During which monsters feast...
88
Soon after...
Staffan kept laughing. It was a loud piercing cackle and it was nothing but obnoxious, nothing but just one more reason for Hadrian to gut the little monster.
He wanted to, needed to in order to rise in the ranks, to get closer to Valdemar, but he wouldn't do so, not just yet, not when there were such tender morsels to sample this night. Staffan would live a little longer, could cackle to his heart's content at least for tonight.
For tonight they would feast on this so sweet and tender a family of fools. What were they called? Burr? Or were the Burr's last night's feast? Or was it Wagner? No Wagner was last week. It had all become a blur to Hadrian Westerberg, had been one since he, Valdemar and Staffan, brothers all, had drunk from the Torne. Ever since then it had been naught but blood, ecstasy and death.
Valdemar held the little one's head up, sticking two of his thick fingers where the boy's eyes had once been. The dead boy's sister, a sweet little thing not much younger than Hadrian himself had been when he'd changed, whimpered in his grasp.
Hadrian felt the stirring, it threatened to overcome him, her neck throbbing, that one vein so large and visible. He felt his fangs grow, found himself bringing his mouth closer to her....
...and was promptly slapped away by Valdemar. He watched numbly as the house turned upside down on him and his legs were now above him and his neck had twisted so that he could actually see the backs of them.
Growling, he twisted himself back. He felt the bones realign, his equilibrium return, the house turn right side up again.
He stood and faced his brother, his growl louder, his claws extended.
Valdemar didn't back away a step, would never do it, Hadrian knew that. He only crouched there, his massive arms now the ones' cradling the whimpering, weakened girl.
There wasn't much left of her, the brute had taken almost all of it already. She'd only survive if he deemed to allow her to drink some of their own. Then she would be one of them, and she would be a nice one, Hadrian knew, she'd be a nice one to lay with during the night. Hadrian would have turned her, he most definitely would.
But Hadrian wasn't in charge now, was he?
“Back,RUNT,” Valdemar spat, dried blood beginning to crust on his great blonde beard. “Back and watch outside window. Men kill those Dragons in the mountains. They kill them because of us. If they know we here, they kill us too!!! Back and watch outside windows...NOW!!”
That last he yelled at Staffan as well and the miserable fool's laughter finally ceased. Oh no, Staffan didn't like that. They were brothers after all and didn't brothers like the same things, crave the same things, fight for the same things.
Staffan crawled away and went to his own window and in that at least Hadrian found some comfort. Staffan went first after all.
And so Hadrian turned back and away from his big brother and the little dying thing and went to his own window, knowing he'd not be tasting sweet young blood this night, not in this house at least, the Burr one he was almost certain.
Behind him he heard Valdemar bite down, heard the bones in the girl's neck disintegrate under his powerful jaws.
End Part 88
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