CHAPTER 55: DUNGEONS

Vivian had just left Zyren’s office when he slowly rose to his feet, each movement calm yet marked by a quiet disgust. He reached into a cupboard and pulled out a folded cloth, dabbing at his hands and mouth with deliberate precision, as though scrubbing away something foul that had clung to him. His expression remained blank, but the subtle curl of his lip spoke volumes.

When he was done, he tossed the soiled cloth onto a nearby table, where it would later be collected without question. His next motion was swift—he pulled open another, smaller cupboard, his sharp gaze fixed on the single red vial nestled within.

He didn’t hesitate. The vial was uncorked and drained in one tilt of his hand, the blood-colored liquid vanishing down his throat without so much as a blink. The effect was immediate.

His skin cracked open.

It wasn’t loud, but the tearing was grotesque—thin lines of rupturing flesh spread across his cheeks and neck. Blood streamed from his nose and lips. It crawled through him like fire beneath the skin.

If Aria had witnessed this, she would have collapsed—twice since his symptoms were just like when she had poisoned him but milder.

His face was expressionless, but his eyes burned with agony. Still, he made no sound. Not a grunt. Not a breath. He simply stood there, swallowing pain like it was routine.

When it passed, he didn’t bother changing out of the clothes now faintly stained with blood. Instead, he reached for a long coat, slipped it on with practiced ease, and exited the room with quiet finality.

The guards stationed outside his door dropped instantly to one knee as he emerged, foreheads pressed to the polished stone floor. Zyren’s mere presence was enough to still the air around them.

He didn’t speak until he reached the top of the stairs.

"Half of you stay," he ordered flatly.

The remaining three guards rose, silently falling into formation behind him. None dared to speak or question his command. They knew better. Every vampire trained in his service understood the weight of silence and obedience when it came to their king.

Zyren didn’t leave the mansion. Instead, he turned sharply to the right, heading toward the back. There, nestled like a forgotten scar in the estate’s shadow, stood a building that seemed to swallow light—a structure as black as obsidian, void of windows, color, or warmth.

Two guards stood at its front, not standard ones but monsters in uniform, their gazes sharp and cruel. They dropped to their knees instantly when they saw him, heads lowered to the ground. Zyren didn’t so much as glance at them as he passed through the main entrance.

Darkness greeted him like an old friend. The interior was devoid of even a flicker of light, but he walked forward with the surety of someone who could see perfectly. He left the three guards outside. There was no use for them where he was going.

This was the dungeon.

It wasn’t just a name—it was a sentence. This was where he kept the ones who needed to disappear. Mostly vampires. Criminals. Traitors.

Zyren’s pace quickened.

His boots echoed off the stone walls as he moved deeper, past corridors that twisted and turned like veins in a dead body. At last, he turned right again, descending a narrow flight of stairs. The air grew colder, heavier, pressing down with the weight of a thousand unspoken sins.

His expression was cold and the air around him only got colder the second he got to the bottom of the stairs, glancing at the lights that were scattered all over even as his gaze was fixed on the first cell he came across and the woman inside with a walking stick.

What was surprising was the fact that her eyes were red which meant that she was a vampire but at the same time her face was old which meant that she had lived even longer that Zyren himself.

"My king!" Savira, the Vampire healer he was acquainted with and whose presence he had also noticed but ignored, fell on her knees to greet him even as he continued to ignore her.

His attention on the older woman who walked out of the cell he was looking in, her came trembling as she bowed her head even before she got him, not as low as she should.

"Hilda," Zyren said, voice sharp and cold.

The old woman lifted her head just enough to meet his gaze, her face a mask of ancient weariness and strange, stubborn calm. Her eyes were red, but her skin sagged with age. She was older than Zyren by centuries, and everyone knew she was dangerous—even without lifting a finger, she could kill the guards above.

"The potion works," he said without ceremony. "My regeneration is faster now. But it’s not enough."

Hilda nodded, coming to stand beside him at the bars, her bony fingers gripping the cane harder as she spoke.

"No. It’s not," she replied bluntly.

Savira remained where she was, silent and cautious, too experienced to interrupt what she wasn’t invited into.

Hilda with her black hair bound in a bun, barely reaching Zyren’s chest and wrinkles on her skin gestures her hands forward pointing at the inside of the cell as she spoke where three bodies were tied up in a brutal and grotesque way.

Their eyes had been plucked out, teeth missing and even limbs hacked off still in the process of healing. The furry ears on their head the only indication that they were werewolves especially with their skin having been melted off.

There were three and only two were alive with one of them having a huge hole in his chest where is Heart should be.

"The potion was made from his heart," Hilda said, tilting her chin toward the corpse. "I’ll need more to work with."

Zyren opened his mouth. "You can use—"

"No," she interrupted, shaking her head before he could finish.

A mistake.

His gaze snapped to her like a blade unsheathed. She flinched and bowed low again, her hunched frame trembling now.

"Your mother and brother," she said quickly. "They’ll come in handy. Keep them alive—for now."

Zyren’s eyes flicked toward the corridor at the far end, shrouded in darkness, a place not even the dim lanterns dared to touch. He didn’t move. But his silence was louder than anything.

"My king," Hilda said again, voice quieter this time. "The girl. The heatblood. You should consider draining her. Bonding with her might be... unwise."

Her voice lowered further, hesitant. "The records are gone. We don’t know what happens after the bond."

Zyren turned his head.

"Are you questioning me?" he asked quietly.

Hilda’s body jolted. Her legs shook beneath her now in earnest.

Zyren took a step forward, his voice dropping to something even colder as he began walking toward the dark corridor.

"Do it again, Hilda..." he said, "and I’ll have your aged heart for breakfast."

She dropped into a bow so low her knees cracked against the stone. "Yes, my king."

Zyren continued walking down the hall, into that pitch-dark tunnel where the most dangerous secrets were kept. Past the light, past the air. Toward the cell where his mother and brother were locked away in silence and shadow.

It was still kinder than what he had done to his father—beheading him, and leaving his head displayed on the roof until the sun turned it to ash.