HE OPENED HIS EYES WHEN HE SMELLED BLOOD. Rich and thick, and pulsing. Someone was approaching.
He smelled the alluring scent until his mind went foggy with the bloodlust. His teeth whipped out in zest, elongating to hard canines forked as a prong. His supernatural strength pulled at the chains binding his wrists but they were solid as rocks, fitted into the pillars of the cave.
Marsil could do nothing but smell the blood. A scent so near yet faraway.
He wondered why his keepers must torment him so. They knew how much he needed the blood to survive yet they starved him of it, giving to him only on occasion, and even then, he was so faint he rarely swallowed more than a mouthful before the goblet was pulled away from his lips. It was no small wonder how he had survived the years.
He didn't know how many had passed but from the deeper tone of his voice, he knew he should be about the age of a young man.
The chamber was dark but his eyes were made for the dark. The pure white orbs shined in his surroundings and his ears perked up. He could hear the beatings of a heart—not his; loud, pumping wet sounds. It didn't matter that the person was still far from the underground bunker, he could hear the pulse. The blood rushing through the stranger's reins. Warm richness he so desperately needed. His fangs nicked his lips as he pulled harder on the chains. The manacles rattled at his drag but remained steady.
Few moments later, he heard the loud clanking sounds that signalled the fall of feet descending down the steps. The person was getting nearer. His moon eyes glinted in the darkness at the person's arrival. The movement stopped for a moment but his paranormal hearing brought the little bodily sounds of the stranger close.
He could hear the soft breathing; the caving and expanding lungs. The scent of blood drugged him more but his actions against the chains were futile. They held him back as much as he pulled. After a while, he heard shuffling feet as the stranger started forward again. Slowly. Few metres from him, another scent tickled his sharp beastly senses. It was syrupy and tangy. The unmistakable scent of a female.
A human female.
The stranger in his underground prison was a woman.
Marsil relaxed against the chains as the woman walked close. They rattled softly on the ground, the shifting sounds echoing off the chamber's walls. Soon enough, Marsil felt the soft glow of a torch on his face. A slender arm held it over his features and not one second later, he heard her audible gasp. The woman must've discovered his eyes. Men were always baffled at them.
The only two men he knew were always stunned whenever his gaze met theirs. They were the only people in his life. He assumed they were also the only people that knew of his existence.
He knew he was not like them; not like the humans. That's why he had to remain a secret. He knew he was stronger. The iron chains around his wrists bore witness. He knew he was magical. He'd spotted his skin glowing silver more than once. He knew he was powerful. It was the rushing strength that filled his muscles after each blood feed. But he also thought he was the only different person.
The only two people he knew were Father and the Old man, and they were human. So, Marsil though he must be some kind of oddity for him to be so hidden. What he didn't know was that out there was a vast haven in the frosty North full of people like him. People with shiny eyes and fire hair. People of great stature and voices like the sound of many waters. His people, living in the haven of the North.
Marsil had heard his father call the old man, Geralt, but the man either addressed him as Arlon, and a great many times, as Your Majesty. Marsil presumed his father to be some sovereign. Father was the only true light to permeate the darkness of his cell, more so the abyss of his heart.
He remembered when his father would come to him every night with an oil lamp. He'd lean close and clean the sheen of sweat over his brow, wiping him over with a warm cloth moistened with water. Marsil lived for those moments.
Arlon would whisper soft words to him as he took away his chamber pot and dressed him once more in a white loincloth. Always white, Arlon would say. The color of Kings. Marsil had always wondered why his father treated him with such care. If Arlon was the Sovereign as Old man Geralt addressed him, then surely he had scores of valets at his service. Servant lads that could easily do the job.
Marsil didn't particularly like the old man but he loved Arlon. Father was calm and patient, with winter sky eyes and pillowy golden hair. Arlon and Old man Geralt were the only actual people he'd ever seen in his eighteen summers of existence but now...
The woman moved her candle close to his eyes. Marsil spotted the blood drain from her face. The woman was quite strong, he mused. Many a female would have rend the chamber with a wail of horror at his unnatural eye color. All she did was gasp at the pale orbs.
She withdrew her hand and the soft glow of the lamp fell to her silhouette that was shadowed before. The first thing Marsil noticed about her was her skin. It was brown, lush brown. It was like the color Marsil presumed the beach sands to be. She had exotic deep eyes and her form was provocative. She would be the first person he had seen to possess such darkened skin.
Suddenly, the woman did something that surprised him more; more than the shade of her skin or her flawless beauty.
She moved a small distance to the side and took hold of a broken shard of stone lying on the musty floors. She lay the candle on a rocky protrusion and amber light spilled warmly over his cell. She walked back to him and stood close. Marsil's eyes widened when she spoke.
"You drink blood, I presume?"
Her voice was light, like stirring water. It also had a foreign lilt, different from his father or old man Geralt's bawdy tone.
Marsil gazed upon her but didn't reply. He watched her with squinty eyes as she lifted the shard to her wrist. He watched the sharp stone hang over her pulse for a moment, then she lowered it. A mild wind stirred across the chamber's floor and the light shivered as he felt his demon take over.