The Sky Was Never Young: Vampire System Apocalypse

The heat of his mouth was too close.

For hours, Florianthum had kept her pulse anchored to a slow, mechanical rhythm, pretending to be nothing more than a broken weapon left on the satin pillows. But the sudden shift in the air tore through her discipline. It was the distinct, ticklish warmth of his breath- heavy, damp, and thick with the suffocating scent of the perfumed wine he had drank the night before.

He was leaning down, his lips brushing the raw, swollen skin just millimeters away from the puncture marks where Cassius’s teeth had torn her open.

Her eyes snapped open.

The transition from feigned unconsciousness to sudden reality made the vaulted ceiling spin in a blur of blood-red velvet and flickering firelight.

"Viluca..."

The name left her throat as a soft, cracked fragment. Her tongue felt heavy, stuck to the roof of her mouth from the hours of forced stillness and the lingering exhaustion of the courtyard fight. It was a slip, a rare crack in the perfect armor she usually maintained around him.

"Ezailum..."

The word cut through her stammering like a thin blade. Vilucious didn’t shout. His voice was soft, but it carried that distinct, high-pitched register that always made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up- a sharp, reedy tone that belonged to someone who had never needed to raise his voice to be obeyed.

"I am your lord... Lord Vilucious."

The reedy, high-pitched voice made her remember about everything, in one line. Before she could pull away, he placed his arms under her head by lifting her head a bit to make her rest on it.

On the surface, it was an act of profound tenderness. The silk of his sleeve was cool against her skin, and his grip was steady, offering the kind of absolute security that most women in the capital would have begged for.

Florianthum’s eyes were now perfectly open, but she looked uncomfortable even in the most comfortable arms that he made for her to rest. Her uncomfortableness was not visible that much on the surface, but the tension in her jaw was electric.

Yet beneath her strong warrior outfit, her heart was hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Something in her wanted to get away from there right at that time. The urge was so violent it made her stomach turn. She wanted to drop her weight, roll off the edge of the massive bed, and drag herself across the polished obsidian floor- anything to put distance between her throat and the soft, high-pitched breathing of the man holding her.

With a slow, deliberate care that felt more like a calculated restraint than genuine affection, Vilucious eased his arm out from beneath her neck, letting her head sink back onto the dark satin pillows. He shifted on the mattress, the silk sheets whispering beneath his weight as he sat up just enough to unfasten the intricate golden clasps of his heavy doublet.

He didn’t need to call out.

The palace operated on a clockwork of absolute submission.

From the deep shadows near the heavy velvet drapes, a guard stepped forward with absolute silence. The man kept his eyes fixed firmly on the obsidian floor, carrying a massive, silk-lined royal cloth tray outspread before him. As Vilucious shrugged the heavy, gold-embroidered doublet from his shoulders, he dropped it onto the tray without a single glance at the servant.

The guard caught the velvet garment seamlessly, took two measured steps backward into the artificial twilight, and vanished from the room as if he had never been there at all.

Shorn of his heavy outer layer, Vilucious settled back into the expanse of the bed, tilting his frame completely toward Florianthum. He rolled onto his side, drawing her flush against him with a slow, heavy pressure.

One of his long arms draped possessively across her chest- an anchor meant to keep her pinned beneath him- while his other hand began to slowly caress the bare skin of her arm, his fingers tracking the line of her muscle with a lazy, deliberate cadence.

He reached up, his long fingers gently brushing a stray, snow-white strand of hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

"The apothecaries examined you while you slept," he murmured, his reedy, high-pitched voice dropping to a confidential purr against her cheek.

"They warn that your blood burns too hot, my love. Such blinding fury drains the body far faster than a common blade. They say you must rest, lest the fatigue break what the battlefield could not."

Florianthum kept her eyes locked on his, her breathing tight, but he was already moving.

Vilucious wore a thin, dark velvet glove on his left hand. He raised his index finger, tracing the line of her jawline before sliding the soft, heavy fabric smoothly over her lips. He pressed the tip of his gloved finger against her lower lip, parting it just a fraction of an inch, his gaze darkening with an intense, suffocating pride.

"My darling grew fierce for my sake," he whispered, his thumb lightly smoothing the corner of her mouth.

"She allowed herself to fall ill simply to shield me from the dirt. How could I ever fail to cherish a love like that?"

The distance between them shrank until the heat of his skin felt like a fever through his linen shirt. His hand shifted from her arm, his fingers tracking a slow, heavy path upward along her shoulder, his palm pressing into the curve of her neck with an increasing, restless weight.

He leaned in closer, his shadow completely blocking out the remaining firelight, his chest brushing against hers with every shallow, reedy breath he drew.

His eyes didn’t look at her face anymore; they were fixed entirely on her mouth. His gloved index finger lingered on her lower lip, pressing with a slow, rhythmic friction that felt less like a caress and more like a demand.

He tilted his head slightly, his mouth hovering just inches from hers, his breath hitching as he closed the remaining space until the tips of their noses almost touched.

Every line of his body was taut, leaning down into her space with a slow, deliberate gravity, his fingers tightening against her jaw to tilt her face up exactly where he wanted it.

The mattress groaned softly under Vilucious’s shifting weight as he leaned in even closer. The heavy, copper-laced perfume radiating from his skin filled her nose, a scent so thick it made her throat tighten.

His shadow fell over her face, completely blocking out the ambient orange glow of the fireplace.His gloved index finger pressed harder against her bottom lip, his thumb anchoring firmly under her jaw to tilt her face upward.

He closed his eyes, his head tilting to the side as his lips parted, his warm breath hitching in his chest just inches from her mouth.

"Ah..."

The sound slipped from Florianthum’s lips... a sharp, breathy hiss of pure agony.Her back arched slightly off the silk sheets, her shoulders tensing into rigid lines.

She let out a small, wet whimper, her teeth clicking together as she sharply turned her head to the left, burying the side of her face into the dark pillow to break his angle.

Vilucious froze.

The soft, rhythmic friction of his glove stopped instantly.

A sharp, irritated intake of air whistled through his nose. He pulled his head back a few inches, his eyes snapping open to look down at her. His gaze dropped from her mouth directly to the purple-black bruising on her neck, where the skin around the puncture marks was pulled tight and red.

"The wound?" his reedy voice dropped into a low, demanding whisper.

"The... the flesh," Florianthum rasped, letting her voice tremble as she drew a ragged, shallow breath. A soft groan escaped her throat when she tried to swallow. "Every time... every time I tilt my head, it feels as though the skin is tearing wide open again."

Vilucious let out a slow, heavy sigh that smelled faintly of sour wine. The suffocating, touchy heat that had filled the space between them vanished. He slid his hand down from her jaw, his heavy gold rings clicking together in the quiet room as his fingers retreated.

"Vile, stubborn little rat," he muttered, though his tone was directed at Cassius, not her. He shifted his weight, rolling back onto his side with a dull rustle of the silk blankets. He kept one heavy arm slung carelessly over her waist, but the danger had passed.

"The apothecaries will pay for this. They assured me the stitching was secure."

Florianthum lay perfectly still, her eyes tracking the flickering shadows on the ceiling as her heart slowly found its steady, icy rhythm again.

Florianthum let out a slow, deliberate breath, her lips parting as she looked up into the artificial twilight of the canopy.

"I wanted... to-"

She cut herself off, letting the sentence hang in the air like a fragile thing.

The response from Vilucious was instantaneous. He tilted his head to the side, his fluid, light grey irises... pale and sharp drowning straight into her eyes. There was a hypnotic, heavy gravity to his gaze, a royal coldness that demanded absolute transparency.

The arm beneath her neck shifted fluidly, his long fingers starting to softly caress the back of her head, his palm cupping the base of her skull with a steady, grounding pressure that felt entirely like a velvet cage.

"Speak," he murmured.

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