“Ego aperire ostium,” Master said, weakly, waving his arm over the sealed door. A white light burst from around all four edges, effectively shattering the seal. Without waiting for permission, I gripped the handle, turned it, and threw open the door to reveal the entrance to the clan’s hostel. I carried Sungmin in first, and Master and Jongwoon walked in after me. Master sealed the door once again and another burst of light told me escape would be impossible. Jongwoon and I were right back in the same place we had ran from five years ago, only this time, I didn’t think Master would be so willing to let us leave.

Still, I allowed a sigh of relief that we were finally away from the vampyre clan. Lucky for us, as we made our exit, there were few vampyres even aware of our presence and most thought twice before attacking a pureblood, even a weakened one. Master had already cleared a pathway from which he had arrived, and I did as any good chosen would, and just followed him.

“You can take Sungmin to your old room for now,” Master said, and I looked to Jongwoon, who gave a small nod. I didn’t want to leave him alone, especially after the night we had, but he reassured me that he would be alright with another nod. I hefted Sungmin up into a more comfortable position, and started walking down the dark corridor, noticing the ever peeling wallpaper in the dimness. Figured Master wouldn’t get that touched up or replaced. My shoes made a squeak every time the rubber met the wood flooring, and I gritted my teeth at the noise. Like Leeteuk’s rustic mansion, this sealed and abandoned hotel also hadn’t changed since the last time I had been here. Master had found this classic and vintage looking hotel almost a century before Jongwoon and I were even born as humans, and since then it had been a hostel for his dhampyre clan.

After a few more hallways, I finally reached my old room, and nostalgia washed over me, despite not using it for very long. The doorknob still had a dent from when I had been angry with Jongwoon and failed to understand my new strength. I doubted he ever really did forgive me for the things I said that night, but somehow we moved on. As if we had any other choice. I finally reached up and opened the door, stepping into the room before closing it back behind me. A musky scent, usually associated with old wood, was almost overwhelming in the room. I doubted anyone had even been in it since I left. Ignoring the smell, I set Sungmin onto the bed, making a large cloud of dust rise up, along with a sneeze from me.

“I see Master has been diligent in housekeeping since we left,” I muttered to myself. I rolled my shoulders, stretching a bit, before sitting on the edge of the bed. My eyes sought out the man’s closed ones, and I shrugged to myself. “You’ll probably be out for another hour or two, so I’m sure you won’t mind.”

A sigh fell from my lips as I brushed my hands across my legs, wrinkling my nose in disgust at the state of my clothes. I got up and dug through one of the dressers in the room, fortunately finding a few clothes that weren’t eaten by moths and didn’t look too bad. If I was to stay here though, some serious cleaning needed to be done. I walked into the en-suite bathroom, and closed the door. With a little jiggling, I got the shower to work, and I stripped of my grimy street clothes. As I scrubbed away about a month of dirt with some of my old soap, I realized Jongwoon and I were pushing it this time around. Usually we took some of the humans’ money, got ourselves some new clothes and a cheap motel room every few weeks, just to keep some semblance of humanity. I had to lather the soap three times just to get the dirt off, and my hair rejected even a massive amount of shampoo. Luckily, I got it all off, and I dried myself with one of the towels folded in the cupboard under the sink. After I got dressed again, I walked back into the bedroom.

“I guess I could at least clean you up a bit,” I said to the guy still lying unconscious. “Master wouldn’t saddle me with a vampyre, so you must be another one of his chosen. A fresh one if your bite marks are anything to go by. You haven’t had your first drink yet, have you?” I walked back into the bathroom and grabbed a semi decent cloth. I ran it under water, surprised that the tap still worked. Once the rag was damp enough, I headed back to the bed, and carefully turned the man’s face in order to begin washing the dirt away. He was almost as dirty as I had been, but underneath, his skin was pale like mine and a lot softer. At the first touch of the cold water, he began to stir, and by the time I finished his face, his eyes began to flutter open.

“You’re awake,” I said, raising an eyebrow, but internally something shifted around at the sight of large, dark brown, doe eyes peering back at me. At least until they glazed over in fear, and he began to let out soft little whimpers. “Hey, shh, I’m not going to hurt you,” I said, gripping him by his shoulders as he thrashed around, trying to hurt me.

“Let me go!” he shouted, struggling in my hold.

“Hey, just- Sungmin!” I shouted, when he finally managed to clip my temple with a well-aimed hand. His eyes widened.

“How do you know my name?” I almost sighed in relief.

“Good, you’re a dhampyre,” I said, causing him to look at me in complete confusion.

“Look, I don’t know who you are, but I just want to go home,” he pleaded, tears rising to his eyes. “I didn’t mean to snoop around, but I didn’t know anyone lived here. Please, just let me go, I promise I won’t say anything. I just want to go home.” Why did I have to be the one stuck explaining everything to him?

“My name is Kyuhyun, and I don’t know how to say this nicely,” I started, wondering why Master left this fledgling to me. “But you can’t go home. You’re dead.” He looked at me for a moment, before laughing.

“This is a joke right?” he asked, actually wearing a bit of a smile though it didn’t cover up the fear in his eyes. “I just know Hyukjae is waiting around the corner, laughing his head off.” Of course he wouldn’t believe me, so I had to do it the hard way. I grabbed his hand, and before he could react, placed it over his heart. Within seconds, the smile fell.

“I don’t feel my heart,” he stated with rising panic. His fingers curled in his shirt over his heart and I pulled his hand away and placed it over my heart, watching as his doe eyes widened. “You don’t have a heartbeat either,” he whispered, still not quite believing what he couldn’t feel. I dropped his hand, and brought my thumb to my mouth, biting hard enough to break the skin with an extended fang. I pulled my thumb out and showed him the open wound.

“We don’t bleed either,” I said as if it wasn’t obvious.

“So you really mean, I’m dead?” I nodded, and he swallowed back the tears I saw rising in his eyes. He jumped up, and rifled through the bedside drawer, finding a pocket knife that I left. I barely even recognized the weapon. Before I could grab him, he sliced into his own finger, and waited. Nothing. Shaking hands dropped the knife and he fell to his knees with a look of pure despair on his face.

“Sungmin-” A knock at the door interrupted me, and it opened to reveal a clean and better dressed Jongwoon.

“The master has told me to inform you that dinner is in the dining hall in an hour,” he said in an overly polite, stiff, and probably forced tone, before he closed the door. I sighed. He was going to give me an earful later about this. I looked to Sungmin.

“Who was he? Is he like… us? And who’s ‘the master?’ ” He crawled to the bed, and curled against the mattress on the floor, putting his head in his hands. “Why is this happening to me?” A choked sob escaped his mouth and I watched as tears finally rolled down his pale cheeks.

“That was my brother, and yes, he’s like us, and all three of us are Master’s chosen. I’ll let Master explain who he is to you. As for your last question, you and Master will have to figure that out.” I reached my hand out to the man who looked more like a scared little boy. Hesitantly, he accepted and I pulled him to his feet. I grabbed some of the halfway decent clothes from the drawer and handed them to him.

“You might want to get yourself cleaned up,” I said, jerking my head toward the bathroom. He nodded and sort of stumbled to the bathroom, still in a bit of a daze from the shock. After a moment, I heard the shower. I laid back on the bed, sneezing once more as another dust cloud flew up.

This place brought back memories, ones I wasn’t sure I wanted to remember. Some of pain and hurt, some of anger and regret, but most of hatred. Not the type of hatred I felt towards the vampyres, where I could disassociate myself from their actions and beliefs, and hate with incredible intensity, but a different one, a more personal and individualistic hatred.

A gasp involuntarily made its way out of my throat when Sungmin finally left the bathroom, looking much better than I thought he would. Dark hair had been detangled and left to fall just above his shoulders, and those doe eyes looked a lot brighter next to clean and smooth skin. He had a roundish face with pouty, m-shaped lips and slightly puffy cheeks that reminded me of a kid. Dressed in the old t-shirt and jeans, the clothes revealed a toned body, one that came from hours of training. Without a word, he sat down a foot or two away from me on the bed. He brought his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them.

“Are you sure this isn’t just a bad dream, or some kind of prank?” he asked.

“I’ve been asking myself the same question for the past six years.”

We sat there in silence until the little clock on the nightstand told us we should be heading down to the dining hall. I got up off the bed, but Sungmin looked like he needed more convincing to even move. Gently, trying not to startle him again, I grabbed his wrist and pulled him up. Still holding on, I led him out of the room and down the hallways I knew.

The dining hall was a large room that had originally been the hotel’s lounge but Master decided if this was going to be a hostel for his own clan, then he needed a space where dhampyres could at least have some semblance of their old life. He set it up with many small tables, similar to how a restaurant would look, with the coziness of a fireplace, dried flowers all around, and candle lighting shining bright in combination with the large chandelier which grandly held crystals that reflected the light everywhere. The largest table was reserved for Master and whoever he had invited to sit with. As we made our entrance, I found the room to be empty, save for that table. Master sat at the head, while my brother sat to his right, and if the scowl was anything to go by, he didn’t want to be there.

“Ah, welcome,” Master said with a soft smile, highlighting his cheeks. Three other faces turned to watch our approach, and I only recognized two. Siwon, Master’s high priest, sat at his left. Donghae, Master’s caretaker, second in command, and sycophant by choice, sat next to the priest. The third face belonging to someone sitting next to my brother, looked young, and was probably in his late teens when he was changed. He had small eyes and chubby cheeks.

I led Sungmin to the remaining seats, and since it would have been best not to start a commotion, I chose the seat next to the unfamiliar guy. Placing myself next to Donghae would only mean trouble. Dinner had already been served in a single wine glass, but Sungmin looked confused at the lack of food. He looked around the room for waiters or someone to bring out dishes, especially since the wine glass was filled with blood, and that probably didn’t look appetizing to him. Master’s glass was the only one that remained empty, and had been ever since Jongwoon had become his sponsa. Everyone who had the glasses, save for Sungmin and surprisingly my brother, began to take sips of the precious liquid. Even I had a gulp of my share, feeling the cut on my thumb begin to close up, and my hunger subsiding. Sungmin’s doe eyes looked at me pleadingly. It took me a moment to figure out why. He needed an explanation, and I was the only one who he could even think about trusting. I looked around the table, noticing Donghae glaring at Jongwoon, Siwon slowly savoring his glass, Master looking calmly at the man on his right, and Jongwoon staring into his glass. The guy on my left guzzled his glass, and I figured he must have been another fledgling. Older dhampyres had more control around blood once they got used to the taste.

“Master,” I spoke quietly, earning the stare of every set of eyes. “I’m going to take Sungmin to the wine cellar.” He looked surprised, but after glancing to the scared man, nodded. I stood from the table, grabbing both mine and Sungmin’s glass. With a jerk of my head, I got him to follow me once again, this time through a dusty kitchen and down a set of stairs. I heard a gasp, as Sungmin realized his newly acquired night vision, and I let him be while I sought out the door and opened it, careful not to spill a drop.

He followed me inside the dark, cool, but dry room, and waited close to the door while I wandered around the room to find the bottle I was looking for. It only took a minute to find the sweet red wine that I once favored. I went back to Sungmin, handing him his glass.

“This will help you get used to the taste,” I said, popping the cork with my thumb. I poured enough into his glass that I knew the coppery taste would be toned down, yet still present. I took a sip from my own glass, waiting for him to follow my example. He only stared at it, his lip trembling. “Need me to drink from it to prove its safe?” His head shook solemnly, and, as if he had just mustered the courage, he tilted his head back and downed the entire glass, only to look like he wanted to spit it back out. A few seconds later, he swallowed the last bit with an expression of pure disgust.

“What was that?” he asked sounding completely repulsed.

“I think I should explain something else first, before I tell you,” I said, and he nodded despite looking skeptical, holding the wineglass tightly in his hands. I really didn’t want him to start panicking, because like a baby snake with strong venom, fledglings had a strength that faded after a few weeks to help protect them against older vampyres. I could probably overpower him, but he would be a challenge I didn’t feel like taking on.

“First, you understand that we are dead right?” A nod. “And that this isn’t really Heaven or Hell, just Earth, and unfortunately, not a bad dream?” He hesitated, but nodded once more. “Have you ever heard of vampyres?” This time, I knew he was going to make the wrong connection. The glass fell from his hands, shattering upon the dark floor. I looked at it with disdain. What a waste of fine glassware.

“You mean I’m a vampyre, one of those bloodsucking monsters in stories? Oh God, this can’t be real, I can’t be a monster.” Before he worked himself into another panic, I shook my head.

“Not exactly.” I caught his suspicious, but curious look and decided that I needed to just tell him, and stop stalling. “We were Changed by our master, who is a pureblood, so we’re dhampyres, not vampyres, which is almost worse.”

“What?” he asked, definitely not understanding. Of course he wouldn’t. I didn’t when I was Changed. Dhampyres were rare to find in books or on TV and those didn’t describe them in the right way. An offspring of a human and vampyre? Impossible. Without blood coursing through the body, was almost impossible and definitely not enjoyable for male vampyres, and females couldn’t make a womb for any possible child.

“Dhampyres are more human than a vampyre, though physically we’re the same. But it’s that human part of us that kills us.” Instead of panicking once again, which I was grateful for, the man looked like he was seriously trying to comprehend what I was saying. Maybe it was saying that we were still partially human that calmed him a bit.

“Why would being human be a danger?”

“We remember.” I didn’t give him a chance to ask for clarification before continuing. “We remember what it’s like to be human, such as powerful emotions, and we remember what our life was like. Vampyres don’t. They can’t feel the things we do, and some of the more powerful ones, bloodkings, can’t even remember physical pain. They can kill, take blood and even enjoy doing so, without having the feelings of guilt that we’re are stuck with.” The corners of his mouth twisted in a grimace. Once again, I had the feeling he was going to be sick, which was kind of impossible since we had nothing inside of us to throw up. The blood that we drank had already been absorbed by our tissue, and even the wine that he had would be absorbed, and would react with the blood. Luckily, the worst it could do would make his skin tingle a bit, which was annoying, but not dangerous.

“So I drank blood? From a…” He couldn’t bring himself to say “dead person,” and he didn’t have to, since I shook my head.

“Master had, or has, some connections. He gets blood from human blood banks that have one or two dhampyres in it, and they smuggle it to us.” A brief sigh of relief passed through his lips. “Most dhampyres, like you, cannot stand the thought of killing for food, so that was one of the first things Master put into place when he started his clan.”

“And the others?” I shrugged and took another sip from my glass.

“Died of bloodlust or got used to the thought of needing to kill.”

“Bloodlust?” I looked to him, and he stared back, once again reminding me of a child, this time with large innocent eyes, knowing nothing more than trust to someone who was little less than a stranger who had been with him when he woke up.

“Stop drinking this,” I raised my glass a little, “and after a while, you’ll feel bloodlust. It’s pretty much madness that eats away at you. Those who become fully bloodlusted, don’t ever become sane again, and usually go out human hunting. It starts with feeling thirsty, like you’re in a desert and you know nothing but thirst and that it may be miles before you find something to quench that thirst. Next your body starts going through spasms, or convulsions, where it literally feels like your body is rejecting everything inside you, and is forcing it out. The last, and only irreversible phase, is where even gallons of blood can’t fulfill the undying thirst, and your sanity breaks with the need to seek out as much blood as you can find. You get to the point where your claws and fangs are almost permanently extended, and friend, foe, or stranger, you attack. So if you ever decide not taste another drop of the stuff, just do everyone a favor and stake yourself. For vampyres and dhampyres alike, bloodlust only makes a mess.”

“So I either drink someone’s blood, die, or go insane?” I nodded, and he laughed a bit, but it sounded so emotionless, I almost wondered if he was a vampyre for a moment. “But I’m already dead, right? So I guess it doesn’t really matter what I do, does it?”

“Not really,” I agreed, once again shrugging. I decided I had enough of playing teacher, and I wanted to enjoy my glass of blood in peace, so I began to head to the door, only to be stopped by a strong grip.

“Wait, what about purebloods, or whatever you called them?” I turned around to face him again, and I just had to think that this fledgling seemed to change emotions like a game of roulette; wherever the ball landed meant a different emotion to show.

“Purebloods are the dhampyre equivalent to vampyre bloodkings, which you may have met, and both are a bit of a mystery. While purebloods will never experience bloodlust, they will grow weak from not drinking. No one but the purebloods themselves have any idea how they have extra abilities when they are Changed, which by the way, is what we call going from human to vampyre or dhampyre, and I think even the purebloods don’t know all the specifics.” It seemed like that answer satisfied him, at least for the moment, and I was glad to finally leave the cellar with him tagging along behind me. We returned to the dining hall, which had one less dhampyre, and I looked to the empty seat where my brother had sat in earlier.

“We were just talking about you two,” a voice said and I wanted to growl when I recognized it, but instead maintained my composure.

“Only good words, right?” I said with a sickly sweet smile, which had the glare that Donghae sent me growing even fiercer.

“Of course,” another, more sincere voice answered and I looked to a smiling Siwon.

“Yes, we were wondering where Sungmin would stay,” Master spoke, ignoring the animosity between me and Donghae, “and if you both would like to continue staying at this hostel. I do insist though, that Sungmin remains here for a few more weeks in order to become more acquainted with his Change. Kyuhyun, you are free to leave whenever you wish.”

“Is that what Jongwoon decided to do? Leave?” Master’s face twitched as I struck a nerve. I ignored Sungmin’s look of confusion, and pressed on. “Or are you not even offering that to him?”

“Kyu-”

“He is Master’s sponsa,” Donghae interrupted Master in a loud voice. “He should have never been allowed to leave in the first place. He has a duty to the Master and-”

“Don’t act as though you understand anything,” I told him icily. Donghae looked as though he wanted to argue but Master raised his hand, making him slump back in his chair in defeat.

“Your brother will begin to understand the role he should act as my sponsa, and-”

“To hell he will,” I growled, being the one to interrupt Master this time. I didn’t even let Donghae have his own comeback, before I strode away from the table and headed towards my room. Another set of footsteps followed mine, and I didn’t even have to look to know they belonged to Sungmin as he still wore the scent of the wine he just drank. What I wouldn’t give to be able to get drunk again. Not a word was uttered, and we made it to my door with only the sound of his footsteps to keep us company – yet another thing the fledgling had to learn. I grabbed the doorknob and groaned as I opened it, revealing what awaited me.

“We need to- oh,” Jongwoon stopped talking when he noticed the man behind me, and I gave him a resigned shrug. What could I say? The guy was already attached to me. “I didn’t know you had company,” he said in his usual voice, standing up off my bed.

“He’s just a fledgling,” I said, though it wasn’t the greatest excuse. “You should know how he feels right now.”

“Fledgling?” Sungmin asked, quietly.

“Newly Changed,” Jongwoon supplied, with a soft smile, though it never reached his eyes. “You’ll get used to the new words soon enough. As I was saying, we need to leave. I spoke to Siwon before we left, and while Master is weak-”

“You guys keep calling that short guy master. Why?” Sungmin interrupted, and though I glared at him for the action, Jongwoon was merciful. He always had more patience for others.

“He was the one who Changed us, therefore, as a formality more than anything else, we call him ‘master.’ His real name is Ryeowook, which Kyuhyun probably has forgotten once again.”

“How could I forget the name of the guy you curse every other moment of the day?” I flopped onto the bed and stretched out, before waving my hand in a circular motion. “You were saying something about leaving?” My brother rolled his eyes and crossed his arms.

“Siwon said he could open the door since Master is weak from not feeding from me and everything he’s had to do today.”

“So you’re saying we should go back to being bloodhounds? Which, Sungmin, are vampyres and dhampyres without a clan, who go out human hunting in order to eat, just so you know.” The man’s eyes widened and looked between me and Jongwoon, but he didn’t leave, not that he really had anywhere else to go.

“Was that necessary?” Jongwoon asked, raising an eyebrow before looking to Sungmin, who had already begun to panic again.

“You killed people?” Sungmin asked, shakily.

“To keep from going bloodlusted, and to ensure we didn’t make more fledglings, yes. We killed and then drank their blood, and we continued to be those monsters in those horror movies that always end with a stake to their heart anyways.” I sat up, and threw my arms up. “Hey, Jongwoon, instead of running again, why don’t we just speed up the process, stake ourselves or spend a day in the wonderful sunlight?”

“Because I don’t just hold my life within me,” he answered solemnly and walked to the door. “And forced or not, the other life belongs to one who is needed by too many others. That’s why we run. And you know why you run with me, so don’t forget the promise you made.” With those serious words, Jongwoon walked out, closing the door in finality. How could I forget that promise? I lied back down, and rolled over, facing the wall. The day was spent in my room, in total silence, as Sungmin finally learned to keep his mouth shut.

As dusk approached, Sungmin finally began to stir once again, looking out the window into the fading daylight. I watched through barely open eyes as a dimming orange glow bathed him through white curtains, and how a single tear rolled down his cheek.

“I wish there was some kind of dictionary for everything I have to learn,” Sungmin complained one night. It had already been a week since we were taken from one prison to another, but at least the food here was better than what Jongwoon and I previously dined on. Even Sungmin had started to get used to the taste, and his new instincts had him eating at almost all hours of the day, which was what we were doing in the kitchen at the time.

“Just be glad you didn’t have a recently Changed pureblood as your master,” said Henry, the newest member of the clan and the guy I didn’t recognize that first night. “He didn’t know what he was doing at all, and I had been his first and last chosen. If I didn’t try to make a meal out of Ryeowook, I would have been driven bloodlusted before anyone found me.”

“You were lucky to have escaped the vampyres that killed your master,” Jongwoon said, taking a particular liking to Henry. We both did actually, especially since the Canadian dhampyre drove Donghae crazy with his informality, and loud personality.

“Yeah. So Sungmin, you could have it much worse,” Henry said with a bit of a laugh. Sungmin returned Henry’s comment with an amused smile.

“So there’s vampyres and dhampyres, right?” Sungmin started after a moment.

“No wonder you’re having so many problems. You can’t even grasp the basics,” I said with a smirk, earning myself a weak glare.

“What I was trying to ask was if there were any other, you know, mythical creatures out there? Like werewolves or something?”

“No werewolves,” I said, and then shrugged. “But there are creatures called werecats. Typical house cats that turn human on the nights of new moons. Ferocious little devils, too.”

“Really?” Sungmin asked, totally believing it. I waited three seconds before I burst out laughing, along with Henry. Jongwoon shook his head.

“Sungmin, you should learn that half of whatever comes out of my brother’s mouth is usually something he made up.”

“Ok, so there are no werecats or werewolves,” I said, finally satisfied with my little trick. It had been too long since I really had someone to tease. Jongwoon got mad at me too easily, especially when he was hungry, and during those years we were on the streets, he almost always was. “Both of those are purely human creation. On the other hand, there are the fey, and a few rare witch covens, but we don’t come into contact with either of them too often.”

“I don’t know if I should trust you anymore,” he said, sounding suspicious, before drinking some of his blood and wine. Henry’s glass was already empty, while the few swallows in mine and Jongwoon’s glasses were still untouched.

“Nah, the fey really do exist,” Jongwoon stated. “You’ve probably only heard of them as fairies, but they are grotesque human lookalikes. They typically lead humans down to their courts where the humans spend an eternity dancing and playing to the fey’s every command, totally enchanted.”

“And Seelie or Unseelie Court, they’re just two different forms of vile evil,” I muttered. Sungmin stared at me wide eyed for a moment. “If there are any creatures worse than vampyres, then they could only be fey.”

“Witches on the other hand,” Jongwoon began to explain, “practice a very rare, and ancient magyk. Their covens lie deep in the middle of places unexplored by humans, and as far away from civilization as possible. Master once asked a member of a coven to visit for Siwon, when he had been poisoned by his own magyk, and she spoke to me of her own home and her sisters.”

“What I want to know, since we seem to be explaining everything anyways,” Henry said, earning everyone’s attention, “is how Siwon got his magyk anyways. I mean, bloodkings have their birthrights when they’re changed, and purebloods have their magyk from the start. So what makes him so special?”

“As a fledgling he went to a witch coven,” Jongwoon answered. “And after learning their ways, was blessed with magyk. Since he is male, did not have magyk since birth, and magyk is stronger when in practice with other magyk users, he can do very little. Still, he’s useful as a healer, and can do basic vampyric rituals.”

“Such as creating a bond between a vampyre and the one they chose as their sponsa sanguineus?” Henry asked, faltering in his question when he noticed Jongwoon’s face turn from mildly content to tense.

“Yes,” Jongwoon said simply. He stared at his glass, then without any warning, threw it across the room, sending glass shards flying and blood dripping. “I’ve lost my appetite,” he said in explanation, and left the room.

“A word of advice,” I said quietly, a moment later. “Don’t speak the words sponsa sanguineus around my brother. Ever.”

“Why not?” Sungmin chose to ask, curious as always. I downed my glass of blood, but its taste never brought the refreshing relief I had grown used to.

“He regrets not having any other choice but to become one.” I chose that moment to walk away from the fledglings. Even I couldn’t bring up the bond with my brother. He only told me that Master hadn’t given him a choice, and then refused to share any more on the subject. Even so, all the pain that followed had me believing in some truly horrible event.

My feet carried me down hallways, and soon I stood in front of the library, a place I rarely found myself going to. I shrugged and opened the door to the large room filled with shelves upon shelves of books that Master had collected over the years, in many different languages, some dead to most humans. It was by far not the largest of collections, since Leeteuk’s clan had an even wider variety of books, but it was by no means small.

The sound of a page turning, alerted me to another presence in the room. I looked to the tables to find Master reading through old tomes. He glanced up as I approached, and closed the book he had been thumbing through. A soft smile touched his lips, though I couldn’t help but think it looked rather out of place on his otherwise melancholy face.

“Kyuhyun, what are you doing here?” he asked, stacking the books into a single pile. There were five of them, each with a different Latin name on the spine, but otherwise looked almost exactly the same.

“Trying to get away from the fledglings.” He chuckled, and once again looked like a normal twenty-five year old human, not a centuries old pureblood. I leaned against the table, choosing not to sit down.

“You sound as though you weren’t a fledgling only a year or so ago.”

“Yes, but I had to stop being the awkward, ignorant fledgling, two seconds after I had been Changed. I had a brother to take care of.” Master’s face darkened and I almost asked to take back my words. Almost.

“So even you won’t forgive me for such a stupid mistake,” he said softly, with remorse in his tone. I shrugged.

“It’s not my forgiveness you need. I wasn’t forced to become your sponsa.”

“No, but you were Changed without a choice.”

“It isn’t too bad being a dhampyre, except for the fact I’m dead, I have to feed off of blood, and I still have all these messy emotions,” I said casually and his face contorted into a pained grimace as he knew that those were the three parts of a dhampyre. “And being here is better than the streets, even if my brother will never admit to it.”

“Nice to know that he thinks there’s one thing worse than staying here,” he said, with defeat in his voice.

“Two things.” He looked up to me in surprise. “He also hates Leeteuk’s clan.” Master let out a soft chuckle. “So what have you been reading?”

“Just old books that are as dry as the vampyres that wrote them,” he dismissed, but then a small shred of enthusiasm lightened his face. “Did you know the first recorded pureblood was in the time of Caesar? Before that, no vampyres had heard of our existence and they thought that dhampyres were like the runts of the litter. Being emotionally weaker, and prone to bloodlust and acts of ‘savagery,’ as they put it, had them thinking the sane ones could only be useful as servants and the others deserved only to be staked. Those feelings didn’t change over time, even with the discovery of purebloods who are more powerful with their use of magyk, than any of the vampyres, even the bloodkings.”

“So you’re saying we always have and always will be seen as the weaker of the two?” He smiled, though it was more of a twitch of the corners of his mouth than an actual smile.

“You could look at it that way.” He rose to his feet, sidestepping around the table and patting my shoulder, as he gracefully made his way out of the room. I looked at the large pile of books on the table and grabbed the one I saw him looking through. Without much interest, I flipped through some of the pages, noting that learning Latin would have been helpful, when two words caught my eye. Sponsa sanguineus was written in that eloquent cursive, and as I searched the page, I found it written over and over, strung in sentences with words I didn’t understand at all. I turned a few more pages, and I found it again. I flipped to pages towards the back, and the two words appeared once more. Moving that book to the side, I grabbed the next one, finding sponsa sanguineus written on the first page I turned to. Without even looking, I had a feeling the other three books were the same way.

What was Master doing, looking up information on the bond in ancient tomes? He wasn’t thinking of… was he?

Before I started to make assumptions, I needed someone who could read Latin. The only person here, other than Master, who could read Latin was not an easy man to ask a favor of, since the high priest had many of his own duties to attend to. There was one other person I could think of, a woman, but she was eccentric at best and positively insane at her worst. I’d take my chances with Siwon, before risking a visit to her.

I just hoped that Master wasn’t thinking of trying to find a way to force Jongwoon to allow him to feed from him.