As Lord finds a Lady

Prologue

Silky white strands stretch over an armrest. Old but not aged, his body shifts. Another human cowers in front of him. He observes with an uninterested eye, a predator encased shining through. The human is nothing but dinner, one of the cattle brought in front of the Lord of Astoria.

With a flick of the fingers, white strands of hair grow, lengthen and grab the human. There's not much struggling can do because those strands are wiry, stronger than a spider's web and ready for any kind of struggling their prey can offer.

Kaz should know, he was once the unwilling victim of those strands. Whispering, sticky almost like slime, they coil around his body, gripping tight... He promptly shoves that ugly memory from his mind. Still, a shudder runs through him and he wants nothing more than to destroy the lasting sensation from his brain.

Lucien is relentless and the human's eyes lose their shine. His hair sucks the blood out of his victims. A strong feature for a vampire to have. And one of the reasons why Lucien is the Lord of the capital.

Kaz waits, patience a virtue he has long ago acknowledged as strength.

He knows that the only moment he'll have his chance is the only shortcoming of that power - digestion.

Lucien can suck all the blood from the body in a few seconds, an unimaginative ability it is, but the unconventional way of feeding brings along an enormous drawback. A drawback when his body has to drive the blood to where it digests. A drawback one no one has ever realized. Probably not even Lucien himself. But Kaz did and plans to use it.

 A minute or so and Lucien's movements will turn sluggish. As sluggish as the movements of an ancient vampire can become which actually means Lucien will be as fast as Kaz is at his best.

Tick tock, time flies.

And Kaz pounces, fast as lightning. Barely fast enough, given Lucien's widening of droopy eyes as he sees Kaz. But he is fast enough.

His head is in Kaz's hand, warm and bleeding, most of the white hair severed, along with Lucien's neck, and slowly descending to the marble floor. Just like snowflakes, glinting like stars and painting the sea-grey stone white and red.

Now all of Lucien's followers watch him with apprehension, a few with apparent anger and those few fall next.

The rest come trickling into the great chamber, scared once they felt a bond with their Lord breaking, to peer at Kaz with reverence, to see their dead master's empty eyes and shortened hair they've dreaded so much.

The deed has been done.

A new Lord of Astoria rises.