Lord of the realm

"You’re brilliant and brave and more capable than you give yourself credit for. But this is what I was made for. What I’ve done for longer than you can imagine. And I will not risk you in the process."

"Then take Dane and Sofia. They’re resistance fighters; they have experience—"

"With running and hiding from witch squads. Not with walking into organized ambushes."

He moved closer, his expression softening. "I need you here. Safe. With Kate. Making sure that if this goes wrong, there’s someone who knows what happened and can make appropriate decisions."

Martha wanted to argue. He could see it in her face, the way her jaw tightened and her hands clenched. But she was also rational enough to recognize when an argument was already lost.

"If you’re not back by morning," she said finally, "I’m going to that address myself. And I’m bringing every piece of equipment and firepower I can assemble."

"Fair enough."

She looked at him for one more moment. Then, without planning it, she stepped forward and pulled him into a brief, tight hug.

"Come back," she said against his shoulder.

"Please."

"I will."

She released him and left the kitchen quickly, her footsteps heading toward the stairs. Probably to brief Kate, to process what he’d just told her, and to do the academic research spiral she engaged in when overwhelmed.

Jolthar stood in the kitchen and looked at the clock on the wall.

9:47 PM.

The address they’d given him was in Joyhills, on the eastern edge of the city. Twenty minutes by car.

He should leave soon. Give him time to assess the location, understand the tactical situation, and make appropriate preparations.

He changed into darker clothing—simple, functional, designed for movement. He briefly considered taking a weapon but dismissed the idea. His body was a weapon enough.

At 10:23 PM, he went back to his room.

The city waited. The fractured sky held its broken lines above.

*

Jolthar stood on the balcony of his room, the city of Kharsen spread before him like a sea of lights.

The phone Martha had gotten him was in his pocket—a modern device that still felt slightly alien despite several days of use. It had been a long time since he used one. She’d put both her number and Kate’s into it, along with Dane’s and Sofia’s. A safety net. A way to call him if they needed him.

The address was clear in his mind: 20 Graham Street, Joyhills. He’d looked it up on the phone’s map function and memorized the location and the surrounding streets.

It was an industrial area on the eastern edge of the city. Warehouses and manufacturing facilities, mostly abandoned since the economic restructuring fifteen years ago. The kind of place where screaming wouldn’t draw attention because nobody was around to hear it.

Perfect for an ambush.

Also perfect for a fight that needed to happen away from civilians.

Jolthar stepped up onto the balcony railing.

Then he stepped off.

His body didn’t fall; it rose.

He ascended into the night sky above Silverwood Heights.

The city revealed itself from this vantage. The organized grid of the planned districts. The organic sprawl of the older quarters. The commercial towers are blazing with light. The residential areas are settling into evening quiet.

He turned east and flew.

Not slowly. At speeds that made the wind scream past him, that compressed distance into irrelevance. The city blurred beneath him, districts passing in seconds. He adjusted his trajectory with minute shifts in energy distribution, navigating with the precision that came from centuries of practice.

Joyhills appeared below him within three minutes.

He descended toward the industrial district, slowing as he approached the address.

20 Graham Street was a warehouse—three stories of brick and corrugated metal, windows either broken or boarded up, surrounded by a cracked parking lot overgrown with weeds.

A single figure stood in that parking lot.

𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Marcus waited under a flickering streetlight that barely functioned, his hands in his pockets, his posture deliberately casual.

Jolthar landed twenty feet away.

The impact of his feet on concrete was gentle and controlled. He straightened and looked at the vampire who’d survived the highway encounter by millimeters.

Marcus’s chest wound had healed completely. No visible damage remained, though Jolthar could detect the faint irregularity in his cardiovascular rhythm that suggested recent trauma. Vampire regeneration was impressive, but it wasn’t perfect.

"You came," Marcus said.

"I wasn’t entirely certain you would."

Jolthar moved.

One moment he was standing twenty feet away. The next moment, his hand was around Marcus’s throat, lifting the vampire off the ground with effortless strength.

Marcus’s hands came up reflexively, gripping Jolthar’s wrist, trying to break the hold. His enhanced vampire strength—easily ten times human normal—accomplished exactly nothing. The hand around his throat might as well have been forged from steel.

His eyes widened. Not with surprise—he’d known intellectually that this being was powerful. But knowing and experiencing were different things.

"I don’t have much patience with these things."

"What do you want with me?" Jolthar’s voice was calm. Conversational, despite the violence of his grip.

Marcus tried to speak. Couldn’t get air past the pressure on his windpipe. He gestured desperately.

Jolthar loosened his grip fractionally.

"Talk," Marcus gasped.

"Just... want to talk. Negotiate."

"You grabbed an innocent woman. Threatened people around me. Used her as bait."

Jolthar’s eyes held no warmth. "That’s not how you open negotiations."

"Not... my decision. Following... orders."

"Whose orders?"

"Lady Drusilla. She leads... our den. She wants... to meet you."

Jolthar considered this and dealing with whoever that woman was would certainly stop this mess, Jaenor thought.

Then he looked around the parking lot, his senses extending outward.

"You have brought company?"

Marcus’s expression confirmed it even before the vampires emerged from the warehouse.

Eight of them. Moving with coordinated precision, forming a loose circle around Jolthar’s position. All of them were armed—not with conventional weapons, but with the claws and enhanced strength that made vampires dangerous predators.

Jolthar looked at them with mild interest.