The plunge into the Sanguine Realm felt like drowning in iron and dust. The transition spat Kaelen, Lyra, and Elowen out onto a balcony of polished obsidian overlooking a landscape carved from nightmares. A bruise-purple sky hung low, heavy with the threat of eternal dusk. Below, a river of sluggish, dark liquid—not water, not quite blood—scraped against jagged rocks with a low, wet moan.
Castle Ossuary rose before them like a fever dream of bone and velvet, its spires twisting upward like skeletal fingers clutching at the heavens. The very air tasted metallic, hungry.
"Cover your neck, Anchor," Lyra muttered, ears twitching, claws half-extended. Her beastkin senses screamed—every breath here felt like something tasting them. "Vampires don't see people. They see vintages."
Elowen, now clad in high-collared black silks that made her pale skin look almost luminous, adjusted the silver crucifix at her throat. It no longer burned her. "They are starving," she said, voice carrying that eerie, saintly calm. "The Blight has leeched the vitality from this realm. To them, your blood isn't sustenance—it's salvation."
The massive bone-gates swung open without a sound. A double line of crimson-armored guards stood rigid, their eyes glowing with restrained hunger. Kaelen felt dozens more watching from shadowed balconies—nobles, courtiers, all predators barely holding back.
At the throne room's heart, Seraphina, Queen of the Sanguine, reclined across a seat carved from a dragon's skull. She was onee-san perfection: mature, commanding, voluptuous curves straining against a black lace corset that left little to imagination. Porcelain skin flawless, long raven hair cascading like spilled ink. But her crimson eyes held the exhaustion of a woman who had watched empires crumble for a millennium.
"So," she purred, voice a velvet blade that tugged at Kaelen's pulse, "the legends don't lie. You smell of sun-warmed earth and untainted life."
Kaelen stepped forward, refusing to flinch under the weight of a hundred predatory stares. "I'm not a vintage, Seraphina. I'm the Anchor. And I'm here to plug the hole in your mana before your entire court turns to dust."
Seraphina's laughter was glass shattering on silk. She rose, movements liquid, predatory grace. "Plug it? My people crumble to ash with every sip. The Blight has turned our blood-magic toxic. We drink, and we wither."
She crossed the distance in a heartbeat, cold fingers—nails sharp as obsidian—tracing his jawline. "The court wants to drain you dry and divide the spoils. But I... I want to know if the Anchor can survive a Queen's thirst."
"I've survived a Beast and a Saintess," Kaelen said, locking eyes with her. "Your thirst is just another liability I manage."
Seraphina's smile sharpened, fangs glinting. "Bold words. Then let us negotiate in private. Ground the crimson tide in my veins, and perhaps I'll keep my court from ripping you apart."
The Queen's chambers were a cocoon of red silk and pale moonlight. Heavy velvet curtains blocked the bruised sky. The air hung thick with lilies, old wine, and something darker—decades of restrained hunger.
"The ritual here is different," Seraphina whispered, pushing Kaelen back onto a bed piled with black furs. She straddled him, weight commanding, hips rolling with deliberate control. "Vampiric mana is life-force. To ground me, you must let me take your blood while I take your soul. A cycle of death and rebirth."
Her fangs sank into the crook of his neck.
Pain didn't come. Instead, ecstatic heat exploded—pleasure so sharp it bordered on agony. Aetheric Resonance: Phase 3.
The connection was a crimson supernova.
Thousands of years flooded Kaelen: memories of feasts that ended in ash, lovers turned to dust, the endless, hollow weight of immortality. Seraphina's power poured in—life-stealing, ancient, ravenous. It tried to drain him hollow, to make him another faded portrait in her gallery.
But the Anchor held. Kaelen's soul became a furnace, pulling the toxic "dust" from her veins, replacing it with raw, vibrant vitality from Earth. He felt her body shudder above him, dominance cracking as the corruption burned away.
The power-play was absolute. Seraphina set the rhythm—slow, punishing, commanding—her nails raking red lines down his chest as she rode the edge of release. Kaelen met her stroke for stroke, using Lyra's feral strength and Elowen's cold precision to anchor the crimson tide, forcing her to feel again.
When climax hit, it was cataclysmic. A third brand seared across Kaelen's chest, over his heart: a crimson bat-wing entwined with a single, glistening drop of blood.
Seraphina collapsed against him, skin flushed and warm for the first time in centuries. The onee-san mask shattered, leaving only dazed, vulnerable wonder. "You… you actually did it," she breathed, voice trembling. "My blood sings again."
The moment of peace shattered.
A crash echoed from the throne room below—steel on bone, screams of fury.
"Kaelen!" Lyra's voice cut through, edged with panic and rage. "Draven's here! He's seizing the throne—claiming the Anchor for himself!"
Kaelen rose, blood still trickling from his neck. His eyes glowed faint red, veins threaded with violet and white sparks. The combined power of three queens thrummed in his blood—feral speed, holy shadow, vampiric regeneration.
He felt the shift: the Fixer was gone. In his place stood something far more dangerous.
"Seraphina," he said, voice low, lethal, "stay here. Recover. I'm going to remind Lord Draven what happens when you try to steal what's mine."
He strode toward the door, the three bonds pulsing in perfect, deadly harmony.
The Crimson Court was about to learn the meaning of true hunger.