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Chapter Text

All is Fair in Love and War

The loud clambering of blades ceased when Dracula managed to fling Alucard's sword from his grip. It clattered against the stone floor, and slid out of his reach abandoning him at his father's mercy. His sword hand extended (and now empty) he realized that allowing Dracula to disarm him would be the end of them.

Immobilized earlier in the siege, Trevor secured Sypha, unconscious in his arms. He clasped her wounds tightly and begged for her to open her eyes - to be okay, to get up and run. He pulled her close to his chest and kissed her forehead remorsefully.

That's when he heard the sword fall; the noise like glass shattering in silence. When he looked up, he saw Alucard standing before Dracula with genuine horror beaming across his face. Dracula seized Alucard by the throat, and raised him above his head as if he were nothing. Trevor's stomach sank into the pit of him at the sight and twisted itself into knots like a sick serpent.

They were going to die there. Sypha, in his arms, and Alucard wide-eyed at his own father's hands. Trevor attempted to stand again in vain. Near incomprehensible pain radiated from his mangled knee and kept him on the ground. A frustrated, agonized shriek ripped through him.

Dracula snarled down at Alucard before tossing his own blade aside and resorting to beating him with his bare fists. He was much stronger than Alucard; He did not deprive himself for concern of ethics, or have a need to cower when his blade slipped away from his hands - nor would he allow himself to be so clumsy.

Her mortality considered, Lisa had not been weak; but Alucard was destined for weakness, torn between contradicting natures. He was a Dhampir cursed to drink life and weep for mortal things; a living tragedy.

"You have never understood your place," Dracula spat, battering his son with bloodied knuckles. "You have never understood the true nature of mankind despite crawling around with them in the mud and shit like pigs - despite all your seeking you haven't learned a thing."

Blood spattered from between Alucard’s lips as he struggled to take breaths between each inescapable blow. They came far too quickly for him to process each one that made contact with his stomach, his ribs, his jaw – and so he put up his hands in submission. Whimpering from within the shallow tomb of shattered stone his father had pummeled him into.

"F-Father…”

It was the paternal verbiage that made Dracula stop, if only for a moment. There, for a time, Dracula recognized that it was his child that he was brutalizing. “She wouldn't want this… for either of us,” Alucard muttered meekly.

The truth seemed to disturb Dracula. He peeled Alucard up from the floor by his hair and dangled him in front of him; as if he were a child digging up a worm from the Earth, holding it up, and contemplating whether or not to leave it in peace, or to secure each end between filthy finger tips, and rip it apart.

Alucard reached up to claw desperately at his father's grasp. He continued his protest with tears welling up in his eyes. "You are the same vicious, unnecessarily cruel animal that you accuse man kind of being," he growled, "and she still loved you - and you loved her too."

Dracula's glare softened, but with venom he replied, "You will never understand what I am. You are your mother's heart; you share her curiosity, and her patience with humanity...her compassion. Those qualities ensured her death, my dear boy..."

In an unnaturally swift series of motions, Dracula withdrew a peculiar stake from a leather sheath secured to his waist, plunged it deep into Alucard's chest, and let him fall to his knees with a guttural noise.

"ADRIAN!!" Trevor had no control over the way that he screamed his name; how the hoarse sound rattled his lungs, and stung in his throat. He felt his heart jump in his chest, then pause its rhythm as if it too had been pierced.

No. No, not him – not both of them, Trevor’s mind bellowed.

Alucard was in a state of shock, near catatonic. He had no time to react. He acknowledged the stake buried in his chest; raising a quivering hand to weakly clasp where the wood burrowed in his flesh, his blood pulsing around it. He raised his chin, and his eyes met Trevor’s. He was still clutching onto Sypha with nowhere to run. The pain on Trevor's face… how his features contorted with... remorse, or agony, or rage…

Then suddenly Alucard heard the crackling of burning wood. Hot light traveled through the grain of the stake and he began to feel his chest become heavier. The crackling got louder. He looked down and saw marble veins spreading across his body - some wicked magic turning him to stone.

Trevor watched Adrian gripping Dracula’s legs desperately with all the strength that he had left, his lips moving as fast as he could speak (a request inaudible to him at his distance). As Dracula turned his back on his son, leaving him gray and petrified, Trevor looked on in horror at the statue that replaced him; Alucard’s arms extended, and his fists still gripping his father's clothes tight enough that his nails ripped away some fabric from his cloak, and his pant leg where Alucard’s hands had been when Dracula moved outside of his reach.

Trevor realized that Dracula was coming for him now, but overcome with grief and fury in equal measure, he had hardly noticed him getting closer. Dracula stood before him quietly discerning his misery. A few moments passed before Trevor addressed him. He fixed his eyes upon Sypha while speaking, stroking her face gently and leaving streaks of blood across her skin where his fingers had been.

"Haven't you had your fun? What the fuck are you waiting on?" Trevor growled, attempting to control his sobs. "Just fucking kill me," he pleaded while pursing closed his eyes with a grimace at the sound of his own voice.

Pathetic. Dracula laughed a hearty, sickeningly delighted laugh.

"Belmont, for how many decades have your kin pursued me? All of that, and now I have the last of them at my feet - wouldn't you think I'd have come up with a fate worse than death just for you by now?" Dracula asked, wearing a maddening grin upon his face.

Ever so subtly, he connected to Trevor’s mind and sensed a primal fear deep within him. Oh, how fulfilling to feel it bubbling within him; how he struggled to keep it at bay while confronting his fate.

Dracula plucked Sypha from Belmont’s arms and flicked her aside. Without a second thought, Trevor ignored the pain screaming through his body rolled her direction determined not to be separated from her. Dracula’s boot came down on his back to pin him down and he yelped out in response.

"Just look at what you and your little magician have done to my castle. You used my son as an instrument to reclaim your family’s legacy-"

"Don't speak about him like you knew anything about him just because he came out of your fucking balls," Trevor’s retorted, "he would have come to kill you with or without us."

Dracula clasped a hand over Trevor’s mouth to silence him. He had no intentions of arguing back and forth with the bastard debating victory. He had won. No amount of dissent would change that.

Insistent on saying his piece, Trevor squirmed out from under his hand in an attempt to question him frantically about his plans for Sypha, never once questioning what grisly end awaited himself. He had seen the way Alucard had struggled, the despair in his final moments in flesh, and the pain on his face. Dracula had not hesitated in snuffing out his own son, and wondering what may happen to Sypha broke him. Dracula gave him no answers, but fed him more questions in their stead.

"Would you like to see her again, Belmont?" He proposed.

"... Yes, of course." Dread rattled Trevor's bones as his eyes met Dracula's and he watched the whites of them fill with red. All of a sudden, his body deadened to the all-encompassing, throbbing pains, and his pulse began to steady. "I'd do anything for them..."

Dracula's brow furrowed curiously. "You include Alucard?"

There was hardly a thought in Trevor's head. All he could hear was Dracula's voice in his ear, but he felt none of the vitriol anymore. All of the fear, all the agony, all desire for vengeance dissipated when Dracula addressed him, and he was helpless to advert his eyes.

"I... Adrian is..." Trevor caught the words in his mouth. A wave of pain rolled over him as he fought against Dracula's talent for glamour, and the false illusion of safety and comfort begin to break. "He's the only man that I- wh-what the fuck are you doing to me?"

"Speak honestly." Dracula urged, snarling down at him.

Profuse emotion welled up inside of him. Anger, resistance and all the pain in his heart threatening to escape his lips, and the pain all over his body threatening to break him as Dracula compelled the truth from him.

"He was the only man I'd ever loved," Trevor confessed. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks. "I never got the chance to tell him… before you fucking killed him."

Dracula nodded solemnly, as if some puzzle had finally come together in his mind and he was examining every piece to absorb the whole picture at last. He began to laugh after a moment, and a sentimental grin spread across his lips. "His mother's heart... down to her inclination for loving beastly men," he groaned.

"Fuck you." Trevor spat.

"Belmont...” His name sounded heavier coming from between the King’s fangs this time. “Would you like to see her again?" Dracula continued.

"I already told you. I'll do anything."

Chapter Text

The Last Belmont, Part One

The castle’s hallways were long and narrow, decorated with intricately framed oil paintings; landscapes of the world’s wonders, and family portraits hung against stone. A seemingly infinite rug stretched down the corridor in an attempt to bring some warmth to the place with its rich crimson color; but all it achieved was concealing all the blood.
Dracula dragged Belmont to the privacy of his chambers like a true predator; with no regard for the injuries littering his body. The intensity of the stress on his broken bones, and open wounds, combined with the blood loss was enough to cause him to faint.
When his awareness returned to him, Trevor found himself looking up at Dracula with his head in his lap. He had one hand around his throat, just tightly enough to feel his pulse thumping weakly in his neck.

“I wonder…” Dracula pondered, “how many Belmont’s before you fought relentlessly for the chance to step near this place – and here you are… the last Belmont… knowing not what you have done,” said Dracula softly. “How far did they travel searching for my castle for you to die here?”

If he were being honest, Trevor had similar thoughts while holding Sypha in his arms on the floor of the main hall. This was not the fate that his fathers had imagined, he was sure of that. They would not dream of ironic deaths, and certainly not of failure.

Trevor choked as he tried to speak; to plead for Sypha’s life, and to wonder aloud about Alucard in an effort to force Dracula to think about what he’d done to him by picking at him like a scab. Instead, he found himself cringing as Dracula stroked the side of his face. The vampire looked down at him, and as his eyes met his he lost himself; numbness in his body, clarity of mind – more of Dracula’s psychic tricks. This time, Trevor was grateful for it.

“For what it’s worth,” Dracula explained, “this is far from the death that I had in mind for you… please forgive him.”

Though his words had been nearly whimpered, they stung Trevor. Him? Him?

“Alucard?” Trevor’s eyes widened and he began shaking his head with disbelief. Alucard would not want this; not for all his nihilistic philosophizing of the morality of immortal beings, not for all of his brooding on being born cursed.

Dracula chuckled and snarled at once, his teeth exposed like a warning. “Isn’t it… fucking sentimental? Traditionally, Vampires have turned their most treasured loved ones… their lovers, their spouses, their children - in order to spare themselves the grief of mortality…”

Belmont closed his eyes. “He… He isn’t that selfish. He can’t be more selfish than you – you didn’t even turn your own wife. She lived and died a human life; was that your fucking gift to her? Is that all you have to offer anyone? A fucking curse?”

Dracula released the mental hold on Trevor, and slammed him against the mattress to shock him with the sudden reality of his agony. Belmont cried out, regretting his words in an instant. In the back of Dracula’s mind, he could hear his son pleading for the two humans to receive his mercy. Despair made people selfish, and Belmont was too far gone for saving… turning him was the only way to keep him alive at this point; but Dracula found sadistic opportunity in taking Trevor as his thrall.

“Enough from you!” Dracula roared before taking a deep breath to keep himself from escalating things.

A man like Belmont, already restless, could be molded into a rabid hound that Dracula could command to snuff out any opposition, and nip at the heels of his dissentients. So long as he had Sypha locked away in his castle like a fucking damsel, Trevor would do as he was told… not without rebellion, surely – but that could be beaten or starved out of him. The value of taming a hunter… the court would cower in their fucking coffins.

Trevor whimpered breathlessly through the pain, “D-Do you always play with your food?”

“Typically.” Dracula admitted, tilting up Trevor’s chin to expose his neck.

Inspecting that pulsing artery beneath his filthy flesh made Dracula almost regret giving him such a beating prior. He didn’t mind the taste of a man full of regrets, full of fear, in agony; but in his personal experience, however, there was nothing as rich as blood given in pure submission. Lisa had let him drink from her once. It had been an intimate, nearly erotic experiment between the two of them. Her blood was smooth and rich, with the faintest tinge of sweetness beneath its metallic tones. As she fed him, he felt himself becoming drunk on her; clutching onto her form desperately, satisfaction dancing up his back and making him tingle all over.

Then there was Hector – the man knew no greater love than Dracula’s; and in his mind, there was no greater act of gratitude than to give his blood to sustain him. Ritually, he offered himself to him. There was no frightening the Forgemaster, who ripped souls from hell to bind them in flesh; and as one of only two humans serving in his court, he was well versed in the nature of many creatures of the night. Hector’s blood had piquancy that shocked his senses when it flooded his mouth. He had a well-rounded flavor, but it was an acquired taste that Dracula had come to prefer to any ol’ bag of blood.

But Belmont? Well, he reckoned the man tasted like shit. Poor diet, over-indulgent alcohol consumption; the victim, or volunteer’s state of being all had a hand to play in the unique essence of one’s blood. Dracula was almost upset with himself, that his overzealous cruelty had spoiled a Belmont, of all the pissants to end up beneath his fangs. Still, there was a thrill, a sense of satisfaction as his teeth grazed his throat. He lured a violent shiver from his body, then bit into him before it could make its way up his spine.

Trevor gasped hard, one of his hands coming up instinctively to grab a fistful of Dracula’s hair as his skin broke and gave way to his teeth. Dracula groaned miserably, feeling ill as his lips suckled against his neck to prevent a single drop of his blood from escaping his mouth. It was thick and sickeningly bitter to taste. If Trevor had been in any condition to be smug, he may have delighted in knowing that Dracula earned no pleasure from his flavor; but he was growing colder and getting unfathomably weaker by the second. Trevor attempted to curse him and only managed to produce a repulsive gurling noise.
Dracula kept a finger against the thumping pulse in Trevor’s wrist, measuring just how much of him was left. He would drink his fill, leaving all but a drop to sustain the man. When he pulled away, lips stained, blood dribbled down his chin. He stared down at Trevor for a moment as he reached for his dagger to cut a long line across his own wrist, spilling his blood for Trevor to gulp down and receive a new breed of life. He brought his arm up to the man’s mouth and forced him to take the wound between his lips.

“Drink from me, Belmont,” Dracula demanded, “Receive me, accept me, serve me; and I will fulfil even your most wild desires. Once you learn discipline, you’ll realize that I am giving you a gift – not a curse; you may find yourself grateful, even.”

Hot blood filled his mouth, forcing him to taste – Trevor didn’t want it, but he involuntarily gulped it down. He’d never tasted anything like it – no mead, no meat, no bread, nor fruit had ever satiated him this way. It was beyond satisfaction; it brought him euphoria. His reservations slowly melted away, and soon he found himself strong enough to take Dracula’s wrist in his hands, and desperately cradle it against his lips, suckling like a newborn.

Dracula praised him, encouraging Trevor to feast upon him as if he’d never truly eaten. He knew that once he was full, his body would begin to recognize that it was time for a change to be made. He observed him closely, watching expressions cross his face in rapid succession; anger, disgust, delight, abandon.

CRAACK

Trevor’s released him, threw his head back and howled like a wounded animal. His body involuntarily curled up and began trembling. He clutched his side, and peaked beneath his hands to see the bone moving beneath his skin. A horrified whimper involuntarily escaped him as he looked up at Dracula with remorse.

“Wh-What the fuck is happening to me?” It was all Trevor could think to ask before he heard another CRAACK, and he looked back down as the bone reset itself. A moment later, his body was overcome with unimaginable pain throughout every square inch of him; his bones audibly adjusting themselves, and his anatomy morphing itself into its finest manifestation.

“No transformation comes without it’s growing pains, Belmont. This is the price you must pay,” Dracula explained flatly, stroking the hair from Trevor’s face and shushing him like a whining child.

Over Trevor’s cries, he summoned Isaac into the room with a demanding shout. Isaac, well prepared to accommodate his master, had prepared a casket for Trevor as a safety measure; it locked from the outside, and was reinforced with magics to bind Trevor inside of it. He wheeled it into the room on atop a gurney, and stabilized it near them in order to easily place him inside. In a few days, once all of his thrashing and his hunger pangs had worn him down, Dracula would invite him out of his resting place and begin to fully refine him as his thrall. Until then, it was best to confine him.

New-bloods had a tendency to be unhinged, and destructive before fully adjusting to vampirism. They were they embodiment of sin; lustful, gluttonous, vengeful, and insatiable in every facet. Dracula imaged that Trevor would be an unparalleled menace for a time; drinking up villages, trying to fuck the other vampires into oblivion, and surely he would make an attempt on his life a handful of times before abandoning hope of ever killing his master.

Every minute that ticked by, Belmont surpassed another level of torment unlike anything that he had ever experienced as a man. In no time at all, he had begun pleading for death – real death. Suddenly, Trevor was willing to compromise; offering everything in exchange for his own liberation from this all-encompassing pain. In that moment he had abandoned his values, his love and legacy, and all of his meager dignity for a chance for repose.

Hoisting open the heavy lid, Isaac announced, “It is ready.”

Within the narrow interior, short chains were fastened to the sides to which a collar and thick, metal cuffs for his wrists were attached; meant to keep him still and upright inside. Scooping Trevor into his arms as he writhed, Dracula rose to his feet, and approached the container. As he bent over to lay him inside, Trevor gripped onto him desperately, refusing to allow him to stuff him inside of that air tight box for God only knows how long.

“NO!” Trevor roared with a fistful of the collar of Dracula’s shirt. The sound had been fierce; no longer pleading for a moment.

It shocked and thrilled Dracula to laughter when Belmont’s fist weakly flung towards his face. He shoved him down into the casket with a single palm to his chest. The force caused Trevor’s back to pop loudly against the back wall of the interior. It knocked the wind from Trevor’s lungs, forcing him to make an awful wheeze rattle from his chest. Isaac took advantage of the moment, and used it to secure the collar around Trevor’s throat before quickly snatching up his wrists to cuff them as well before backing away.

Trevor was snarling with tears in his eyes, and as Dracula looked down at him with an almost eager expression, he chuckled to himself and foretold, “You are going to be hellfire,” before watching the furious way that Trevor begun to thrash now that most of his skeletal system was functional again.

Dracula took the honor of sealing Trevor in upon himself, and lowered the lid closed. After twisting the locking mechanisms tightly, Trevor’s wailing became muffled and distant from within, the words hardly discernable over all the banging as he rattled around inside.

“Quite the disturbance,” Isaac noted blandly, as if the whole ordeal had been a distasteful display at a dinner party.

“Quite,” agreed Dracula, before stripping off his cloak and tossing it aside. “Keep him in the room at the end of the hall. I’ll retrieve him when everything has passed,” he instructed. He went onto ask Isaac,
“What’s the condition of the Magician?”

“She’s concussed, and seems to have broken a few ribs – but otherwise stable. She’s been placed in a cell modified specifically to repress Speaker magic. She won’t be causing any problems.”

“Good,” Dracula hummed. “Keep her healthy. She’s important to him; that will be useful.”

“Yes, Master,” Isaac nodded as he leaned his weight into the gurney in order to maneuver towards the door. He carefully pushed through the double doors separating Dracula’s chambers from a stretch of hallway. After a wide turn into the hall, Isaac began to wheel him to the end of it. There, beyond a door, was an emptied, long abandoned room with no particular use. Isaac gave himself enough space ahead of the haul to unlock the door and let it creak open as and pushed through. After centering the casket in the room, he kneeled down to lock the legs of the gurney in place.

For a moment, Isaac pitied him. Those screams were enough to chill anyone – even him. An intuitive knot formed in the man’s gut.

Though Isaac dared not voice his concern, he thought to himself, the final blood relative of the infamous Belmont’s… and you make him into the very beast that he was raised to kill… What are you thinking, Dracula?

If Trevor did not hate him already, he would learn to.

Chapter Text

The Last Belmont, Part Two

   Trevor had no method of keeping time from inside the casket. Surely, he thought, he’d spent at least half a day simply flipping through emotions. He experienced fury, grief, and heartache in rapid succession, and overlaid over those particularly egregious growing pains. Wailing, shrieking, bashing himself against the walls to the best of his ability; he’d pleaded into the void for rescuing. Every time, his voice faltering and childlike, he cried for Dracula and promised to behave himself if only he’d let him out; he was met with silence every time, and responded with roaring threats before reducing himself to sobs once more.

   He felt different in the darkness. He began to notice at some point (once the pain had died down in its extremity) that his teeth felt awkward in his jaw now, and the tips of his fingernails now dug into his palms like razor blades when he balled his hands into fists. Had he been locked away so long that his teeth had rearranged inside of his mouth, and his nails overgrown?

   He had known about the turning, the process of transforming a human into a vampire, prior to accepting Dracula’s offer; but knowing, and experiencing were very different. No amount of literature on the subject would have ever physically or psychologically prepared him for the immense and overwhelming sensations that seized his entire being.

   For a while, he resigned himself to silence pleased simply with the pain having ended. He decided that if this was the only peace he was to be permitted in his eternity, he would take it; and until the hunger set in, and he was given a knew brand of pain to add to his suffering. It made him feel weak and hollow, as if the core of his body would collapse in on him at any given moment. The emptiness made his head spin, and twisted his gut to the point of nausea. Every meal became a memory that haunted him. He had not realized how ungrateful he had been, how he took every morsel for granted until he was starving. Now, even food had become a luxury. As he licked his lips over the image of a stew bubbling in his mind, his tongue grazed a fang that had previously been foreign to his mouth. For some reason, it shocked him.

   He could never be satisfied by stew. This is what he was now. He would take his next meal screaming and bleeding; bleeding into his mouth as Dracula had. Trevor, somehow, had nearly forgotten of everything that had happened before the agony seized all of his faculties, but Dracula had fed him from his wrist. Chills ran through his body at the flashes of memory in his mind. He had slurped down every drop, and it had been… delectable. The memory of the velvety flavor flipped a switch in his mind, affirming his transformation.

   Blood. He needed blood - gallons upon gallons just to feel sane again. He began to imagine every battle he ever participated in, all the blood that had been spilled and wasted into the Earth. It should have been in his gut. A strange new sensation began to peak within him; an aching in the roof of his mouth, his teeth nearly itching. It was strange to him, but he knew instinctively that it was the desire to bite.

   Trevor could not keep his mind from exploring the idea of biting into flesh. How many warm bodies would it take to satisfy him? The burst of color and flavor as his teeth sank into skin – the thought used to repulse him. Now, he yearned for it again and again. He would gorge himself on blood, drinking until his pupils were blown and his stomach threatened to burst; until the bodies piled around him.

   Frustrated tears rolled down his cheeks when he became fully aware of his wishes. Had it taken so little time to make him a monster? How much man was he from the beginning if this was his breaking point? His stomach growled, and it infuriated him. If he could have, he would have balled up his fist and punched himself in the gut to tame it. Burdened by guilt, he attempted to clear his mind, but with every passing moment the imagery escalated. His fantasies became filled with traumatizing detail, and the faceless figures from which he feasted became familiar. He saw himself ravenous, and latched onto the neck of every person he had never known; particularly vicious with the ones he’d loved.

   Time passed for however long, and Trevor reached a point of stasis. No stimuli to occupy his hateful little brain, no meat to cure his starvation, no air to breathe, or space to curl up and comfort himself; for a while it was if Trevor had fled his body for his daydreams of his new sick, fetishes.

  A loud, perturbing noise jolted him out of himself and back into the box. He peered into blackness until light erupted from the edges of the casket and it opened up at last. Trevor gasped, taking fresh air into his lungs for the first time in his new life. At first, the intrusive light of the room was too much for his eyes to bare. The room was overbearingly bright for a few seconds before his eyes managed to adjust (as well as they could while on the brink of collapse from hunger).

  With the light exposing the interior, he could see the damage he had done inside; the deep scratch marks near where his hands had been bound, the fingernails littering the bottom of the box that had detached themselves from his finger tips as they were replaced by talon-like claws, and the teeth that had done the same as his fangs pushed through his gums. They’d been crushed beneath his boots from stomping and kicking.

  “Is… is it over?” Trevor whimpered as he looked up to see Dracula examining him from the outside.

  Dracula didn’t answer him simply because Dracula does not answer to Trevor. Instead, he unlocked the collar and cuffs, jerked him into the room by his arm and let him crash to the floor feebly. He gaited to Trevor’s side and asked him that same question, “Would you like to see her?”

   Of course, he did. He nodded in response, incapable of trusting himself to speak anything kindly. Dracula assisted him in standing, knowing all too well what blood deprivation could do to a young vampire. Trevor was surprised by how warm he was to him now. When Dracula’s mouth had been crushing his throat between his teeth, he had felt how frigid his lips had been then. Now, leaning his weight into him, he felt a noticeable difference in his body temperature.

   “Easy,” advised Dracula, lifting some of the burden of his weight for him. He guided him through the castle slowly. They said nothing to one another as they made their way through the corridors and down flights of stairs – down, down, down to Dracula’s dungeons where he kept traitors, and prisoners of his misguided war on humanity. There, in a small cell, is where he kept Sypha Belnades.

   Curled up in a white gown, and sleeping upon a scattered bale of hay, her hair disheveled with golden straws sticking out of her locks like a crown; the sight of her was mercy. Trevor nearly wept with relief. He pulled himself away from Dracula, and stumbled to the ground to crawl his way to her. He called out to her, and her head rose immediately to find him.

   “Sypha!”

   Sypha gasped as she jumped to her feet, “Belmont?!”

   Even from a distance he could see the tears in her eyes, glistening in candlelight; but she was smiling. Trevor didn’t notice his own tears, how they ran down his cheeks as he struggled to keep his lips closed to conceal his fangs. He wanted to meet her at the cell bars, to hold her hands between them, and to steal a kiss. It wasn’t until he was nearly there that it occurred to him that getting any closer could be dangerous.

   “These fucking bastards wouldn’t tell me anything,” she sobbed, “I thought you were dead!”

   Trevor snorted, delighted as always by the way curse words rolled off of her tongue. It was always more colorful than he could have ever made them sound in his bland accent. It always made him smile; which had gotten him slapped numerous times, but he couldn’t help it.

   Sypha flooded him with questions. What happened? Are you alright? Where is Alucard? They echoed in his mind over and over, and he couldn’t seem to answer. He saw it all in his mind, had been there for every mistake that had got them there, and he still couldn’t say it aloud.

  “Trevor?” Sypha spoke softly, tugging him back into the moment. “What’s wro-,” before she could ask, she realized.

   Trevor inhaled deeply, and regretted it. He caught her scent, and a rumble shook him from within. He clenched his jaw tightly, and swallowed the saliva that pooled within his mouth.

   “I had to.” He blurted out in his defense from between his teeth.

   “Your eyes…” Sypha observed that they were no longer a steel blue, but the same reddish tone as Dracula’s now.

   As if her thoughts had summoned the devil, Dracula stepped out from the shadows and came to Trevor’s side. Sypha fell back with angry tears rolling down her face. For two weeks, she had been imprisoned in Dracula’s castle, resigned to the belief that Alucard and Trevor had been murdered; hoping for better, and having her hopes for them end up overshadowed by fear for herself. She realized now that Dracula was playing a game with them. 

   “Show her your teeth,” Dracula instructed Trevor as he snatched him from the floor by the back of his shirt, and dragged him closer and closer to Sypha. Trevor could do little to stop him beside flopping like a fish out of water. Dracula’s hand pressed against the back of his skull, shoving his face roughly into the bars of her cell.

   At this distance, his nose burned as if affected by allergies when he was this close to her, and pain seized his gut entirely.  He held his breath in an attempt to block it from his senses.

   “Dracula,” Trevor broke, “please…”

   “Please? Please what? You wanted to see her. What was your plan? Were you going to stand ten feet from the door and feed her reassurances from between your fangs?”

   Trevor snarled, fully exposing his teeth as he jerked against Dracula’s weight in an asinine attempt to be freed. The rage made him feral; he could feel Dracula mocking him. They needed no exchange of verbiage for him to know, and when Dracula began to chuckle at his struggle, it only infuriated him more.

   With their attention occupied by one another, Sypha approached them. Trevor noticed only when her feet her before him and her maddening aroma had entirely disconnected him from the world around him so intensely that not even the pain of hunger could keep him from melting against the bars of her cell.

   Sypha made a noise from the back of her throat Trevor heard a soft splatter as he felt Dracula flinch. All of a sudden, found himself able to move beneath Dracula’s weight. He looked over his shoulder to observe the thick, gob of spit dripping down Dracula’s face. It had landed just below his eye and trailed downwards near where his cheek and nostril met. He wiped it away as his eye twitched wildly.

    Sypha had damn near spit in Dracula’s eye, and she was just standing there, with no where to run and a mean mugging him as if she had the ability to kill him with looks alone. Trevor had never cursed at a woman, but in that moment, he had come up with all manner of words to describe her.

   “Dracula…” Trevor muttered softly as if to lure him from rage, nearly shaking as he feared for Sypha’s life. The expression on the vampire’s face spoke volumes of the evils he wanted to inflict on her.

   Trevor found himself rolling across the floor and into the feet of two red-eyed guards standing at the entrance to the dungeons. When he looked up, the distance between him and Sypha as Dracula keyed open her cell door sent him into a panic.

  “Dracula, don’t! Please!” he cried out as he watched the back of his hand collide with her cheek and send her backwards.

  “Bring him to me!” Dracula shouted to his guards.

   They scooped Trevor up under his arms and began to walk him into her cell. Once inside, they got out of their Master’s way, and held Trevor still. Dracula watched Sypha gather herself and stand back up on her feet. He grinned, an inaudible laugh shaking his belly.

  “Stop! Stop, please, Dracula. I am begging you. I’ll do anything you ask of me, just leave her alone. Whatever you plan on doing to her, do it to me instead! I can take it.”

  “You will take it, AND SO WILL SHE,” Dracula shouted, his voice nearly cracking. “For every single act of disobedience, every trespass against me, Trevor Belmont, whatever punishment I inflict upon you - I will give to her as well. Do we understand one another?”

   “Where is Aluca-” Sypha had the nerve to ask, still clutching her cheek with her hand, only to receive a slap across the other. Trevor flinched harder than her at the sound of the impact, his heart breaking as she whimpered.

   Dracula took a deep breathe before addressing them again. “I will not tolerate the ill temperaments of chattel, Miss. Belnades.”

   There was a moment of silence, and Dracula relished it, collecting himself before he pulled Sypha close, as if to embrace her. Trevor watched, still horrified and uncertain of what he had planned for them next. He watched Sypha, pliant in his grasp. He turned her around to face him and put his arm beneath her chin, as if putting her in a headlock. Dracula guided her to the floor in this positing, sitting with her practically in his lap. With his back against the wall, he hooked his feet beneath her ankles and parted her legs, exposing her to Trevor, and the guards restraining him.

   “W-What are you doing?” Trevor asked with his voice trembling. He had never taken Dracula to be a pervert, though he wasn’t sure why. Surely, the morality of his sexuality had faltered over time as well. What did it matter to a man who could never bend to consequence, never answer to God? Whatever deviancies he could dream of were accessible to him without fear of punishment, and he would indulge himself without remorse.

   Dracula’s eyes met his, and he shushed him. With his free hand, he lifted her gown just enough to show Trevor, noting aloud, “This is the femoral artery.”

   Trevor looked down at his hand, at Sypha’s bewildered expression, and then up at Dracula.

   “Come here, Trevor,” Dracula commanded. The two guards dragged Trevor to him, and dropped him between Sypha’s legs. He backed away, but found himself blocked by the solid forms of the armored guards who would not let him run from this. Trevor began to understand what Dracula was about to make him do.

    He wanted to say no, to refuse him, to cling to what little humanity that may have been left in him. He was disgusted that he couldn’t force out that one syllable word – no. No, no, no! It rattled between his ears, but his tongue was tied.

    Sensing his hesitation, Dracula urged him to drink, “Do it, Belmont. Do you know what blood deprivation does to your kind?”

    He did. He had seen it himself when hunting them. When on a hunt in west Moldavia, he’d killed a vampire that had been reigning hell on a village outside Braila only to find another chained in the basement of his home. Half sane, emaciated, and begging Trevor to whip him out of existence. As a man, he’d made enemies of the vampire; and so that vampire turned him, chained him, and never once offered him a drop of blood or allowed him to feed freely. By the time Trevor had come for him, he was hardly sentient anymore. He hardly knew who he was or how much time had passed… he only knew he wanted to die. Trevor gave him that mercy.

    “T-Trevor…” Sypha nearly whispered, “do what he says… It’s okay.”

     Dracula’s brow furrowed, and he turned his head to look at the girl as if she had spoken in tongues. He could see why Belmont had attached himself to her. She was a woman ahead of her time, fearless, and emboldened by any challenger with the audacity. She would speak above even Dracula himself should he try and tame her. Sypha noticed that Dracula’s attention had come to her, and didn’t acknowledge his observation. She kept her eyes on Trevor instead.

    “It’s going to be okay, but right now… just do as he says,” she instructed, urging him to use her body to fuel his own.

    Dracula needed only watch as Sypha cooed to him like a scared puppy to see Trevor’s walls begin to break down little by little. He crawled to her, his nails digging into the stone as he fought his own animalistic urges with every fiber of his being. It occurred to Dracula then, that in this moment, Trevor was less afraid of him, and more afraid of himself.

   “You aren’t going to kill her, Belmont… I won’t let you,” he reassured him, “I’ll stop you before you even get close to draining her,”

   Trevor kneeled down, hooking his arms beneath her soft thighs to pull her closer, and put his head between her legs. As his chapped lips brushed against her thigh, Dracula repositioned his head before he could bite down in order to guarantee that he would hit the artery without issue before giving his approval to proceed. One of Sypha’s hands came down, and stroked his head in an attempt to comfort him. She cued him with a nod, and finally, Trevor sank his teeth into her.

   Sypha hissed, her hips bucking upwards as the breaking skin sent a sharp pain through her for a moment. Instincts overtook Trevor, and he pinned her against Dracula’s body as he buried his face deeper into her flesh. A shiver coiled up his spine, and goosebumps rose up on the surface of his skin. He moaned, and began losing himself in her warmth, her taste bursting in his mouth. His belly began to shake with laughter between gulps, sending vibrations into her thigh.

   Dracula smiled, amused that he had put up so much of a fight only to receive such pure bliss from this. He wondered how often he would reflect on his moment. Would it come to him in moments of despair, when he was touch starved and hungry; or when he’d gone just a little too long without allowing himself the most basic pleasures? Anytime this notorious tramp found himself between the thighs of a woman his mind would wander and fantasize of this precious, carnal moment.

   Trevor grappled his desires, managing to maintain a thin sliver of control, but the more blood he drank the more ravenous he became.  To Dracula, it was like watching the fattest pup in the litter tugging with all of its meager ferocity on a teat. It made him chuckle to think of it that way; that this was no more than him hand feeding his pick of the litter – that fat puppy. He watched Trevor’s expression as she leaked into him, her very life becoming the foundation on which he would take his first steps, giving him the strength to stand. How special, he thought of the moment.

    Sypha groaned, turning her head against Dracula’s shoulder to look away. This was sick; Dracula was sick; but she much preferred to sustain Trevor’s hunger herself than allow him to go out into the world defeating the purpose of his life’s work and hating himself for it. She cupped his face to let him know that she was okay, hoping that she could give him enough to give him back his strength.

   Trevor began to feel the weight of exhaustion lift itself from his body slowly. The knots in his stomach unraveled, and its quaking ceased. Dracula watched as some color returned to his cheeks, keeping fingers against Sypha’s pulse to monitor her response. Her heart jumped, recognizing the loss, and Dracula decided that her body had endured enough for one feeding.

  “Stop now,” he instructed.

   It took Trevor a moment to detach himself from her, long enough that Dracula scolded him, but he managed to let go with a deep gasp. His world began spinning when he did, and he fell backwards at the feet of the guards again. Wearing a soft smile on his face, he closed his eyes and savored the feeling of the warmth sloshing in his gut. He was by no means full yet, but he was immensely relieved. He lay in that spot, dazed, staring up through the guards who had stood still as the walls the entire time, fascinated by the scenario playing out before them.

  Dracula stood with Sypha. Her gown fell to its position below her knees as she stumbled away from him, and further into the cell before he collapsed into the pile of hay clutching the inside of her thigh. She glared at the vampire, and Dracula could have sworn it made the room a little bit colder.

  Soft, breathy laughter drew attention to Trevor, still lying on the floor. A soft pink flush was spread across his nose and cheeks, and Sypha’s blood still stained his lips. Dracula took one good look at him and grinned, amused by the sight of him. He snapped his fingers, and his guard jumped to attention – ready to serve.

 “Remove Belmont from the dungeons. Wait with him for me in my study until I return,” Dracula instructed them before he seemed to burst into a swarm of bats that filled the room for all but a moment before they formed a noisy hoard and made their dramatic exit via one of the narrow, glassless windows of the dungeon.

Chapter Text

The Stake and the Stoneman

   Propped up in the seat of a throne-like chair positioned before the fire place of Dracula’s study, Trevor was sunken into a state of bliss. Riding a sort of high from feeding for the first time, he was still licking and sucking on his lips for any hint of blood left there. He had no mind to keep himself from his leftovers. After all, who did it hurt now? He savored Sypha’s taste, but he found that it was difficult to separate her taste from the memory of hurting her. She had been furious and defeated. He struggled with the weight of his guilt.

   It felt wrong to have taken pleasure from that moment, but he had; even in the most base, carnal ways. The memory even made his cock jump in his trousers. The movement between his legs grounded him in reality again. Trevor had forgotten about the presence of the guards in his blood-drunken euphoria. Entirely detached from his surroundings, he sat quietly with his eyes closed as if dreaming. When Trevor opened his eyes, he jumped in his seat when he found Dracula lurking beside him. He hadn’t heard him open the massive double doors, or heard him dismiss the guards from the dungeon back to their station; he certainly hadn’t noticed when he had come to his side, and watched him swaying in his seat, lost within himself. Trevor cleared his throat and looked away nearly instantly, moving his hand to cover the bulge between his legs.

   “Don’t be ashamed, Belmont. Your reaction is entirely natural,” Dracula explained. Trevor found some comfort in the comment, relieved to know that his erection was probably the result of receiving hot blood rather than having awakened some perverse craving.

   Dracula went on to admit, “You handle yourself better than I had expected. I’m surprised you didn’t at least try to kill her. It would have been too easy for you like this.”

   Trevor made no indication that he had even heard him; but Dracula knew that he had by the way that his mouth twitched, threatening to spread into a snarl across his face as he glared into the flames dancing in the hearth. He dedicated his attention exclusively to the fire in an attempt to control his nerves, and his shortening temper. Trevor tightly pursed his lips, pretending they were sealed shut, and his brow deeply furrowed as he stared ahead. He refused to even spare a glance in his direction. The very sight of Dracula made him sick; a reminder of his failures, and his grief; a reminder of what he is, and that he is owned.

   “Speak honestly,” Dracula pried, “did you enjoy yourself?”

   It was a genuine inquiry, though Trevor found his interest to be morbid. Although Dracula knew the true answer, he was curious to see if Trevor would admit it to him, or even allow himself to say it aloud. Trevor seemed to come back to himself for a moment to think about it; and the more he thought about it, the more obvious the battle inside of him became on the outside. His furrowed brow twitching under the pressure of his own emotions, his eyes darting back and forth as if scanning a memory. Dracula was riddled with anticipation by the time that his lips parted to answer him with a strained and defeated (however, simple), “yes.”

   “How did it feel?” Dracula pushed on, his mouth stretching into a frighteningly sly grin.

   “I… I-It was terrifying… at first,” Trevor confessed, his voice but a mere whisper, “b-but then I felt…” he trailed off, a lump rising in his throat.

   Bone chilling, toe curling ecstasy, unlike anything he’d ever dreamed of; Trevor wondered if even death had the power to relieve him that way, if God’s forgiveness had ever offered such rejuvenation. He covered his mouth, ashamed of the reminiscent smile that had begun to curl up the corners of his mouth as he recalled the moment that Sypha’s blood had filled his mouth. “What is wrong with me?” he groaned, cursing himself.

   As if this were an occasion for tea, Dracula sauntered over to a cabinet full of glasses and goblets. After taking a moment to select one, then filled it to the top with blood from a crystal decanter. He was giddy, eager to watch Trevor’s desperate fight against nature, and denial.

    “Tell me,” he commanded, “was it better than sex? Better than liquor?” He asked Belmont as he came back to him with the goblet in hand.

   Dracula closed the distance between them, getting closer and closer to him. When Trevor realized he had no intentions of merely standing before him, he put out his hands to keep him at a distance, but it didn’t keep him from straddling him in the chair, and running the goblet beneath Trevor’s nose to taunt him.

   “Would you like more?” Dracula asked him alluringly. His voice was gentle, genuinely offering his cup to Trevor. “I don’t let just anyone drink from my personal reserves, but I’ll make an exception for you.”

   With his eyes fixated on the goblet, Trevor hardly noticed when Dracula dipped his pinky into cup; but when his finger came up to his lips to paint them with a stranger’s blood for him to taste, he quivered at his touch. His pleading eyes darted up to his face, tearful now from his own frustrating efforts to resist his offer.

   Dracula gripped him by the jaw, growling, “Answer me, Trevor. Would you like to have a drink?”

   Dracula demanded a response from him. He wanted him to stop denying himself, to abandon his reservations towards indulging his new nature. He could see his resolve breaking more and more with each passing moment, and when a single tear rolled down his cheek, Belmont’s body shook with a sob as he licked the blood from his lips.

   “P-Please,” he finally begged.

   Dracula took Trevor’s jaw in one hand as Trevor opened his mouth for him, and tilted the goblet so that blood streamed down into his gullet. He paused now and then; once his mouth was filled, he allowed him a moment to gulp it down to avoid making a complete mess of him. Those moments were filled with Trevor’s gasping and delighted moans, with maddened chuckles breaking through in-between. By the time the cup was empty, his pupils had doubled in size, and Trevor had given up his façade of disgust entirely; it wasn’t sustainable as he was enveloped in a flurry of satisfaction.

   Just a goblet’s worth of blood was all it took to reduce him to a slobbering mess; blood running down his neck and jaw, his tongue collecting the remnants from his mouth, hands gripping the seat beneath him to keep himself steady, and a satisfied grin across his lips. He breathed heavily as he tried to reign himself in.

   “You’re a real fiend, Belmont. You love this.” Dracula noted with something like vindication in his tone. “I should take this opportunity to make this clear,” his voice darkened, and he pulled Trevor close. “Don’t ever drink from my boys; Hector and Isaac are off limits to you. If you need blood, you can go down to see your woman, or you can come beg me for another taste from my reserves. Do you understand?”

   Trevor’s smile faded and he nodded slowly; his eyes caught in Dracula’s as he answered him, “Yes.”

   Dracula backed away from him, dusting Belmont’s filth from his robes. He glanced over him with a look of disgust. “Why don’t you retire to your chambers? I had Isaac prepare you a bath. You’re grimy, you should bathe.”

   The request gave Belmont pause. He asked for clarification, “my chambers?”

   Dracula observed his puzzled reaction him for a moment, before withdrawing a key from his coat pocket and presenting it to him on his open palm. Trevor looked at it with a dumb expression before taking it. He didn’t ask questions about the key, or even examine it in closer detail before closing it in his fist.

   “The room at the very end of the hall is yours,” Dracula explained, “I’ve had it refurbished for your residency.”

   “My captivity,” Trevor emphasized, bitterly correcting him as he fondled with the key in his hand.

   Dracula began to explain in detail, “As my thrall, you will be navigating an intricate socio-political landscape exceeding the asinine theater of the governments of mankind,” he said matter-of-factly, “Keeping up appearances is essential. You will receive the accommodations of the court – with exceptions.”

   Trevor was baffled. He refused to repress the scoff in his chest, and shook his head to himself as it escaped. Dracula huffed in response, tired of all his protest – and attempting to pardon his sourness. He would never allow Belmont to escape him; but here, in his castle, he would have a space of his own. Not a damp cell, but his own bedchambers, his own study to make his preparations before Dracula sent him out to retrieve heads, and even a bath room to wash away the gore when he returned.

   “What am I even doing here?” Trevor muttered solemnly, “What are you going to make me do?” Although he feared the answer, he needed to know. Dracula had kept him in the dark for long enough.

   The devil released a long sigh. It rattled in his throat in the end, turning into an angry growl. “I’ve been betrayed… by these small creatures of little faith and no vision; by my own court, and when I need them most.” Dracula elaborated, “Isaac and Hector have reported to me that the organization of a coup led primarily by my brightest adversary, Carmilla, is underway. I want you to undermine her efforts, execute her collaborators, and eventually her as well.”

   Trevor’s eyes widened as his brows raised up in surprise. “You want me to kill… fucking… Carmilla of Styria,” he stammered with disbelief, “the Queen of the West? Are you out of your mind?”

   “No, but she will be once she realizes that I have you wrapped around my finger! They all feared you as a man, and they will fear you thrice as much as one of us!” Dracula shouted, “After I clean up the mess you made, I’ll show you just how much. I’ll gather them all here in the castle, you can stand beside me, and watch how they’ll all kneel for us; how they disguise their fear as respect!” He laughed wickedly. “The looks on their faces… how they’ll whisper to one another in panic…”

   “Yeah, I’m sure I’ll be very well 'respected',” Trevor laughed, “Here comes Trevor Belmont, look at how he sits on command! What a good bo-” He yelped when the back of Dracula’s hand struck across his face, clutching his cheek against his palm. He hesitated before turning his eyes back up to him.

   Dracula looked disappointed, and for the first time, that frightened Trevor. He glared down at him with an expression that compelled him to straighten his spine and sit at attention – and he did.

   With no transitions, Dracula began to explain his rules. “While in the house of Tepes, I demand your respect. You do not have to profess your adoration for me, or refer to me by meaningless titles, but you will be obedient,” he began harshly. “With the exception of the dungeons, do not enter any room in my castle without my explicit permission. I will not tolerate you scampering around, fiddling with things you can’t understand. I expect you in your chambers by sunrise, and I expect you to show your face at sundown to receive direction.”

   Dracula paused, giving him a moment to ask any questions he may have before moving on to his next matter of focus. “You’re free to visit your magician at the beginning and end of each day, but should she begin to distract yo-”

   “What about Adrian?” Trevor asked, no longer willing to tolerate the way he avoided every mentioning of him. It was as if Dracula was pretending that they had not come there together. The mention of his son’s name seemed to move Dracula to rage or sadness when slipping from the mouths of others.

    “What about him?”

   Trevor had not expected him to receive his concern at all. He thought carefully about his next words, cautious not to offend him. His chest felt heavy as he searched for the proper way to address Dracula about his son.

   “Sypha is safe, but… he… I-I need to…” The memory of the stone-man with his hands reaching out, and lips frozen mid prayer, with a hole in his chest haunted him; and knowing that the stone-man was Adrian, wondering what he’d said in his final moments, knowing he would be remembered this way only pushed Trevor closer to hysteria. He regretted hiding his affection for Adrian behind a veil of ceaseless teasing and sharp remarks. He should have filled him with love, showed him every day just how loved he was until he believed it.

   Adrian had been so afraid of being like his father; he served humanity, kept an open heart, never drank from the unwilling; It was hard to believe that he was the son of Dracula sometimes. The idea that Dracula could raise such a gentle man was absurd. Trevor supposed this is how he had earned the name Alucard; his father’s name backwards, the anti-Dracula.

   Trevor took a sharp inhale before confessing, “Adrian meant the world to me.” It was all he could say before breaking down.

   Dracula felt his stomach drop and something began to stir within him. Belmont’s sadness was all too familiar to him these days. He watched as grief welled up inside of the boy, then bubbled over; how his body coiled up like something dying. As a sob ripped through his chest, Trevor made an awful, defeated sound. Dracula had cried like this for Lisa. He found himself wanting to comfort Trevor; to ease his heart’s suffering, and relieve him of that agony.

   With sheer horror written across his face, the consequences of Dracula’s actions had finally seemed to dawn on him. What had he done? What had he done to his boy? He’d taken him away from a man that had truly adored him, would love him in all the ways that Lisa had loved him. He wanted to pull the stake out of his heart, reanimate him before Belmont’s eyes, to take it all back… but Alucard would get in his way.

   Perhaps after he’d finished purging the Earth of humanity – then he would welcome back his son, show him that he had spared his lover, and given him the opportunity to be loved by him forever. Belmont would retract his opposition, and be rewarded with Alucard’s freedom; Until then, he would stay safe and sound, petrified, out of his way.

   Dracula gently placed a hand on Trevor’s shoulder. The sudden tenderness seemed to startle him. He jumped, looking up at him with a surprised expression, and his eyes still wet with sorrow. Trevor was captivated by Dracula’s genuine remorse, witnessing it for the first time, and finally seeing something beneath the monster.

   “Follow me,” Dracula cued, leading him out into the hall. His tone was firm and commanding, but not at all as harsh as it had been. Trevor hopped up to trail after him, feeling hopeful about their destination.

   They arrived at a door like any other in the castle; dusty and locked tight. “This room,” Dracula explained as he fiddled with the lock, “was Alucard’s when he was young.”

   The door unlocked, and Dracula gently guided the door open, gesturing for him to enter. Trevor stepped inside and examined his surroundings. At the foot of the old bed, positioned in the center of a rug, the figure of Alucard rested on its knees and surrounded by an amalgamation of wax and flower petals, basking in the moonlight shining through the tall, half rounded windows. Above him, a mural of the stars; gold glittering against dark blue.

   Trevor stared up at the hand painted ceiling to avoid looking at the statue. He took a deep breath and immediately recognized his smell; remnants of a scent he’d never truly attached to Adrian until that moment. It was like fresh fruit, cut to be shared between lovers; delicately sweet, with a deep woody smell lingering beneath those honeyed aromatics. Trevor sank to his knees, pulled down by a sense of woe.

   “Look at this,” Trevor nearly gasped, gesturing at the entirety of the room with his arms. His words would have sounded like praise if he had not been so torn up inside. “Look at the care put into this place, even now. You surround him with candles and mourning lilies…” He shook his head mournfully and scoffed, “how could you?”

   This was the room of a child, beloved by his parents. Every detail made Trevor wonder and reflect on what it must have been like to be a small, bright boy in a massive, dreary place; To be boy whose parent’s ideologies were so opposed, to see them so… gentle with one another. Here, Trevor couldn’t pretend that Dracula was truly a monster – not surrounded by nursey rhymes, toys carved and sewn by hand, by the shimmering mural above him. It infuriated him.

   At one point in time, Dracula had been full of love because he had received love in abundance. That love had almost rewritten his character chapter by chapter… only to be burned up in the flames around Lisa’s feet; but was Dracula as frail as paper? Easily reduced to ashes, and only as good as he is written – only as good as he is loved?

   “How could you do this?” Repeated Trevor, turning to face Dracula with fury in his teary eyes, but Dracula was nowhere to be seen. He had simply vanished; not interested in, or perhaps incapable of confronting and processing his feelings for his son and the weight of his actions.

   “Dracula?!” Trevor shouted down the dark hall behind him – as if he would answer to him. “Fucking coward…” He scanned around, half expecting him to appear immediately behind him.

   Without his presence, the atmosphere of the room seemed to lighten around him. He sighed, pleased to be rid of him for some time, and to finally have a moment to see Alucard again; even like this. He sat on the floor and stared up at him in silence for what felt like ages before he finally felt he had the stomach to speak.

   “I’m not sure how long it’s been to be entirely honest,” Trevor admitted. “Sypha survived, but I’m…” he struggled to acknowledge the ugly truth. He shook his head, pushing through the cognitive dissonance forbidding him to even allow the word vampire to pass through his mind, let alone his lips. He huffed, “I’m entirely lost without you.”

   “I don’t know what to do, but I wish you… were here to guide… me…” he confessed, trailing off as his attention was drawn to the ominous stake fixed in Alucard’s chest.

   “What is this thing?” Trevor pondered aloud, his brow furrowing as he examined it closer. It had a visible grain like that of wood, but the lines were thin, and seemed to run deep throughout the stake. In some places, they seemed more like cracks against the surface of a stone; some even seemed slightly agape, and revealed an aura emanating from inside of the stake.

   Chills ran up Belmont’s spine as his fingers grazed its end. He jerked his hand away, far too suspicious of things of this nature to simply pull it out and observe it, but he began to question its function. Would Dracula truly kill Alucard? Could he after losing his wife? And with all of his knowledge, with his boundless skills, could he not have devised… a trick of some kind?

   Trevor did not know magic, and only understood a handful of the absurdly abstract concepts within magical theory. He doubted he would ever truly grasp it, and knew he could never even dream of wielding such talents; not like Sypha.

   While she specialized in the elements, he decided he’d speak to her in the dungeons at his nearest opportunity, hoping she could answer some of his questions about the stake. He made a few mental notes about its appearance to give her an accurate description of it to her when they met, and then rose to his feet.

   He took Adrian’s cold face between his hands once standing, intending to get a good look at him. Perhaps in another circumstance, it would be fitting to immortalize Alucard in marble, so that his beauty would become legendary throughout time; but this was not beautiful. Every aspect of his form was fearful and agonized. This was the first time Trevor had seen him up close this way, and he felt that the very sight of him would rip him apart.

   He wanted to tell him about his unspoken yearning, just how much he cared – but looking at Adrian this way, only gave him fantasies of killing his father. He pressed his lips gently against his cheek, promising to return to him again before locking up the room and dragging his feet to the room that Dracula had gifted him.

   Inside, a fire was already burning for him. The aroma of the fragrant bath oils had carried into the bed room. It was a comforting scent, like sandalwood with hints of rose. Trevor breathed deeply before he removed his boots and set them near the fireplace before standing barefoot, ogling at the luxury for a moment; a spacious room with high ceilings, and polished wooden floors. Heavy drapes blocked all sunlight from intruding into the space, and a sheer canopy hung all around the bed creating a sense of privacy within the confines of the bedframe. Trevor hadn’t had such a space to himself since he had been a very young boy; but the memory of his home was long since faded.

    Isaac emerged from the bath room with clean towels draped over his arm. Trevor didn’t notice him in his state of grief and awe until his voice pulled his attention towards him.

   “Mind the temperature of the water,” Isaac cautioned from the door frame. “What you may have once considered cool to touch, will feel warmer now. I hope it isn’t too hot.”

   The announcement didn’t startle Trevor. He had felt someone near, a sensation he’d only recently started tuning into. He turned his attention to Isaac and thanked him, receiving only kindly a nod as acknowledgment.

   Trevor inquired, “You’re one of Dracula’s sla-”

   “Servant, by choice.” Isaac interjected. His voice was smooth and comfortingly monotonous, and though he made no adjustment to his tone to show that Trevor’s assumption had slighted him, Trevor could tell that he had. “Master Dracula makes a distinction,” noted Isaac.

   “Of that, I am certain,” Trevor responded. “What is it he refers to you as? Something to do with smithing…”

   Isaac chuckled, making his way across the room to take his leave. “Close,” he said. “I am the Forgemaster; one of them.” He handed Trevor the bath towels.

   “Forgemaster,” Trevor repeated to himself. “I remember you now.”

   “Not fondly, I’m sure.”

   “No, not at all.”

   Isaac bowed politely as he reached the door, dismissing himself from the room and giving Trevor the privacy to bathe, and sulk as he pleased.

Chapter Text

Hopeful Schemes

   It was not often Trevor found himself able to cry. He had trained himself to suppress his emotions, holding on only to the rage that kept his blood pumping, his feet moving, and his back straight. He’d convinced himself that he needed no one, that he desired only to sleep in a bed and have a tall glass of mead from time to time; that that would be enough for him; that that would be a fulfilling life. How disillusioned he had been. He knew now that he was not so brave; that he needed Alucard and Sypha. They had become integral parts of his being.

   Consumed with grief, his meager sense of sanity, and self was threatening to collapse under the weight of everything that had happened. His eyes filled with crimson, as viscous tears clouded his vision. A knot in his throat kept him from crying aloud, but he could feel the wet line drawing down his cheek, lingering at his jaw before dripping from his face into the long since cooled bath water and leaving a red stain against his skin where it had traveled. He traced the line with his fingers, and looked down at his hand to examine the red smear on his finger tips.

   Blood.

   If he wasn’t emotionally exhausted, he’d have questions and concerns about it; but he accepted this strange, new expression easily. It was not the worst thing about being a vampire, however dramatic. He found it fitting.

   It felt odd to cry now. He hadn’t cried since he’d lost his family, and his home in one cruel night; and in that respect, this was like that. In the blink of an eye Dracula had taken Sypha, then Adrian – and even taken Trevor from himself. He had a damning certainty that he would never be a free man again; and certainly, never a man again.

   He struggled to find peace knowing that the fate of both Sypha and Adrian relied his ability to satisfy Dracula’s demands. Going back to his gritty, pleasantly uncomfortable life on the road with the two of them in tow was a fantasy that offered him little relief when he knew that Sypha was shivering below him on a cold floor, and that Adrian had been made into a grotesque altar for his father to mourn his image as he waged his war on humanity.

   Even still, there he sat in a bath prepared just for him, in a room provided for his residency. Tomorrow he would rise and present himself to Dracula for his convenience or amusement, follow his orders, and do tricks like a pet – and it was all that he could do. Rebellion was a pipe dream with the lack of knowledge he had about being a vampire.

   Trevor knew well enough how to kill a vampire. He knew how to incapacitate them, terrorize them, defang them, contain them – but he had not the faintest idea how to live his life as a vampire. He was almost embarrassed about the questions he found himself having about his body with no idea how to care for himself, or how to control himself (despite Dracula praising him for such). He was frightened, he was alone; and the combination was almost enough to make him cower at Dracula’s feet pleading for his guidance.

  His stubborn disposition prevented him from begging (especially Dracula) for any kind of assistance; but it would become unavoidable. Dracula was the only one he could rely on to teach him. He would have to approach him with his inquiries and naïve concerns. Besides, learning from Dracula would give him the hands-on experience he needed to understand the mistakes that they’d made, and how to rectify them. In the pit of his stomach, buried beneath all fear and uncertainty, Trevor had the determination to send Dracula to hell. Maybe, he thought, his cooperation and any enthusiasm he could feign would buy him the power to negotiate with him.

   Tomorrow, then; he would answer Dracula’s summons without any complaint, and accept any task he was given with resolve. Trevor groaned and cradled his face into his open palms, dreading what night fall would bring.  

   “You don’t have to like it,” he told himself aloud, as he had many times, “You just have to endure it.”

   He dragged himself out of the bath, to the bed where he laid as still as possible, skin still wet, pretending for some time that he was truly dead. What a relief that would have been. Instead, he would rise as the Sun began to set, and dress himself in the fancy clothes that had been provided for him. He stared at himself in the mirror disapprovingly for some time before he resigned himself to the fact that sooner or later, he’d have to leave his room. He’d needed just a moment to brace himself to endure whatever obstacle was put in his way. Once his determination was set, he shook any nay-saying thoughts from his mind, and stepped into the hall just in time to catch a glimpse of Dracula’s cloak slipping past the door frame of his study. Trevor followed his shadow, and found him behind his desk looking over a map of Styria.

   Trevor lingered in the door frame for a moment watching him there as he studiously examined the landscape; carefully placing markers where he needed to take note of certain features of the region, marking of the locations of the churches where he'll find those most deserving of his punishment. There was something strange about seeing him this way; the casualness of it was more unnerving than the hostility he usually received – the way that he curiously, almost cheerfully orchestrated genocide and revenge.

   “Belmont,” Dracula greeted coldly before motioning him to come forward without ever looking in his direction. Trevor obeyed, stopping just before his desk to keep some distance between them. Dracula tapped a place on the map with one long fingernail and noted, “There. That is where Carmilla resides.” He raised his eyes to look at Belmont before asking, “Have you given any thought to how you will pursue her?”

   “Nn..no,” admitted Belmont, taken off guard.

   Of course, he hadn’t. All he’d managed to think about through the night (or day, rather) was speaking with Sypha about Alucard and the stake, devising some sort of plot to deliver justice (or vengeance) upon Dracula, then escaping; ideally, the three of them together.

   “Carmilla is clever, and quick,” Dracula informed him, “I hope you prove to be as well.”

   They locked their suspicious eyes upon one another for a moment before a man entered the room behind Trevor. He turned to see who approached, then watched with intrigue as the man with silvery hair went to Dracula’s side, leaned in closely, and whispered into his ear as he shielded his lips’ movement with a gloved hand.

   Dracula sighed deeply as the man straightened his back, and waited obediently for his next orders. Instead, Dracula gave orders to Trevor.

   “Go and see your woman,” he demanded of him.

   Trevor blinked dumbly, staring back at him with confusion. He stuttered, “M-My… woman? Sypha? In the dungeons?”

   “For God’s sake, Trevor, yes. Her, of course,” Dracula groaned.

  While he had given him explicit permission to see her, Trevor had not expected him to demand him to before giving him any other direction; but he saw fit not to question it for the time being. So, he turned on his heels and worked actively to recall the path to the dungeons as he scampered away. Though with haste, he cautiously made his way through the castle; constantly scanning around and looking over his shoulder.

   The guards outside of the dungeons said nothing to him when he approached. They stood firm and stubborn, not even sparing him a glance. Trevor stood before them, irritated by their devotion to their duty.

“Please…” he croaked with dread, “no riddles.”

   To Trevor’s surprise (and delight), one of the guards chuckled before he stepped aside, motioning for Trevor to follow him into the dungeons. He did, and as Sypha’s cell came into view, his stomach twisted into knots. The cell had been barren the last time he visited – but now, heavy, blue curtains hung around the perimeter of the cell making it more like a room, and less like a prison. Trevor’s brow furrowed with confusion. As the guard turned the key, Trevor called out to her.

   “Sypha?”

   A sudden ruckus could be heard inside as she ran for the door. She flung the curtain out of the way and exclaimed, “Oh, Trevor! Did you arrange for all of this?”

   Trevor stepped inside as the guard held the door open, and found that her cell had been, in a way, renovated for her comfort. Rather than scattered hay, she had a bed now; a desk to write at, and paper to write on with a fine feathered quill; books upon a shelf for her leisure, and candles to light her room. A rug had been spread across the floor, and she even had a trunk to keep a handful of dresses provided to her… at Dracula’s personal request.

   “No… No, I did not…” answered Trevor after he had stood in dumbfounded silence for a time, taking in the renewed space.

   Sypha’s cheery expression suddenly dropped.

   “Oh… uhh… very… nice of him, then.” She cleared her throat and tried to push away the icky feeling that knowing Dracula had done her an unsolicited favor created in the pit of her gut. Their captor did not seem like the type to provide comfort to his prisoners, and she feared that she would surely have to recompensate him in one way or the other.  

   She looked at Trevor, finally having the chance to take in the sight of him. He stood still, his eyes looking towards the ground… full of shame. She opened her mouth to speak, to offer some comfort, but Trevor spoke first.

   “I am… so sorry about the last ti-”

   “Trevor… I don’t think any less of you because you’re a vampire now… and I don’t blame you for what Dracula made you do,” Sypha stated firmly, not allowing Trevor’s anxiety about it to twist her words. She wanted to make it clear to him that her feelings for him had not changed, or diminished because of what was done to him. Sypha knew all too well the way that Trevor prescribed himself guilt; as if the weight of his past alone had not nearly pulled him to the bottom of a bottle.

   Trevor nodded thoughtfully at her response, somewhat taken aback by her words. He had been so frightened in that moment – had she? The question made him laugh as it passed through his mind. Sypha? Afraid? Even if she was, she still spit in Dracula’s face. Truly, the line between bravery and stupidity was growing thinner than ever before. He smiled softly, careful not to show his fangs.

   “It’s not just about what he’s making me do, Sypha… it’s what I am. I am not the same anymore…” he admitted, his voice trembling in his throat.

   And he was right; beyond his newly acquired immortality and all of its quirks, he’d now broken his record for number days spent sober. He was the cleanest he’d been in years, dressed in clothes he’d never had picked for himself. He smelled… nice.

   Sypha nodded acceptingly. “I… I know,” she sighed as she twiddled her thumbs. “Even so,” she continued, “I just wanted to remind you… it doesn’t change anything.”

   She closed the distance between them, raising up onto her toes to kiss his cheek. Trevor dug his nails into his palm, using the pain the ground himself as she came nearer. He stiffened as her warm lips pressed into his cheek.

   You could have killed her, a voice in the back of his mind reminded him. He clenched his eyes closed and tried to snuff out the guilt. Sypha could tell he was struggling. She backed away from him, throwing him an apologetic look.

   “I’m sorry… I should be more mindful…” she remarked softly.

   Trevor shook his head, refusing her sympathy. “No. It’s up to me to… have restraint. You shouldn’t have to be afraid of me,” he nearly whimpered. Shame scalded his mind.

   Sypha chuckled and stated, “I think out of the two of us, you have more of a right to fear. I just sit in this cell… I’ve got no idea what you deal with.”

    Trevor walked over to sit on the edge of her bed and sighed. “Primarily, a lot of uncertainty – I think that’s worse than the terror of it all. The fear… is… the only constant. I can count on it. It’s the uncertainty that keeps me awake. Well…” Trevor thought for a moment. “Actually, might be the vampirism that keeps me awake – I really don’t know.”

   Sypha tilted her head in curiosity as she took a seat next to him. “I mean… Alucard slept,” she mentioned innocently.

   “Well, Alucard is half human,” Trevor chuckled, “Alucard drank wine, and ate food. I don’t think he’s the best example of what it is to be a vampire... I know that now…” He massaged his fingers into his temples. “God… Alucard…”

   Alucard had been at the forefront of Trevor’s mind, haunting every other thought he had. All of this uncertainty about himself served only to emphasize his own ignorance. It made him realize just how cruel he had been toward Adrian when they had first crossed paths and joined forces. He was ashamed to remember it – how often he had insisted on Alucard’s otherness.

   Sypha lowered her head, her eyebrows gathering in thought before she asked, “Do you know… have you seen-”

   “I saw him yesterday,” Trevor interjected to inform her.

   He sounded a million miles away, staring at his feet as he sat. “Dracula took me to him. That stake somehow petrified him like in some kind of fairy tale. He keeps him locked away… a monument to his grief.”

   “… I see…” Sypha muttered. How peculiar, she thought to herself as intrigue began to make her brain twitch. How familiar.

   “I’ve been thinking about it,” prefaced Trevor, “The thing keeping him in stone –a stake like any other, except it holds some kind of strange magic. Put through his heart, it should have killed him. It’s too strange for it to be something common. I’m not sure where to start looking for answers, but I got close enough to examine it.”

   “Tell me about it,” Sypha demanded eagerly.

   Trevor recounted what he’d seen in as much detail as possible, and Sypha listened carefully as she reviewed the details of a thousand stories passed to her through oral tradition, from travelers, curators, merchants and refugees she’d encountered on missions with her caravan of Speakers. They sat in silence for some time after he’d finished explaining before Sypha finally snapped her fingers as a revelation dawned on her.

   She turned to Trevor with bright eyes and told him, “It reminds me of a story I heard in Austria.” She stood, and began to pace as she recounted a tale about a Vampire Lord who grew crueler and colder over the centuries, until even his most treasured thrall saw fit to dispose of him. However, this underling had reservations. Thousands of years of knowledge would be turned to dust in the dawn light, dying with him. In an act of mercy, the thrall developed a plan to create a tool that would render her Lord harmless and accessible – the result was referred to as the Fossilian Stake.

   “The story doesn’t go into much more detail than that,” Sypha huffed, “but it sounds like a promising start.”

   “Grreaat,” grumbled Trevor, “so I’ve got only a legend to work with.”

   “Yes. Unfortunately, we’re still left with a number of questions,” Sypha replied, “but…” Her expression darkened as a suggestion danced on the tip of her tongue. It was a dangerous one, but necessary.

   “… but?”

   “… but if you could get into Dracula’s library… he may have some kind of record of it,” she suggested in a grave tone, understanding just how difficult it would be to achieve.

   Trevor thought for a while, then nodded before saying, “Perhaps, yeah. I’ll speak with him,” as if it were a menial task.

   Sypha seemed shocked by his resolution, throwing him a puzzled look. “You don’t really believe he’d be that flexible with you?”

   “He has to be… at some point,” he replied, “maybe not now, but eventually…”

   Sypha scoffed, “You talk like Dracula is a reasonable man. Be cautious.”

   Caution was an understatement of what it would take to gain enough of his trust to betray. Trevor merely nodded in response, unable to find the courage to tell her that in order to earn any kind of leniency within the castle, he’d have to cooperate with Dracula (no matter what that entailed). If he told her of his plan for him to pursue Carmilla, she would worry ceaselessly – and God forbid she lay eyes on Dracula again after that.

   “I’ll be careful,” he promised her, “and I’ll keep you informed.”

   The corners of Sypha’s mouth turned up as if she was smiling, but her expression was so full of unspoken sorrow that the pathetic attempt at a grin couldn’t even fool Trevor. He wanted to do the human thing; to comfort her, to hold her close to him, and tell her that they would all be fine. His mind raced with paranoid thoughts as his overwhelming yearning to touch her began to persuade him to close the distance between them.

“You could have killed her,” his mind replays for the nth time.

You’ll never forgive yourself – she will never forgive you.

How could she ever trust you again?

You’ll lose control.

   When he breaks, he pulls her into his arms, and holds her warm body closely. Sypha’s eyes widened, surprised by his suddenness, but she quickly embraced him. She waited for Trevor to give her a cue as to when he could no longer handle being so close; when his teeth began to ache, and his mouth began watering, when the smell of her began driving him mad. To her surprise, Trevor didn’t move away; he just held her tightly, with his eyes closed, and one hand occupied by toying with her hair.

    “You don’t have t-”

   “Shh… you’re the warmest thing besides fire in this castle. It feels nice,” he affirms, and then bites the inside of his cheek in an attempt to curb his unwelcome desires.

Chapter Text

We’ll Meet at Dawn

   Trevor coached himself on how to approach Dracula the whole way back up to where they’d last spoken; but by the time he’d arrived to the hallway where his study was located, a peculiar noise caught his ear. At first, he’d believed that he was hearing things; a ghoulish moaning, like a specter roaming the halls.  As he progressed down the corridor, Belmont wondered for a moment if some fool had found their way between his teeth.

   Once he’d arrived, he found the door left ajar, open just enough that he could see Dracula cradling the man that had interrupted them earlier; with one handful of those silver locks of hair, and his other hand placed tenderly at the small of his back while his bloodied lips suckled at the flesh of his throat.  The man’s arms didn’t push him away. Instead, he held onto him tightly, even as he trembled and groaned. His face was contorted in pain, but the noises he made… were nothing short of erotic.

   Seeing this, Trevor’s stomach rolled itself into a knot, and his nerves got the best of him. He dipped out of sight with haste, speed-walking as quietly as possible some ways down the hall before halting. Running away is not an option, he reminded himself as he turned back on his heels, determined not to let himself get spooked. He had no other promising options than to get access to Dracula’s knowledge, and all of his books to be able to do anything about their situation. He returned, and sat near the door with his back against the wall. There, he was close enough to listen to... whatever indulgence (surely some grave sin between lust and gluttony) was occurring within those walls.

   A pleasured hum, followed closely by a soft gasp, and then a whine. Dracula’s near breathless voice saying, “that’s enough,” in a tone that was both firm, and tender. “No more, Hector. You’ll need your strength,” he continued.

   It was Hector who sounded most dissatisfied; he gave a little huff, and said, “You look better already… though, you could use more,” he noted.

   Trevor had so many questions spinning his head; the answers to which were none of his business, though he couldn’t help but wonder. Perhaps when Isaac had emphasized their role as servants, that included even serving him with their bodies, whether than be in war, providing him blood, or warm bodies to lay. More than this, they both seemed to enjoy their service. Some masochists…

   Belmont heard the snapping sound of buttons re-securing, and nearly jolted up on his feet. He quickly composed himself, trying to appear as if he hadn’t just become privy to such intimate moment.

   “Call for me if you require anything else. I’ll be returning to the Forge,” Hector declared.

   In a panicked attempt to look casual as Hector approached the door, Trevor held out his hand with the palm down, and began admiring his nails; anxiously picking at the cuticles around them, and checking beneath them for any grime. Hector noticed him immediately, jumping just slightly in surprise.

   “Peeping, Belmont?” Hector taunted, before chuckling. He turned his head just slightly, never moving his eyes from Trevor. “You have a visitor,” he informed Dracula over his shoulder, If Trevor had any warm blood left in him, his face would surely be turning red.

   Hector turned and walked away woozily, leaving Trevor peaking around the door frame, and into the room like a child caught in mischief. When he opened his mouth to address Dracula, he was unable to find his voice. He prayed that Dracula had not seen him lingering, or sensed him in some way; but of course, he had. Dracula looked as smug as could be; as if he was trying his best not to laugh in Trevor’s face.

   “Are you just going to stand there?” He asked as his eyes scanned him up and down with a suspicious glint.

   “I came to speak with you,” Trevor finally announced.

   “Speak, then.”

   Trevor entered the room, and stood awkwardly in the center. He couldn’t bare to raise his eyes to meet his. He huffed, and spoke as he was commanded to.

   “Well… for starters… I wasn’t peeping. Secondly… thank you,” he forced himself to say, managing to feign some confidence.

   “For?” Dracula pressed. Trevor could not tell whether he was playing dumb, or simply torturing him.

   “For attending to Sypha,” he clarified, “For making her… comfortable. I feel more at ease now knowing she is able to stay warm, and keep her mind busy,” he continued, letting a heavy sigh of relief deflate his chest before he inhaled to brace himself for the rest of the conversation. “I need to ask one more thing of you, I’m afraid.”

   Dracula’s ears perked up at this, and he gestured for Belmont to sit with him. He took a seat across from him, and fixed his eyes on the word Wallachia sprawled within the borders of the country drawn out on the map that encompassed the entire surface of the desk. Trevor took a deep breath before speaking.

   “If you’re to send me away to act on your behalf, I need to know… everything. I need you to… teach me… to do as you do.”

   Dracula stared at him for a long time, before snorting to himself. “You don’t know how happy that makes me, Belmont,” He announced to him with a sense of relief, “Your willingness to adapt is impressive, I’ll give you that.”

   Receiving praise from Dracula was strange, and failed to give him a sense of accomplishment; On the contrary, it made Trevor feel as if he’d done something wrong – horribly wrong. Nevertheless, it cued him into how to manipulate the conversation.

   He feigned the same sense of relief, and managed to fake a little sparkle in his eyes. “I understand you have a rather extensive library. With your permission, I’d like access to it,” he stated, “… and I’d like you to tutor me.”

   Dracula laughed. Whether it was out of amusement, or pride, Belmont wasn’t certain – but God, how he laughed. He was sure he’d made a fool of himself, and blown his only shot at buttering him up.

   “My dear boy,” Dracula finally chuckled. “I thought you’d never ask – truly.”

   Trevor watched an unfamiliar spark light up Dracula’s face. He was… excited. He was genuinely thrilled by this proposal. Unbeknownst to Trevor, Dracula genuinely enjoyed teaching. Knowledge was the only thing he could spread besides death, and it delighted him to do so; Lisa had taught him this about himself when she arrived on his doorstep with the determination to receive that knowledge, and to learn. That same openness that allowed her to be an ideal, receptive student, allowed her to come to understand, and eventually love him.  When she became pregnant with their son, they, together, devoted days to building visual aids to facilitate Adrian’s early education; planning out the ways they would teach him about the world, prioritizing life’s greatest subjects into a curriculum for his digestion; but when Adrian was old enough, Lisa returned to medicine, and Dracula assumed the role of his teacher.

   Lisa could teach him human things – and that was well enough; except that Adrian was not human. Not wholly, at least. Dracula was tasked with teaching him about the more gruesome side of his genetic inheritance, and he often wondered if it was then that Adrian became Alucard; it was certainly then that he began to reject, and resent all of the ways that vampirism manifested in him.

   Now, here was Trevor Belmont; eager to learn, and dependent on his gnosis. Dracula stood from his chair with a toothy grin.

   “I must give you a task before I fulfill your request, I’m afraid,” he informed him in a tone not fitting of his chipper expression. He spoke as if this would be a grave task. Reasonably, Trevor found this unsettling.

   Dracula pointed to a speck on the map without even looking. His finger landed upon a small settlement near the mountains between Wallachia and Moldavia.

   “This village here,” he began, “is full of uninspired creatures with low morale. Go there, quench yourself, and return – and make sure they don’t stake you. Conceal what you are for as long as possible, kill quietly, move on quickly.”

   Trevor nodded, reluctantly accepting what he believed to be a test. “How many… do I have to kill?” he asked after a moment.

   “As many as you can stomach. Wipe out the town, if you’d like. I won’t be there to stop you.” Dracula replied matter-of-factly, amused by the expression of disgust on Belmont’s face. “Don’t look so devastated.”

   “This is… difficult for me, to say the least.”

   Dracula rolled his eyes, and said, “As far as I’ve observed, everything is. Regardless, leave at sundown. The journey will be approximately two hours on foot.”

   He opened the long, center drawer of his desk and retrieved a copy of the same map, but more manageable in size. He dipped his quill in red ink and marked the location of the settlement, as well as the castle on the parchment for Trevor before giving it a moment to dry before rolling it up and handing it to him.

   Finally, Trevor looked him in the eyes.

“We’ll see each other then.”

Chapter Text

Likened by Blood

   Trevor had had small, yet quaking, experiences with drinking blood thus far; and he was all too aware of the fact that the effects of that consumption had only been a sliver of what he would experience tonight. He tried snuffing out the part of him that secretly looked forward to it; a side that he was certain Dracula had become privy to. After those few tastes, the ecstasy haunted still him. Even if he never had another drop of blood, he would spend eternity searching, and yearning for something (anything) that gave him even a fraction of that bliss.

   Belmont was determined, at least, to enjoy his journey to Campina. The long walk would be good for his mind, good for pulling himself together before he had to come undone. It would be his first time in open air since becoming a permanent resident of the dreary confines of Castlevania. He was grateful for the time away from the castle, but especially from Dracula; even if it meant doing his bidding.

   Trevor secured his dagger onto his belt (uncertain whether it would be of use to him at all), and packed a satchel with his compass, and the map that Dracula had given him for reference. He draped a hooded cloak over his shoulders, and stood for a moment at a loss. He felt horrendously under-packed, and unprepared, but he supposed that he was as ready as he could be. Once the sun slipped behind the Wallachian hills, he stepped out of the castle, and into the twilight. As the wind tousled his hair, and caught the fabric of his cloak causing it to whip around him, he inhaled as deeply as he could.

   For a brief second, he found himself envious of the wind; wishing that he could disperse across the plains as it did, causing fields of wheat to dance in its passing. He passively reminded himself that he had no time for doubtful thoughts, regrets, or yearning to be elsewhere, or other.  And so, he crossed the field in which the castle was presently situated, waded through the bushes at the tree line, and began his trek through the forest.

   Unlike when he traveled the world as a man, Trevor no longer needed to worry about the nocturnal creatures that dwelled in dark places or wandered the night; all things living between the trees seemed to hush, and hide from him. No bird chirped, nor beast chittered in his presence. Only his shadow followed him there. Belmont hummed to himself at this realization, content with the peace in the still and quiet wood.

   However, the closer to the village he came, the more his mind began to rattle in his skull. Once he’d arrived, however many should perish, he had to be prepared to bare the weight of that sin; though he supposed the weight, and multitude of his sins no longer mattered. All Vampires were damned; predestined for Hell. No matter how many he killed, or how cruel or merciful he was, in the end it would be all the same. Despite this, he had neither the presence of Dracula’s firm hand, or Sypha’s tender touch to peel him away should his malnourishment lead him into frenzy, and this troubled him. Whether or not the divine consequence had any weight at all, the guilt certainly did.

   Then, as the forest began to thin, carried by the same wind that had caressed him earlier in the night, the smell of shit began to reek. He scrunched up his nose as if the motion would prevent the stench from disturbing his sense of smell. Ah, he had forgotten just how badly humans stunk. Specks of light flickering in the distance let him know what he had first smelled – he had arrived at his destination.

   Belmont pulled the hood of his cloak over his head as he approached the village. No one liked to linger after dark; especially not these days. They boarded up their windows and locked their doors, probably kneeling at their bed-sides with crosses wrapped around their hands in prayer. They certainly did not prefer to wander the streets on a night such as tonight, when their roads still had standing water from the last rain, creating plenty of mud that would weigh down their feet should Dracula’s night-creatures come for them next. Regardless, if there was one place that Trevor was certain he would find a victim, it was at the tavern.

   The lights in the tavern were always on, someone always sitting at a table with plenty of woes to drink away. An intoxicated man was weakened by the alcohol dulling his senses. Trevor could hear the drunken guffawing of the patrons inside from the street, and began to consider that it would be ideal to sit in the tavern for a while, wait for one of the men to stagger out on his way home, and drag him into an alleyway where he could snuff him out quietly, and out of sight.
But would one drunk man satisfy him?  Dracula had told him to drink all that he could... Would one not suffice?

   He straightened his back, cleared his face of his unsettled expression, and kicked the mud off of his boots before entering. Inside was a waitress who came in and out of the kitchen to serve bowls of stew; the bartender uninterestedly wiping out glasses; and three men with half empty mugs, leaning against the bar and each other to support themselves in their wobbly stools as they shouted, and huffed about their fears and frustrations towards Dracula’s “invasion”. These were the only occupants. Belmont strode past unacknowledged, and tucked himself into a table in the corner of the room.  

   He sat quietly for some time before he began to worry that his presence was suspicious; entering a bar without visiting the bar. To avoid any conflict, he retrieved the map he was given from his satchel, spread it out on the table before himself, and began tracing the geography with the tip of his index finger in an effort to convincingly play the role of a traveling stranger a bit turned around after a long day of wandering. His attention, however, was drawn to the overbearing conversation had by the men at the bar.

   "They say that Dracula can do all manner of wicked things," the man nestled between the other two said with fear in his voice. He gripped his mug tightly, his thick knuckles turning white as his fist clenched around the handle.

    "No shit," another replied, "look at what he's done to Targoviste. We best make good with God. I bet by the end of the season, we’ll be fight’n ‘em off like those poor bastards in Gresit.”

    “There’s no fight’n Dracula... He’s second only to the Devil. I bet that family could have done somethin’,” remarked the other.

    “You talkin’ about those Belmont’s? Piss on the fuck’n Belmont’s! The church excommunicated them for a good reason. You know what kinda stuff you’ve gotta to be dabbling in to be kicked out the church? Dark, dark magics; necromancy, and the likes. That’s about the last thing we need around here.”

    Trevor’s body tensed as he fought against his inflated sense of pride, and an impulse to defend his family’s name; but knew doing so would surely oust him in one way or another. He encouraged himself to see the plan through; wait, stalk, kill; keep it quick, clean, and quiet. And so, he tried to push their voices to the back of his mind by redirecting his focus to his map, or to the moon hanging in the sky that was visible from the nearby window – or anything other than the drunken simpletons slandering his family with the same superstitious, and misinformed rhetoric that had been used to justify their murders in the first place.

    “Can I get you anythin’ this evenin’, sir?”

    Belmont jumped as a woman’s voice startled him out of his frustrated state of focus.  In a panic, he barked at the poor girl who had come to take his order, “Beer,” immediately chastising himself for reacting so hastily. He glanced up at her, noticing that he had spooked her.

    The girl lowered her eyes, and nodded with a submissive obedience that Belmont was certain had to of been beaten into her.

    “Anythin’ else?” she muttered meekly.

    “No. Thank you…” Trevor grumbled apologetically.

    She shuffled away to pour him a mug he could only pretend to drink, and once she was out of sight, Trevor shook his head at himself as he released a heavy sigh.

   “Goodamned fool,” He cursed himself aloud, but before he could finish beating himself up, a much louder, and harsher voice than his own came from the bar.

   “Oi! You over there!”

   Trevor went as still as stone, hoping naively that if he simply didn’t move, he would cease to be seen. Unfortunately, they did still see him. He turned his head as if it was connected to a rusted joint, looking over at the man with an incredulous expression.

   “That crest on your satchel,” the stranger pointed towards Trevor’s bag as his fat lip curled up in a display of his repulsion. Trevor’s eyes followed, and laid upon a small, embroidered symbol representing his family. “I know you,” the bloke declared with a spiteful hiss. “Speak of the devil, and he appears; you’re the Belmont, last one of ‘em dogs. All this demon shit – I bet you have something to do with it!”

   The man stomped towards Trevor, who sat peaceably despite the anger beginning to crawl under his skin. He found himself in a state akin to shock (and disbelief that anyone would still recognize his family’s coat of arms) as the stranger pounded both of his fists down onto the table top, then lowered himself so that their faces were far too close for comfort. Belmont could smell the reek of the man’s breath, accompanied by a soured stench that seemed to emanate from every pore.

   “Don’t you, dog-shit?” the stranger egged on.

   “No,” Trevor muttered between his teeth, feeling dishonest given his affiliations, “that’d be Dracula you’re looking for. Feel free to go knock on his door. You know, his castle isn’t far from here.”

   One of the man’s companions chimed in from the bar, “You would know, wouldn’t you, devil?”

   The word echoed in the back of his head. Devil. They believe him to be a Devil. Trevor gave a great sigh, and rolled the tension from his shoulders. This idea that the Belmont’s dabbled black magic and wicked tricks, traded esoteric secrets of realms unseen had gotten them killed – men like this, had gotten them killed. It disturbed him to confront the men that perpetuated this thought. Although, looking at his face, he appeared more closely related to pigs. His skin was leathery, and speckled from the sun; and the bulbous nostrils of his upturned nose was reminiscent of a hog snout. Even the man’s snaggled teeth were comparable to tusks as he squealed in his face like an animal incapable of sensible judgement. He was indiscernible from his companions in this way.

    “I bet you’re one of his henchmen,” the man spoke indignantly as he pointed his fat, crooked finger at Belmont like a gnarled wand that conjured a chilling fury that coiled up Trevor’s spine. “Cursed, and wicked things tend to flock to him.”

    This man did not know how right he was, but Trevor did – and the truth of it ate at him. He knew well what it was to be a cursed and wicked thing; one such thing under Dracula’s command. In a fraction of an instant, before he was even aware of his own movements, Trevor was standing on his feet, and frigid squall of wind came from him as if it were being pulled out of him by the Earth itself.

    Trevor did not understand how he had done this, but he knew that he had. He had felt it; a subtle change, like something finally snapping into place (or perhaps popping out of socket). It came to him without thinking; a second, wilder nature. The flames in the lanterns around the room were extinguished by that gust of wind that seemed to originate at Trevor’s core, leaving them standing in the dark with what they were certain was a vampire.

    As he stood behind the table, watching the instigators quivering in the dark, he could hear their teeth chattering, and their hearts thudding into their rib cages. The clouds had cleared just enough for moonlight to reach Belmont’s snarl as it came through the window, his fangs impossible to ignore. Now, the only thing left to do, was what he’d come to do. Those three, drunk men, a bar tender, and a beer maiden; no one could leave that room.

    He made no effort to reason or empathize with such little minds understanding he could only be the villain in them. Any appeal to their humanity died in their sick minds, any plea falling on deaf ears. Instead, Trevor lunged forward, and struck his claws quickly across the chatty man’s throat, splitting the flesh wide open with a jagged, gaping wound. Blood spurted from the severed arteries like a fountain, and it felt hot against Belmont’s skin as it sprayed across his face. 

    Everyone in the tavern was frozen in terror, and disbelief as the man fell to his knees. They watched as quiet as mice as Trevor grabbed the back of his head by his thin hair, and pulled back so that separated flesh opened like lips eager for his own; and as the gash opened, he put his mouth around the slit to gulp down his blood as fast as his cheeks would fill.

    Another man hit the floor with a hard thud as he fainted from the gruesome shock of what he’d witnessed. The sound startled the others into action. Only the bartender had the courage to wield a blade against him (poorly), and he died as simply as the first; and the remaining foul friend of the pig-like man that had inflamed Trevor’s temper to begin with, could only shake and plea.   

   “P-Please s-sir, we didn’t k-know-”

   Trevor mocked him, “You-You-You didn’t know WHAT? What would knowing have done for you if your meager, shit filled brain couldn’t understand!?”

   “P-Ple-ease! Please don’t kill me!” he begged as Trevor came nearer.

    Trevor reached out and seized him by his collar before he sunk his teeth into his fat neck. He held onto the man tightly as he squirmed violently, flailing and kicking in a fit of hysteria before going limp entirely. Only then, did Belmont allow him to fall to the floor, and then stood for a moment, breathing heavily as he felt a rush coming on.

   The man that had fainted began to stir, and Trevor’s head snapped toward him when his ears caught onto the racket of his heart beginning to pound in panic as his awareness returned to him. The last thing the man saw before fainting a second time was Trevor’s fanged jaw unhinging to lock around his throat. He disposed of him as he had the last three once he’d emptied him; by tossing him to the floor with a huff.

   Belmont looked down at his feet; the blood on his boots and trousers, at the bodies that lie around him. He could feel their blood dripping from his chin, but as soon as he became aware of it, his tongue crept from between his lips to savor it, and his fingers swiped it from his face and found their way into his mouth, where he suckled the blood from his skin. He’d nearly forgotten about the unfortunate woman who’d had the displeasure of taking his order in this bliss; while his body buzzed, and his stomach’s aching quelled.

   She cowered with her back against the wall, far too frightened to move or hide from him; and trembling like the last leaf on a barren tree. Her eyes were wide and tearful, but she watched him carefully. He knew she saw him as a monster, or perhaps worse; but he had been regarded as such long before Dracula had gotten his hands on him. Whether he was regarded as the human kind of monster, or the kind was said to stalk and hunt in the night, it would always end the same; with torches being raised against his home, strangers lunging at him with pitchforks, with rosaries in hand – and that was exactly why he couldn’t allow her to live.

  For a moment he began to believe that perhaps his struggle to avoid likening himself to Dracula had been a struggle made in vain from the beginning. Despite what he had been, was he not now precisely what these men had feared? Was he not now precisely what he had been trained to exterminate, throwing away generations of knowledge and training? Was he not now indifferent to this, at best; and elated to betray them at worst?

   What did it matter?

   It was all the same.

   Humans were all the same.

   Trevor slowly advanced toward the girl. She kicked her legs to move away, prevented by the wall at her back, and her whimpering becoming more, and more desperate the closer he came.

   “N-NO!” She managed to growl out with forced ferocity. “Get away from me!”

   Trevor stopped in his tracks, raising a hand as he urged her to calm herself. He needed to keep her from screaming.

   “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said, feeling dishonest yet again.

   “G-GET AWA-”

S S N N A P!

   The distance between them was closed before she could finish her sentence. Her head was clasped tightly between Trevor’s palms, snapped off its axis with her neck bent unnaturally. He gasped, truly horrified by his own swiftness. Though his quickness had saved him the trouble of being disturbed by alarmed villagers, he truly hadn’t anticipated acquiring yet another one of these mystical inheritances. She slumped forward, dead in his hands. This surprise, however, did not deter his consumption. He bit into her twisted neck all the same.

   Her blood was distinctly different from that of the patrons. They had tasted like copper in bitter wine, and sun-dried weeds. She tasted like a memory; like sweetened snow, and rose syrup. The flavor bent Belmont’s lips into a grin against her cooling skin, blood running from between his teeth. He pulled her into his arms and fell onto his back with her corpse upon his chest to drink her dry, then rolled her off to the side when he was done.

   He lay still, panting like feral dog in a rut; eyes darting around the room to observe details in his surroundings that seemed to become more apparent as his vision focused. As the dark became even clearer to him, as did the grain of the wooden walls and every splinter, and the dust in the air. He sat up, and looked around the room in awe. Had it always been so elaborate? Even the blood on his hands seemed richer in color.

   Trevor stood to his feet, and felt as if he had leap into the air and kept ascending. He laughed something like a sob, and unsteadily swayed toward the door before taking a cautious step. He pulled up his hood as he stepped outside, then detached the torch near the door from the mantle. He moved to a position where he could aim for the liquor behind the bar, reeled back, and hurled the torch into a shelve of bottles that shattered, and ignited the tavern into flames at his back.

Chapter Text

Chapter 8

   Trevor was learning the hard way how a man’s blood-alcohol content affected vampires. In any other circumstance, maybe it would have been a delight to have a belly full of blood and liquor. Perhaps then he would feel like his old self. Instead, he was barreling through a muddy field that separated the village from the woods he had traveled through to get there. Behind him, the town had begun to glow from the fire raging inside of the tavern. The people had awoken, and came running from their homes with pails to retrieve water to cull the flames; and though Trevor was certain that the fire had provided enough of a distraction (and disposed of the evidence of him having ever been there), he still found himself worried that perhaps a hound was already on his tail and angry men not far behind.

   He looked over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being pursed, and accidentally flung himself to the ground in the process. He’d thrown his hands out in front of him too late to break his fall. Consequentially, his face smashed into the soft Earth. He spat dirt and he cursed aloud before rolling onto his back. He felt sick to his stomach as the world wobbled and titled as he moved. He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them he could make out his path through the weeds of the empty field; no one coming for him. He huffed with relief, scrambled to feet, and bolted on with that same panicked pace.

   Once he crashed through the bushes at the tree line, he found himself within the coverage of the trees, and he began to slow. As he looked around, listening carefully, he realized that these same woods that he’d traversed earlier were not as still, nor as quiet this time. The deeper he traveled, the more he noticed what he had not before.

   The rich scent of the dampened soil, the smell of droppings, and the reek of piss against tree trunks; the chittering of bats, the grumbling, and rustling of forest animals all around - they all seemed far too apparent to him now. Even beyond the forest, he could still hear the distant hysteria in the village, and his nostrils were still filled with the smell of the gore and smoke. His eyes darted around, spooked by every subtle movement; by the worms wriggling in the dirt, the leaves and branches swaying in the wind, the clouds following it’s current: it was sensory overload.

   Inhaling sharply, and exhaling shaky breaths, Belmont pushed forward while trying to tune out the world and keep it properly on its axis at the same time. He struggled to navigate through the trees, stumbling over roots and rocks, stopping to lean against a stump now and then. He raised his hands and grabbed two fistfuls of his own hair, pulling tightly against his scalp as if it would create space in his mind to process his surroundings. With a pained whimper, he fell to his knees and cried out with a sense of unbearable frustration. It was overwhelming – this was all so overwhelming.

   He pummeled furiously at the ground beneath him in a fit of rage before he sat up on his knees, and began breathing deeply to clear his mind. Instead, he was flooded by a memory of a particular night that he had spent awake between Alucard and Sypha in the back of their caravan… accompanied by a near sobering sense of grief.

   He woke up in the middle of the night; warm, enjoying the weight of Sypha’s body atop his own and the smell of the campfire in her hair. She was snoring softly into his chest. Trevor found it amusing, and couldn’t wait to torment her about it in the morning. He snickered, and lay beneath her thinking of all the jokes and quips he would use. That’s when he felt Alucard trembling next to him.

   Trevor stared at him for a moment before he cautiously raised his hand, and pressed his knuckles against Alucard’s cheek. He was cold; but not in the way he’d expected him to be (with the frigidity of a walking corpse). He had the smallest remnant of warmth to him. Trevor hadn’t believed he could ever catch a chill, but there he was; shivering, and nestling into his side like a puppy.

   It occurred to him then that this was as intimate as they had ever gotten to be with one another, and it was only now that Trevor wasn’t afraid to admit to himself how the feeling of Alucard’s closeness had made his chest feel light, made his gut flutter, and how his face got hot when he’d realized just how close they were. It wasn’t fear that gripped him that night, but a sort of glee that came from being able to admire him unchastised. He could never look for too long if he was awake. Alucard was sensitive about his looks – an insecure kind of dandy. Anytime he noticed Trevor’s eyes on him he had some smart-assed remark prepared to deploy against him; but then (and only then), Trevor could see clearly that Alucard was beautiful.

   And God… had he been blind? He wondered how he could have missed it; how he looked to be so delicately sculpted from porcelain that not even the dirt in his pores could soil him. His golden hair seemed damn near silver in moonlight. His pale lashes were spread thick, and long enough to cast shadows upon his cheeks. Trevor couldn’t help but gawk at him for a while, despite being scared to death that Alucard would awaken and scowl at him, reminding him to keep his eyes to himself… but he didn’t.

   So, Trevor took his time gazing over his lovely face with awe, and a growing sense of admiration. Just as he began to ache with something like yearning, he quickly dismissed those thoughts, and shoved that feeling back down to where it had come from before gently adjusting Sypha as to not wake her as he moved.  Then, he pulled Adrian closer so that his head would rest upon his shoulder and he could sap up some of his body heat. He went still, stiffening as Adrian groaned, and then inched as close as he could get. Trevor slowly tucked the blanket around him before closing his eyes again and forcing himself not to steal another glance.

   What wouldn’t he give to be suddenly, and miraculously back in that wagon with the two of them?  He wanted them back. He wanted to go home – even if that meant returning to Dracula. He reminded himself that this was not a struggle he was enduring for his own sake, but for theirs. A feral growl ripped through his chest as he stood to his feet. He swayed for a moment, and then darted forward with that startling swiftness he had found himself capable of earlier in the night. It had taken him by surprise just as much this time, but he refused to halt or even slow down until he had returned to Castlevania.

   But Trevor had no control of his speed, nor his path; and the longer he exerted himself, the more he began to recognize the distinct sensation of being shit-faced. It became more and more difficult to progress in any kind of orderly fashion, and his environment became a blur as he ran.

   The world tilted once more, and Trevor with it. He tripped, and his shoulder caught a thick branch. The impact imbedded it into his shoulder and snapped it from the body of the tree. Belmont lost his balance, and sent himself hurling forward with enough force to eviscerate the trunk of another upon impact. He rag-dolled, his body slamming, skidding, and dragging across the floor of the forest; catching branches, boulders, and bushes before something finally broke his momentum.

   He laid still for a moment in shock as he listened to the alarming crackle of splintering wood as trees collapsed in his wake.  He sat up disoriented. He’d barely had time to processes his newfound tricks, or their consequences, and now he was staring down a path of devastation left behind simply because… he tripped. His hands began to wander his body as he checked for any injuries. He grabbed at the branch stuck in his shoulder, found a gash across his stomach, and had innumerous splinters all over.

   Trevor groaned as he carefully tried to get up, and found himself grateful for Dracula’s curse for the first time; he didn’t hurt nearly as much as he should. Regardless, he wasn’t healing as quickly as he knew he could, and he couldn’t remove the branch on his own. Knowing he would need Dracula’s help caused him more grief than his injuries.

   Once on his feet again, he extended his arms out at his sides to steady himself and reestablished his sense of direction to discover a silver lining: He had managed to throw himself across the forest, and the massive form of the Castlevania was in sight. A heavy sigh of relief seeped from between his lips, and Trevor became unconcerned with running the remaining homeward stretch.

   Instead, he trudged through the thinning remnants of the woods, through weeds and wild flowers at his own pace, taking clumsy steps, and stumbling like a newborn foal through the pasture before his knees gave out. He collapsed, and sat for a moment trying to reorient himself through the rising sense of vertigo that was making it impossible to move forward.

   Once it eased enough that he could see straight he found himself gazing up at the moon that hung high above the steeples of the castle, his mind seemed to still itself in a way he hadn’t been able to achieve in a long while. He focused on regulating his breaths, focused on the sound the tall grass made as it danced in the wind, and the distant owls hooting.

   Seemingly out of nowhere Belmont began to weep; and before he knew it, he was laughing manically; and not long after that, he was sitting there quietly again, admiring the sky and expanding his lungs as much as he could with every breath. He began to wonder if Dracula could see him from the windows of the castle. If he could, Trevor knew he would never hear the end of it – how he fell to his knees and didn’t get up for an hour. He could hear himself bickering with the old bat already.

   He tsked at the thought, and stayed put for some time dreaming of an existence that was not somehow dictated by him; perhaps an existence in which he was never Trevor Belmont to begin with. How nice it would have been to live ignorant of the well masqueraded devils in hiding across the globe, and the occult phenomena that exist beneath the nose of the simple man. Oh, to be comforted by the ideologies of the Church without doubt in his heart; never seeking more than the gospels that were fed into his eager mouth by the anointed elders. Instead, he ate ravenously from Dracula’s palm – and it wouldn’t be honest of him to say that he had only done so when he took on his curse. He had been doomed to fall into Dracula’s hand or to cut it off when he was born a Belmont. What was a Belmont without Dracula, or creatures like him? One such life was a pipe dream, Trevor decided as he pushed the fantasy from his mind knowing that it could only make him bitter.

   He grunted as he stood to his feet once more, his eyes fixed on the stars as he rose. If God still held him in any favor, if he still watched over him (if he ever did), he prayed that he would give him the strength to be the one, not to escape Dracula, but to defeat him.

   Inside his study, Dracula waited anxiously for Trevor’s return. As he lounged in his desk chair, he flipped absently through a book. Though his eyes were fixed on its pages his mind was elsewhere; and riddled with concern. The smell of smoke was on the wind, and along the horizon he could see the faintest orange glow beneath a billowing grey cloud. Admittedly, this made him nervous.

   Perhaps, he thought, Belmont hadn’t gotten himself staked after all; but he wondered if maybe they’d somehow subdued him, and burned him alive (as they were so fond of doing). Paranoid scenarios began playing in his minds eye. How could he ever hope to face his son again with any kind of peace between them if Belmont had gone and gotten himself killed on his order? The thought gave him a headache.

   A horrid stench growing in intensity by the second seized him by his senses. It was vaguely familiar… and bloody. Dracula snapped his book closed, finding it impossible to focus on anything other than that rancid smell. He looked up and saw him; battered, wet, covered in blood, caked head to toe in dirt, swaying where he stood, and practically impaled – Trevor made his appearance at last.

   “I see I was right to have a bath prepared,” Dracula observed with an irksome smugness. “You’re filthy.”

   There was silence between them for a moment before Dracula decided to press a few more of his buttons.

   “How did you fare?” He asked, feigning innocence. “Did you have fun?” Dracula chuckled as he sensed the growing aggravation behind Trevor’s cold stare.

   “No, I didn’t fucking have fun!” Trevor snapped. He glared at Dracula for a moment before huffing, and pulling his eyes away from him in frustration. “Make your jokes now so I can have my peace – you could at least get this stick out of me before you start degrading me.”

   Dracula laughed, tickled by his sour mood and disheveled appearance. “Don’t be pissy, Belmont. I can’t tell by looking at you whether or not you were the hunter or the hunted. You return injured, I can see the smoke all the way from here – forgive me, but I’m concerned.”

   He was met, again, with more stubborn silence. Dracula sighed, and stood from his desk. Trevor’s eyes fixated on him, but he didn’t shrink himself down as he usually did as he approached. Even as they stood toe to toe, Belmont stood firm and unphased by their closeness. He glared back as Dracula looked him up and down before his eyes settled on the thick branch lodged through his right shoulder.

  Dracula examined it; just below Belmont’s collarbone, it had nearly gone clean through his back. The wound across his stomach caught his attention then, and he stepped back to get a better look, humming inquisitively as he ran his fingers over it as well.

  “It’s gotten smaller,” Trevor hissed as Dracula pinched the parted flesh together, “b-but it’s not cloosssing.” He scrunched his eyes closed, trying not to slap his hand away.

   Dracula merely hummed to himself before lifting Belmont’s chin with one hand and pulling up his eyelid with another to see his whole eye clearly. “Keep your eyes on me,” he instructed as he tilted his head to the left, then to the right. The pupils were blown wide, and the vessels expanded – common after feeding.

   “How many?” he asked as he inspected him.

   Trevor’s pursed his lips subtly before answering shortly, “Five.”

   “Mm. Where did you find them?” pried Dracula further.

   “The village’s tavern,” Trevor replied honestly.

   “All of them?”

   “… Yes.”

   “Naturally, I suppose. That explains why you smell like liquor poured over a freshly dug grave; it also explains the delay in regeneration.”

   “I had my reasons,” Belmont spat back at him defensively.

   “Oh, I’m not blaming you,” Dracula assured condescendingly, amused by Trevor’s insistence. He looked him over once more before seeking to verify his conclusions, asking outright, “You gave yourself away, didn’t you?”

   Belmont looked as if he were going to implode, nearly trembling with fury. Dracula expected him to get loud, maybe even lay hands on him. In fact, it would have delighted him. Instead, Trevor raised the satchel that had betrayed him into the air and refuted, “No… this did.”

   Dracula glared at the bag with a stern scowl. “Your… purse?” he inquired with his aggravating, monotonous tone.

   Trevor rolled his eyes and pointed out, "The Belmont's coat of arms on my bag; a detail I overlooked. As soon as they recognized it, they came to me picking a fight,” he explained, “Ironically, they believe that the Belmont's have had something to do with your war. They side with the Church's bastardized interpretation of our work... so… I killed them all. Three drunk men, the bar tender, and his waitress – and I made a mess. I filled my gut, I set the place ablaze, then I fled."

   Dracula stared at him blankly, processing what Trevor had just told him. His eyes darted over his face as he tried reading his expression; Belmont seemed to be… accepting of his actions, nearly pleased with what he’d done. Something like pride bubbled up in Dracula’s stomach.

   “They bullied you… and so you killed them?” Dracula laughed boisterously, tickled pink by Trevor’s recount. “Well, well…perhaps you’ll fit right in with us after all, Belmont,” he teased as he finally gripped the end of the blanch and began pulling it from Trevor’s body, who forced himself to reduce a scream to a whimper. “Besides,” Dracula went on after he admired the gaping wound that was left behind, “if mankind is foolish enough to shun you in what I intend to make their darkest and final days, then I don’t see why you should be inclined to extend them mercy; and certainly, withhold your sympathy.”

   As Trevor gripped his injury tightly in an attempt soothe it’s ache, he muttered with urgency, “I have no sympathy for them.”

    He had a viciousness in his tone that reminded Dracula of the night that Trevor had agreed to be turned; but beyond that, the fire in his eyes, and the tremble in his speech reminded him of so many moments over the course of his existence.

   Trevor growled, “People… like them… careless, thoughtless animals… They murdered my family. Perhaps not with their own hands, but they betrayed us eagerly. It was not the bishops that lit the torches, Dracula. The bishops and priests only planted the idea in their minds… but I cannot accept that they are solely to blame. After everything we did for them for centuries… they reduced the Belmont’s to ashes, and now they shun me. Although I have fought battles on their behalf time and time again… though I have put out the flames that you have rained down on their cities…”

   Trevor’s voice broke, and he shook his head in an attempt to dismiss the anger rising inside of him. Tonight, despite injuring himself, despite making himself sick on the liquor accumulated in the blood of drunks… Trevor felt great; but it was still not enough to soothe the seething rage and grief that had built up over the course of his lifetime that was rearing its ugly head in the face of momentous trauma.

   “Not anymore; because those men were right about me,” Belmont hissed as he struggled to contain a snarl. “Cursed and wicked, they called me,” he scoffed, “I’ll give them that.”

   Dracula feels himself pulled a thousand years away; he is remembering a human life torn apart by love and grief, and filled with seemingly endless suffering. Faces he hardly remembers now appear to him as vague impressions of who they were in his mind; his wife and daughter. He remembers the war that took them. He remembers being transformed by Death.

   Then, he remembers a time not so long ago; a different life than the one before. Adrian slumped in his lap and sobbing as he lectured him on the true nature of man; reminding him that however human he may appear to them at a glance, they would always realize what he was and betray him. And then, in an instant, his memory brings him to another grimly familiar place. He is standing before the pyre again, cupping the remains of Lisa in his hands, and repeating a cycle.

   Now, Trevor Belmont stands before him; and for the first time he sees him not as a descendant of his enemy, but as a reflection of himself. He pities the boy, but offers him no words of comfort. Instead, he softens his face, and spares Belmont the pain of being harassed further; In part, because he cannot stand to confront the feelings that came with the memories that Trevor’s very presence had managed to dig up within him, and partly because he was too ashamed of those feelings to menace him.

   “Isaac waits for you in your chambers…” He informed Trevor. “Take a bottle with you.” Dracula quickly dismissed him with a wave of his hand, but his tone wasn’t harsh or demanding.

   Trevor’s ears twitched when he heard this offering. It entirely disarmed him, and he nearly entered a state of shock witnessing this act of sudden generosity.

   “A… bottle… from your reserves?” He asked to confirm he had heard him correctly.

   Dracula turned his back to him as he vaguely gestured toward the rack that organized a select few of his favorite flavor profiles. Trevor looked over and observed the small collection that Dracula displayed with meticulous care put into its organization.

   “The ones further to the right are sweetest. Take your pick. The clean blood will help sober you and close those wounds. Go get cleaned up… you’re tracking mud all over the place.” The bitterness tacked onto the end of his sentence seemed disingenuous, almost forced.

   Trevor nodded slowly, wondering just what he’d said that had managed to declaw him so effectively. Regardless, if Dracula was going to be kinder to him, he’d let him. He randomly selected a bottle of blood from the right-hand side as per Dracula’s recommendation, and headed for the door.

   Before he headed down the hall, he looked over his shoulder to murmur a quiet “thank you”, but saw that Dracula had already taken over his seat at his desk, sitting with his back to the door and staring out the window into what remained of the night. He held his tongue, but Dracula spoke to him in a way he hadn’t before; as if he had sent his shadow to whisper into his ear.

   “Don’t be discouraged,” Trevor heard, “Your body is learning as much as you are right now. Give yourself time.”

   Belmont stared at him for a moment before simply moving on. He would have plenty on his mind without overanalyzing Dracula’s mood swings and magic tricks. The number of thoughts he had from the Dracula’s study to the doors of his chambers alone was far more than enough for any man, and he was eager to wash them away with the mud.

Chapter Text

Chapter 9

   As soon as Trevor entered his bedroom, he pulled the cork from the bottle gifted to him by Dracula before he emptied the neck with loud, greedy gulps. He could immediately taste a distinct, and profound difference in the flavor compared to the muck he’d consumed at the tavern. He hummed appreciatively as he swished a mouthful of blood, staining his teeth red before swallowing. It had the subtle sweetness of sun-dried venison lacking the tang of gaminess that often accompanied it.

   His ears twitched as he became aware of the sounds of Isaac preparing his bath in the other room. He could hear the water sloshing into the tub, the cabinet closing as he retrieved a
towel and rag for him; and if Trevor listened closely, he could hear the steadfast, easy beating of his heart.

   “I can smell you from here,” said Isaac from the bathroom before stepping through the door to lay eyes on Trevor, who stood awkwardly in the middle of his room completely soiled.

   “Belmont!” Isaac scolded abruptly upon seeing him, “How did you manage to make this much of a mess?! You… are…”

   “Filthy? Hm, well… I can’t defend myself against that. My apologies, Isaac. I didn’t realize you were Dracula’s maid as well.” Trevor grumbled sourly before his lips found their way back to the bottle.

   “I am what Dracula needs me to be,” Isaac noted sharply, “and tonight, evidentially, I will serve as his nanny.”

   As Isaac unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt to roll his sleeves up to the elbow while throwing a stern expression his way. Isaac’s eyes traveled over his form, looking at him up and down with that irate look on his face for some time before sighing, and shaking his head. “Well, I was going to leave you to yourself, but I’m not sure that I trust you to clean up all of this mess,” he grumbled. “So, it can’t be helped. Take off your clothes.”

   “I –I beg your pardon?” Trevor chuckled nervously as he gawked at Isaac with disbelief.

   “That won’t be necessary,” Isaac replied smugly, “Now… take your clothes off, and follow me,” Isaac instructed before turning on his heels, and heading into the bathroom. “And try not to touch anything on the way in,” he called over his shoulder.

   Trevor watched him disappear into the bathroom without another word, but he stayed where he was for a bit, stunned by the forwardness of their exchange. Deciding it was better not to protest, he stripped off the damp garbs and abandoned them near the door before treading over to lean against the frame of the bathroom door.  

   He watched as Isaac filled a bucket with clean, warm, water from the tub before dunking a cloth into it. He wrang the excess from its fibers, and turned to face him. He found Trevor standing bare-assed, tucked against the door frame like a child wary of a lashing.

   Isaac grinned and remarked, “You can’t convince me you’re prudish; or is it a fear of bathing?”

   Trevor rolled his eyes and stepped into the room. “You’re just as quippy as Dracula, you know that? Only about half as menacing, though.”

   “We share a silver-tongue,” Isaac noted with an unusually warm smile, as if it were his favorite trait about himself. He approached Trevor and started scrubbing the dirt from his face until his skin was mostly visible again. Moving on to his chest, Isaac was careful to avoid the gradually shrinking wound. Trevor found an unoccupied spot in the room to stare at while Isaac begrudgingly groomed him.

   Perhaps having found the silence between them awkward, Isaac began to pry into Trevor’s hunting experience. Not wishing to relive it again, Trevor told him simply that his victims were intoxicated, and now, so was he; that that had made things difficult for him, and made it especially hard to control the odd quirks he had inherited from Dracula.

   “I... thought you would know better,” Isaac stated in a curious tone as he wrung dark water from the washcloth. “Being a Belmont, and all.”

   “I’ve come to know better than to think I know anything,” Trevor snorted before explaining his ignorance to Isaac. “The Belmont’s specialized in killing vampires. They never really focused on teaching me the nuances of vampirism itself. You don’t necessarily need to understand how blood affects a vampire to kill him. We understand that it makes him stronger, and faster, but not how it makes him feel.”

   Isaac pondered aloud, “Hm… They truly never dreamed of being in your position, did they?”

   Trevor scrunched his nose as he shook his head. “Actually, we take vows; swear an oath to kill ourselves, or to submit to our brothers should we ever fall victim during our hunts.”

   Isaac was quiet for a long, thoughtful moment. “Forgive me, but… why do you still live?”

   “What happens to Sypha?” Trevor asked though he knew well enough what the answer was. “What of Dracula’s son? Am I to abandon them both to whatever dreadful end Dracula can imagine for them?”

   Isaac was, again, made to reflect.

   “Besides,” Trevor adds, “the Belmont’s are dead; and that seems to be the way people like it.” His tone was bitter, and grief-stricken. The pain in his voice was subtle, but it was observable in the way that the corners of his mouth twitched as he pursed his lips, and his eyebrows furrowed deeply as he pushed down his remorse.

   As Isaac scrubbed away the last bit of dirt a little gentler than before, Isaac wondered if Trevor ever yearned for his brother’s blade in the same way that an orphaned boy yearns for his mother’s tenderness. He tossed the rag into the bucket and motioned toward the tub.

   “I apologize,” he said softly, “I shouldn’t have brought up such a sensitive subject.”

   Trevor waved his hand dismissively. “It’s no pain I wouldn’t have given myself.”

   He lifted his leg and carefully stepped into the tub, still battling the vertigo for stability. He must have moved a little too clumsily for comfort, because Isaac slid into his side and tucked himself beneath his arm as he wrapped his own around Trevor’s waist to guide him into the basin of the tub.

   As he sank into the water, Trevor hissed. It was a tad warmer than he had expected, but he adjusted quickly. He leaned against the wall of the tub, carefully stretching his arms out to rest on its edge before he closed his eyes and released a long sigh.

   Trevor hadn’t expected Isaac to stay; and he expected even less for him to continue washing him, but he had little to say in protest as the warm water ran over his head and Isaac began massaging soap into his scalp to begin working to loosen his matted hair.

   With his eyes closed, he could easily convince himself that it was Sypha’s hands at his temples, guiding the position of his head, gripping at the base of his neck. He unconsciously furled into Isaac’s touch, his head rolling back as his groin began to tingle.

   His mind was at an Inn in the countryside, Sypha using his hair like reigns to guide him as he nestled his face between her thighs. Maybe Isaac didn’t notice, or maybe he was merely kind enough not to acknowledge Trevor’s cock standing at attention beneath the water. Trevor snapped back to reality, opened his eyes and began moving the bubbles in the water closer to his body to cover himself.

   “Don’t you have something better to do?” Trevor grumbled, “Building monstrosities out of spare flesh, or something? Isn’t that what you do?”

   Isaac’s laugh softened Trevor a bit. It was genuine, and probably the first time he’d heard laughter that wasn’t directed at him with the intent of deflating him. Isaac let more water over his head to rinse away the suds.

   “No, Dracula tasked me with attending to you upon arrival. He anticipated you would return in some state of disarray; physical or emotional,” Isaac explained cheekily, smirking at the remark.

   How strange the many moods of Dracula were; how quickly they changed. It gave Trevor whiplash. “If he isn’t careful, I may start to think he cares for me,” he remarked jokingly.

   “In a way. You’ve become just as much an heir as Alucard,” Isaac stated as he massaged his fingers through Trevor’s hair to scrub his scalp, “more so now that he understands the nature of the relationship between the two of you. He’s grateful for you.”

   Trevor laughed, shaken by disbelief. “An heir to what? His spooky castle?” He scoffed. “I’ll remember that the next time he decides to slap me around.”

   Isaac chuckled as he rinsed the soap from Trevor’s hair.

   “Allow me to put it this way,” he declared, “Whether you see him as a man or a monster, he is still a father. You do him a service in loving Alucard as he is.” 

   Isaac watched Trevor closely. He knew that he reasonably didn’t trust him, but his words were true. Isaac sighed, and said, “What I mean, is that Dracula sees the way that you care for his son. Whether or not you have expressed yourself to him, he understands your motives; and though he may not be the father you believe he should be, he does care for Alucard. He is all that Dracula has left of Lisa. He desperately wants to protect him – even from himself. He knows that you would give your life to protect him… because you already have.”

   Trevor stiffened at every mention of Alucard’s name, his eye subtly twitching. “So, in lieu of his son, I’ve taken on the position of whipping boy? He can no longer bare putting the brunt of his rage on Adrian, so he’s cast him in stone, and made me a placeholder to make it easier on himself?”

  Isaac shook his head and laughed at him. “No, Belmont,” he said simply. “You are merely a small part of several contingency plans. I only tell you this to ease your mind.”

   “Oh, of course. Everyone loves to hear what a useful tool they are. Thank you, Isaac! Truly.” Belmont spat spitefully as he glared daggers at him. “You’ve got strange methods of comforting a man,” he told him.

   “Mm,” Isaac hummed in acknowledgement, “You’re not the first to inform me, I’ll admit…” Isaac snickered as he twirled his index finger, motioning for Trevor to turn so that he could wash his back.

   Trevor moved hesitantly and watched Isaac’s reflection in the water. He wasn’t sure what to make of him yet. He was half-expecting his mood to sour as quickly as Dracula’s; in an instant, he could be baring his teeth and abandoning all cordiality and convention and using brute force to command him.

   Isaac sighed. As if he’d read Trevor’s mind, he added, “I don’t expect you to trust me, Belmont - not quite; and I certainly don’t trust you. My desires are Dracula’s own…  but, so long as you are in good graces with him, you need not see me as your enemy.”

   “How gracious,” Trevor spat. The venom in his tone was followed by immediate remorse. Isaac was a strange man in a strange position, and certainly held authority above his own… but he was only trying to comfort him. “I’m… sorry,” he apologized after a moment. “I…”

   “You don’t need to explain,” Isaac assured. “I’ve troubled you enough. I think you can handle it from here.”

   “Thank you, Isaac.” Trevor sighed heavily, wearing regret clearly on his face.

   Isaac only nodded politely before making an exit. Trevor listened to him gather the dirty clothes and vacate his chambers, then to the sound of his footsteps against the hard floors fading away as he traveled further from his bedroom door.

   Trevor almost missed him now that he was gone. It was bad enough to be wounded, to be enraged; but to be so touch-starved, to ache with such longing that it was a constant torture he realized he could no longer endure the moment Isaac had laid his hands on him. Any kind of intimacy was enough to light him up. All he could think of was skin – all warm and exposed, soft, flushed and sweating.

   He finished his bath, and dressed himself quickly. He would visit Sypha; throw himself at her feet and beg for her affection. There was fire under him as he made his way to the dungeons. Even the guards at the door merely stepped aside from his path, and allowed him through when he’d arrived.  He snatched the keys from one of their belts then threw him an unspoken warning in a glance that had the power to make even a vampire pale.

   Sypha had heard nothing until the lock of her cell was twisting open; not the door of the dungeons creaking open, nor the jingling of armor or keys. She stared at the door for a moment before she sat up in a near panic. She jumped up, putting her bare feet on the frigid floor before freezing where she stood.

   “Who’s there?” She asked trying to create some kind of sense of authority in her tone only for her voice to come out sounding just as startled as she truly was.

    Trevor’s familiar voice came softly from the other side, “I don’t mean to scare you. It’s only me.”

   “Oh, Trevor!” She nearly gasped.

    She had feared for a second that perhaps Dracula himself had come down to visit her again. She received gifts from him from time to time since their first frightening meeting.  It was a harmless gesture, and she would admit that his gifts were always of a finer quality than she was used to. Nevertheless, something about it made her uneasy. Anytime one arrived a guard would knock on her door and announce that Dracula had sent her something. Her stomach would knot up in anticipation and horror. Anything but silence outside of her cell had come to alarm her.

   “You did scare me!” Sypha scolded with relief in her voice as she rushed to the door of her cell to greet him. To her surprise, Trevor had the keys at his disposal, and had let himself inside without the usual escort. She looked down at them, and back at him with shock in her expression.

   “I… negotiated with the guards,” he lied. “I had to see you.”

    Sypha’s suspicious gaze made him feel exposed, and he diverted his eyes fearing they would reveal his guilt. He opened his mouth to explain himself a little more, but she interrupted with concern.

   “Are you… drunk? Are you injured?!”

   He looked down at his shoulder and found the smallest blood stain, but when he pulled back the fabric the wound no longer remained.

   “I had been, yes… and… yes, I am.” He snorted, laughing off the memory of flinging himself through tree trunks. “It’s been a long night. Frankly, I’d rather not think about anything that happened before I stepped past that door.” The heaviness in his tone let Sypha know that it was better to not pry.

   Instead, she turned and sat on the edge of the bed and patted the spot next to her, inviting Trevor to join her. Needing no other cue, Trevor made his way to her side and sat quietly. He could nearly hear the alarms going off in Sypha’s head. Sensing her anxiety, he took her hand and placed a kiss on her knuckles.

  “Dracula and I struck a deal. I’ve fulfilled my part. He is pleased with me,” he informed her with a numbness that was evident in his tone. “But I’ve…” he trailed off as he searched for the right word to use. “I’ve… disturbed him in some way; or touched him. I’m not sure which.”

   Sypha’s brow furrowed curiously. “You… disturbed him? How so?”

   “Maybe it was something I said,” he pondered aloud, “He almost seemed… sad.”

   Sypha tried to envision it; a sorrowful or remorseful Dracula with his eyes dampened and features all twisted up with grief. She could not. She shook her head in awe of Trevor’s recount, of this description of Dracula’s reaction.

  “Did… he say anything?”

  “After chastising me a bit, he actually praised me. I got myself hurt, and I wasn’t healing properly – not fast enough. He gave me a bottle of his finest to balance me out, and then told me to be patient with myself as he shoo’d me away.”

   Both of them temporarily resigned themselves to silence to process things.

   “But… the wound… it’s fine now, right?” Sypha asked him after a moment.

   Trevor offered her a soft smile, and laughed a little. “Yes, I’m fine now. Dracula’s errand boy cleaned me up,” he told her as he showed her where the wound had been. Sypha ran her fingers over it carefully, as if the wound was still there. The way she moved – slowly, overtly cautious, with her eyes full of worry had a way of softening him. “I promise you, Sypha. It’s just a bit of blood on my shirt. I’m alright.”

   She looked up at him skeptically, then sighed before asking out of genuine curiosity, “And… how did you manage to get yourself drunk? I thought vampires couldn’t consume alcohol?”

   Trevor hummed to himself as he searched for a way to explain his drunkenness without telling her what he’d done. Sure, he had killed men before; and men had tried to kill him before. He was used to being attacked by the people he served, and used to defending himself from them. Tonight, however… perhaps he had simply had enough. He could still see that bloodbath clearly, and recalling the scene made him feel dirty and slickened with gore.

   “I…” he opened his mouth to speak, but his throat tightened around the words. A well of emotions began to overflow inside of him as he felt his eyes fill with tears. He stood quickly and looked away from her while he used his shirt to dab them away before he could find himself standing before her with red trails running down his face – only to realized that he’d only added to the blood stain on his shirt. He shook his head at himself, and pulled his already soiled shirt over his face to conceal his grotesque display of shame.

   “I’ve done terrible things tonight, more awful than I care to discuss. His confession was blurted through the fabric. “To be honest with you, it’s taken every bit of self-discipline, and reserve for me not to go stand in the fucking sun,” he explained before reiterating, “and I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m so sorry.”

   Sypha moved to stand before him, and then gently coaxed his hands into letting go of his shirt to allow her to reveal his face. Still, he refused to look at her. She led him back to the bed to sit while she retrieved a wash cloth from the basin. When she returned, she stood between his legs as he sat to wipe the blood from his face unquestioningly.

  “You’ve nothing to apologize for. I went against my better judgement. I shouldn’t have pried,” She apologized. “I’m just… worried.”

   He gawked at her in awe of her patience with him before he pulled her close to embrace. Thinking about it, he found it comforting that she had no clue how a vampire could even become drunk. He couldn’t dream of telling her what he’d done. Of course, he knew that she knew well enough what it was that vampires did; but he prayed that she never had to so much as imagine him that way.

   As desperate as Trevor was to protect her from reality, she struggled with equal despair not to trouble his heart any further. She had an idea of what he’d done, and knew that creating shame in him would serve neither of them well.

   Trevor gently brushed away the stray hairs that framed her face and appreciated her beauty for a moment. “I don’t mean to worry you,” he told her, “I’m only trying to shelter you from this…” He searched for a word with enough weight behind it to convey the nature of their situation but could find none in any language he knew that would encompass it all. And so, he settled simply for “this”, as he gestured broadly at their surroundings. “I can’t imagine the fear you experienced waking up here all alone; all I know is I wish to keep you from the things that must endure because I know that I can’t protect myself from them. And Adrian, God bless him… to imagine him as a small child in a place like this… it’s heartbreaking. All of it.” He shook his head. “Whatever I experience up there… I avoid telling you because this is enough of a burden on you.”

   Such a small, gentle smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he observed the freckles speckled across her nose, and her big bright eyes staring back at him expectantly before she leaned forward to pressed her lips to his suddenly. Her soft hands cradled his face between them and she kissed him with such tenderness that Belmont feared he would simply dissolve into her touch.

   She refused to react or hesitate as the tinge of blood on his lips came to her awareness. He tasted like a nosebleed, when the blood drips down the throat from the sinus and the flavor lingers in your mouth for some time. She tried not to ponder the implications. She would kiss him regardless.

   It took no time at all for Trevor’s hands to begin wandering her body. They traveled alongside her breasts, down to her waist, then around to her back to undo the lacing of her gown. The fabric shrugged off of her shoulders, and Trevor pulled it down to expose her bare chest as his lips began to travel.

   Goosebumps rose up across her skin as he kissed down her neck, then her collar bones, until his mouth took one of the soft, pink peaks of her nipples to gently roll it between his teeth. He sealed his mouth around it, sucking as he traced it with his tongue. Her body was warm in his mouth, and he found it a delightful sensation.

   Sypha smiled wide as she contained a shiver. “You’re so cold!” She chittered dramatically before laughing.

   “Is it unbearable?” Trevor asked as he snickered, not letting on that he had been a tad insecure of their temperature difference.

   “No, not quite – just different than what I’m used to,” she reassured him.

   “You might like it,” teased Trevor with a devilish grin.

    “I’m sure I can learn to,” Sypha giggled as she playfully shoved Trevor onto his back.

   Breathless, Trevor submitted with an eagerness to allow her to explore his body as she pleased. He couldn’t help but feel virginal as her nimble fingers undid all the buttons and lacing of his clothing, and undressed him before she fully freed herself from the gown that hung loosely from her frame. A phantom sensation of heat moved through him, intense enough for a soft gasp to escape his lips.

   “Sypha,” he whimpered with urgency, like a plea to be spared.

   Sypha leaned in and wrapped her arms around his neck, her soft breasts pressing against his chest as she began laying down kisses along his jaw.

   “Sypha,” Trevor whined once more as he trembled beneath her.

   Secretly, she loved when Trevor was needy; too proud to beg, but too desperate to keep himself from crumbling in her hands. She pulled back wearing a smile across her face, and pushed against his shoulders to make him lay on his back. Her hands trailed down his body as she allowed herself to slide between his thighs.

   “Just lay back and let me take care of you,” she purred as she took his cock into her hand. She looked up at him with wide, sparkling eyes that hid a glint of satisfied mischief in them. Trevor let out a light hearted laugh as the warmth of her mouth encompassed him. He inhaled sharply, and she watched as his abdomen tensed and relaxed as she began to pleasure him with her mouth; firm lips wrapped around him, traveling along the length of his dick, her tongue swirling around the tip when she reached the top.

   If he could blush, he would have. Instead, he gripped the sheets into his fists as he moaned softly. Sypha, on the other hand, had flushed a soft shade of pink just from the sight of him in bliss. Somehow, this was different from all the times she had seen him come apart before. She couldn’t help but to wonder how different the act itself may have felt for him. Judging from his reaction, it was quite different.

   His cock twitched against her cheek, and she pulled it out of her mouth slowly, letting it slide from between her lips. She smiled and trailed kisses from the crease of his thigh, to the tip of his penis before she moved to straddle his waist.

   “God,” Trevor practically growled in distress despite the immediate feeling of irony that came with the utterance of any holy reference. “You’re doing so good,” he praised her as his hands took her waist between them to assist her balance.

   She guided his cock between the lips of her pussy, teasing him for the pleasure of seeing his reaction. His head rolled back, and his brow furrowed deeply in anticipation of the heat. Still, nothing could have prepared either of them for the shocking sensation of just how different each other’s temperature difference would feel internally. Both of them gasped, Sypha’s hips jumping in surprise. She lost her footing, and was given another shock as she buried Trevor’s cock inside of her before she was quite ready for it.

   She laughed as she adjusted, praying that his body would warm quickly this way. She was given pause when she saw the look on Trevor’s face; absolutely engulfed in pleasure. She began rocking her hips, watching every micro-expression cross his features and listening to his incomprehensible, blissed-out muttering.

   “Sypha,” he finally managed to say with some clarity, “n-not going to last l-long l-like this,” he warned breathily.

   “That’s alright,” She responded cheerily. What had begun as an act of service had quickly devolved into an almost sadistic effort to make him unravel; to forget all that troubled him, at least, for a time. She rode him with dedication, loving every second she got to spend watching him and listening to the nearly pathetic sounds he’d make for her.

   Trevor, as capable as he was, loved nothing more than to be her pillow princess. To lay back and allow her his body as her playground made him feel cherished and useful in a way that didn’t require him to exercise brutality. Without the constant, petulant cravings twisting his desires, and the heightened sensitivity and sheer lust that accompanied his condition, he found himself in a rather pleasant position.

   His hands gripped her hips to guide and steady her as he adapted to her rhythm, and began to thrust in tune. Her crumbling resolve motivated Trevor to take her in a way she had yet to experience with him. While her eyes rolled back, and she let out a low hum out of pleasure, he secured her body to his and stood to his feet with ease before he turned around and put her on her back.

   She gasped in surprise. It had all happened so quickly; to be riding him one second, and before another could pass, finding him mounting her with a feral sort of look on his face. Perhaps it would have frightened her in another situation, but in the present moment, it was on the contrary.

   Trevor had always been physically strong, and rather quick for his build. However, this had been an unmistakable characteristic of his turning. Sypha felt her body react before she could verbalize neither thrill or delight. Her hips bucking, abdomen tightening, lips parted, moaning his name.

   “I‘m gonna cum,” he panted desperately to warn her before pulling out just in time to string pearls across her stomach.

   He allowed his body to fall next to hers before leaning over to press a kiss to her forehead. She smiled and nestled closely to him to lay her head upon his shoulder.

   Sypha attempted to gather thoughts. “T-That was…” she began with a stutter.

   One glance at her face made Trevor burst into laughter. She looked ruined. Her face was flushed and glistening with sweat, her hair wild and tangled, and she wore a satisfied glaze over her eyes.

   “Oh, shut up! Don’t laugh at me! I hadn’t expected that! You’ve never done that before!”

   But hearing his laugh, seeing his lips curl into a smile and reveal his fangs without seeing him adjust himself to tuck them away – it was a relief that made her laugh as well.

   They spent nearly an hour laying naked in Sypha’s bed chatting about irrelevant, unobtainable things; places they wished to travel to, and things they’d do in the daylight. Sypha showed him some strange, cubical puzzle of sorts that Dracula had sent to entertain her, and they attempted to solve it together.

   The creaking of the door to the dungeons interrupted their time. “Belmont, I cannot allow you to remain here any longer,” a timid voice announced from the other side of Sypha’s room. “Please exit the cell, and return the keys.”

   “Piss off! I’ll be out in a few minutes.” Trevor barked, startling both Sypha as well as the poor guard who simply wished to do his job well enough.

   Sypha stroked his arm with a returning streak of concern having never seen him be so short with anyone. He turned to her with an apologetic look before kissing her one final time as he prepared to  depart.

   “I suppose I’ve reached my time allowance for the day,” he stated.  

   Melancholy washed over her. Trevor noticed, and tenderly caressed her cheek. He promised to return just before dawn, and hoped that by then he and Dracula will have reconvened. She didn’t protest knowing that he was good for his word; nevertheless, the return to isolation was daunting.

   Trevor returned to his room and sat by the fire in silence for some time. He noticed that his mind had quieted down. Perhaps, he thought, he had satisfied all perverse urges for the time being; he was fed and fucked.

   He slipped into something like sleep – rest well needed to keep up with Dracula’s curriculum.

Chapter Text

Dracula intended to keep his promises. He had begun working in a journal; listing all of the things he wished to teach Belmont about himself. A good starting point, he thought, would be to teach him of the nature of his being, and the needs of his body; then lead into lessons on the culture that his newfound kinsmen had built beneath the noses of mankind. Then, they would begin to cover the special abilities that vampires possessed, to include those that Belmont had already begun to develop, and start incorporating exercises to strengthen them into a routine.
Trevor would need to learn that the quality of the blood he drank was more important that the quantity he consumed; that ten ill, depraved, drunken men could never sustain him in the way that one body’s worth of untainted, clean blood could. He would need to learn how to control his speed, and to utilize his powers the way that Dracula could. From seduction to inducing a maddening sort of fear in those who fell beneath his gaze; from taking the shape of an animal, to reigning fire upon a village - the more eccentric tricks would come later. For now, Dracula simply wished to transform him into something worth showing off to his court.

Isaac opposed this idea. It was too flashy for him. He saw Belmont as a weapon to be concealed until necessary. To reveal him too soon would give his adversaries far too much notice, allowing them to counter his plans. He believed that they should educate and train him in secret, then send him out quietly to exterminate the conspirators within Dracula’s court. It was practical, so he would defend. However, at the root of his gentle protesting, was fear.

Both Hector and Isaac shared a love for Dracula. Hector loved him with his body; offering up his flesh and blood for Dracula’s pleasure or consumption, catering to his cravings and whims. If he required sustenance, Hector would pour out his veins for him. If he wanted a warm body to fuck, he provided his own. It was a shallow way of loving, Isaac thought; that Hector had confused being useful with being loved.

For Isaac himself, it was when he sat across from Dracula as he read aloud from some obscure philosophy to him; when his eyes raised up to his own curiously, and they began discussing the implications and nuance of such thoughts . When he noticed Dracula abandon his gloom when they spoke this way, his heart felt light in his chest – this was when he’d felt most loved. He felt his presence and input was valued, that his knowledge and discipline was appreciated by him. Dracula had filled him with a love that he repaid in his service of him. Being so, he feared for Dracula’s safety as resentment and tension brewed amongst the other vampires.

He would do his best to defend him, but he was only a man. Truthfully, Isaac found himself envious of Belmont. He had often wished that Dracula would turn him; that he could have all the time in the world at his side. He would surely never outgrow his wisdom or guidance. Nevertheless, Dracula had chosen Trevor, an arrogant and childish man – his enemy, no less.
He supposed this revealed much of how Dracula viewed his immortality; that he would keep it from his most treasured yet bestow it willingly upon an adversary. Still, he couldn’t help but feel a hushed sense of bitterness in Belmont’s presence. He would spend the whole of his existence intertwined with Dracula in a way he would not be allowed to experience, and in a way that Belmont could never appreciate.

Nevertheless, he took it upon himself to be gentle with Trevor. He was not by any means his ally, but he had sympathy for his position; especially understanding the depth of his love for Dracula’s son. It did Dracula’s heart well to know that his boy was loved, that he would be cared for; now long beyond his own destruction. He had sat at Dracula’s side as he lounged in his bed chambers lamenting on the fears he had always had for Adrian that Belmont had alleviated. Isaac put aside his grievances and made up his mind to assist Trevor in navigating Dracula’s world for his master’s sake.
When Dracula sent him to retrieve Belmont, he did so baring gifts to lure him from his room in good spirits. It was prepared with blood and the gelatin extracted from bone, made to imitate Turkish Delight – perfectly compatible with the dietary sensitivities of vampirism.

Trevor answered the door with an enthusiasm that Isaac had yet to see from him.

“Good evening,” Isaac greeted him as he extended the treats to him. Trevor gave him a suspicious eye up and down before he accepted them. “Dracula requests your presence in the library.”

Trevor opened the tin and popped one of the squares into his mouth, humming through a gelatinous mouthful, “what is this?”

“It is Dracula’s recipe.”

“Dracula’s recipe,” Trevor scoffed, “Every day he surprises me,” he stated through a rising sense of exhaustion at the mere thought of him.

“I used his instructions to prepare it for you – to get you through the day.”

Trevor threw him another cautious expression, but thanked him. “Well that was very nice of you… Isaac. I appreciate that.”

Isaac rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to poison you, Belmont.”

“Wasn’t concerned about that,” Trevor assured him. “Just worried about you buttering me up for whatever I’m about to walk into.”

“Perhaps in a sense. You’ll need the strength and energy,” Isaac noted smugly.

“Hm. Well, thanks anyway; for the… breakfast, I suppose. I’ll follow your lead,” Trevor replied, no less suspicious of Isaac’s kindness. Still, he closed the tin and tucked it away in a drawer before trailing after him.

Trevor had never traveled this far into the castle. As they walked, he couldn’t help but to have flashbacks of being dragged through the halls when he’d first arrived; bleeding out, writhing in pain, and so, so frightened. He had tried not to think about those moments. They approached yet another staircase leading into a separate wing of Castlevania’s dark and grand interior and reached the (no less eccentric) doors to the library. Isaac pushed them open and revealed the jaw-dropping collection of information accumulated in the course of Dracula’s existence.

Perhaps there were many other things that should have imbued the reality of just how long Dracula had been walking the Earth into Trevor’s head; but it was the awe-inspiring magnitude of the collection that wrapped his mind around the concept of eternal life. No man, no matter how rich or well-traveled could dream of acquiring such a collection in his lifetime. Even if his own collection was left to grow across generations, the grandsons of his grandsons could never achieve the hoard of knowledge housed in Dracula’s castle.

Before he could even step beyond the door frame, Trevor was frozen in an awe-struck state of shock. He was unable to articulate his thoughts in any coherent way. He couldn’t even make a sound. His eyes darted from the floor to the ceiling, taking in the spine of every book, every glint of light beaming off the surface of a display, every perplexingly well-preserved wet specimen housed beneath those breath takingly high ceilings.

Contrary to how he held himself, Belmont was more skilled and educated than most men. The status of his family prior to their demonization demanded such, though he was no outstanding scholar. He knew how to read and write, however poorly. He knew how to make weapons and how to use them, and he knew how to kill. It was all a drop in a well compared to what Dracula’s library held.

“Th-This is… incredible,” Trevor managed to say as he finally found it in himself to move forward.

A chuckle resounded from above them. “I’m pleased the beauty of it is not lost on you.”

“It is humbling, I’ll give you that,” Trevor confessed while still taking in his surroundings. Notably, he saw Dracula nowhere.

Isaac stood at the doors and watched Trevor timidly move about. He felt a hand gently come down on his shoulder, and the cold breath of a whisper against his ear. “Join Hector in the forge. I’ve given him my specifications for the next generation of creatures. He will fill you in.”

“As you wish,” Isaac nodded as he turned to leave the two of them to begin what he hoped would be a good icebreaker in their relationship.

Now that Dracula had Trevor to himself, he watched from a distance, his form still concealed to him as Trevor began to wander curiously. He watched as he perused slowly past the shelves, his fingers reaching out on occasion to trace over a particularly interesting title or eye-catching cover.

“Sypha would love this…” Trevor sighed to himself with a soft smile spreading across his face. He turned and his eyes fell directly upon Dracula, causing the vampire to freeze where he stood to be certain that Trevor had revealed him.

Dracula chuckled, pleased with this– too much so. Trevor’s expression twisted as soon as he had heard the sound. “What?” he asked sharply.

“You have seen me.”

Belmont inhaled deeply before responding, “… I see you every day. I’m not happy about it.”

“It’s incredible,” Dracula snorted, “You could be truly impressive, truly powerful… but you’re too stupid to even realize your own potential. It’s ghastly, Belmont - absolutely gut wrenching,” Dracula bemoaned flamboyantly, turning his face away in a theatric display of disappointment that seemed to enrage Trevor.

“Ohh, I see. This is another one of your mood swings – fucking spare me,” Trevor spat, “I thought you brought me here to teach me, but now you only seem to have interest in patronizing me.”

“Well, don’t make it so easy, Belmont. I can hardly resist,” Dracula laughed.

Dracula seemed to be in a fine mood, unnervingly enough, and it was beginning to make Trevor anxious. He took another deep breath to ground himself before grumbling, “Pleased to be of amusement – can we get on with this?”

And with a hearty chuckle, Dracula disappeared again, seemingly before Belmont’s very eyes; but somehow, his voice lingered all-encompassing in the room. Trevor’s eyes widened with alarm and darted all around in search of him.

“Are you familiar with how my tricks work, Trevor?” Dracula asked. Trevor searched high and low trying to discern precisely where his voice was coming from.

“N-No…”

“You and I have a blood-bond. I have taken your blood and given you mine – we are connected to one another for so long as we shall roam. Between us, this connection is inherent and unbreakable because I have made you; but the ability can be used upon our prey as well.”

Trevor thought back to the times that Dracula had seemed to evoke specific emotions from him against his will; to entrap him in terror, to compel him to speak honestly against his own volition, to pacify him, even.

“With you, I need only will my projections – but with a mere man, it would require only his awareness of my presence.”

Trevor nodded slowly, believing he may have some understanding of what he spoke of. “You’ve… used this on me before…”

“Of course I have.” Dracula confirmed with a chipper tone.

“I recognize this, but I don’t understand it. How have you… blinded me?”

“I have only snipped the image of myself from your perception,” Dracula’s voice answered now much closer to Trevor, who had jumped and swatted at the air when he had heard his voice so near. In response to startling him, Dracula only laughed – this time from far above him, his laughter radiating down the walls of the room. That laughter became the recognizable fluttering and chittering of bats, distant at first but growing closer.

For a moment, Trevor thought this was a trick merely audible to him – and then he was surrounded by a cloud of what seemed to be real creatures moving intelligently to create the shape of Dracula before gathering en masse to become him.

Instinctually, and briefly, Trevor’s hand came to his hip to draw out his absent whip as he stumbled backwards only to be cradled in the arms of Dracula’s true body. Trevor gasped and spun around to face him, glancing over his shoulder to find the double had vanished already.

“I… I am capable of this?” Trevor stuttered with insecurity, realizing that perhaps someday, by legend, he will become indistinguishable from Dracula himself.
“Someday, yes. For now, let me introduce you to my plan for the next few weeks.”

Dracula began to lecture Trevor as he gave him a tour of his library. He handed him a quill that seemed to never run out of ink, and some paper to take notes with as they talked and moved about the levels of the room. He reviewed the obvious things first; stay out of sunlight, you cannot cross through running water, be wary of temperature differences, stay well fed or you’ll become prone to madness; common myths man has constructed about their being, and other such basic information any new vampire should require.

Trevor rattled off questions like a curious toddler. He asked about how much time after a feeding he could expect mental and physical decline, whether an animal’s blood could substitute for human blood, how blood and its purity would impact his healing, and why he cried blood rather than real tears. He scribbled down the answers as quickly as Dracula could speak, listening intently to every word he spoke.

Before they knew it, hours of questions and discussions had passed. Trevor had scribed pages upon pages of notes for himself to reference. For a short time, Dracula had ceased to be Dracula, in a way. He had become simply a mentor to him. If either of them were to be honest about it, they both enjoyed this time together as an eager student, and an ancient professor.

Finally, Dracula turned to him and dismissed him to wander the library and familiarize himself with its inventory; to take time to digest the information he was given and expand his new understandings.
“Should you desire further guidance on the things you learned today, feel free to seek me out,” he added. “We will meet tomorrow around the same time to address the development of your abilities. Come rested.”

Trevor nodded, running through his mind for any final questions he may have. “Understood…”

Dracula nodded back as he began to take his leave, and when Trevor had heard the gargantuan moan of the doors open and then close behind him once he had left, he found himself nearly at a loss being alone in the overwhelming pool of information that surrounded him. He began to pace it’s levels, scanning over the books available to him once more before something caught his eye.

It was a small, untitled leather backed book sitting upon a locked trunk. All of the other books that weren’t on shelves were accompanied in stacks by other books – but this one sat alone. He picked it up and curiously flipped it open. On the first page were two lines that read:

A Record of Artifacts
The following journal is an inventory of artifacts stored within Castlevania, in possession of Vlad Dracula Tepes.

“Huh…”

He flipped to the next page where the table of contents was laid out, and read down a ledger of items both mundane and magical. The list sprawled for three pages; documents, treatises, precious gems and crown jewels, art work, notorious weapons, and items that bound and sealed away horrors. Short descriptions of each item were beneath its name; and across from its name, near the crease of the pages sewn into the spine, the page number was listed for reference.

The Cube of Zoe…Svarog Statue… Book of Spirits… The Morning Star Wh-That bastard!

Trevor tried not to linger on the thought of Dracula having his whip locked away somewhere as a trophy of his defeat – it wasn’t any use to him anymore, anyhow. He continued down the list.

The Grand Hermeticus, A Transcription of the Emerald Tablets, The Fossilian Stake…

Having piqued his interest, the words sat beneath Trevor’s gaze for a moment before he found the corresponding page number. Dracula’s handwriting sprawled across its pages:

…The Fossilian Stake was created by Carmilla of Styria a mere two centuries after her creation with the intention of liberating herself from her Master. She had initially thought not to kill him, seeing it as a tragedy for his knowledge to be lost to the world. His ill temperament gave her a change of heart, and so the stake was never used for that purpose. It became lost for some time after Carmilla abandoned the castle her Master kept for some years before returning, hardly remembering she had ever created the clever device. In her absence, many curious wanderers rummaged through the castle, and the stake found itself passing through the hands of various merchants, then hunters before finding its way to Castlevania. It appears as a typical stake with a few peculiarities; one such being that it appears made of marble or stone in the image of wood. When driven into the heart of a vampire, the subject is cast into stone. An unprivy viewer would observe them as merely a sculpture…

This passage seemed to perfectly describe what was used on Alucard. Trevor continued reading on, quicker than he had ever read before, then snapped the book closed once he was certain that the Fossilian Stake was what was in Alucard’s chest.

The book offered little information on its removal, or any possible side effects of removal; but it had mentioned that its purpose was preservation. This meant that it was made to be removed. Such information was a relief to Belmont, but he wasn’t confident about what he needed to do next; and fearful still that simply removing it would injure him or worse.
But Dracula’s library was vast.

He was sure that with a keen eye and careful perusing, he could find some other reference somewhere on the shelves. He thought carefully about how to progress. As with anything, he reckoned it would be best to start at the beginning; to find books that referenced Carmilla, and her origin since she was its creator. This worked well in Trevor’s favor. Should Dracula question his research he could blame the task he was assigned; to exterminate Carmilla. Certainly, it was irresponsible at best to go to battle without knowing ones enemy well. Dracula would understand this, and pardon his curiosity.
He searched until dawn for books with such specifics, but in the end, retired to his chambers with only three in hand. He made himself a comfortable spot near the fire by laying pillows upon the sofa, and tossing another log into the pit of the fire place before stoking the flames to light the room.

Trevor spent a few hours reading feverously before he recalled Dracula advising him to be rested for his lesson tomorrow. He marked book by dog-earing the page, and set it aside for the time being. He hadn’t learned much about the stake itself; but of Carmilla, he learned a few interesting things about her as a figure.

Carmilla was the head of a Council operating out of a Styria. They called themselves the Council of Sisters, consisting of three other women who had grown weary of the rule of Men. Their goals were nondescript, veiled in secrecy; something Trevor was certain troubled Dracula. He was as suspicious as he was bizarre, as he was evil.

In these few books, plenty was written of her wrath and beauty alike; but Trevor dreaded learning for himself if the things they said were true. He cared not for the idea of a woman that could rival Dracula. That would be Hellish.

Chapter Text

A pelt lain upon grass, a basket of fresh food from the nearest town’s market, a bottle of mead, the smell of their campfire in the air…

Alucard, bringing a strawberry to his mouth and sinking his teeth into it; the way it left the gentlest hue of red upon his lips, and the way his tongue ran over the remnants, but the stain remained. Sypha’s nimble fingers lacing sections of Alucard’s hair into a loose braid as she sat behind him, pausing occasionally so that Trevor could put grapes into her mouth.

… How badly Trevor wished for two mouths so that he could kiss them both.

Flashes of bared flesh, of needy hands and greedy tongues began to swirl in his mind. He could almost feel them – hot in his palms and between his legs. He could nearly hear them panting, moaning softly an…

   A distant creaking pulled Trevor back to reality, and his eyes snapped open to the distant creaking of a door.

   The shadow on the wall let him know that the sun was setting. Each day, as the sun fell behind the caps of the mountains and the sky began to darken, Trevor answered Dracula’s summons faithfully. He sighed as he accepted that the time to face him, yet again, had come. These days, when he was not training, he was reading. When he was not reading, he was putting his knowledge into practice.

   He utilized the library to practice the more subtle arts that he had learned; but when it came to sharpening his more excessive talents, he liked to take his studies outside. Castlevania’s current position remained to be a meadow in southern Wallachia near where the Olt met the Danube River, perhaps a hundred miles from the nearest accessible peak of the Carpathian Mountains. There was nothing around them – giving him plenty of space to unleash any kind destruction he was capable of.

   His nights (and very quickly, his days) became fully occupied with the multidisciplinary curriculum Dracula had constructed for him that left little time for taking respite in Sypha’s cell. He got no rest. And sooner than he would have liked he depleted the little cache of blood that Isaac had prepared for him, and was left to endure his increasingly brutal training with nothing to quell the creeping sense of starvation.

   Dracula taught him of the landscapes, the art and strategics of war, how to weaponize his own body in combat through martial arts, as well as haunting, esoteric things that would make each and every Belmont roll in their graves – and Trevor excelled. Dracula remained impressed, and increasingly delighted by his potential.

   Such a thing pleased Isaac. It seemed to him that having Trevor Belmont as a student had put a little life back into Dracula. He enjoyed seeing the nature of their relationship change. Trevor began to bicker with him in a more playful manner; still challenging him at every turn, but with a smile on his face when he managed to put a flame under Dracula’s ass. Admittedly, Isaac found it amusing.

   “One day he’s trembling in my presence, and now he’s brave enough to bully me,” Dracula scoffed under his breath in passing one day. “Are all fledglings the same?”

   Isaac could not answer, only chuckle – he too had been known to pester Dracula for fun from time to time; and Hector as well.

   “His confidence is growing,” Isaac explained, “and he’s become more comfortable in his skin, and more comfortable with you around. It’s a good sign.”

   “I’m half tempted to stifle him for the sake of my peace,” Dracula grumbled. “Though I’m sure he’ll change his mind again soon enough; I plan to test him.”

   Isaac’s ears perked up in curiosity. “Oh? Do you?”

   Dracula’s mouth stretched into a sinister grin. “Sister Agatha still lives,” he stated plainly.

   But Isaac’s gut tightened. “I see,” he stated somewhat nervously. “So, you mean to have him reap your revenge?”

   “No. Sister Agatha is the target because I wish to see how Belmont fairs against someone of a similar background. Sister Agatha’s grandfather was an Exorcist who encountered what he referred to as ‘a demon he could not rebuke.’ He had been called to exorcise a man presumed to be demonically possessed.  Instead, he found a man who was in the middle of Vampiric Transformation. This shaped him, and so he began traveling alongside hunters, learning their methodology. He combined this practice with his theology, and became a renowned Paladin of sorts. His son followed in his steps; and when his son had a daughter, he named her Agatha and she inherited their legacy.”

   “Ah, I understand now. It sounds like it will be an interesting match – a fulfilling one,” Isaac hummed, still not entirely enthused about pitting Belmont against Agatha.

   “I hope that it will be,” Dracula beamed.

   Isaac sighed and asked, “Might I presume that Belmont is unaware of this?” He sorely wished that Dracula would simply let the man be, and let themselves establish a relationship that existed outside of a power dynamic – especially after seeing the progress they had made together. However, he knew better than to press the issue. Dracula had never received anything he perceived as criticism well, and Isaac had learned that sometimes a gentle suggestion was the most effective way of changing Dracula’s mind.

   “You would be correct. I do not wish to quarrel with the boy until necessary,” Dracula groaned.

   And quarrel they did.

   Belmont erupted quite immediately when he was informed of the task that Dracula had put him up to – travel to Budapest, slaughter a convent while Dracula, perched nearby, graded his performance. He quickly recalled the gruesome scene that he’d left behind in Campina, and the feeling of having disassociated from himself entirely. Then, for a moment, it was as if he was standing outside of his body. He had been reduced to a mere observer of his own brutality, and it brought him shame to witness. Though he was certain that Dracula would never admonish him for such things, the thought of someone else witnessing him in an unbridled state of blood-lust made him feel sick to his stomach. The thought of being praised for it inspired a sense of premeditated self-loathing for the things he knew that he would be compelled to do by some foreign and predatory instinct. While he hadn’t left Campina believing that he would never do what he did there again, he was devastated that the time had come again.

   “No!” Trevor snarled at Dracula in defiance, “I won’t kill a bunch of fucking nuns for your amusement. Besides, they’re just that! A bunch of nuns! If you want them dead so badly, you go and butcher them yourself!”

   Dracula chuckled at the sincerity of his insubordination before replying with amused, “Oh, my boy. I wouldn’t bother with them if they were merely a gaggle of nuns.”

   “Ohh, please do enlighten me,” Trevor urged with exasperation – and the smallest hint of curiosity. “What makes them such a high priority compared to all of your other enemies?”

   “Prior to her current practice, she rivaled Lisa in medicine. However, she practiced a pseudoscience; relying on prayer to heal the sick,” Dracula stated with a darkening tone, “but I had taught Lisa real science; and Agatha, seeing this as witchcraft, resented her for it. So she tipped the bishop…”

   Dracula explained plainly that if it were not for Agatha, his wife would be living still; Alucard would still have a mother (and unspoken, a father); and Trevor would probably have a belly full of mead, and his cock buried in the slit of some woman whose features appeared as muddled smears through the lens of drunkenness. This seemed to disturb Belmont in just the way that Dracula had intended it to. Certainly, he needed no other reason to see eye to eye with him on the issue.

   Dracula could see the gleaming resentment within Trevor’s eyes – when Trevor looked at him, when Hector or Isaac were near, when he passed Adrian’s door; but now more than ever. They had made leaps and bounds of interpersonal progress with one another, but Dracula was not naïve enough to believe it to be genuine. Decorum, or some sense of cordiality would be necessary of them both for them to navigate the dynamic between them. It was an ancient one forged by the first slaves and their Masters. No number of niceties or politeness would change the truth of it.

   Were slaves not fed? Were slaves not quartered? Were slaves not given tools, then put to work? Did it matter that Trevor’s chains were psychological, or that he laid his head upon silken pillow cases, or that his tools were swords and pens; or that the the value of his work was weighed in flesh? He ate from the palm of his Master like every slave before him.

    Giving him a target such as Agatha would give him something to do with the bitterness that had festered in him, and prove to be an effective distraction. As if he were sprinkling gold flakes upon confectionary, Dracula disclosed that Agatha had begun to pass her knowledge to the ladies of the convent seeking to unleash a force of Paladin’s that sought to destroy all things deemed unsanctimonious – vampires, demons, witches; not even his Speaker would be safe from Agatha’s crusades – not even Adrian.

   Far less conflicted now, Trevor huffed defeatedly. “Budapest, you said?”

   Dracula was happy to reiterate himself as he saw Trevor’s reluctance beginning to dissolve. “Yes. Budapest,” He replied cheekily.

   “Budapest is nearly six days away by foot,” Trevor remarked dismissively. “We are not men. We can’t travel in the daylight. Even with our speed, it’ll take us even longer. Even if we leave tonight and move as quickly as possible, we’d have to find shel-”

   Dracula retorted, “Isaac will take us by carriage.”

   “And does this carriage have windows?” Trevor inquired with snark.

   Dracula scoffed before retorting, “Yes, and curtains, Belmont! If the dimmest sunlight frightens you so much, we’ll use them. The mountains will block most of the direct sunlight during our journey – you won’t perish.” He rolled his eyes. “Besides, we’ll be in caskets.”

   Trevor rolled his eyes harder like a petulant child, and nearly sent Dracula into flames.

   “Oh, in caskets – of course. How silly of me,” Trevor grumbled before sighing hard enough to make his throat rattle. “When are we leaving?”

   Dracula never imagined that Trevor could remind him so much of Alucard when he was younger. The first few years of his teens had been nightmarish – the bickering, and arguing and smartarsed remarks back and forth. It had been miserable. And this was that misery; of this, Dracula was certain. Still, he bared through every test of his temper with confidence and gritted teeth.

   Dracula answered sharply, “We’ll depart tonight.”

   Trevor eclipsed Dracula’s expectations, and he found himself exceedingly proud of what he had created. Truthfully, he had lost all sight of punishing Trevor for the sins of his fathers, and unconsciously had begun putting all his energy into molding him into the monster he needed him to be. But in recent weeks he had found himself contemplating his long-term plans, and just how Trevor and Alucard fit into the end game.

   Say that Trevor weeds out the traitors in his council, takes Carmilla out of the equation, aids him in his extermination of Mankind – then what? Then has two sons? He was certain that Alucard would awaken in the new world that he had forged, one where he could travel safely and freely; and then rebel. Undoubtedly, Belmont and the girl would join him.

   At times, Dracula felt as if he had cornered himself in fulfilling Alucard’s plea for Trevor’s life. He could see that Trevor had not lost an ounce of determination since his turning. Surely, his betrayal was a matter of time, not a question of “if”- but he found himself nearly indifferent. Worse, he felt the smallest spark of joy in believing that he would. The idea of him making use of what he had taught him, the thought of him expanding on that knowledge until he had surpassed him made him feel as if it would have all been worth it. Should Belmont manage to dethrone him, perhaps he deserved it.

   Trevor sighed as Dracula instructed him to prepare for their departure, and to meet him at the main doors of the castle. With the order given, Trevor made his way to his chambers so that he could dress himself more appropriately.

   He kept his gear in a stubborn chest at the foot of his bed. He gave it a kick to loosen the gears of the locking mechanism and twisted the key that had been permanently lodged into the keyhole to open it. After hoisting the lid open, his eyes glanced over the selection of daggers tucked into sheaths. He was growing used to using blades in place of his beloved whip; but he missed it sorely. He had not yet broken the habit of reaching for it, and each time his hand found only his hip. Perhaps, he thought, it would be worth speaking with Isaac and Hector – or buttering up the old bat to see if he would allow him to craft something that would not reject his touch. Even if Trevor still possessed Morning Star, it would cause him to bubble, boil, and burst if it came into contact with his corruption. The Morning Star whip was no longer made for him.

  Pushing the grief over his beloved weapon aside, he presumed that leather would do; so he selected and secured his bracers tightly on his forearms and pulled a buttressed corset around his waist, lacing it closed in the front before tucking the loose fabric of his shirt inside. He grabbed his boots from near the fire place, then sat upon his bed to slide them onto his feet.

   He was filled with dread, but ignored the feeling best he could for the sake of maintaining focused and motivated enough to get the job done. In the back of his mind, however, the smallest spark of curiosity resided and dared pondering exactly what he was capable of. Sure, he had demonstrated these skills for himself and for Dracula – but they sparred politely, for the most part. Both of them had awareness of the others restraint; but Trevor knew not what he was capable of without it.

   Unsolicited recall; the awful sound of necks snapping. Trevor inhaled sharply as a shiver shook his spine.

   Blood soiling his clothes and soaking him to the bone; his skin feeling tighter as it dried. Blood caked under his nails and into every pore, locking into his hair. Blood in his mouth, blood sloshing in his gut.

Blood tasting just as it smells.

Buzzing with euphoria.

   Trevor practically jumped to his feet, deciding to see Sypha while he could still look her in the eyes. Shaking the frighteningly vivid recollection from his mind eagerly, not comfortable with how the feeling of repulsion he had felt in the moment had begun to morph into pleasure more and more each time the memory came back to him.

   The dungeon guards had become familiar with Trevor’s shortening temper. They were quick to lead him to the cell and allow him his time with her in peace. Today, the bags beneath his eyes seemed darker than usual. His features were sharpened by the sinking of his cheeks and the snarl he wore as he approached them. One of them jumped to hold open the entrance to the dungeons while the other rushed in the retrieve the key and unlock the cell. As always, they were shaken by the immediate change in his demeanor as he came into Sypha’s view. His shoulders relaxed, his brow unfurled, and he managed a grin.

   “I’m going to Budapest,” he announced to her as she came eagerly to embrace him.

   “Budapest?” Sypha asked curiously with an underlying sense of uncertainty in her tone. “What could he possibly have for you in Budapest? That’s quite far from here, isn’t it?”

   “A ways, yes. He will be coming with me.”

   Sypha seemed disturbed to hear this. Horrible thoughts ran through her mind. “What for,” she asked somewhat hesitantly, unsure if she truly wanted to know the answer.

  “An assassination, I suppose you could call it. A nun,” he told her.

   Sypha snorted. “He wants you to murder… a nun… and he’s coming with you… to... watch as you do it?” She couldn’t help but laugh at how absurd it sounded.

   Trevor was relieved to see his effort to downplay the task ahead of him had worked. Smiling, laughing – that was good. He hated burdening her with concern and tried always to maintain a light hearted composure in her presence; but Sypha was far from stupid.

   She knew what a vampire was. She knew they sustained themselves on blood, and she knew that blood came from the living. It was not a complicated equation to work out. It was all horrifying, yes – but outside of their control. She had explained that she would adapt to the idea in time, and that she would never judge him for having to sustain himself.

   But Trevor knew that what he did was not an act of survival. He did not take what he needed from a body, then dab his lips dry upon a napkin he kept tucked in his pocket. What Trevor did was nothing short of succumbing to sheer fucking bloodlust. More than this, Belmont was not unaware of the fact that the task he had been given was a test; and in his mind, this trip to Budapest signaled to him that Dracula would be trusting him with larger tasks, and greater independence sooner rather than later – which meant killing would be something he did quite often.

Chapter Text

   Pulled by four sturdy horses, Dracula’s carriage had ample space for two coffins in the back, with plenty remaining for a cabin where two to three people could sit. A a small, wooden sliding door connected the two spaces, allowing them to access the satin-lined comfort of the coffins that Dracula liked to bring along on such journeys on the rare occasion he travelled by mundane means.

   They began their journey sitting across from one another, Trevor taking the smaller seat. He rested his head against the wall, and decided to spend some time staring out the window seeing what he could of the way while night protected them. They went miles and miles in silence; and Trevor was content to keep it that way for a time, but soon he remembered just how long the journey would be. He would be spending nearly half a fortnight in this carriage with Dracula. Given that, he thought it wise not to pester him too much.

   To his surprise, Dracula broke the silence first.

   “Did you tell her what we were off to do?”

   Trevor seemed confused by the question. “Did I tell… Sypha?”

   Dracula nodded.

   “Well… of course,” Trevor stated meekly.

   Dracula hummed curiously. “I never told Lisa anything of the sort. My legend preceded our introduction, I didn’t feel it necessary.”

   Trevor supposed it was a fair point. Lisa was far from naïve, from his understanding of her. She was well aware of what Dracula was prior to knocking on his door. But Sypha hadn’t knocked on the gargantuan doors to Castlevania wishing to be invited inside, or to reside there. She was a prisoner there.

   “It puts her mind at ease,” Trevor explained, “knowing what’s happening while she’s down there. We’ve not been apart a single moment since the day we met – all three of us… until, you know. All this…” he shook his head disdainfully. “She’s been in every fight beside me. She would be here if she could be.”

   “She is a… bit of a spitfire, yes. I’ve always enjoyed women with that sort of spirit.”

   Trevor wasn’t sure how to react to that statement. “Are you… have…”

   Dracula raised his eyebrows as he watched Trevor attempt and struggle to formulate his question. Belmont sighed and tried again, still not quite asking the question he wanted to.

   “Have you known many women?” he asked, immediately regretting his phrasing and well aware that he sounded a fool.

   Thankfully, Dracula laughed, and nodded before saying, “In another life.”

   Despite the occasional slips of humanity, Trevor often forgot that Dracula was once a man. He was just Dracula to him – something that had always existed. It was difficult to imagine him beyond his legend, even still. The more that he attempted to imagine him as just a Man, the more Belmont realized his lack of imagination in that regard. So instead of imagining, he asked another question.

   “So Lisa was far from your first?”

   Dracula laughed again, finding Trevor’s questions naïve, but in good spirit.

   “I had a wife and a child in life, and several concubines prior to Lisa; female, male, and all flavors in between. Usually short lived romances – very little romance involved if I’m being honest.”

   Trevor thought to ask, for a moment, if he included Hector amongst these concubines, but found it wiser not to pry into his existing relationships. Instead, he asked, “Were they human as well?”

   “Primarily, but there have been a few other vampires.”

   Then why kill all of Man? Trevor thought. Fit enough to fuck, but not to live? It seemed a nonsensical idea; but as Dracula recalled the lovers of his past his eyes softened, and his expression became… sad, and longing.

   Trevor couldn’t help but snort a little seeing Alucard’s face so clearly plastered across his father’s. He could recall when he’d last seen him make that face. Trevor had gotten drunk, then he had decided to interrogate the poor man about his sex life; and Alucard’s face turned a dainty pink, and his eyes widened just a little. He’d hissed some sort of word at him that Trevor supposed was supposed to sound profane, meant to be hurled as an insult; but coming from him, it was a pleasure to hear. Then, that familiar expression of melancholic yearning boldly proclaimed itself across his features, and Trevor felt his stomach sink slowly, in a way he had never experienced.

   Surely, he thought, nothing so beautiful could be left untouched long enough to allow him to know such a feeling? In his mind, it was criminal; cruel, even. The memory lingered in Trevor’s mind as if it had been some grand event, but it had only been a micro expression observed between a few moments.

   “Why do you laugh?” Dracula inquired; a bit bemused by Trevor’s sudden withdraw from the moment.

   Trevor shook his head. “This whole time I’ve assumed Adrian favored his mother most. Seeing the paintings of Lisa, I can see they look alike; but the more time we spend together, the more I see your spirit in him.”

   And for once, at the mention of his son, Dracula’s demeanor lightened.

   “How so?” he asked curiously, uncertain what he would hear next.

   Trevor smiled warmly, and Dracula froze, as if the creaking of his bones might prevent him from hearing.

   “The mind games, his smart-arsed mouth, the dramatics – it’s all you. He’s sort of cold, at first. He pretends to be, at least. He’ll pick at you like a scab; tickled when he makes you bleed. When you pick at him, though… it’s quite clear he isn’t as cold as he’d like you to believe.”

   “Are you suggesting that I’m going soft on you, Belmont?” Dracula asked with a tinge of a warning in his tone.

   Trevor treaded carefully.

   “N-No – you misunderstand me. I mean to say that… the paintings on the wall, the perfectly preserved room, the…” life preserving objectification spell binding him in stone for safe keeping, “… way you leave flowers at his feet… the way you become sick with grief… I’m not sure how to articulate what I mean, actually,” Belmont admitted, “but there is an essence of him in all of these actions.”

   He wished he was a more articulate person  He dreamed of having the words to explain how he found Alucard in little things throughout the castle; and in his father’s demeanor, habits, and expressions; like little signs from a distant God, letting Trevor know that he wasn’t dead yet.

   Dracula didn’t take offense to the comparison, but he found it to be a peculiar observation. He dismissed the conversation by saying, “I suppose the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree – or so they say,” despite knowing that the comments would leave his mind no sooner than that miserable, adoring look on Trevor’s face that arose whenever he spoke of his son.

   With remorse, Dracula had to admit, he knew nothing of who Adrian had become. He was a child of extremes – difficult, even for him, to keep up with. He was either an angel, entirely delightful without fuss or concern; or he was inconsolable with something like grief and rage, and longing for things he could not have. And he had grown so quickly – one day he was teaching him to walk, and the next they were engaged in unmatched fits of emotional dysregulation.

   With this acknowledgement came a memory of returning to the castle, catching the scent of blood on the air immediately, and the knowing sense that something was wrong twisting in his gut. He rushed to find Adrian in the first real panic he had had in centuries. His castle, suddenly the biggest it had ever been; impossible to navigate with the haste he desired, even with the assistance of his abilities. He did not find his son there. What he found was a bloodied sink, a pair of pliers, and his two fangs that he had pulled from his jaw (root and all), sitting in the basin.

   Immediately Dracula understood what he had meant to do; to walk amongst man without his fangs betraying him. He took to the skies in a cloud of bats searching for him. Every pair of wings provided a set of eyes and a pair of ears through which he could see and hear all.

   He spread himself throughout the nearest town desperately looking for him, finding Adrian by the sound of him crying out in pain as the damning realization of his inescapable duality reared it’s peaks through his gums. The boy had been completely oblivious to the fact that a vampire would never be without fangs for long. The unmistakable scent of his blood was caught on the air by one bat, and in an instant, all the others swarmed to its vicinity and down the chimney of the brothel his son had inadvertently wandered inside of.

   Trembling, with one hand covering his bloody mouth, and the other extended in a plea for mercy, Dracula had found him cornered by three barely clothed women, and two men wielding the legs of chairs that they had snapped off of the furniture to serve as makeshift stakes. Enraged by the scenario, Dracula snuffed every whore and every patron alike before returning to reclaim his son from the spot he’d left him.

   He had wanted to scream at him – that stupid, stupid boy. He’d had thought himself angry enough to knock the wind out of him; but instead, he scooped him up and held him tightly, as relief brought him to tears. Dracula cursed him through angry sobs, shaking him by the shoulders as he scolded him, only to hold him snugly to his chest once more.

   So afraid. Dracula had been so afraid that night. Alucard had a long history of re-familiarizing his father with fear.

   Belmont watched curiously as Dracula’s internalized lamentation filled the cabin with silence, but left him to it. He had learned better than to linger on Alucard for too long in conversation. He was a sore subject they shared; and if they were to keep their peace during their quest, it would be wiser to speak about the virtues of celibacy, castle maintenance, or the migratory rituals of geese – anything but Alucard.

   “I think I’ll try out this coffin,” Trevor announced after some time in order to break the increasingly unsettling silence, “from what I understand, this is the only guaranteed rest a vampire can hope for, yes?”

   Dracula nodded absent mindedly. “You’ll find it quite comfortable, I assure you.”

   Trevor snorted. “Surely. I’ll be as snug as a… corpse in a… coffin.” 

   But it had been no exaggeration. After sealing himself inside, Trevor felt his body relax within that lightless box in a way that brought to his attention just how overstimulated he had become since turning. Cut off from his surroundings, his mind began to quiet down; and like a miracle he got real fucking sleep. The dreams that he dreamt were more vivid than ever before.

   It was a shame he did not dream of pleasantries.

   This peaceful rest was disturbed by flashes of brutality – of a stone fortress protected by jagged mountains and crucifixes; and a small, Paladin army of around two dozen guarding its walls. Belmont dreamed of the bloodlust to be had there; of fine women, weighted down by iron that was melded to their forms. Something darker in him was giddy with anticipation; foaming at the mouth, even while merely dreaming of gnawing through each one of them with his teeth.

   The meek voice of humanity within him, pleading in horror, could barely be heard above the ravenous instincts that bellowed with repulsive desire. The imagery’s passing slowed down and eventually put him at the end of a seemingly ever-stretching corridor. Before him, a wooden door left slightly ajar; inside, a woman – waiting for him.

   Trevor found himself moving forward, opening the door and laying eyes on her and knowing after only a glance that she was Agatha. Her hair was long, uncovered by the coif, peppered with strands of silver, and left unruly. Against the black robes she wore there was a polished and jeweled crucifix gleaming in the dim light of the torches, and reflecting the light of the flames toward Trevor – burning a hole through his cheek. He gasped and jumped back, confused as to what exactly had just happened to him.

   His eyes darted between the women and the cross with a perplexed sort of surprise. The woman began whispering something inaudible – but Belmont knew by the rhythm of the humming of her voice (and by the ringing in his ears) that it was a prayer. More startling, he could hear heavy-footed, steady marching coming from somewhere behind him, further down the corridor.

  Panic began to rise in Trevor – then anger. Flashes of blood came again, more rapidly than before; but they did not end. Though Trevor became conscious of the fact that he was dreaming, despite his lucidity he could not wake. Faster and faster came those images of gore, but the subjects of that torture began to change. In an instant, he was standing before Adrian and Sypha impaled upon the stakes they burned on; Dracula, nowhere to be found despite how Trevor cried out to him in fury, in pain, in fear.

  The back of Trevor’s head banged into the back of the casket as Dracula shook him awake. With a gasp, as if being resuscitated, Trevor opened his eyes and began hyperventilating immediately. The expression of genuine concern on Dracula’s face had almost frightened Belmont even more.

   “Good Hells, boy – what’s happened to you?”

   All manner of syllables all jumbled together in a string of nonsense fell from his mouth before he allowed himself a deep breath before trying again.

   “I… I think I was dreaming – of Agatha… and… fuck, I feel sick.”

   Dracula’s brow furrowed deeply with concern. “Dreaming? Is this something that you do?”

   Dracula had not dreamed in a century and a half, but he was prone to chaotic visions of great violence – fantasies some might declare. Visions not unlike what Trevor had experienced in his dream. But when Dracula sealed himself away for some time to rest – he did exactly that. He rested, in complete suspension or absentness. His mind no longer cared to conjure up little stories for him as he slept. The idea of having a dream like something almost human… the concept was foreign to him now. He attributed Trevor’s dreaming to his youth – his proximity to his humanity. Trevor had been human far longer than he had been a vampire. In time, Dracula supposed, the ability would leave him.

   “I think I do,” declared Trevor after a moments thought, “I feel like I have before - but without being quite fully asleep. I can’t seem to… really sleep.”

   “I see,” Dracula hummed. “Tell me about this dream then.”

   Still shaken, Trevor took a second to prepare himself to recount what he had seen. He described it the best that he could, taking the time to include what little detail he could as he recovered from the whiplash of it all; and Dracula sat nearby, listening intently with that ever concerned look upon his face. When Trevor had finished telling him all he could recall, Dracula nodded slowly to himself as he processed all that Trevor had told him.

   “Some dream you had,” he remarked somewhat empathetically, “but I do not believe it to be prophetic. Agatha’s hair has long since gone white.”

   Trevor seemed no less comforted.

   “We’ll be there soon, and you’ll see for yourself,” Dracula chuckled, tickled by the lingering expression of fright on Trevor’s face.

   There was a pause of silence between them.

   “Soon?” Trevor began to question just how long he’d been inside the coffin.

   Dracula smirked. “Less than half a day now.”

   If Trevor could become paler, he would have. “For fuck’s sake, how long was I asleep?” Trevor lunged from his coffin and clumsily stumbled toward the main cabin.

   “The better part of our journey. There are only a few hours left until we arrive where we will leave Isaac with the carriage, then we will travel the rest of the way on our own.”

   Still bewildered by the fact that he had slept the entire trip, Trevor struggled to process that by the end of the day, he would be embroiled in some kind of religious war. The more he considered what may come, the more grossly unprepared he began to feel. He supposed there was no point to lingering on lost time or nightmares.

   Truthfully, he wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. As they grew closer and closer, Trevor became more anxious about the endeavor. He sat quietly, and began to fidget. He picked at his nails and palms, chewed the skin from his lips, tapped his foot – and did so until Dracula scolded him.

   “I would not give you a task you couldn’t handle,” Dracula stated sternly, expressing a subtle and questionable confidence in Trevor that just barely put him at ease. Trevor reminded himself that should he be made a fool, Dracula would be near enough to intervene – though the thought of running with his tail tucked between his legs because of some fucking nun? He would never hear the end of it. More times than not, Trevor found himself most motivated from his desire to spare himself from Dracula’s scrutiny. At the end of the day, should Trevor’s plans ever become realized, he needed Dracula’s trust and approval. Assurance came more fluidly when he remembered that – it was the same kind of certainty that came only when there were few decisions to be made.

   When Dracula commanded Isaac to bring the carriage to a halt, he used a willowy finger to peel back the curtain and visually measure just how long they would have until sundown.

   “Perhaps thirty minutes until we’ll have complete coverage, but it’s safe enough to step out now,” Dracula informed Trevor as he opened the door and did so himself. He stood and took an inquisitive gander at the surrounding area before he looked over his shoulder at Trevor, who was ducking just beyond the doors of the carriage, still uncertain of the even the suns most indirect light.

   “Come, Belmont. Enjoy what sunlight you can from within the sanctuary of the forest. It won’t harm you from our position.”

   Trevor supposed that it would likely be a rare opportunity to stand in just a little light. Abandoning caution, he stepped out and stood beside Dracula as he absorbed the peaceful wood. It was much preferable to the constant rattling of the cabin and clomping of hooves. Despite having slept most the trip, Trevor was relieved that the journey was over – despite having the travel the whole way back.

   That wretched urge was making his skin crawl, and as he watched the suns light drain from the woods, Trevor began to feel… excitement.

Chapter Text

Chapter 13

Hellfire

   Trevor was relieved to find that the convent was not quite how he dreamed of it. Though certainly fortified, it was no fortress. He made a few laps around the perimeter to scope out entrances, exits, and security. What few guards stood about the grounds seemed too cold and exhausted to put up much of a fight. They leaned into their posts, shivering with drippy noses, and heavy eyelids. Trevor had confidence that he could take them quietly.

   He felt the subtle rippling of his connection with Dracula roll across the landscape of his mind like the radiating pain of a migraine, and knew he was present; he needed not announce his intrusion. Trevor could practically feel the weight of him on his back, and his eyes over his shoulder. In the beginning, Trevor had done much to resist the way that Dracula could slip into his brain like some sort of little worm that wished to make its home there; but he no longer flinched the way he used to.

   “What do you see” Spoken as if it were the wind that had carried Dracula’s voice to his ears.

   “Only two guards on the eastern entrance,” he noted quietly, “They don’t look very interested in their stations – none of them do. They’re too busy trying to keep warm. Should be an easy in.”

   Trevor debated his methods of approach. He wondered how simple it would be to feign a weary wanderer seeking hostel; however, there were not many travelers in these parts on account of the harshness of the weather. In the end, he feared that his presence would be viewed as inherently suspicious. He supposed, if he were quick enough, any suspicion would remain irrelevant so long as they did not live long enough to raise alarm. Besides, Trevor had grown hungrier since leaving Castlevania. If he put up his hood, and kept his head down…

   “You should investigate all of your options before dedicating yourself to an entrance,” Dracula’s voice tickled his ears once again, offering advice this time. “Don’t dive into this head first,” he tacked on.

   Trevor sighed. This would be so much easier had he managed to figure out transfiguration. No one would question a handful of bats flying overhead, or the howling of a nearby wolf. Trevor had made attempts only to grossly mangle his form, requiring Dracula’s assistance to refigure himself. Dracula insisted that this discipline was not something that could be well taught or explained. There were many books on it, but none would ever make it clearer to him how the act was performed. Instead, Dracula insisted that one day, his mind and body would make sense of it rather suddenly; and all the information he’d consumed on the topic would be clearer under the new-shone light of experience. Trevor assumed that this was one of Dracula’s long-winded ways of saying that he would tell him once he’s older.

   Taking Dracula’s advice, Trevor began to stalk around the perimeter of the convent one more time as he contemplated its access points; through the bell tower, a window left ajar, head-on through the front doors, or through the cellar-like doors that led into the lower levels of the convent.  Silently, Trevor invoked his senses; commanding his eyes and ears to focus for signs of life. The many rhythms of hearts beating, and the subtle waves of body heat, and the quivering breaths that betrayed so many prey animals signaled the presence of many. On the first and second floors, there had to be about two dozen tucked snugly into their beds; and perhaps five awake downstairs pittering about sluggishly. There seemed to be more beds than bodies present, and Trevor wondered if this was due to a low residency, or an absence of it’s residents. Either way, he felt more confident knowing this.

   Trevor thought it would be easier to take out the ones on the lowest level first, whose screams could be drowned out by the thick stone and earth surrounding them, leaving the sleeping undisturbed. If he played his cards right, all he need kill would never wake to realize their fates – just one small mercy Belmont was willing to give them.

   He moved quickly once he had a chance. The hardest part was opening the door quietly. It was old wood and rusted hinges; difficult to keep it from screeching as it was pried ajar. He opened the door only enough to slide himself through, then closed it slowly behind him, applying pressure toward the hinges to help muffle its whine.

    For a moment, he felt a familiar sort of thrill. It felt like sneaking around the Belmont manor when he was a boy, like trying to make his way quietly down to the kitchens for a snack.  The memory tugged at the corners of his mouth just a little bit, leaving him with the smallest grin that was wiped from his face the second he had made it inside, and looked onward.

   This part of the convent was not dissimilar to the dream at all. That corridor stretching on and lit only by torches; and the door at the very end of the hall just barely left open made every hair on his body stand up with alarm. He moved before any deeper sense of dread could set in. If his dream was any kind of indicator of how the night would go, he would take heed, and end it quickly.

   He discerned the positions of the closest people, and proceeded accordingly – and instantaneously. He would not give anyone an advantage by moving at a man’s pace. In a blink, he was at the other end of the hall, and stepping into the room. To his surprise, it was empty. No one waited for him there. It was almost a relief. He sighed, feeling a bit silly about his paranoia.

   It was just a dream, after all.

   As he gently closed the door behind him enough to ensure he would not be caught prowling, his eyes darted about to observe the room. Books regarding all manner of subjects under the umbrella of Christian magick, religious history, and hunting everything from bears to ghouls lined the shelves that had been built into the walls. In the center of the room, a desk, littered with notes and documents that painted a clearer image of the happenings of the convent: a letter regarding the discipline of one of their members for some non-descript sin; a receipt for the commission of three sets of armor, and blades for each; a report of charity efforts in the town.

   A specific letter caught his eye for the mention of Alucard. It appeared to be a scouting log that briefly recounted Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard’s arrival at Dracula’s castle.

   Written upon stained parchment, a short entry:

   Two men, one of which fit the description of the Alucard, and a woman arrived at the castle midday. An enormous battle took place. None of the three reemerged from the castle by night. Presumed dead.

   The hairs on Trevor’s body rose once more as his eyes frantically scanned over each exposed piece of parchment as he began trying to find out just how much Agatha knew about them.

   Orders to investigate; at least twelve more reports dated up to a few weeks prior to their leaving. That rage he was so well acquainted with began to broil beneath Trevor's skin. He held the pages between his hands as his eyes raced over every line discerning what exactly they had learned.

   A massacre in Campina overnight. Mangled bodies found beneath the remains of a scorched tavern. Not far from the village, a trail of destruction left through the forest there – heading towards Castlevania’s present position. Dracula would not be so messy; nor so contained. Who did this?

   And as he was about to transmit his concerns to Dracula, Trevor looked up to see a woman standing before him. She was staring at him with a look of intrigue, but otherwise unalarmed by his presence. She was as Dracula had told him – her hair gone white, but besides this, she was just as Trevor had seen her. Still, she had an aura about her – a familiarity that Belmont couldn’t quite put his finger on. He knew this woman; he had seen her even before his dream.

  He didn’t shrink away from her gaze. Why should he? Could she somehow outrun him? Could she scream faster than he could move? Could she shriek loud enough to call for reinforcements of any significant number? No… yet he was suspicious.

   “I was not expecting company tonight. Forgive my lack of preparedness,” she said with a polite bow.

   He had expected her to react with surprise, or something like shock. Instead, she shuffled past him rather meekly, hardly disturbed by the presence of a stranger within her chambers. Her eyes never widened, nor did her lips part to gasp. This confused Trevor; her lack of reaction, and her sudden, undetected arrival. As she passed him, she inhaled deeply like a hound catching a scent, then announced, “I know you, Trevor Belmont,” his stomach sank, “All at the convent know you – born of House Belmont, fallen servants of God; though none could have fathomed how far you’ve sunken,” as if the reek of his sin had given him away.

   “You wouldn’t know your own ass from your elbow – let alone a goddamned thing about the Belmont clan,” Trevor spat harshly – a knee-jerk reaction. The words had left him before he’d even imagined what he would say.

   The woman, unslighted by his aggressions, smiled, and insisted, “But I do know you, Trevor.” Her lips twisted smugly as she pulled out the seat of her desk, and lowered herself into it. Her eyes roamed Trevor’s figure curiously, assessing him in an effort to measure his formidability.

   “I know that you have laid with every woman from Cochim to Craiova; from low born, to King’s daughters - then settled for the intimate company of a witch – just as your Master had. Worse, you’ve adopted his more eclectic tastes for flesh…”

   Belmont felt himself, somehow, grow colder. He had come to hate hearing Dracula referred to as such. He understood his position; and every reference to Dracula’s position above him felt like having his nose dragged through shit.

   “And,” she added, “I know what happened in the catacombs beneath Gresit. What you found there – who you found; and what you sought to do with your new friends. To mingle with a witch… that is a sin on its own; but to convene with the son of Dracula, a creature between man and something wickeder-”

   “Watch your mouth, you old cunt,” Trevor hissed at her.

   Agatha’s smile stretched wider. “That boy, if you’d call him that… he has the unnatural gifts that the Devil had passed to his father. His charms serve only to lure his prey to him. Does it take no more than a pretty blonde to sway you, Belmont? A pretty blonde, and a few magic tricks… tsk… your father woul-“

   “Don’t speak about my fucking father!” His voice boomed, so much larger than his body should allow for. He felt the stilling of all the living and awake around him; and Dracula silent, but ever-present.

   Agatha paused briefly, her expression giving way to the calculations being made behind her eyes.

   “I knew your father well, actually; and he, mine. The Van Helsing’s and the Belmont’s line of work has always overlapped – now more than ever.”

   Trevor’s jaw dropped upon hearing that name. He had played with Van Helsing's growing up. Their families had dined together, traveled together, done business together.

   As memories flooded his head, he nearly gasped when a brief but familiar image crossed his mind; what Agatha Van Helsing looked like when he was a child; standing beside her father, who sat next to his.

  “I remember you,” he declared shakily as he recalled her presence at his family home, accompanied by her father and siblings discussing some business he had been far too young to comprehend. The children gathered in the foyer to be distracted by children’s things; while the adults sat in the lounge discussing the darker aspects of their profession that they wished to conceal from the youngest of their children. Agatha kept near to her father, however, being nearly 9 years senior to the eldest of the Belmont boys.

   “When the people of Gresit insisted that a Belmont had come to their aid, I had thought them confused; and I had thought you to be dead. But the eyes and ears of the convent are as many as those of the angels of God. And God is watching you, Trevor Belmont – even still. He knows just how far you have fallen; better than even yourself. Tell me, what was the appeal that you found in taking Dracula’s curse? What did he offer you? Eternal youth? Eternal life? All the time in the world?”

   Blasphemy filled Trevor’s lungs like water, scalded his tongue as it rose into his mouth and threatened to spew through his lips. His body became rigid with anger.

   “I had no choice!” he growled through bared teeth.

   “No need to lie to me, Belmont. I know how a thrall is made. He drank from you, and you from him. There was always a choice,” she insisted.

   “When the alternative is death, there are few decisions to be made!” Trevor justified his surrender, “I did what I needed to do in order to ensure that my companions did not face Dracula alone.”

   “And now? Where are your companions? You have become the prodigy of Dracula – a replacement for a half-blooded son; and just like your master, you lay with some sorceress doomed to meet the same fate as Lisa.”

   Eyes and ears of the convent… a replacement for a half-blooded son… the empty beds…

   Her use of language wasn’t lost on Trevor. In the way that she spoke, it became clearer to him just how long Agatha had been watching them – and just how much more intimately than he had initially surmised. She had come behind them at Gresit, had scouts stationed at the castle the day they arrived. Had she meant for them to come to her? Panic began rising from his stomach and into his chest.

   Certain that there was a lowly trick at play, Belmont asked once nicely, “How many of your Paladin’s surround Dracula’s castle, Agatha?”

   Finally, an expression of surprise.

   She was not used to hearing them acknowledged as such. Regardless, she did not answer him. She only stared through him unnervingly. Trevor took a deep breath to fend off his frustrations.

   “Do you believe Dracula and myself to be the only keepers of Castlevania?” He barked, partly seeking to comfort himself. “Do you truly believe he would leave his home unguarded?”

   “God is greater than the house of Dracula,” Agatha stated matter-of-factly.

   Trevor rolled his eyes, tossed her desk aside as if it were made of a hollowed and rotting wood, then kicked her chair backwards to the floor. He appeared above her instantly, put his boot upon her chest, and let the force of his weight upon her slowly to crush her sternum in a way that would allow her to hear and feel the fracturing of her bone, and the instinctive laboring of her breaths aggravating the pain. The smallest tinge of horror in her eyes did not translate into her actions or her body language. This woman was unafraid of Belmont, even as he splintered her bones – a religious delusion.

   “This is a shame, Trevor,” Agatha spoke with strain as she glared daggers up at him, “I suppose, however, not unsurprising. The Belmont’s have always leaned on an occult methodology – a feature of their practice that got them killed; except for you… and look at what you have gone and become.”

   Dry, bitter words spoken with a sharpness; she understood how they cut into those old, festering wounds. Trevor wanted to strike her, but sensed that she meant to rouse him into snapping. She was doing well thus far. She had found just the right nerves to pluck to put him on edge. Trevor meant to cool his head, but Agatha continued to remark with smugness, “My father had no remorse when he contacted the bishop regarding the true nature and character of your family – I see now, precisely what he had seen in you all.”

   The information connected in his mind immediately. Just as Agatha had turned the church’s eye to Lisa’s medicinal practices under suspicion of some dark art, so too had her father towards the Belmont’s. Trevor’s insides twisted up like startled serpents. Clearly in his mind he saw the flames that had encapsulated his childhood home; he could hear the mob, and the commands of those “holy men” being shouted like prayers; his mother screaming; his brothers screaming; his father weeping; their cheers in the air after they had gone silent.

   Before Trevor could react to his realization, something sharp pierced his calf, and he felt the foreign heat of holy iron in his flesh.

   “O Father, who art in Heaven, grant me the strength to absolve evil from its form in flesh. Lend me authority to return your enemies to their masters as ashes,” Agatha began praying aloud as Belmont’s eyes darted from her, to the hand that buried the blade in him.

   He wrenched the dagger from his flesh, and jumped away from Agatha. It was a low blow; a warning shot. Trevor found himself moving forward with a snarl across his face, and brow furrowed deeply with resentment. Agatha bared her cross and extended it in Trevor’s direction, and Trevor’s body began to feel feverish; the heat rising until he was certain he would combust.

   Truth be told, he was not sure what was happening to him; whether he’d reached a new level of anger he’d never experienced before, or if that wretched symbol that he’d abandoned long ago still held some power over him. He took a deep breath, and it felt as if he had stoked something smoldering within himself. It became distracting; and the slow, calculated steps forward turned into him stumbling backwards with his hand over his chest, and panting like a dog.

   The room around him began to grow hot as he threw waves of heat so intense it was like standing near to a forge; and the wind it stirred was akin to a wildfire. Trevor let out an immense roar of frustration and overwhelm.

   “See, Belmont?!” Agatha shouted, “The Lord will purge you in hellfire for aligning yourself with the Devil’s kin! Your master, his bastard, that witch – you will all share the same en-”

   Trevor erupted into brilliant flames with force strong enough to blow the door from its hinges, ignite every book on the shelves, turn the desk to charcoal, and every paper upon it to ash in an instant. Fire filled the room, and spilled out into the corridor like some hungry dragon, and Trevor’s bellowing turned into maddened laughter.

   Screaming, shouting – the bell tolling. The convent came alive after he had declared his presence.

   By the graces of a spiteful God, Agatha remained uncharred; standing within a near-blinding, white light that seemingly pushed against his flames. But he could make out her expression – the astonishment upon her face.

   There was plenty of information on thralls for hunters to pull from when hunting; but there was no recorded documentation of a thrall descending from Dracula himself; blood of his blood, made in his image and imbued with his power.

   Dracula’s smug, satisfied laughter ruptured the quiet of the night, and became one with Trevor’s, intensifying the panic upstairs, and shaking Agatha to her core. She was beginning to realize that she had made grave miscalculations. Finally, Agatha had been acquainted with fear.

   “You wave that fucking crucifix in my face like it could save you?!” He erupted with a disgust that felt sacrilegious. “Unless God comes down here to face me, you will be seeing him far sooner than ever I will!”

   The room crackled and blazed around them. Beyond the frame where the door once stood, the clattering of armored feet against the stone floor was heard down the hall. Agatha crossed herself, raised two fingers to her lips before directing them toward Trevor. In response, the shield of light around her jolted forward, clearing the flames around them, and throttling Belmont backwards hard enough to shatter through the stone wall, carve up the earth near the building, and send him tumbling into the yard.

   It had been enough to stun him. He had not expected that sort of force from her; but once he had gathered himself, he stood understanding better exactly what she was capable of. He could see the silhouette of a handful Paladins come to surround her with their weapons and crosses drawn as they marched toward him through the haze of the dust.

   Dracula had heard what Agatha had confessed to Trevor. He would not continue to urge Belmont towards caution knowing all too well the storm of rage and grief that motivated him was unyielding; that no amount of commanding him to cease his assault would stop him from unleashing wrath. However unexpected this revelation had been for them, Dracula found catharsis in bearing witness to Trevor having the opportunity to confront Agatha for the sins of her father, and for following in his path.  He felt the fluttering of pride within his chest seeing Trevor finally embrace the gift he had given him – however sloppily.

   He watched with glee as Trevor darted back towards Agatha, and began to pick off the lesser trained Paladin’s that dared to defend her. Few could keep up with him, but none would fend him off. Their tongues and blades were not quick enough, their armor not thick enough to keep them safe from him. They came in waves – all entirely unprepared. Agatha had made the efforts she could spare to shield her pupils from slaughter, all too aware that they were not yet up to face something like a Belmont that had inherited the power of Dracula; and as Trevor ripped them limb from limb and drenched himself in her lambs’ blood, she unleashed a force strong enough to push him backward once more with the release of another pulse of light, giving her a moment to call for them to retreat.

   “Leave him to me!” she pleaded for them to flee, “Leave us, now!!”

   A few more stubborn Paladins remained; others needed only her word, and turned to run immediately. But Trevor snatched one; a young woman whose helm had been knocked off by the force of the pulse that had sent Trevor rolling back. He held her by the back of her head, turned her to face him before bringing her near to his lips, and inhaling deeply.

   She was a Van Helsing too – she had a certain stench not unlike her mother’s. He could see the resemblance easily now. She was the first one with the time, or cowardice to scream. With the image of his mother burning in his mind, he peeled back the girl’s throat with his teeth, and let the blood that sprayed from her neck go to waste.

   Agatha released a visceral wail, gripping her bruised and broken chest as she watched her daughter bucking and twitching in Belmont’s grasp; and Trevor was glad to hear it.

   “ELIZABETH!” It had left him with a toe-curling sense of schadenfreude as it rang in his ears. Trevor allowed his flames to eat up the girl’s body, and eviscerate her from his hands and her bones clattered against the earth as they fell.

   She rattled something off the tongue quickly, and just as fast, a long sword fell from above, and imbedded itself in Trevor’s shoulder, boring his side on impact. The blade appeared as golden light. It burned in his flesh, and seemed to fester quickly. He writhed and yelped, beginning to wrestle with the hilt to free himself with a sense of rising panic. The flames that had encapsulated him extinguished as he struggled, and he began to feel weaker.

  “The hypocrisy…” Dracula lamented to Trevor, “She burns my wife as a witch – then casts spells, and pardons herself as holy. Her magick is just as any other. Hmf. Rip the blade out quickly, Belmont. Avoid it. It will slow your healing, at best. I don’t want to have to put you together again.”

   Finally, he was able to pull the sword from himself after fighting with it, and did so with a scream. He tossed it aside, and faced Agatha once more; this time, slightly off-kilter.

   “Now you know what it feels like,” Trevor spat venomously.

   “I didn’t need you to show me how it feels, demon!” She bellowed in between sobs. “My only chi-”

“I don’t want to fucking hear it,” Trevor cut her off coldly as he grasped his wound. "Your father… he took my home… my mother and father killed; my brothers were tortured before they were murdered!” He trembled with fury as he growled to her, “And now all of Wallachia blames my dead family; they blame me for what’s happening to them now – but it’s all because of you! All of this… is your fucking fault! Dracula would have never started this war had you not had his wife murdered in the same way my family was taken from me – by men pretending to be holy! I would have never had to kneel at Dracula’s fucking feet if it weren’t for you!” He roared, and lunged.

   Agatha gasped as Belmont appeared suddenly before her with a bone chilling, unhinged look in his eyes. She had no time to react before her jaw had been broken in a motion so quick she had not noticed it until her mouth went slack and pain radiated through her face. Trevor drew his dagger from his hip, ignoring the pain in his body as he raised it, and began to carve out her tongue from her mouth so that she could call upon the Lord no longer. He wrestled her to the ground as she struggled against him, creating illusions of himself to keep the Paladin’s occupied while he took his time with her. She made ghastly sounds; squealing then gargling syllables and blood in the back of her throat until all she could do was vocalize like an animal.

   Her tongue flopped to the ground twitching, the memory of its muscles still trying to cast their curses, and blood poured from her mouth in abundance. Trevor found that there was no appeal in her blood. He did not wish to drink from her; only spill her across the earth, and scatter her in the wind. What had gotten in his mouth had a rotten taste, anyway. He imagined that they all did; that they were all full of rotten, soiled blood devoid of all sustenance.  

   The zipping of an arrow from a crossbow, and a sharp pain in his back reminded Belmont that he must split his focus between Agatha, and the group left to defend her.

  “You’re out numbered still. Do not rely on brute strength alone. I have taught you more than that,” Dracula encouraged sharply. “You need not exercise reserve any longer.”

   As light filled Agatha’s palms, she gripped onto Trevor’s body wherever she could, and let it burn him. The shape of her hand branded itself into his skin, eliciting an agonized shriek from Trevor. It was not hot in the way that being too near to a campfire or hearth was against his skin; but more akin to a lake of fire, the bubbling and toiling pits of the earth all within her hands.

    Trevor had thrown himself back in pain, lodging the arrow deeper in his flesh as his back hit the ground with another wail. Agatha scrambled to her feet while drooling thick, coagulating blood. She kept her eyes on him, looking far more maddened than before now. It was a feat, he would admit; to still be up and moving after what he’d done to her. He was forced to confess that he had underestimated her; but that didn’t matter. Knowing what she threatened to do, and what she had done was enough to keep Trevor in the fight.

     As they encircled him, he raised his gaze, and took a head count. Only six brave enough to face him. He smiled wickedly, and cried out, “Help! Help me!” and watched each of their faces began to contort with confliction as they heard the voices of friends, mothers, lovers pleading to them. They halted. He had replaced himself with image of their dearest in their minds eye, and pulled the fog and dust from the rubble around them to conceal his withdraw from their focus.

     Some of them cried out the names of their loved ones as they began fumbling through the screen of dust and humidity with outstretched hands in search of them; others shouted out to their fellows in an attempt to convince them that they were falling for a trick. Trevor watched as Agatha stumbled out, and attempted to use her light to disperse it; only for the light to reflect and cause the mass of fog appear nearly solid around them.

   She stood by quietly, helplessly – unable to lead them out. She was forced to listen to them in their confusion as Trevor warped their minds; convincing them, at first, that their most beloveds were endangered, making them begin to search through the fog to rescue them. As they searched, they would find only each other, having appeared to have become vampires themselves. Thoughtlessly, they slaughtered one another.

   The final Paladin, too horrified by what he had done to his brothers and sisters in arms to allow himself to continue living, removed his armor, and sliced apart his abdomen before collapsing to the ground in a pool of his own blood and waste-filled guts that that had spilled around him. It became quiet enough that he could hear the frustrated growls that Agatha released without an alternative to express her emotions. She stomped toward Belmont with a finger pointed in his direction accusingly, as if to direct the spite of the Lord in his direction. She tripped as she came near to him, laying herself out at his feet in the dirt.

   Belmont grabbed her and tossed her into the red painted doors of the convent with enough force to crack them, causing the doors concave and leave a splintering dent where her back had impacted it. She reached out a hand and from it, Belmont could feel the force of a much weaker pulse come from her. It felt like being punched in the shoulder, incapable of sending him reeling like before. He could hear her frantic heart pounding in her chest, and smiled.

  “Now, that I’ve shut you up,” Trevor muttered bitterly, as he grabbed her by the ankle and began dragging her back to where the corpses of her fallen lie in their fresh gore. She kicked and rolled with what energy she could muster to fight him. Trevor paid her no mind. Instead, he took a moment to use their proximity to take hold of her mind.

   “You are a wicked thing rejected by the Lord’s graces for your failures; so ashamed of his rejection that you adorn yourself in his holy robes to make yourself feel better,” he spoke mockingly into her mind, “You will burn – for every sin you projected onto others. You, and all those children you led astray,” he spat at her. “Gather them,” he commanded her, dropping her in the middle of the field her paladins were left butchered.

   The pain had weakened her will - Agatha did as he commanded, dragging them each into a pile of remains around her.

   “Why don’t you take a taste?” He suggested plainly.

   Being unable to think for herself under his influence, she eagerly dipped her hands into the pool at her feet and raised her fingers to her mouth.

   “Isn’t that nice?” Trevor remarked dryly, with a sense of subtle satisfaction clear in his tone. “Isn’t it sweet? Don’t you just… love that taste, Sister Van Helsing?”

   And she was convinced that she did. She needed no one to invite her to have some more; and so, she gripped onto a piece of intestinal tract that had clotted full of gelatinous blood, bile, and shit and began to suck them clean. When she gulped down a mouth full, when she filled her cheeks with more, that is when Belmont decided to release her.

   She instantaneously wretched, spilling her guts at her feet and making an awful sound.

   Trevor snorted to himself, and commanded her to burn – and she did. Flames erupted at her feet, and swallowed her and the corpses whole. The only sound was the wild crackling of blood being boiled against the Earth, moisture being cooked from flesh. He stood still and stared.

   Minutes must have passed with Trevor’s mind blank and body buzzing with sick sort of pleasure. The next thing he knew, Dracula was beside him watching the bodies charr.

   “You just wanted to see how I would kill her,” Trevor remarked after a while. “I’m a… little disappointed… in her, that is.”

   Dracula raised his eyebrows, and turned to look at Trevor rather surprised. He said nothing, but patted him on the shoulder. Truthfully, Dracula had been appalled and thrilled by the displays of sadism he saw from Trevor during the battle; and it seemed like second nature. All of the misery he had put him through, and still, only Agatha had pushed him to that point.

   Trevor cleared his throat. “We need to return to the cas-”

   Dracula cut him off by noting, “Isaac brought a transmission mirror along. It will return us to the castle’s library. Please do continue to put on this little show for me, Belmont. I am rather pleased to see how you seem to favor my tricks of the mi-”

   “I will banter with you once the castle is secured,” Trevor stated sternly, and flatly before darting away, headed toward Issac’s position.

   Dracula could sense something having had changed within Belmont; the familiarity of corruption – the rot settling in him.

Chapter Text

 Chapter 14

   Isaac prepared the mirror with care. It was a rare, and delicate thing. He insisted on treating it as such, even under the pressure of such urgency.

   “You really should have fed on them given your injuries,” he advised Belmont as he revealed an ornate box, which secured the piece of enchanted glass shards that would assemble into a portal back to Castlevania.

   Trevor grimaced at the thought. “Wouldn’t have liked it.”

   Isaac scoffed. “Spoiled by the reserves,” he muttered as he sat the box upon a nearby tree stump. “You’ve been permitted to hunt, yet keep yourself holed up in the castle earning blood by the glassful from Dracula’s finer selections as you learn new tricks.”

   “You chose now to lecture me about my diet?” Trevor grumbled, his temper rattling his tone.

    Isaac chuckled, “I’m merely performing my duties – looking after you.”

   Trevor rolled his eyes; but his tone softened, despite his satire, “and a wonderful nanny you are.”

   Trevor believed Isaac when he said such things. To his knowledge, in all his time at Castlevania, Isaac had never lied to him; nor had he ever been unkind to him. When Trevor returned from training mauled or smothered in filth, Isaac would clean his wounds and wash the muck from his hair. He knew that he did it all out of his loyalty to Dracula. However, he had become a member of the house of Tepes – whether he liked it or not. Nevertheless, Isaac’s tenderness usually came when he needed just a small reprieve from Dracula’s callousness or the oppression of his own mind. For that, Trevor was grateful for him.

   He stood silent and tense as Isaac calibrated the mirror to deliver him to the castle’s home mirror. He was anxious to get back – ruminating over the details of his fight with Agatha and the other Paladins for insight about his incoming situation.

   As the shards rose into the air and assembled themselves, Dracula appeared to them, and praised Isaac’s work, before giving Trevor further instructions. “You will be returning to the castle alone.”

   “Wait – what?!” Trevor blurted out in shock. “Where the hell are you going?”

   “I’ve got business to attend to. When I return, I want a nice, peaceful, pest-free castle. Can you do that for me, Belmont?”

   Trevor stared at him with fire in his eyes before he turned his back to him. “Tsk. Piss off. I should have known you were throwing me to the wolves.”

   “I trust you’ll be perfectly fine on your own.” Dracula stated matter-of-factly. “I’ll return in a few days – try not to destroy everything in the process.”

   Trevor glanced over at the ruins of the convent and back to Dracula before snorting to himself, then stepping through the mirror. He found the transition between one place and another disorienting. His head spun as his feet touched the floor of the library where the home-mirror was kept. An odd sense of relief washed over him for a moment before the racket of an ongoing battle became perceptible to him.

   Throughout the castle, the guards were occupied and overwhelmed. Hector and Sypha raced through the halls doing what they could to stave off the invasion.

   “I told you it would be easier with me,” Sypha spat at Hector as she hurled fire at one of the intruders that chased them through the halls with a glowing blade and blinded him long enough to end his life without struggle.

   “Don’t chastise me at a time like this! God, you and Belmont are perfect together. Both of you are insufferable.” Hector spat back at her as he resisted hysteria. He was not sure how many invaders had made their way in, but he was not pleased with the number he had already encountered. He would flay the guards himself once this was over. Making him rely on a prisoner during an assault… he was furious about it.

   “Does this have anything to do with Trevor and Dracula’s trip to Budapest, by chance?” Sypha asked curiously as they ran down the grand corridors of Castlevania.

   “Without a doubt. These are Van Helsing’s Paladins. It appears Agatha had the same idea that Dracula had.”

   “Don’t be simple,” Sypha remarked sharply, “How did she know Dracula would not be here? Why are there so few guards? This isn’t by chance; this is a planned attack!”

    Hector knew she was right – but he had a nearly repulsive faith in Dracula. He needed only fight for the time it would take Dracula to return, which wouldn’t be long. He knew this - could feel him coming in the air, in his bones, even.

   Sypha knew her freedom was circumstantial – the result of short staff, and low defense; but it felt nice. She was practically skipping down the halls, her heart lighter than it had been in months even as they encountered armed soldiers invading her captor’s home. A good fight – Gods, a good fight. That was exactly what she craved. She feared that being in such boring, dreary places had made even herself a little bloodthirsty, and rather disturbed. She had spent too much time pacing back and forth, reading the same books over and over.

   As they approached the grand entrance hall, some guards could be heard engaging the Paladins with the weapons at their disposal. Sypha needed no instruction. She flooded the stairs with a sheet of ice, then glided down into the action. Hector was taken aback for an instant by her lack of hesitation before he jumped into the fight himself. He understood now what Dracula had told him about her; that she was Godless. Fearless. From time to time, Hector found himself glancing in her direction when he had the opportunity. He had never seen a speaker magician’s magick in person before – and Sypha would put all others to shame.

  She seemed to be perfectly in tune with the elements; wielding them so naturally one might believe her to be an elemental spirit herself. She shaped a spear of ice from water she had pulled from the air itself, then impaled two men back-to-chest; encapsulated several in a ball of fire; breaking the limbs off the bodies of others by flash-freezing them before using brute force to shatter them like glass. She was the wrath of nature in a small, fleshy frame. Hector decided to retract his previous statement; Sypha was too good for the likes of Belmont.

  There were twelve Paladins waging war within the grand hall. Sypha handled six of them, and Hector barely managed to kill two on his own. He was not particularly skilled in hand-to-hand combat. He was humiliated to admit how much he had relied on Isaac and Dracula for protection. He knew war; the logistics of war. He could tell you about supply lines and resources, how to direct an army, and understood the strategic value of securing various regions; but Hector had always struggled to defend himself as the men he commanded seemed to do easily.

 He recognized their maneuvers, which seemed to be his saving grace. He was able to dodge them, albeit ungracefully. He was able to see when he could close the distance between them and strike them in the weak or exposing areas of their armor. But it took one, hard hit to send him flying. The Paladin had kicked Hector down the long, curved staircase that led to the main floor. He smashed his body against each, marble step – more and more wind being knocked from him each time. The Paladin followed him without haste, with his sword drawn, and his armor and blade gleaming in torchlight.

 Hector, disoriented, found himself snapping back to reality at the bottom of the stairs, the large man looming over him with sadism beaming from him. His expression startled Hector. He had been looked at this way before; like a chew toy. He felt as if he were to run, it would only trigger an instinct to chase and retrieve him between his teeth. He felt small again.

 A chill ran down Hector’s back.

   “It’s the devil-maker,” the Paladin spoke cheekily behind a sinister grin. “You look like you could hardly make a cake, let alone an abomination,” he laughed mockingly.

   “I-I don’t make… ‘devils’. I create vessels.” Hector explained shakily to stall him.

   “Yes. For devils,” the Paladin agreed maliciously while twisting his meaning.

   “My creations are not demons,” Hector spat sounding somewhat defensive of his monsters, “I retrieve souls from Hell. I remake them. I command them. It is closer to necromancy.” He gripped his dagger with white knuckles.

   Certainly, his explanation granted him no favors. An iron fist connected with his jaw, and crumpled him. The Paladin began to kick him again, and again; cracking his ribs and bruising his stomach until Sypha, sounding something like a Bobcat, leapt upon the back of the man, attacking him viciously.

   The intruder dropped his blade, and his hands went up to his neck where her arms constricted around him.

   “Leave him alone!” She growled as she took the man’s ear between her teeth, and ripped it from his head. Reacting in an instant, the man howled out in agony and threw himself onto his back to crush her with his weight.

   She yelped and cried out to Hector for assistance, who had not realized that he had frozen. Hearing his name called, he readied his blade, and straddled the man; and as he raised the dagger above his head to end him, the room went cold.

   Everything stilled, and Hector felt the knots in his stomach begin to unravel. He looked at Sypha with a spark in his eyes as he buried the dagger into the man’s throat to silence him, and bleed him out. “He’s returned,” he sighed to her, “Come with m-”

   Belmont appeared near them, and they both realized that they had been mistaken. There was no sign of Dracula or Isaac in sight. Hector had thought he would be relieved to see Trevor, but one look at him spoke a thousand curses. There was a heaviness, a darkness that loomed around him that hadn’t been there when he had left. He looked as if he would bite off the hand of God if it came too near to his teeth. Hector gulped nervously as he watched Trevor survey the room like a true predator.

   Trevor locked eyes with Sypha briefly, quickly adverting his gaze. He could see Sypha gawking at him in his peripheral, but he felt a sense of aversion returning her gaze. She pushed the body off herself and sat up with alarm. Hector reached over quickly and grabbed her by the wrist before reiterating, “Come with me.”

   She shot a mean glare at him, too concerned for Trevor to leave his side. Sypha watched just a few feet from his back, her eyes wide as she took him in. He was injured – it had been the first thing she had noticed; and that he was different; like a feral dog damned and determined to eat.

   The remaining three Paladins scrambled to collect themselves and found each other back-to-back with all their focus honed in on Belmont. They began to speak to each other in a language that Trevor didn’t recognize, but he knew his name when he heard it. He hummed to himself.

   “Chatty bunch, you are,” he noted aloud with a flattened affect.

   “You… you should have been arriving in Budapest by tonight,” the female Paladin said, betraying her surprise. “Why are you here?”

   Trevor smiled. “Because I killed that old cunt, burned down your home, and turned your brothers and sisters to ash. You came into my home hoping for an empty nest, and plenty of eggs to smash… in an attempt to… what is it that you intended to accomplish?”

   Their eyes were wide, and nearly tearful. Their faces turned beet red with rage, trying to conceal their suffering, or repress their fear. They resigned themselves to silence, rather than answering Trevor; which he did not appreciate.

   “TELL ME, NATALIA,” he pulled her name from the recesses of her mind, demanding her to answer him. He knew she could feel him there, dancing upon synapses and fiddling with neurons. The terror in her eyes presented him with a sort of thrill. She knew this too, and it enraged her.

   “Because Dracula is a scourge on this land,” she blurted out with a trembling but assertive voice, “and a wound upon the flesh of the world! And he created you! And you – you cannot be allowed to grow into this wicked power! We will not suffer the evil of two Draculas’!” she spoke with an unnegotiable sense of justice.

   Trevor silenced her, and she fought against his hold on her. His stomach had twisted upon being likened to Dracula in Sypha’s presence. It was something like embarrassment; then disgust. He found himself conflicted.

   He could lie to himself, sure; but was feeling not honest moment-to-moment? Did it not reveal a deeper truth? Was it not the subtle, silent acknowledgment of which he had repressed, or been too ashamed to confess, or to accept? He feared the simile would lead Sypha to even imagine the things he had done – and even the mere thought that she may become privy to the details of those things sins which he had committed in wild, unconscious abandon, out of blood lust, or in the throes of fury… riddled him with a sense of deeply penetrating indignity.

   He wanted to tell the girl: I am nothing like Dracula.

   He wanted to mean it; and so, he did not speak.

   Sypha’s eyes burned holes into the back of his head; and yet, he felt colder than ever before. He could not look at her. He had been hollowed in the presence of a mirror in which Dracula was looking back at him.

   “Please, leave this place,” he warned quietly instead. “Return to you-”

   “Our homes? The ones that Dracula destroyed… or the one that you did?” boldly spoke another. Trevor could feel his name inside of his mouth – how his tongue would press briefly to his palate as he introduced himself; how just the tip of it would curl in emphasis as he gave his name to a woman he fancied: ‘Damien’.

   Trevor knew that he would be forced to slaughter these ones as well.

   “Go with Hector,” he spoke tenderly to Sypha, pleading for her to leave the room while he dealt with them.

   She did not move.

   He turned his face toward her but kept his eyes low. “Please? Assist Hector in the forge – release the Night Creatures together. I will find you once we’re finished, I promise.”

   The look she threw him – he wasn’t sure if she was frightened, or if she hated his guts; but eventually, she allowed Hector to gently pull her away from him. Hector locked eyes with Belmont, and nodded to him to thank him for his intervention; and promising at least, that if he could not keep Sypha safe, he would stay the hell out of her way.

   “She won’t escape us,” Natalia spat at Trevor venomously, “And neither will he.”

   Trevor scoffed at the comment, and lunged without warning; and just as quickly, the familiar pop of a whip cracked the air between them, and his waist began to sting. The glowing tether had wrapped itself around him, taken him off-kilter, and flung him far beyond his intended destination. She had caught him off guard, and the others seized that opportunity.

   All at once they rushed at him.

   Belmont’s next movements were made all in an instant, and in succession to one another; all a test of speed. He darted to each one of them and struck them with his claws. Damien and Natalia were able to block or to dodge him; but the third was not quite as fast.

   He had been better than the poor bastards at the convent, but equally not good enough to survive him. A line of red appeared across his throat, the flesh began to separate, and unleash a flood. He dropped. The boy had remained nameless to Trevor until his brother had cried it out – ‘Isaiah’.

   But the loss did not keep them from losing pace.  Natalia was particularly vicious in pursuit of him. It was clear to Belmont that the whip had long been her weapon of choice. It was rare to encounter someone as skilled as he had been with a whip. To hear it, to see it used in such a way almost excited him.

   Damien, on the other hand, relied on brute force. Natalia would use the whip to corral Belmont like a sheep, and when opportune, Damien would engage him with his blade. They stayed moving, and kept eyes on one another. The next time the whip coiled around Belmont, he was put on his back. Damien was near, and prepared to pin him against the floor.

   To Trevor’s surprise, Damien punched him; his fist landing against his cheek hard enough to cause him to bash his skull against the floor. A laugh broke from his chest, remembering how he had tried the same with Dracula. It had had no impact, but Damien tried again, and again.

   “Damien, stop it!” Natalia advised sharply, handing him a traditional stake. “Just kill him proper.”

   “Come on, Damien. Kill me proper,” Trevor mocked them devilishly, “Drive a fucking stake in my heart. Kill me proper.” As Belmont opened his mouth to further antagonize them, his senses were jolted by the presence of something subtle, yet poignant on the air. It was as if the Earth could be sweetened; smoke infused into honey and buried beneath wet soil; like pressing fresh fruit against your lips; palo santo burning in a censure. The hairs all over his body responded by standing at attention, and his heart began to ache.

   Witnessing this change in him gave Damien pause, and he watched curiously as Trevor’s pupils began to expand larger, and goosebumps rose up on his skin. He could see that something was happening to Belmont.

   Then, Damien was the one on his back, and Trevor was gone – beginning to wander mindlessly toward the corridors, following that rich but delicate aroma; entirely entranced.

   Inflamed, Natalia raised her blade, and charged at him, aiming to send her sword straight through his back and plunge into his corrupted heart.

   “Face us!” She demanded, spraying spit as she barked at him.

   Belmont didn’t spare either of them a second glance. When he felt Natalia’s fuming presence at his back, his body responded instantaneously by finding itself elsewhere; six feet ahead, or eight inches to the left. Natalia only grew angrier as she faced what she perceived as disrespect and dismissal by her opponent.

  “You'll give me no choice,” Belmont warned her flatly as he slipped from her reach.

   Natalia roared as that same light that Agatha had possessed traveled down her whip from the core of her being with vigor. She gave it a pop, and its tether coiled around Belmont’s throat tightly, branding its shape into his skin.

  His hands worked to unwind the whip from around his neck. He managed to free himself only a few feet from her and narrowly avoided Damien’s blow.

  Anxiety began to build up in Trevor’s chest as he became more certain of the origin of the smell as it grew bolder. Flashes of memory began to flood his mind. The odd positions that Adrian would find comfort in while riding in the back of the caravan, the childish bickering between them, the affectionate glances he would steal when brave enough (drunk enough), the tender sound of his voice.

  Natalia had had enough; and so had Trevor. Simultaneously, the two lashed out at one another, fighting for dominance and command. Damien stood by, slightly horrified not by what Belmont was capable of, but by his sister’s wrath. She had always been the most promising of them – “touched” Agatha had called her. He had seen her angry, but never so desperate; and now he could see what Agatha had seen in her.

  She had forced him to engage and abandoned her whip for a blade now that she had become confident enough to keep him close. Trevor relied on quick strikes and footwork to keep up, making it appear as if they were dancing some violent and inhuman dance.

  Trevor and Natalia were as two intensely hot wildfires converging in the center; the currents of their flames whipping up a scalding wind around them, and deafening all those nearby. She kept her eyes glued to him, tracking every minute motion, and tuning into him. When she saw Belmont stumble slightly to dodge her, her pride swelled. Damien could see it on her face.

   Her pride – this sin would be the death of her. He knew it would be. He decided to make his move on Belmont, darting toward him while his attention was held; but as he grew near, Belmont reached toward him with an open palm, caught him by the face to use him as a shield to blunt the impact of Natalia’s attack.

   A Trevor Belmont with more of his humanity intact would have grieved this murder as he executed it.

  “D-Damien! Damien!!” She squealed shrilly in horror.

  “Bad move,” Damien admitted solemnly, blood sputtering from his lips with a shallow cough. Belmont wretched him off the blade, and tossed him aside. He could see Natalia’s instinct to run to his aid, to freeze, and to fight to the death all matched in immense conflict with one another.

   When she locked eyes with Trevor again, she seemed to have decided what she was going to do; and so, she did it. She snapped her whip around one of Trevor’s arms, and reeled his weight into the air, and threw him before she clasped her hands together in prayer, and dropped down on one knee hoping that she would have the few seconds she needed to focus.

  “Subito, et absens,” she spoke with a gravity that seemed to weigh down the room, “Deus creavit omnia… divina scintilla!”

   The veins beneath her fair skin appeared as if filled with starlight. The shimmering vasculature seemed to fester in the flesh. Trevor, in a daze, fifty yards from her, barely had his wits about him before he felt a thud against his back, and the wall breaking beneath his cheek.  A tremendous sound and a rumble echoed throughout the castle as they crashed into the wall on the other side, leaving a dent filled with cracked stone beneath them.

   Natalia’s eyes had changed. Her sclera and pupil become indistinguishable from each other; entirely white, glossy, and filled with an all-encompassing malice. A blade extended from her gauntlet, and she began to plunge it into Trevor’s body as many times as she could before he was able to kick her back. She didn’t go far, and she charged at Belmont without hesitation.

   Trevor felt himself beginning to panic. His body was physically buzzing with anxiety. It shook the sense from his mind, and made him feel as if all the things Dracula had taught him had left him.

   She was in his way. He needed to get to Alucard.

   He punched her in the chest with his full might; it would have sent her backward if she had not had the sense to grip onto his wrist and pull him with her. They crashed to the ground. Natalia on top of him, and fought like animals; fists and claws, the snarling of teeth, the mingling of blood – a battle for survival.

   “Get off of me,” Trevor growled as Natalia, baring divine strength, wrestled her way to a more favorable position and twisted his arm behind his back. “I SAID, GET THE FUCK OFF,” he reiterated with a roar, the buzzing at his core sensible even to Natalia now.

   Rage, panic, despair – then, there was a sizzling sensation at the center of his being.

   Natalia felt the space that Belmont held in her arms collapse suddenly, and something else began its assault. The buzzing that she had felt in him encompassed the room, filling it entirely with the sound of a thousand infuriated wasps surrounding her. They crawled in the gaps of her armor, and into her mouth as she tried to scream, into her ears. By the time her body collapsed from the shock, she had been made unrecognizable from innumerable stings.

   The swarm dispersed from her once she fell, and reconfigured itself in the form of Belmont, who was not entirely sure what he had just experienced. At one point, his perspective had been fixed and singular. Then, he was many; and everywhere at once. He had been torn apart, spread out, and reassembled. His body felt strange, still faintly buzzing near his bones. He looked down upon Natalia at his feet, observing the many tiny punctures atop the little mounds in her flesh.

   A grand shrieking from above him let him know that the Night Creatures had been deployed. They would undoubtedly hunt down the remaining Paladins with ease. He would go where his senses pulled him, and leave them to clear the castle. He had no time to linger there. As he moved, he assessed the severity of his own wounds.

   Bad enough to slow him, but not to kill him. Despite the effect of exasperation to his injuries, he rushed to Alucard’s room to confirm his highest hopes.

   No longer stone, Alucard laid tightly curled up on the floor, with two Paladins invasively, curiously prodding at him and dragging him about as they pleased. Trevor had frozen in the doorway, his heart nearly fluttering to life at the sight of him. He felt himself begin to tremble with the relief that washed over him seeing him in the flesh, and then the blind rage that came with seeing them begin treating Alucard as a doll – pulling and bending his stiffened frame to lay him flat on his back. The wicked grins on their faces made Trevor remember all too clearly seeing the faces of those ones that had come to persecute his family.

   They did not look outraged, but ecstatic.

    He had enough of his trauma haunting him. He had had more than enough. He moved thoughtlessly, catching one of them by the elbow as he drew back his blade to kill Alucard. He felt the Paladin tense at the realization that they were not alone. Before he could utter a yelp, Trevor took the man’s sword, plunged it through his torso, and turned his attention towards the other, who had only realized what had happened by the sound of the blade squelching through his brother.

   Belmont let him fall.

   “Y-You!” The man shouted. His face betrayed many things as he stared at Belmont – horror, the realization that things had not gone as planned, the realization that his presence before him rather than elsewhere indicated that those with whom he had traveled with had met gruesome fates.

   The man turned and dashed for the window without hesitation.

   Trevor was surprised by this – his willingness to plummet to the Earth rather than face him. The glass shattered, and the man leapt. Trevor dashed to the window just in time to witness a Night Creature pluck him from the air, then crack him like an egg in the grasp of its talons. The two halves of him fell to the ground below with a distant thud.

   Trevor let out an involuntary chuckle as his legs gave out. Free from threat, his pain caught up with him. He writhed for a few moments, taking deep, unsteady breaths to cope before he began dragging himself to Alucard’s side.

   He put his ear to his chest to listen for his heart. A few, anxious seconds passed before a weak thud could be heard. He sighed a breath of relief, and lifted himself so that he could, at the pace of a tortoise, assume a kneeling position to examine him better.

   “Can you hear me?” Trevor asked him shakily.

   Alucard did not stir. Belmont took his face between his hands and immediately noticed the lack of a difference in their body temperatures. Trevor thought back to their sparring sessions. He remembered that Alucard certainly had a lower body temperature, but still had warmth to his skin. Now, with an icy touch, he should feel warmer to him. Alucard was frigid, and still stiff from his time in stone.

   Trevor felt hysteric. What was he to do? He had been trying to plan for this to avoid harming Alucard in any way, and now, he had been thrust into a situation where he feared that his life may be in his hands; and he was unprepared. He brought his hands up to his face and huffed, grabbing a handful of his own hair tightly, and gritting his teeth out of sheer frustration.

   “FUCK.” He barked at no one.

   He needed to warm him up somehow; to wake him, to get nutrients in his body – but first and foremost, Trevor needed to get on his feet again.

   What he needed to improve in training had been made starkly clear to him. Perhaps Dracula had intended to expose his weaknesses to him by forcing him to use his knowledge, or simply perish; to blunt the sharpness of any arrogance he may have accumulated in the youth of his immortality thus far.

   He took a deep breath and prepared himself to stand and carry Alucard to his chambers where he could care for him in some semblance of comfort. He filled his mind with sweeter memories, and let them blind him to his own pain so that he could drag himself and Alucard through the hall.

   Absently, he pushed the door open, entered, and gingerly laid Alucard on the sofa before he clumsily pushed the piece of furniture closer to the hearth. With one last burst of energy, he tossed another log onto the fire before collapsing.

   He was not sure how much time had passed when he felt something warm dripping onto his lips, and his body begin to instinctually nurse, however weakly. It could have been seconds; it could have been eons that he had been there.  After a moment, he felt a small spark in himself, and his limbs no longer felt as if each of them weighed a ton. He raised a hand to a warm wrist, becoming aware of the soft hand beneath his chin.

   “He’s stirring,” Sypha’s voice came through sounding relieved. The tension in Trevor’s body began to disperse as her blood filled his mouth like life returning to his body. He took a deep breath as he came to, opening his eyes soon after, and releasing her once he had had enough to give him the strength to move.

   Sypha gave him no time to stand before she pinned his body to the sofa with a clinging embrace. He could feel the strain in her muscles holding back a sob. He brought her arms tightly around her and embraced her as if he were desperate to absorb her into his being.

   She sat up to see his face, moving his hair so she could look him in the eyes. Trevor sighed and offered a crooked smile.

   “This has been the longest night of my fucking life,” he whispered.

   Sypha snorted. They both stared at one another for a moment, then chuckled.

   Hector seemed horrified by this. Dracula would return and find his son reanimated. And just how was Hector expected to get Sypha to willingly return to her cell? There’s no way he could defend himself from the both of them; let alone the three of them.

   “Thank you for your help tonight, Hector,” Belmont said over Sypha’s shoulder, cradling her body to his own once more.

   But his eyes held a near-audible threat. A chill ran down Hector’s spine.

Chapter Text

Hector offered Trevor two bottles from the reserves to help him restore his health and help the wounds heal faster. Dracula had explained to him once that certain weapons could be imbued with qualities that had a more detrimental impact on a vampire's health. Both he and Sypha had agreed that the Paladins had been wielding such weapons by the progressive festering of the burns and gashes across Trevor’s body.
Belmont didn’t bother with the goblet that Hector had brought him. Desperately, he uncorked one of the bottles and guzzled it down without hesitation, growing more eager to alleviate his pain. He writhed and gasped as he tried getting a grip on himself, trying to find relief in taking deep, shaky breaths.

“I’ll fucking gut you…if you squeal to Dracula,” Trevor warned Hector quietly between gulps, blood running down his chin. His voice was strained as he spoke, and the words were difficult to string together coherently, but he felt compelled to assert his will above Hector’s.

“He should know. He has a right.” Hector responded sharply, but with discretion, “The situation changed dramatically when you freed Alucard. Don’t threaten me as if you can even sit up straight right now.”

"I told you - he was no longer stone when I found him, you fucking prick.” Trevor snarled, too worn down to knock the jaw off of him the way he wanted to. He had known he would be itching to snitch on him.

“And I’m to believe you?” Hector spat back at him accusingly. He wasn’t sure whether Trevor had pulled the stake out himself, or if it had been one of the Paladins – but it mattered little. He knew only that Dracula would want to know of the recent developments within the castle.

“Fuck you, Hector. If I were you, I’d be more concerned with contracting a mason to tidy up the entrance hall before Dracula returns to see all the damage that you allowed to occur, and is forced to reevaluate your competence in security!”

Hector scoffed at him, but bit the hook all too willingly after having had enough of his disrespect.

“You ungrateful do-” he held his tongue as Sypha exited the bathroom with a towel in her hands, drying them after testing the water to ensure that it was cool enough for Trevor to tolerate, but warm enough to help them bring Alucard’s body temperature to a moderate level.

“The tub is ready,” she announced as she returned to Trevor’s side with a curious expression.

Trevor took another swig of blood before he pulled the bottle from his lips long enough to speak, eyes closed, trying to savor the slowly creeping numbing sensation around his wounds as his body worked to repair itself.
“Alright. Let’s move him, then.” He replied before taking a few more gulps.

Sypha’s brow furrowed. “You’re really not in the condition to try this right now, Trevor. Let me mo-”

“I haven’t been fucking crippled, Sypha. I carried him in here, didn’t I?”

“Well, you look fucking crippled.” Sypha barked back, “God, would it kill you to accept a little help? I can lift the man. Carry yourself!” she commanded him as she sat Alucard upright, grabbed him by the arms, hoisted him onto his feet, bent her knees a little, then in a swift motion, threw him over her shoulder.

Trevor watched, a little surprised by her insistence, and the fact that she could carry him fine on her own. He sat there for a moment, wondering how she had maintained strength in imprisonment. He supposed she had nothing more to do but seethe. He could picture her laying into a sack of flour hung from the ceiling of her cell – fists and fury.

It was not entirely out of the question.

Trevor released a slow, deep exhale and took a deep breath before he slowly pulled himself up from the sofa to follow her to the bath.

“Go and find that mason,” he grumbled threateningly over his shoulder to Hector, hoping to shoo him away for the time being. Hector rolled his eyes, but ultimately left, leaving the three of them together in some semblance of peace.

At that moment, Trevor only had one concern. He couldn’t waste another thought fearing what Dracula might do once he returned. He wanted to focus only on bringing Alucard back to consciousness.

As soon as he entered the room, Sypha instructed him, “I’ll take his clothes off. You – strip. Then you can help me get him into the tub.”

Trevor got in first, wrapping his arms around Alucard’s body from behind as Sypha lifted his legs over the tub's edge. He hissed as he tried to breathe through the remnants of the pain in his body that was aggravated by his exertion. They eased him into the water, Trevor securing his own arms under his as he took him over the edge and into his lap with Alucard’s back to his chest, letting his head rest upon his shoulder.

“There,” Sypha sighed, content with her efforts, “Now, I guess…we must wait. I’ll keep his head out of the water while you clean yourself up.”

Sypha leaned close and wrapped one arm across his chest from behind him before supporting his neck upon her shoulder.

Trevor cupped the warm water into his clasped palms and rinsed the filth from his face before he submerged himself and allowed the water to dissolve the blood and dust from his hair. Besides the sound of water, silence rang throughout the room. Silence provided his mind with plenty of things to worry about beyond Dracula, or even Adrian. Agatha’s role in his family’s excommunication and deaths; the words that Natalia had said to him; remembering what it had felt like to become many.

He wasn’t sure he understood how he had done it, or if he could do it again no matter how hard he tried.

“I turned into a bunch of fucking bees,” he finally uttered softly, as if it were something mundane. Such things practically were mundane occurrences to him at this point. Still, this had brought him to a state of shock he hadn’t experienced in a while. As he spoke of it, his body froze, his eyes locked onto his reflection in the water.

Sypha tilted her head, her eyebrows raising instinctually as she snorted. She repressed a laugh. “Y-You… what?”

“Wasps? Bugs. I turned into a swarm of bugs…I think.” Trevor added.

Sypha stared at him as if awaiting some sort of punchline. “Trevor….What…exactly are you talking about?”

“When I killed that girl…I felt like…every part of my being was vibrating. My bones, and my guts. Having a body… has a feeling to it. I had never noticed it before I experienced… being dispersed. My body…turned into hundreds, if not thousands, of fucking wasps. When I was whole again, she was dead. I stung her… too many times to count. She didn’t even look human…”

He could see her corpse clearly in his mind. Her smooth skin was covered in reddened lumps and dimples, her eyes swollen shut, her tongue protruding from her mouth and a bespeckled purple.

Sypha looked much less amused as she watched Trevor dissociate into the memory. She motioned for him to come closer. He sank his body deeper into the warm water as he came nearer, putting himself eyelevel with her. She took his chin in her hand before gently rubbing the back of her hand against his cheek.

“That sounds…frightening.” She remarked solemnly. “I…”

She felt like she could only say the wrong thing. Truthfully, she had no idea how Trevor felt, and that made her feel guilty. She wanted desperately to be of some comfort to him, and to be able to tell him that she understood. But how could she even conceptualize every fiber of her being unraveling, and stitching itself into another form – her mind taking the shape of something else?

It was an existential horror beyond that which Trevor could articulate. Under the light of his newfound ability, he had questions about himself and his plane of existence that he feared only Dracula could answer. It left him with such a dread that he nearly hoped that Dracula would return sooner rather than later so that he might be relieved of its weight.

He hated feeling that way – that in so many ways, Dracula had become the only person who could understand him. His youth limited his words for his experiences. Dracula had long developed the language for such things ages ago and gatekept his knowledge, using wisdom as a reward for his complacency and exertion. Trevor often relied on his knowledge as a framework for understanding his own feelings and experiences. Without him there to guide him he felt like a child again- a child that loathed the only father he had, nonetheless. It had become such a bitter-sweet thing between them. That his dependence as his hostage and fledgling should at times overshadow the awful things that Dracula inflicted on him.

“It’s not just…that,” Trevor began again. He had avoided divulging too much about what he had done to Sypha. But what did it matter now? He remembered what Natalia had said to him and that Sypha had been there to hear her too.

He cringed.

“She was right about me, Sypha,” he groaned as he confessed, “I’ve done horrible, unthinkable things. I am like Dracula. I cannot reject this.” His voice became strained. “He created me in his image, like a God. We are cursed by the same viciousness and thirst. If I were not like him… how could I… how could I do these th-”

“Trevor Belmont,” Sypha cut him off sternly, “You feel different because you have been made into something different. You are different. You must forgive yourself for this. To live, even eternally, is to change.”

She asked him, “Are you not different than the bear, the raven, or the wolf? You may pity the doe when its body is being ravaged, but do you hate the bear? Do you resent the raven? Do you scorn the wolf? The living all want the same thing – to survive. It is the greatest fallacy of creation that nothing will, but we will all try regardless. Why hold this against yourself?”

Trevor contemplated, then answered simply, “Because I have not killed for survival...not every time.” He pulled away from her with a sigh. “My temper has gotten awful,” he admitted, “I go into a blind fit of rage… I lash out. I’ve become just as bad as he is.”

Sypha scoffed. “But what choice did you have? What would the outcome have been if you hadn’t?”

More silence.

“Just playing vampire’s advocate,” she noted with a tender smile. “Think about it. I’m going to locate the kitchen and prepare something for Alucard for when he awakens. Maybe Hector too – he was…surprisingly helpful.”

“Oh, let him starve,” Trevor griped, immediately drawn back into bitterness.

Sypha leaned in and kissed his forehead. “I’ll be back,” she assured him before helping him assume care of Alucard before making her exit.

Trevor perhaps hadn’t shown it, but her words had truly made him reflect on his relationship with self. He sat, pondering what it might take to accept himself as he is, and linger less on what he had once been or what had once been in his possession.

He sighed with equal amounts of bereavement and release. Sypha was so much wiser than he often credited her for. He lingered on her words for some time, drawn out of thought only by the subtle stirring in his arms, followed by the softest groan. Belmont froze, concerned for a moment that he had imagined the movement. But after a few seconds had passed, Alucard began attempting to move his body.

Ignoring any injury, Trevor cradled him in his arms, indifferent to how to his swiftness tossed water over the edge of the tub.

“H-hey! Hey!” he sputtered out with alarm as he tapped his fingers against Alucard’s cheek anxiously.

The lids of his eyes opened just slightly, but he seemed to have little control over them. They rolled to the back of his head. Trevor could think of little more to do but hold him, and gently caress his face to rouse him to consciousness. When his eyes finally opened, he looked up at Trevor with a drowsy expression. It took a few moments for his vision to clear, but when it did, his expression changed.

Everything rushed back to him incomprehensively quickly in flashes that gave him just enough information to understand that a miracle had occurred. Alucard’s eyes filled with tears as he took him in. He was incredibly relieved to see him again; and devastated. So much so, that all he could do was weep.

Trevor wept with him, holding him tightly to his body.

“Be-Belmont,” was the only word Alucard could pronounce through stiff muscles and tremors. He tried desperately to use his arms, to latch onto Trevor, and never let him go again – but it was as if his limbs were still cast in stone. He felt heavy, barely able to twitch a muscle. So instead, he cried into Trevor’s body.

Alucard’s chest burned with a swirling mixture of grief, confusion, and utter relief. He had thought himself dead. He had thought that Trevor had died, and Sypha, too.

Unable to hold back his tears, droplets of sanguine rolled down Trevor’s face.

“’m s-s-orry… ‘m s-s-”

“Shh, shh – it’ll be easier once you’ve warmed up. Just focus on breathing,” Trevor advised him as he tried to keep himself calm.

They sat in silence, Trevor holding him while trying to keep himself together, sweetly rubbing his back to comfort him. He wished he still had the heat of life emanating from within him so that his body could help warm his.
After a few minutes, Alucard began attempting to sit himself up on his own. Trevor guided him to the other side of the tub and sat him on the seat across from himself. He brushed Alucard’s hair from his face, revealing the concern and horror in his eyes as they carefully examined Trevor’s face.

“Your eyes…” Alucard noted.

Trevor lowered them and nodded in a silent acknowledgment of his observation. His fangs were just barely visible past his parted lips as he searched for something comforting to tell him, but the words left him as he noticed them catch Alucard’s attention. He pursed his lips and turned his face away from him.

“It’s… alright, Adri-”

“N-No…this isn’t right.” Alucard huffed as he searched his memory desperately to piece together events. “T-Trevor, what’s happened? I don’t understand!” He sobbed as his grip on him began to tighten.

“There isn’t much to tell…” Trevor lied. “Sypha is alive. I’m…alive. Your father is, unfortunately, alive – but he isn’t here right now. So…don’t let that scare you.” His chest filled with remorse knowing he couldn’t keep him in the dark forever.

“I don’t understand,” Alucard cried. “I-I don-”

Seeking panic beginning to peak in him, Trevor took his hands in his own and held them tightly.

“Adrian,” he spoke softly and clearly, letting his fingers feel the chill of his skin. His eyes danced over his face, observing every minute change. “You’re safe. Now that you’re awake, I want to ensure you’re all right before we address anything else. I can explain everything, but it might take some time.”

His voice reverberated through Alucard’s mind. He was so relieved to hear his voice but lingered on the quality of difference. Everything about him was different – not quite the same as he had left him; but the starkest difference was his manner of speaking; no longer slurred or incomprehensible. Trevor spoke clearly and directly.

“Let’s clean up. We’ll talk by the fire.” Trevor suggested. “Sypha is making you something to eat if you’re hungry.”

Bulbous tears rolled down Alucard’s cheeks. “Sh-Sh-ee’s okay?” he managed to ask.

Trevor nodded his head, and grinned. Sypha was Alucard’s best friend. Hell, his only friend. They were a pair of girls together – teasing, giggling, gossiping. They had become skilled in baiting Trevor into their antics. He felt his body relax some once he told him that Sypha was safe as well. “She is,” he affirmed, “Everything is going to be alright.”

Alucard let the water aid him. He could tell by how difficult it was to stand, that he certainly couldn’t walk on his own. Trevor got out of the tub and wrapped his waist with a towel.

“You’re… injured?”

“I’m alright,” Trevor comforted him as he extended a hand to him. Worried eyes stared back at him unwavering. “Tsk, I’ll be fine. I can at least carry you to the other room.” He instructed Alucard how to grab onto him so that he was easy to lift from the water.

He carried him to the sofa, caution in each step, and sat him down gently on it’s cushions. He offered him a towel to cover himself before sitting next to him and observing him quietly for a moment.

“I… remember us arriving. I remember…”

Trevor’s brazenness had betrayed him, and Dracula had realized just who he was by his gall alone. He need not be introduced. This alone was enough for his father to fantasize of inflicting all manner of cruelties upon Trevor… Alucard remembered fighting against Dracula with a sense of despair and a sharp, shocking pain ripping through him – his father wrenching a stake through him as if he were nothing.

That memory was clear.

He remembered hearing Trevor scream his name, his actual name – and wondering when he’d even learned it. In an instant he was gripping onto his father and pleading for Trevor to be spared the only way he knew he could be. His mouth had moved on its own, speaking as quickly as he could, praying to his father for Trevor’s forgiveness.

He had done this to Trevor so eagerly knowing what it would mean for him, and knowing that he would not be around to see it – believing that he never would be. Now, Alucard was forced to confront and bare witness to the fate that he had decided for him.

“I’m so sorry,” Alucard whimpered meekly to him, knowing no number of apologies would make any difference. What more could he say to him? “I did this to you. I did this!”

But Belmont only softly smiled. “I know.”

Trevor would never tell him just how miserable the transformation had been. Bones snapping into place, organs and muscles restitching themselves, his teeth being rejected from his gums as his fangs grew in, how every claw on his fingers had ripped the old nails from the nailbed. He didn’t need to know. Trevor would provide him with no ammunition to use against himself.

“He didn’t force me,” he reassured Alucard, “He offered. I agreed…”

Taken aback, Alucard looked at him with tears glittering in his eyes. “N-No, no. I had no right to even ask for it. I shouldn’t have. I had no right t-”

Trevor shook his head, refusing to put blame on him for it. They stared at one another for some time, taking one another in. Color was beginning to return to his ivory face – little touches of pink to his lips and cheeks. His hair caught the fire light and appeared as golden strands falling all around his shoulders. He could not believe he had ever tried to deny his beauty.

“It’s alright. I don’t blame you,” he told Alucard softly.

Alucard stared at him incredulously. Could this be the same Trevor Belmont? Was the figure before him merely one of his father’s cruel tricks? His hair was longer than he had ever seen it, and his Vampirism gave him a sense of foreignness; his nose no longer crooked, or his jaw just slightly misaligned. Beyond the hue of his eyes, the expression behind them had changed. The way he spoke had changed, so had the way he carried himself.

For how long had he been gone for so much change to occur? How deeply into Hell had Trevor been dragged, all because of him?

“Even if you don’t blame me, it was not my place to push this onto you,” he rejected Trevor's forgiveness willfully and without resentment. “I had no such right. No right at all!”

Trevor only wore a gentle, satisfied grin.

"I've been a little dishonest with you, Adrian," Trevor admitted softly, "about my feelings; and in the way I've treated you in the past."

He struggled to speak past the lump in his throat, but he pushed through it. "Before we came here, I was willfully ignorant about you because I was afraid of..."

God.

It made him sick to speak this way. He felt like his words were tacky like wet sugar.

"I was in denial of my affection for you, and I was afraid that... I repulsed you... or something; and as much as I picked at you, Alucard, I wouldn't blame you for that either."

Adrian's face turned bright pink, and he'd seemed to have lost his tongue. A million things raced through his head as he stared at Trevor with a dumbfounded expression, unable to speak with any kind of clarity.

"By the time I'd come to terms with my feelings, and dismantled my biases, and I all that I had left to do was work up the nerve to confess to you... I had waited too long... We came to this fucking place, and...I'm just...relieved that I get another opportunity."

Alucard’s only retort was, "but I did this to you..."

Trevor shook his head. "I don't hate you for it, Adrian. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving Sypha here, and I couldn't let myself believe you were dead. Dracula offered this to me...and I accepted on my own accord. That it was upon your request…I think it was shock at first, but then I found it…almost encouraging."

“Your own accor- Trevor, you were dying! What honest choice did you have left to make?" Alucard managed to huff with exasperation.

Trevor snorted as he heard Alucard echo Sypha’s words back at him – reiterating his blamelessness.

But what choice did you have? What would the outcome have been if you hadn’t?

"Losing you both far before I was ready, dying as a man with a disgraced name; or protecting you or avenging you by becoming something that would give me a chance to do what we came here to do." Trevor told him softly, with a newfound submission to his circumstance that felt less like giving up, and more like determination.

"Don't speak like that - not here." Alucard diverted his eyes to avoid showing Trevor how the idea of raising a hand to his father in the condition they were in horrified him – believing that they shouldn't even dream of it so long as they were all under his roof.

"He isn't here to hear us," Trevor reminded him.

"This is his home, do you not believe he has eyes and ears in every corner?" Alucard whispered urgently.

"He would be here already if he knew," he reminded him sweetly to ease his anxiety.

"When he returns, I'm sure he'll throw one of his infamous tantrums - until then it's just us here. We’ll worry about the bat when he returns."

"Just us?”

"Well, and a few guards, I suppose; but they won't bother us. Hector might bother us, but he’s largely harmless. Everyone is…very busy at the moment,” Trevor remembered just how much he had to tell him and took a deep breath.

Alucard brought his knees to his chest as he stared at Trevor with cautious, teary eyes. He rested his forehead on his forearms, enclosing himself in his own hair and resigning himself to a long silence. When he looked up, his tears had made rivers down his face.

Suddenly, Alucard lunged forward with a surprising vigor, while every joint in his body snapped and cracked with startling volume, wrapping his arms around Trevor and holding him tightly. Visceral sobs shook his core. It hurt to move that way yet, but he needed so badly to be held. Trevor pulled him into his lap to cradle him as he cried, while resting his cheek upon his head, and felt whole.

Chapter Text

   For some time, they lay upon the sofa in a bubble in which they had no awareness of anything but each other and the crackling of the fire. Trevor stroked his hair, whispering sweetly to him to assure him that all was well and that he was forgiven.

   But Alucard felt miserable from the weight of his guilt. While Trevor seemed to hold no resentment toward him for his actions, Alucard had a difficult time accepting what he had done to Trevor. All his life, he had loathed that part of himself so immensely. Once, he had thought that he would never wish it upon anyone, and yet, he had thrown this curse at Belmont without a second thought or hesitation.

   Vampirism was not subtle. He could see it in every aspect of him – but although he had seemed to have adapted well, Alucard still remembered how he had been. The juxtaposition was a bit unnerving.

   “Did it… hurt?” Alucard asked him once the waves of emotions had eased enough for him to speak clearly.

   Trevor didn’t want to feed his guilt, but honesty compelled him. “More than I ever imagined,” he admitted with an intentional tone of indifference. As he feared, Alucard’s grief was nearly tangible. “I’m only glad to see you again,” Trevor reminded him tenderly, “I was terrified that I might not.”

   He tried not to sound pathetic – but he was certain he did himself no favors.

   To his surprise, Alucard scoffed with an air of incredulousness. “Has it changed you this much? You’re sentimental now?”

   “I’ve got a clearer mind now,” Trevor noted softly as he wiped the tears that still rolled down Alucard’s cheeks.

   Even with that clarity, when he was face to face with him, all words seemed to disappear in his mind, leaving Trevor speechless. Normally, he might be frustrated by this, but in the moment, he’d found a thread of peace, at last. Nevertheless, he bore an impassioned sense of urgency within his heart.

   He’d spent weeks imagining what he would say in a moment like this one, in which they had each other, and the privacy Trevor needed to muster up the courage to confess his deeper affections for him, to pour out all the things that had been left unsaid between them. 

   He held his tongue, not wishing to overwhelm him further.

   Alucard had become perhaps a little too warm near the fire, but Belmont’s body felt quite nice against his skin, keeping him from breaking a sweat. It was only then that he became aware of their nakedness. He quickly pushed that awareness to the back of his mind to avoid obvious prudishness.

   “I can help you move, if you’d like,” Trevor offered, noticing the smallest semblance of discomfort cross his face.

   Alucard nodded, wishing to feel the mattress embrace his aching body.

   He let Trevor maneuver his way from beneath him and stand. Alucard sat himself up to the best of his ability, and Trevor leaned down so that he could lock his arms around his neck. He put his arms around Alucard’s waist, securely embracing him to raise him from the sofa as he straightened his back. He stood still for a moment to allow Alucard time to put his feet upon the floor and try supporting his own weight.

   Alucard steadied himself and found himself able to stand stationary, but his joints screamed. He gasped as he tried to lift his feet, and Trevor, unable to discern what precisely ailed him, held onto him tighter to ensure he wouldn’t fall.

   “Take your time,” Trevor urged him, “I can carry you if you need.”

   Alucard shook his head, determined to walk on his own. “I just… need a second,” he grumbled, brows furrowed and eyes clenched shut.

   “Lead me,” Trevor instructed.

   They took slow steps through the room. They had made it about a quarter of the way to the bed before Alucard appeared to be losing endurance. Trevor lifted him from the ground and carried him the rest of the way to the bed.

  Alucard let himself fall onto the mattress and situated himself until he was comfortable, pulling the sheets around his body before taking a few quiet moments to gather himself. Trevor sat next to him, pulling part of the sheet away to examine his knees. They were hot to the touch, red and noticeably inflamed. He placed a cold hand gently over his kneecap.

   Alucard sighed heavily.

   “Do you know anything about the Fossilian stake?” Trevor asked him after a moment.

   Alucard nodded affirmatively. “I had tried using it on my father after my mother was killed – when his madness became apparent to me.” He lifted his hand and traced a finger across the scar on his chest. “It didn’t go well.”

   “All of… this, then…” Trevor referred to his symptoms.

   “Just an effect of being petrified. Calcification of the joints resulting in arthritis, muscle stiffness, weakness, irregular pulse, low blood pressure,” Alucard rattled off. These things meant nothing to Belmont, who had no medical knowledge beyond wound care. His expression was one of grave alarm.

   Alucard chuckled at his concern. “Should ease with time – a few days perhaps,” he assured him.

   In a few days… surely, Dracula would have returned by then. If Trevor was being realistic… even collectively, there was no way the three of them stood a chance against him in their current state. Trevor needed to recuperate, Alucard needed to rest and catch up to the present moment, and a speaker magician’s magick would simply not be enough to fend off Dracula. Trevor resigned himself to their fate – whatever punishment Dracula saw fit, he would plea for it to be inflicted upon himself threefold in place of their torment or separation. There was no decision to be made.

   A few moments were spent in still, contemplative silence before Alucard urged him to speak his mind. “What’s troubling you?”

   Straight to the point, as per usual.

   Trevor snorted at himself – at the childishness of his highest aspirations. “A part of me had hoped that the three of us would reunite and flee this place. Damn it all. Dracula, Wallachia – all of it,” he confessed distantly. “I don’t know when Dracula will come back, but it won’t be long; but I do know that when he finds out you’ve been returned to your natural state, he won’t be pleased with me. I’m just… I’m afraid… that he will come after you or even Sypha…” his voice began to break, and Alucard could see clearly that he’d been putting on a brave face for him. Trevor shook his head remorsefully and regathered himself, “Never mind me. I’m just glad that you’re alright.”

   Alucard had no notion of how long they had been there. For him, time had been distorted. It had been but a blink in his perception, but on the other end of his consciousness, he could feel that time had passed. He felt the weight of a different era in the air, and he recognized that in that time, however brief, much had changed. He inched closer to Belmont, then sat himself up to eye level.

   “I... ” He lost his words.

   Truthfully, he was no more prepared than Trevor was to face his father. The last thing that he had seen was the look in Dracula’s eyes when he wretched that stake into his chest without a moment’s hesitation. Alucard heaved a sigh and regulated his breath the moment he had realized that it had hitched when his father’s image came to mind – anxiety.

   He couldn’t imagine how Belmont had been feeling all this time.

   Dracula had been a gentle husband and a loving father, albeit stern and rather strange. His parents had an agreement about Dracula’s conduct and nature as it pertained to their marriage and parenting. Alucard was aware of his father’s temper, but Dracula had never allowed himself an outburst in the presence of his wife and child. Still, Alucard could see a palpable fear in the other vampires when they were around – in the stiffness of their backs, how they nearly refused to blink while in the same room as him, and how they always fumbled their words when he commanded them to speak up.

   They were terrified of Dracula.

   Even when Alucard was young, he could tell that much. As he got older, he began to learn why. He heard the stories from men in the market, and from other vampires – fields of men disemboweled and impaled sticking up from the ground like bloodied meadow oats; villages razed; kings killed. The legend of Dracula preceded his birth.

   Alucard wondered if his father lived up to the legends told to Belmonts in their youth. When Trevor was but a boy, did he dream of the beast within Castlevania? Had he been prepared well enough throughout his adolescence? Alucard hoped that he had. But he knew the reality of something was always far different than the idea of it. No amount of warning or preparation would ever prepare a man to face Dracula.

   “I wish that things were different,” Alucard said simply for the sake of saying something, uncertain of what else could be said of their circumstances.

   “Don’t we all?” Trevor laughed half-heartedly before sitting quietly.

   “I imagine it’s been difficult to make this place feel anything like a home,” Alucard acknowledged with a remorseful tone. “I’d hope he’s treated you well… but… I know he has not. You… seem to have adjusted well,” he told Trevor.

   Belmont sort of snickered, then explained, “Well, I do have your father to thank for that. We spend more time together than I would like, but… he’s taught me a good deal. Having him as a teacher occupies us both. He’s not as… heavy-handed, now.”

   “…How… is he?” Alucard asked reluctantly.

   A hundred flashes of the ways that Dracula had brutalized him for his own glee and under the guise of “discipline” tumbled through Trevor’s brain. He should have died a hundred times over at his hand, but had been forbidden from death.

   “He is… temperamental... at best,” Trevor stated distantly, “but I’ve grown accustomed to his mood swings.”

   Alucard could not help but wonder just how badly his father had treated Trevor. He had been on the receiving end of his wrath on several occasions, still bearing the scars his father had given him. But he could sense the reservations Trevor had towards sharing the details of Dracula’s abuse, and did not wish to put him in the position of reliving any of it. However, he certainly hoped that Trevor would share his experiences with him eventually.

   Suddenly, without any pressure, Belmont broke.

   “That isn’t true,” he confessed, “He frightens me. I am never certain what to expect of him. He torments me in one moment, and in the next, he sings my praises; looking at me with disgust, and then… something like pride.” Trevor informed him. “He’s… out of his mind. I can hear him sometimes – hysterically speaking to himself, berating the guards – now and again Hector too. But… sometimes I think I hear him weeping…”

   Alucard cringed and shook his head remorsefully. He knew that beyond all blind rage, his father bore a deep, festering wound that his mother had been nursing. When his parents were together, Dracula became as human as he perhaps once had been. It wasn't easy to imagine him as a man. The moment that he had learned of her murder, he regressed. Losing Lisa had bored it open, split the scab and busted the stitches that she had sewn; infection oozed from him.

   Grief presents differently in everyone.

   “He is not in his right mind,” Alucard stated meekly and without defense.

   Trevor could see how badly he wanted there to be one – he could see him search desperately for the means to defend his father within reason, which Dracula had progressed far beyond. In these moments, Trevor was reminded that Alucard had grown up quickly both figuratively and literally.

   He wondered if his heart had aged this way too or if he had outgrown his father far before he had been ready; if all this wounded him more because he still needed him.

   Zealotry had killed his mother; but it was Dracula’s rage that had orphaned him.

   Trevor tenderly placed his hand upon his shoulder, feeling a familiar heaviness. He knew this feeling – perhaps it was some vampiric quality that made it so easy to sense now, or sobriety that had made it identifiable. This was the weight of origin; to be a casualty of legacy and buried in its shadow.

   Before Trevor could offer a word of solace, the door opened and Sypha entered carrying a tray with a bowl of soup and some bread. He watched as a massive smile spread across Sypha’s face, eyes brightening as she saw Alucard alert.

   Trevor couldn’t help but grin as he watched the contents of the bowl she carried splash over her hands as she rushed to embrace him. She had barely sat it down when she crawled on top of him and unleashed her affection upon him like an overeager puppy greeting a companion.

   “You!” Sypha gasped. “You’re back! You’re awake!” She took his face between her hands and kissed his forehead. “I’ve missed you so much!” She exclaimed weepily, the cracking of her voice threatening to break the composure of the three of them. She paid no mind to Trevor or Alucard’s nakedness – Trevor wasn’t sure that she had noticed at all, but the look of surprise on Alucard’s face as Sypha’s ambush pinned him onto his back and nearly exposed him in full caused him to nearly burst into laughter.

   “Sypha! Careful,” he chuckled as he preserved Alucard’s modesty and peeled her from him. “Let the man adjust a little bit before you crawl on top of him like that.”

   “I’m sorr – oh!” She gasped as she realized that the only thing between the two of them was a thin sheet. She diverted her eyes before announcing to him that she had prepared him some food.

   She had made a simple soup from the few ingredients kept for the human inhabitants of the castle: onions, roots, and herbs for flavor. Aromatic oils sat atop the stock, and the scent of it alone made Alucard’s stomach twist and rumble with excitement.

   “Oh, bless you,” he sighed with relief when Sypha offered it to him.

   He hadn’t realized he was starving until he smelled it. Together, the three of them sat as Alucard ate. Sypha asked him questions about the castle with genuine intrigue. Sometimes Trevor chimed in to answer. Over a brief conversation, it occurred to Alucard that Trevor had come to know his father’s castle well… and yet, Sypha remained clueless.

   It was not unusual for Dracula to take hostages, but he thought Sypha looked too healthy to have been a prisoner. Though she spoke as if she had been contained.

   “You have questions,” Sypha observed with a gentle smile.

   Alucard admitted, “Yes… Forgive me, but… how long have we been here?” Alucard asked, knowing he may not like the answer.

   Trevor only shrugged, but Sypha’s eyes became distant. “Over six hundred days. I know that much.”

   Alucard and Trevor both paused and looked at her with their eyes just slightly widened with surprise.

   “It’s… been… nearly two years?” Alucard asked in shaking disbelief.

   Sypha confirmed with a sullen nod. She had little to do but count the number of times that the sun rose into the sky. She had sat, and sat, and sat there; having only Belmont’s visits to look forward to. He stayed with her as much as he could, but Dracula kept him busy.

   Trevor had felt much guilt about this – having to leave her down there while he had his freedom, however limited. He couldn’t imagine how lonely she’d been, but the single tear that rolled down her cheek, her face unchanging all the while, let him know that it was a weight far heavier than he himself could bear.

   She quickly wiped the tear away, not interested in speaking on her isolation – what could be said of months and months of monotony, anyhow? She was far more interested in relishing her time with the two of them, learning more about what Trevor had been experiencing all that time, exploring the castle, and devising a plan.

   Trevor huffed heavily and dragged his hands down his face. He had somewhat detached himself from the reality of time, preferring to measure his progress rather than his captivity. But to hear the time that had passed put into a measurement had induced an instantaneous sensation of being stir-crazy.

   “Wow… alright,” Alucard sighed sharply. “Well, that’s a lot longer than I’d hoped.”

   Trevor was still wrapping his mind around it.

   Two years. Two years.

   For two years he had been something other than human, living in Dracula’s castle and eating out of his palm like some kind of domesticated animal. He wasn’t sure if it felt like longer, or just mere days since they’d arrived.

   “Sorry to sour the mood,” Sypha laughed through tears, a pitiful attempt to lighten the mood.

   Trevor opened his arms to her, and Sypha instinctively threw herself into his chest and began weeping. He closed his arms around her and held her tightly, rubbing her back tenderly as her despair boiled over. “We’re alright,” he reminded her to keep her present. “We’ve made it this far; it’s nothing we can’t handle.”

   She only nodded weepily against his chest.

   “Did you have anything to eat yourself?” Alucard asked sympathetically as he leaned over to stroke her hair gently.

   She shook her head.

    Alucard tsked. “Sypha,” he scolded. “Why not? Was there not enough for yourself?”

   Trevor interjected, his tone firm, “Sypha, if you fed that bastard Hector before yourself, I swear to Go-”

   Sypha laughed. “I was just eager to return… to check on the two of you. I’m glad that I did.”

   Trevor chuckled at her and patted her on the back as she detached herself from him. “Go and eat. Stretch your legs a bit. When you return, it’s your turn for a soak.” 

   She had to admit the tub had been rather tempting. She longed to be up to her neck in sudsy hot water, the scent of vibrantly fragrant oils filling the air around her – a small taste of luxury. And a hot bowl of soup didn’t sound half bad either. Perhaps she could stand to be away from them for just a little while. Having been confined for so long, it would be nice to wander a bit, after all.

   Having been convinced, Sypha departed and left Alucard and Trevor on their own together once more.

   Trevor shook his head and sighed helplessly once he could no longer hear the pattering of her feet echoing in the corridors. “Terrifying,” he admitted, “seeing her break like that after all this time...”

   Alucard snapped his head towards Trevor. “Two years… the way she speaks… has Sypha been…”

   “Locked up. She has a modified cell in the dungeons – keeps her from using her power.” Trevor confirmed.

   Alucard took a deep breath, and Trevor could sense and see the anger building in him. His fears seemed to be being confirmed one after another. He dreaded what he may learn and that which was to come.

   “I’m sorry. I haven’t caught you up to date,” Trevor sighed, “A lot has happened since we arrived. I’ve been worried about laying everything out for you. I wanted to give you time… but… if you wish to talk about it now, we can.”

   Alucard’s eyes dropped. He stared at the bed for a moment in silence before finally nodding. “Yes, I… I think that would be for the best. I want to understand the context of our circumstances.”

   Trevor took a deep breath and tried not to wear such a somber expression. They sat shoulder to shoulder in the bed and made themselves comfortable before Trevor started at the beginning. He told him about the coffin he’d been confined to during his transformation; how Dracula had forced him to drink from Sypha; what he’d done in Campina and at the convent, and how it led them to this moment. He spoke honestly, sparing him the gore while sacrificing no detail, with tears running down his face.

   Alucard sat horrified and stunned, unsure how to respond to everything Trevor had told him. It seemed as though Belmont’s very presence occupied his father enough to delay his genocide – at the cost of everything Trevor had to spare.

   “Dracula has been training me so that I can build the skills to… eventually take on Carmilla of Styria, as he’s asked of me – but in every free moment, I’ve been looking for ways to get you back…” he told him. “I’ve… played nice with him…”

   “He is weaponizing you.” Alucard said sharply, nearly growling with frustration. Angry tears had welled up in his eyes and threatened to roll down his face again.

   “I know that. But in doing so… he is teaching me to defeat him, and giving me the skills I will need to do it. More than this, I’ve done everything he’s asked of me so that he would return little slivers of freedom to me so that I could figure out a way...” His breath hitched suddenly. “Adrian… I’ve needed you so badly,” he sighed and interjected helplessly, “I can’t count the number of times I’ve wished you were here to guide me in this.”

   Alucard’s face changed in an instant from frustration to an expression of consolation. “I had thought you hated me – you should hate me, probably” Alucard whimpered and those tears in his golden eyes which had grown too heavy had begun to make their trails.

   A dry sob hit Trevor’s chest as he cringed. It hurt now to hear him admit; however, he had expected as much. He had done nothing but convince him that he was loathed. He’d been so needlessly cruel towards him. The regret for his behavior ate him alive.

   He reached forward to wipe Alucard’s tears away with the sheet, and Alucard wiped Trevor’s, his hands lingering to hold his face in his hands.

   “I had tried convincing myself as much. But I don’t – not even a little. I… I had a sort of fear about admitting to myself that I have feelings for you that go far beyond acquaintance or friendship. I tried to keep them from myself… but I couldn’t deny the fear of losing you; and the fear that comes with confessing my feelings doesn’t hold a candle to that kind of fear, Adrian.”

   Maybe it was the flood of relief that came with the agony of unrequited affection having vanished in an instant, or the way that Belmont had said his name that had aroused such a response, but Alucard leaned over and kissed him without warning.

   Something electric shot through Trevor’s body, leaving him momentarily stunned, unable to respond until his mind registered what was happening. His hands came up to frame his face as he kissed him back with a tenderness that he had never known himself capable of. The moment's sweetness made him tremble, and he could not help but press himself deeper into the kiss. Trevor pulled him closer, then atop of him, and Alucard’s arms wrapped around him in an embrace as the sheet abandoned him and left him bare in Trevor’s lap.

   As their lips parted, though not for long, Trevor muttered, “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed you so much. Forgive me.“

   Fool. He was already forgiven.

   Alucard’s face flushed, and a toothy grin spread across his face. He shook his head with a lighthearted chuckle as Trevor pulled him as closely as possible and began kissing him again, somehow more desperately than before.

   “If we don’t know for certain when Dracula will return…” Alucard suggested with a lustful glint in his eyes as he leaned in to kiss him again.

   Trevor needed no further context or cue – how could he deny him? He put Alucard on his back in one swift motion, laying his body atop his as he relished each graze of skin as their hands wandered the realms of each other's bodies reverently. It felt almost forbidden to touch him this way. His mouth began to travel. Belmont kissed down his chest and stomach, lingering at his hips for a moment before Alucard gripped a handful of his hair and pulled his face up to look at him, eliciting a small gasp from Trevor.

   Cheeks dusted with a pink flush, eyes pleading, hair disheveled… “Inside,” Alucard demanded, though his tone made it sound more like begging. A sense of despair rolled over Alucard as Trevor kissed him gluttonously. If his father was to return, then any pain be damned, he wanted Belmont to take him. He encouraged his hands to travel, silently pleading with him to ravage him – to pick the meat off his bones before his father got the chance to.

   “Don’t want to hurt you,” Trevor slurred as his lips grazed over Alucard’s hip bone and into the curve of his groin. As badly as he wanted to make him weep into the mattress, Belmont was content to have him this way.

   Alucard’s body responded needily– a quiet gasp, hips bucking slightly, abdomen tightening. “Don’t care,” he affirmed breathlessly.

   “Adrian,” Trevor whispered unintentionally, hardly able to make a sound in his lingering astonishment. “Are you certain you want t-to… that we shou-”

   “Please,” Alucard urged him. “Trevor…”

   Trevor reacted by reaching for a small bottle of oil in the top drawer of his bedside table. He poured some into his palm to glaze his eager cock and fulfill Alucard’s desire, repositioning himself to do so.

   Belmont put himself between Alucard's legs before resting his calves upon his shoulders. Alucard didn’t care how his body felt; he only cared to make the most of what little time they would have to be with one another and to be as close to Trevor as possible without remorse. He was content to lie pretty on his back, a living landscape for his exploration, and be ravaged by Belmont; aching, writhing – it did not matter to him.  

   “Tell me if it hurts,” Trevor urged him as he began with a gentle prodding, then slowly applied pressure. Alucard could feel his body giving way, opening, and creating the space to accept him. A soft moan escaped him, followed by a deep inhale. Trevor watched every micro-expression cross his face attentively, searching for any indication of discomfort.

   Alucard’s body did most of the work once Trevor had pressed his tip past the tight ring and into the heat of him. Belmont let the muscle pull him inch by inch deeper, resisting it only enough to allow Alucard time to adjust, applying more and more lube as needed. The sounds that Alucard made from beneath him threatened his sanity.

   “It’s in,” Trevor sighed, trying not to completely lose his mind. Trevor had expected Alucard to express some discomfort, but Alucard appeared nothing but satisfied. He relaxed a little, pressing into him, making small motions with his hips, and drawing out the softest, most alluring sounds from Alucard.

   “That feels… so good…” Alucard cooed with his back arched, pressing their stomachs together as he coiled with delight.

   Trevor’s hand slid down to the small of his back and cradled his body against his. He still watched his body language vigilantly, terrified of hurting him. Alucard had been through enough. Trevor couldn’t stand the thought of causing him more pain. He let Alucard lead by cue, making deeper movements once Alucard had locked himself around his waist and began urging him to fuck him. He moved his hips with more intent, easing into the motions, relaxing as Alucard began moaning.

   Trevor laid kisses upon his shoulders, leaving a trail along his neck, then his jawline. He felt how Alucard’s body reacted to his touch; how he tightened around him as he moved.

    “Adrian,” he purred, “I’ve missed you so much,” he reminded him mindlessly, every thought possessed by his beauty. He had missed stealing glances and bumping shoulders, but this could easily take the cake. To have him beneath him, to hold him… Belmont felt something inside of him finally align.

   Alucard shuddered, a grin spreading across his face. He relished each touch, every thrust, the sensation of being filled by him. He took his face between his hands and began kissing him again, moaning softly into his mouth.

   Trevor’s brow furrowed deeply as he tried his hardest not to be broken by a kiss. Alucard made him feel virginal, eager, and uncertain in the best ways. He trembled, the pressure in his core gradually building. Each time Alucard’s lips touched him, his focus dissolved, and he felt his body react involuntarily – chills and goosebumps, a noticeable quivering in his heart, butterflies in his stomach, heat in his groin, a lightness in his head.

   Alucard gasped as Trevor pulled him to his body and secured him there, hooking his arms beneath his legs and holding onto his waist. Trevor moved so that he sat on his knees on the mattress, positioned so that he could deliver precise, controlled motions.

   Alucard was familiar with Trevor’s strength. They had sparred with one another in the past, even quarreled with a seriousness. Trevor’s muscles had trembled and quaked when Alucard applied his full weight and strength against his. He had held his own against him, but then, he had a human strength. This newfound muscle control was a feature worthy of awe, gasp-inducing. Alucard’s eyes widened as something like a short, breathy laugh came from his lungs.

   Trevor smiled at his reaction. “Just relax – and hold on. I’ll do the work.”

   Trevor wielded his body as though he were weightless, sinking into him at a snail's pace before implanting himself as deeply as he could. Alucard’s head was swimming, falling back in bliss with his parted lips singing Belmont’s praises, pleasure radiating through his hallowed form as warm waves began to ripple through him. Trevor looked upon him with adoration in his eyes. He’d spent so much time in denial, repressing every tinge of a feeling toward him; and then even more time with the weight of remorse and grief that came with his absence. Now, in this entanglement, he feared relief may completely overcome tearhim.

   “T-Trevorr…” Alucard cried as his arms tightened around Belmont’s neck, “I-I’m goi-ing t-to… c-cum.”

   Trevor’s core buckled, and he planted Alucard onto his back on the mattress again before he took his place atop him in a mating press. A growl rattled his chest. He could hear Alucard’s heart beating faster, feel his skin grow warmer, and that sweet, sweet smell suddenly become virulent and entirely intoxicating. He could feel the itching of his teeth and a bestial desire to latch onto him churning within himself. His body released an involuntary whine in response to his resistance.

   “Fuck,” Trevor sobbed as he buried his face into the pillow beside Alucard’s neck, fighting against his violent desires as he dug his claws into the bed.

   Alucard, none the wiser to how his lover wrestled with the urge, turned his head to kiss him sweetly as he shot a string of pearls across Trevor’s stomach. He planted his lips against his cheek before nuzzling his face against Belmont’s until he turned his head to find his lips’ embrace. Trevor melted into him, his mind quieting and instincts redirected.  He thought only of kissing him, and how he felt wrapped around his cock.

   Trevor felt the way Alucard’s body had begun to contract, and felt his own coming to the precipice. Teetering breathlessly at the peak of brand-new heights, he felt the rush of abandon flow through him as he buried himself inside of Alucard and filled him. Alucard twitched beneath him with a smile on his face, inhaling deeply to catch his breath.

   A winded, but hearty laugh shook Trevor’s core as he came back to reality. Alucard could not help but laugh with him. They lay there for a few minutes, giggling and kissing one another, before the opening of the chamber door startled them both.

   “This place is absurdly hu-Oh!” Sypha gasped at the sight of them entangled. Her face burned bright pink.

   “Well, I see you two have been having some very productive conversations,” she teased them. “About time – not the time I expected, but good! I reckon the three of us will be needing a bath, then?”

   “I’ll drain the tub,” Trevor volunteered with a chortle as he peeled himself from Alucard. When he stood to his feet, he had a lightness about him. His shoulders were more relaxed, his back a bit straighter.

   Sypha joined Alucard with a cheeky grin and a sense of contentment, bemused by Trevor’s change in demeanor.  She was delighted to see him laugh, to see a smile on his face, to have Alucard back with them, for however long that lasted.