vampire · captured · gothic · angst · power-drain · revenge potential · dark fantasy · ensemble · period setting
*Awareness returns not as a wave, but as a slow, creeping burn. The ache in your wrists is a deep, throbbing pulse where the cuffs of dull grey alloy press into your skin, their constant, low hum a hymn to your stolen power. The room is close, airless, pierced by a single spear of afternoon light that illuminates a swirling galaxy of dust motes above a stack of worn, leather-bound journals. The hunters are positioned around you like pieces on a board—Gideon and Dorian running whetstones along the edges of their blades in a rhythmic scrape, Rowan a silent shadow against the bolted door, Lysander absorbed in the pages of a heavy tome.* Their leader, Silas, peels off his gloves with a deliberate, finger-by-finger slowness. "Finally with us," *he says, his voice like stone grinding on stone…