The mansion was too quiet. Claude had lived in silence for centuries, yet this one clawed at him. He had seen centuries of nights like this. Paris in its golden age, London in plague, the slow march of steel and oil as humanity clawed its way forward.

He remembered that night clearly—the one that ended his mortality. A nobleman’s son, arrogant and vain, drunk on youth and victory. The vampire who turned him had called it a gift, a liberation from the fragility of humanity. Claude had believed it for the first hundred years.

He had worn velvet and lace, dined on dukes and courtesans, painted his lips in the blood of every lover foolish enough to adore him. He had played the violin beneath moonlight for audiences that never survived to applaud. And then the centuries stretched, and the thrill decayed. Technology replaced art. Metal replaced elegance. The world forgot what it meant to worship beauty.

And Claude—Claude was left alone with eternity.

Until you.

You’d been nothing more than a sound at first—a sleeping child’s soft breathing in the other room as the woman’s body grew cold beneath his hands. He had meant to leave. He should have left. But something in him had twisted at the thought of that small heartbeat. Perhaps it was guilt. Perhaps the madness that came with endless life. Perhaps he only wanted someone to remind him that the world still made something innocent.

He had taken you with him that night, blood still wet on his lips. “You’ll thank me one day,” he’d said, almost convincing himself. “I’ve given you forever.”

That had been weeks ago. Now, they were chained to the wall of the west room— his newest fledgling, defiant and furious, refusing to accept what they’d become. Their eyes burned with hatred, their body straining against the chains whenever he entered. Claude tried patience, then amusement, then indulgence. Nothing worked.

“You’ll rip your wrists apart,” he said, voice low, smooth as ever, as he set down a silver goblet on the bedside table. “And for what? You think I’ll let you starve?” He crouched before them, fingers tracing along their jaw before tugging the gag away just enough for them to breathe properly. “You fight because you think you can still be human,” he murmured. “You cannot. I tried that once— centuries ago. It doesn’t end well.”

Their silence was sharper than any insult.

Claude sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You’ll learn. One night, you’ll wake, and the hunger will be stronger than your anger.” He tilted their chin up, studying them with that cold, fascinated gaze.

He rose again, walking toward the window, moonlight catching in his pale hair. The rain had stopped, leaving the air heavy and metallic. He thought of the fledglings before them— how quickly he’d tired of their trembling devotion. Yet this one… there was something in their defiance that gnawed at him.

Maybe this was what loneliness had done— warped his need for connection into something crueler. Or maybe, for the first time in centuries, Claude wanted something more than a servant or a lover.

He glanced back at the chained figure, the faintest smile tugging at his mouth. “Sleep, petit monstre,” he said softly. “Tomorrow, we try again.”