Blood Awakening: The Strongest Hybrid and His Vampire Bride

Nikolai spent several hours in the comfortable room, ensuring each woman slept. He took one last glance around the room. In the Silent room, soft snoring and murmurs echoed. The ladies were much more peaceful after falling asleep.

"Well... good night."

He slipped through the door, trying to keep quiet.

The door shut with a click.

Nikolai adjusted himself and flicked his collar before heading towards the main study.

Silent... the corridor empty and without sound.

A faint scent of lavender from the fresh flowers Nikita used to decorate.

"Now, what did that little mouse come to do."

The moment he reached the main hallway, two maids appeared on either side, one Leona, the other a woman with dark red hair and a sharp face.

"My Lord, the intruder has been caught."

Leon's bright atmosphere vanished, now acted more serious.

Her lips pressed together, eyes narrowed, and a slightly twisted smile growing.

"I see, take me to him. Leona."

"Master, the intruder seemed to be human." The second maid's voice was serene, like a smooth sheet of silk fluttering in the wind.

Nikolai's stride didn't slow.

"Human?" he repeated.

"Yes, master," the red-haired maid answered. "Male. Young. No visible weapons."

"He had something," Nikolai muttered. "He got this far."

Leona moved just ahead of him, leading the way.

Her usual warmth was nowhere to be seen, replaced by something sharper, colder. Her heels barely made a sound on the stone floor.

They passed through a tight corridor flanked with lantern sconces, past a black-panelled door bearing the silver Volkov crest.

"Where was he caught?" Nikolai asked.

"The northern balcony," Leona replied. "He tried to scale the side wall using a rope soaked in dampening oil. We didn't see him... but one of Lady Kumiko's clones did."

Nikolai's lips barely twitched.

'Of course...' Kumiko would leave no evidence.

The red-haired maid spoke again, this time more carefully. "He refused to speak. But he was... watching. Like he knew what he was looking for."

Nikolai's eyes narrowed.

"Who found him?"

"I did," Leona said.

"Did you break anything?"

"A wrist," she replied plainly. "And a few teeth. The rest I left for you."

They reached the end of the hall.

A door waited — thick, reinforced, with a faint glow seeping from underneath. The aura was muted but wrong. Not a mage's ward. Not a werewolf's. Something different.

Nikolai placed his hand against the wood and felt for pressure, for any kind of echo behind it.

The presence inside didn't feel scared.

It felt... expectant.

Nikolai's voice dropped to a whisper.

"Let's see what you were here to find."

Then he pushed open the door.

With a mechanical and steel hiss, gears and metal turning, it opened. Dark. Musky. The path down was maintained well, lacking cobwebs and dust.

But the usage of these stairs and their meaning indicated something rarely used. Snap! Leona's fingertips cause a sharp sound to echo down the stairwell. Then a small series of lights started burning, braziers hanging on the walls.

The stairwell curved inward like a spine — narrow, steep, and too smooth to be old, yet cold like it had never seen the sun.

Nikolai's boots tapped lightly with each step. Leona followed without a word, her smile long gone, replaced by a razor's edge of discipline.

Steel bars came into view first — thick, vertical, solid. The holding cell beyond them was clean, almost too clean. It wasn't built for torture. It was built for questions that didn't need pain.

Behind bars, the intruder sat on a bench. Legs bolted to the floor. Wrists chained.

He looked… normal. Young. Maybe twenty. Pale skin, short brown hair, dark clothes meant to blend into shadows, now torn and dusted with blood where Leona had made her point.

But he didn't look scared.Not even annoyed.

He looked like someone waiting.

Nikolai stepped closer to the bars, but didn't speak. He studied the boy — his breathing, his posture, his heartbeat. Calm. Steady. Human.

But wrong.

The intruder lifted his head slowly, meeting Nikolai's eyes. His mouth curled, not into a smirk exactly… something quieter, like recognition.

"You took your time," he said.

His voice was flat. No accent. No hesitation.

Nikolai stared at him for a long moment. "Do you know where you are?"

The boy smiled faintly. "Buried beneath the house of wolves. But I didn't come for you."

Leona stepped forward. "Then who?"

The boy looked past both of them, gaze angled upward, like he could see through stone.

"Not who," he said. "What."

Nikolai's eyes narrowed. "You climbed into this estate alone. You scaled a wall soaked in suppression oil. You walked past sigils no human should've seen—"

The boy held up his broken wrist slowly, still chained. "And I'm still alive."

Nikolai's expression darkened.

"That depends entirely on what you say next."

The boy smiled again, this time wider, and said nothing.

Nikolai tilted his neck with a loud crack. Then started rolling his cuffs, a calm yet dangerous glow in his eyes... he approached the boy, and let out a sigh.

Thud!

His fist hit like a hammer wrapped in steel.

The boy's body flew back into the metal bench, ribs colliding with the corner. The sound was sickening — sharp, wet — followed by the clatter of two teeth skipping across the floor.

Blood splashed the edge of the wall. The rest slid down the boy's chin.

He didn't scream. He groaned once. Then laughed.

A weak, messy laugh. But it was still a laugh.

Leona didn't flinch. She only folded her arms and watched.

Nikolai didn't pace. He didn't speak.

He leaned down, grabbed the boy by the collar, and lifted him off the bench with one arm.

Blood spurted from his wound.

A drizzle of crimson leaking from the boy's swollen lips.

It wasn't a joking matter—that room was where his lovers slept.

Nikolai wouldn't allow him to live, to leave without spilling even his deepest secrets.

"You breathed in the same air as them," he said, his voice flat. "That alone is enough to kill you."

Blood dripped from the boy's mouth. His nose had broken sideways. One eye was already swelling shut.

Still, he whispered, "Then why haven't you?"

Nikolai didn't answer.

He threw the boy again — this time into the far wall.

The crack of bone hitting stone bounced like a gunshot. The boy's shoulder twisted unnaturally before he dropped to the floor, coughing blood into the clean tile.

Nikolai walked over.

Not fast. Just steady.

He crouched beside the boy, eyes glowing faintly in the dim brazier light.

"You climbed into my territory," he said softly. "You stepped within twenty feet of their door."

He reached down, resting two fingers on the boy's broken shoulder.

And pushed.

The scream that ripped out of the boy wasn't human anymore. It scraped the stone walls like a wounded animal. His back arched off the floor, muscles twitching in agony.

Then he said it.

Between clenched, bloody teeth—

"Lunaria."

Nikolai froze.

The pressure against the shoulder stopped, but his fingers remained.

The boy coughed again, blood staining the floor beneath him.

"Lunaria," he rasped, watching Nikolai with his one good eye. "You think she's yours?"

Nikolai said nothing. His expression didn't shift.

"She's still with them," the boy said, voice gaining strength. "She never left. The Nosferatu are watching her... even now."

A pause.

He smiled — cracked lips peeling back over bloodied teeth. "You're raising their daughter in your house."

Leona's jaw tensed, but she didn't speak. Her hand hovered near the blade on her hip.

The boy leaned against the wall, spitting out a tooth. "She's not yours. Just a gift they let you borrow. How long until she leads them through the front door?"

The silence that followed was thick and still.

Nikolai stood up slowly.

Snap.

The sound of his fingers echoed down the stairwell.

The iron door behind them clicked, then creaked open.

Soft footsteps descended.

Barefoot.

Slow.

Lunaria stepped into the torchlight — white hair loose around her shoulders, silver eyes wide but calm. Her robe trailed behind her like moonlight over still water.

The boy froze when he saw her.

Lunaria said nothing at first. She walked to Nikolai in silence, slid her arms around his waist from behind, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder.

"Thank you," she whispered. "For not blaming me. For not doubting me."

Nikolai didn't respond. He didn't need to.

The boy snapped.

His body jerked, then twisted violently as black veins shot across his skin. His arms cracked at the joints as they swelled grotesquely. His breathing turned guttural. His voice, when it returned, was a low, vibrating echo that didn't sound human.

"You think she's loyal," he snarled. "They all betray you in the end."

Muscle tore through his clothes. Bone cracked. His face began to melt into something beastly, half-shadow, half-flesh.

Lunaria didn't flinch.

Nikolai's eyes flashed.

In a blink, he moved.

His hand punched straight through the creature's chest — bone, flesh, and whatever dark mass lay beneath it all.

The abomination let out a choking scream as Nikolai's claws clamped around something inside.

Then—

Tear.

He ripped the heart free.

The body slumped instantly, black blood pouring across the clean stone. Whatever was inside it died screaming.

Nikolai stood over it, breathing slow and steady, heart still clutched in his fist.

Leona stepped forward silently and opened a small compartment behind the wall — one meant for bodies like this. One that no one ever asked questions about.

Lunaria only held him tighter.

"My Lord, I think we need to investigate the staff." Leona's soft voice echoed in the bloody cell.