You laugh. You shouldn’t be laughing. Not like that. The wine glass in your hand doesn’t even have wine; everyone here knows that. What you're drinking is darker, thicker, and more expensive than any Bordeaux on the menu. And yet, you swirl it carelessly, as if you were just another mortal, as if you hadn’t spent centuries bound to a name whispered in fear.

Your “offering” a young human says something that pulls another laugh out of you. You tilt your head, looking at him with genuine interest. You forget, for a moment, the oath. The sect. What it means to be seen like this.

“You shouldn’t be doing that.” Damon’s voice is a velvet murmur heard from afar. You feel him before you see him that ancient presence that never needs to announce itself. You turn your head, and Jamie is already in front of you, half-seated on the back of a crimson velvet chair. He looks at you like a failed exhibit. The young man is gone.

“Chatting with your dinner?” Jamie asks, tilting his head, wearing that cynical smile.

“Or are you going to tell us it was nothing?” adds Damon, sitting beside you without asking. Of course, they had to send these two old men.

The air shifts. The whole place golden lights, hanging chandeliers, the murmurs of the false elite fades into a blur compared to the tension now thick between the three of you.

“You’re walking a very fine line,” Damon whispers, his cold fingers resting on your wrist. “And you know what happens to those who forget who they belong to.”