Servitude [BoyxBoy]

Chapter 23

[Soleil]

A few seconds later, there was a knock on the door.  The sound echoed through the house, taking a while to register in either of our minds.  In an instant, we both jumped to life, our heads snapping towards the front door in confusion.

"Who would be here at this time..." I mumbled, eyeing the inky darkness through the windows of the foyer.  From my pocket, I produced the ring of keys for the doors in the house and picked through them until I found one which had been painted golden.

Unlocking the great wooden doors that led into Malum Manor, I took a sharp breath at the chill from outside.  No, it wasn't coming from the wintery weather.

It was different - it tingled against the skin.  Like magic.

Standing on the doorstep was a man much taller than me, with platinum blond hair which only just caught the moonlight from the dark night around us.  His eyes were bright silver, almost white against his sclera, and they were framed with white-blond lashes.

Before I had a chance to ask who he was, the man shoved past me with a sneer on his face and walked into the house.  Bewildered, I stumbled along beside him.

He unwrapped the long scarf from his neck and shoved it into my arms along with a heavy box wrapped in black silk cloth, then strode up to Silvian in just a few steps.  I stared in awe at his long legs, seeing the two men together.

Silvian was slightly taller than me, and we were both above the average height in our own rights - but this man towered over both of us easily.

He didn't look skinny either, his blood-red tailcoat fit to his form nicely, adorned with golden buttons a pocket watch which flashed in its own golden hue from inside his pocket.

Ah, I realised, this time really looking at the two of them.  They have to be related somehow...

They shared almost all of the same features, aside from the stranger having a pointier chin and dainty beauty marks splashed onto one side of his face.  Their eyes were different two - that taller of the men had very hooded eyelids and deep purple eye bags, leaving him looking constantly tired and bored.

"Perseus..." Silvian said, almost out of breath from shock. I watched the two of them size each other up, squaring their shoulders and crossing their arms identically. "Why are you here?"  Then something flashed in Silvian's eyes.

A mix of raw, uncontrollable fondness and sadness for the man in front of him, who I could confidently assume was his brother.  From what I heard, Cornelius Malum had three sons, with Silvian being the middle child.

Perseus was the eldest.

His name held a lot of weight for the people in my past.  Most of my owners had uttered it with scorn at least once in their lifetimes.  He once held the highest military position in the vampire army that the Elders has created.

And then one day, he stepped down and went into hiding.  It had happened whilst I was serving as a soldier in a war against his own army, and the news had caused upheaval in the camps.

Perseus is a drunk, one man claimed.  He killed another general in a fight that got out of hand, spoke another.  And from that day forward, Perseus' name no longer held any power.  Instead, he was regarded as a coward who had deserted his own army during the heat of battle.

I had assumed that his father had killed him.

"Father sent me to keep an eye on you," Perhaps not, then.  I lingered in the foyer, with Perseus' belongings still bundled up in my arms.  He noticed and glared daggers at me from the corner of his eye, with his deep eye bags making his white-silver eyes even more striking.  "Do you want something, slave?"