overwhelms him as he tries his best not to look at any of the hundreds of vampires surrounding him

“Three Trials must be completed— a hunt in the tunnels, a mission of valour, and finally, a match with a clan member of your choosing,” I continue despite the way he shakes his trembling head, tears coming faster. “If you complete them, you will inherit your right to stay within this clan. If you do not, you will not be allowed entry again, but if you do not wish to pursue this task— which you are allowed to do—”

I pause, letting those words hang as I apply truth to my gaze so that he sees the cautioning I try to convey along with the severity of doing otherwise.

“… you will be granted leave and an escort back to the land of your origin.”

My eyes never stray from his, even as his tears blur his path to mine.

“The decision is yours,” I say, quieter now and for him alone. “Will you attempt the Trials or will you take your leave?”

The decision was his, but the choice was already well made.

Peter would not survive the Trials, and if he tried, he would receive a painful return home. His best option and his only option was to go home on his own and accept what was inevitable where he and I were concerned.

Once he acquiesced, I would grant him a number of days to come to terms with the end of our bond, before we broke it amicably and ensured that he returned to his people without further harm.

If he agreed to the terms and his family tried to punish us, we would be well within our rights to call upon the support of the First. Even if he were qualmed by the outcome due to personal affiliations, the terms of our servitude under him were that he respected our clan’s traditions and laws, and Lincoln was too honourable a ruler not to do so.

The clan’s peace was assured once Peter said no and accepted his fate, and so was mine.

Peter blinks up at me, tearful gaze still imploring, as if he means for me to provide him a way out of this situation, but much as I understand his position, I lost such sympathies for him after he denied my own plea.

I did not want this bond nor him, and he knew that I was not in a position to make that decision freely because of his lineage, and yet, he insisted on leveraging that. But if he wanted his time, then that would come only with the right to stay in these halls, and for that, he would have to earn it.

I hold his stare and do not relent even as his tears mount and he bites into his shaking lip, acceptance made. I wait for it, his acceptance verbalised just as do all, each standing in wait.

Peter’s breaths come faster and for a moment, I fear that he is about to lose consciousness again, but then, he fists his shaking hands and holds them at his sides.

He takes a deep breath, and I watch as the skin above his brows tug inwards before he parts his trembling lips.

No.

But it is already too late.

“I-I-I will d-do it,” Peter stammers around the determination burning in his eyes. “I-I’ll do t-the Trials.”

It is more than a murmur or a simple swell of tension that floods the room. It is an explosion of noise that startles the root of it into crouching into a ball at his feet. Peter curls there, holding tight while chaos rains above.

I think he believes it to be an uproar, rejection, but it is not.

It is excitement from beings left too long unentertained, and admitted surprise from those who thought they had already best judged our intruder. Being proved wrong is not an offence for this clan, but rather the opposite, and it is precisely what spurs fanged smiles from all but myself.

I stare disbelievingly at the werewolf curled just beneath my dais, the one who had just accepted Trials that had lined the gates of our surrounding oceans with the bones of those who failed, more than it had allowed them through, and fear creeps into my being.

Not just a touch of the thing, but a proper spell of it that already thinks of all the ways this could go wrong.

We had not once tested his wards; what if they did not activate in time, or did not work at all for the circumstances? Had Peter not considered this? But no, of course he didn’t.

He wanted the bond, and so he’d accepted the route to it without thought.

Atieno appears through the crowds to find Peter, and the boy startles when the hand settles on his back, but it takes only spotting Atieno for him to quiet his cry and allow him to help him stand.

A whispered word is all it takes for him to nod, but before Atieno can whisk him back to the safety of his rooms, he glances at me.

Blue eyes grieve even as they seek peace in mind before he disappears.

Maeve does not hesitate to fill the space behind me.

“It was the surest way to get rid of him amicably,” I whisper, replying to her silent judgement.

“The surest way to rid ourselves of him is to simply make him leave,” she hisses back, mindful of the clan still gathered around. “We should have done that from the start.”

“We could not.”

“We could,” she retorts venomously. “Now, he will attempt the Trials, and either die or stay as long as he pleases.”

“Or return home in the midst of them,” I remind, and she laughs, the sound crackled with a sickly sort of bitterness.

I turn as she brings herself closer so that her words brush the edges of my ears. “He has asked only for one thing since being here, and that is an opportunity, and for some reason, you now act surprised that he has taken the route to get to it when it is what you offered on a platter.”

My gaze meets hers, and while mine is scorching, hers is unflinching.

“He found us on his own, Luciel. Through magic and wards, he found us, and he found you— none has ever done that before,” she reminds through gritted teeth. “And now you believe that he will not find a way through the Trials if that means that he will get to stay with you?”

My blood runs cold, dread welling in me, but I do not grant Maeve the grace of seeing it. She shakes her head nevertheless, resolved.

“You have given him his opportunity,” she scoffs as she parts from my side and sets forward to return to Peter’s. “Pray to the Gods and to his that they take your side, and perhaps some of his favour will fall to you.”

———————-

Luciel doesn’t know about Bad Bitch Peter, but he’s about to find outttttttttt  🤣

Thoughts???????

Thoughts on Luciel and the clan’s Calling???? On the little history snippet on their clan’s beginning???? On the ultimatum and Peter proving that he is about that life??!?!?

I will say, Peter got my respect there cause no way in hell am I doing Trials like this, the damn Hunger Games, but he’s actually better than me, and I can admit that!

I mentioned before how this book leads to Peter getting stronger and this is one of those ways. He had babied all his life and I am GEEKED to see him realise that he’s stronger than he even thinks he is

The next chapters are gonna be so fun! I’m so excited!!! But next up is an Aiasthlyn update tomorrow, followed by another extra for the month before we jump back into OMEGA!

Remember to like and comment!!!

Until next time,
Byeeeeeeeeee Humansssssssssss