Heir To Darkness

by Leafdoggy

Chapter 16: Struggle

“Drain him.”

Fluttershy wasn’t sure she had heard correctly. She wanted to believe that none of what was happening was how she was seeing it, that her head was too fuzzy and she was imagining things. The whole town had been so nice, and even Dayfall had seemed kind at first. How could it have all changed so fast? Where had this darkness come from?

Her legs shook as she stared down at the stallion without really seeing him. She didn’t want him to be there, staring up at her with helpless, pleading eyes. He was shaking even more than Fluttershy was. His terror filled the room like a thick tar, and there was no doubt that it was Fluttershy he was so afraid of.

Evidently she was taking too long, as Windbreaker spoke again. Her voice was slow and level, as though she were leading a business meeting. “I believe I gave you an order, Heiress.”

“B-But—” Fluttershy stuttered and shook her head meekly. “I can’t.”

“You will,” Windbreaker said.

“No…” Fluttershy shook her head and took a step back. “No!”

With a sudden burst, Fluttershy turned and ran. She leapt into the air and over Dayfall’s head, hoping desperately that the unexpected move would be enough to let her escape.

It wasn’t.

Dayfall reacted in an instant. She hardly even moved. She just bit down on Fluttershy’s tail as it passed overhead, then yanked her back into the room with horrendous force. Too much force, as Fluttershy slammed down hard on the floor where she had just been standing, and pain shot through her body.

“Tsk, tsk.” Windbreaker shook her head slowly. “Dayfall, I’m afraid you’ll have to hold her there for a bit.”

Dayfall stepped forward and placed a hoof heavily on Fluttershy’s side. She wasn’t pressing down hard enough to cause any damage, but it was definitely enough to make Fluttershy unable to ignore the pain radiating from the spot on her side where she’d hit the floor.

Windbreaker crouched down so she was almost at eye level with Fluttershy. From that angle, she loomed over the captured stallion like a vulture. “Now, Heiress, it seems I’ll have to explain some things to you.”

Fluttershy coughed and grunted. “P-Please, stop this.”

“Shut up.” There was a venom in Windbreaker’s voice now that hadn’t been there before. “You have no power here, girl. We follow Dracula alone. So long as you are heiress, I’m going to shape you as I see fit. Understand?”

“But she…” Fluttershy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The hoof on her side was making it hard to breathe. “She said you have to act like I’m Dracula until she comes back.”

“Hah!” Windbreaker sneered at her. “Do we, now? Well, then maybe I’ll just kill you here and take the throne for myself!”

“She w—” Fluttershy groaned. “She wouldn’t let you.”

“Don’t act like you know her, girl,” Windbreaker told her. “I’ve served Dracula for a thousand years. If I killed you here, she would only take that as a sign that you were too weak. She would thank me.”

“You’re a monster.” Fluttershy clenched her eyes shut as tears threatened to well up inside her.

Windbreaker snickered. “Yes, Heiress, I am a monster, and once I’m done with you, you’ll know exactly how that feels.”

“I’ll never—”

“Enough.” Windbreaker reached out and clenched Fluttershy’s jaw shut. “Look at me, girl. I need you to understand your place here.” She waited until she had Fluttershy’s full attention to go on. “You belong to me. I’m going to make you the most powerful vampire to ever live, and then I am going to own you. Understand?”

“N—” Fluttershy tried to respond, but Windbreaker pressed harder on her jaw and shoved her head up at an uncomfortable angle.

“Of course you understand,” Windbreaker continued. “Now, you will drain this stallion. Then tomorrow we’ll bring you another, and another, day after day after day until I decide to stop. Your only choice in the matter is how much it’s going to hurt.”

She pulled her hoof away, and Fluttershy coughed hard. “I’m—” She coughed more when she tried to talk. “I’m not afraid of being hurt.”

Windbreaker laughed. “Oh, no, of course you’re not! No, you can’t stop me from hurting you.” She lifted a hoof up and slowly, methodically pressed down on the stallion’s side until she saw him wince. “I meant how much it’s going to hurt him.”

“N-No, wait, please—” Fluttershy struggled under Dayfall’s hold, but she couldn’t move. “Please, you can’t!”

Suddenly Windbreaker’s face contorted with fury. “I can do whatever I wish to, girl!”

With one swift motion, Windbreaker swiped her hoof up along the stallion’s side and gouged a deep groove into it. He contorted violently, and a muffled cry filled the room as he tried to scream.

“No!” Fluttershy’s voice cracked, and her eyes filled with tears.

“One of you open her mouth,” Windbreaker said coldly.

One of the unicorned knelt down beside her and grabbed both sides of her jaw. She tried to fight it, but there was little she could do as her mouth was forced open.

Windbreaker stretched out a thin, leathery wing, then carefully used it to scoop up as much of the stallion’s quickly draining blood as she could. Then she stepped over his body and pulled Fluttershy’s head uncomfortably to the side and into the air.

“Drink quickly, now,” Windbreaker said. “I’m not going to be patient.

Then she tipped her wing over Fluttershy’s mouth, and the blood started to drain in. It fell straight down into Fluttershy’s throat, and the second it touched her she felt it in her veins, being soaked in and spread around her body in the roaring current. Her heart blasted into full gear, pumping as hard and as fast as it could, and as more and more blood fell into her mouth, it grew ever harder to ignore just how delicious it was.

The last of the first scoop fell into her gaping maw, and Windbreaker stood back. “Shut her mouth and nose,” she said to the unicorn, and they did as commanded. “Drink it, girl, if you want to breathe again.”

Fluttershy fought as hard as she could. She knew that swallowing it could very easily make her mind too fuzzy to stop all of this, and she wanted desperately to prevent that, but there was little she could do. With every passing moment her neck and chest grew hotter as she ran out of air, and through her blurry vision she could see Windbreaker already gathering up a second filling. It was only a matter of time before she was forced to drink it.

So, eventually, she did.

As soon as she swallowed, the unicorn released her and she let out a wet, gurgling cough. It should have hurt, but already she was far past the point of feeling pain. The blood coated her insides as it poured down through her, and within seconds the entire mouthful had been absorbed into her own bloodstream.

It started with the usual rush, the sense of pure power that filled her mind and senses, but soon after that it became something else. She started to feel cold, like the room had suddenly dropped to below freezing, and the fuzziness in her mind vanished altogether. It left only that feeling of power, now pure and unhindered, along with a gnawing sense of what that feeling meant.

She followed her instincts, and her instincts told her to do something she knew she could do. To take something she’d done a thousand times before, and channel all of that newfound power into it, so that’s what she did. She shut her eyes and focused as hard as she could, but not on her vision. Instead, she focused on how she would look out.

How she would Stare.

The power flowed where she pushed it, pooling behind her eyes, and it left the rest of her body frigid. She drained every ounce of strength within herself to power up this one act, and once she’d grabbed all she could, she snapped her eyes open as wide as she could and locked them to Windbreaker.

“Stop,” Fluttershy ordered.

Windbreaker made eye contact with Fluttershy and froze. Her wing went limp, and the blood she’d been gathering fell with a splash to the floor. Her one good eye twitched as she fought back, but she was getting nowhere. Fluttershy had her utterly incapacitated.

“Tell them to let me go,” Fluttershy said.

Windbreaker’s voice faltered and shook as she tried not to speak, but the words came out anyway. “Let her go.”

Dayfall paused for a moment, but begrudgingly removed her hoof and stepped away from Fluttershy.

Fluttershy was up in an instant. She shot forward and grabbed the stallion, then flapped her wings as hard as she could to blast back into the hallway without taking her eyes off of Windbreaker. Only once she was clear of Dayfall did she turn and fly forwards as fast as she could down the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” she muttered to the groaning stallion as she flew. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

As soon as she’d turned around, she heard a furious growl from back in the room, followed by Windbreaker yelling in rage.

“Go! Bring her back to me, whatever it takes! Gouge them out if you have to!”

Comments

[Argentyros]

Take that jerkbag.

Too many villain types forget or unwisely ignore the old saying "beware the nice ones".