CHAPTER 102: TABLE ETIQUETTE OF THE UNDEAD

CLARE – POV

"Where is Blaze?"

The deep, graveled voice cut through the silence like a knife through soft flesh.

The vampire at the head of the blood-drenched table—Blaze’s father, the dark reflection of the only creature who’d ever protected me—didn’t raise his voice, but the question coiled in the air like a noose.

There was no warmth in the question. Just that same sharp coldness in his tone, the kind that left frost behind when it touched you. His eyes didn’t shift from me as he spoke, like I was some strange, unwanted blemish staining his perfectly crafted world.

It was Lucas who answered.

Of course it was.

With a twisted grin, the blond psychopath slithered beside me, fingers clamping around my arm like a vice. He yanked me away from Thelia—like I was his toy now—and dragged me close to his side. His hand was ice-cold and heavy with sadism. My skin crawled under his touch.

Lucas laughed. Actually laughed.

"He went out," Lucas said casually, like Blaze stepping away from this horror show was a mild inconvenience. "I don’t know where. I guess... to feed."

A pause.

"Why would he go feed elsewhere," the father’s voice came again, darker now, "when he had her right here?"

My heart twisted in my chest.

Lucas laughed. A short, ugly sound. "you forget about Blaze and his weird little feeding habits. He’s always been... sensitive. Maybe he didn’t want to risk a repeat of the past. You know—" he leaned closer, dragging his fingers up my neck "—draining her dry."

Then, before I could react, he was behind me, breath ghosting my ear as he pulled my hair to the side, exposing my throat. His grip was cruel, controlling. I felt the strands tear at the roots. My scalp screamed, but my voice was frozen somewhere in the tight, horror-clenched part of my chest.

He chuckled again.And this time, I felt it—his breath on my neck.Hot. Eager.And full of something dark and perverse.

Lucas was behind me now.

Pulling my head to the side.

Exposing my throat.

Oh God.

He was going to bite me.And judging by the gleam in his eyes—he wasn’t planning to stop.

God. Help. Me.

There was no elegance to him like there had been with Blaze. No restraint. No softness. Only the sick anticipation of a sadist who wanted to rip flesh from bone.

For the first time that night, I actually found myself wishing Thelia would take his place.

Yes, her.

At least her brand of evil didn’t look like it came wrapped in gleeful sadism and serial killer smiles.

His lips grazed my skin.

His fangs—

I squeezed my eyes shut.

This is it.

And somehow—somehow—while on the brink of being torn open, my mind still raced with stupid thoughts.

How the hell was he related to Blaze?

I had questions I wasn’t going to survive long enough to ask. Lucas had blond hair, a manic look in his eyes, and a presence so warped it made my teeth ache. The twins were redheaded. Their father—this demonic, older Blaze—had jet black hair like Blaze and that same bone structure. The only thing these three had in common was a shared thirst for cruelty.

Their mother must’ve been one hell of a genetic roulette.

Why the hell did Lucas look nothing like Blaze?He was blond. The twins were redheads.Only Blaze—and this... thing he called a father—shared that raven-dark hair and sharp symmetry. Same cheekbones. Same darkness behind their gaze.

Could the mother be a redhead or a blonde? Did it even matter? Were they even full siblings? Half-siblings?

No. Stop it.

This wasn’t the time to psychoanalyze Blaze’s freakshow family tree.

Not when one of them was literally breathing down my neck.

I wasn’t going to stand here and mentally dissect Blaze’s freakshow family tree while one of its most sadistic branches was breathing down my neck with his fangs scraping my skin.

My legs froze.

My voice lodged in my throat.

I was locked inside my own body by terror.

Paralyzed by fear, like a rabbit pinned under the paw of a lion.

Lucas’s breath hitched in pleasure. I could feel his fangs brush my skin. He inhaled like my blood was perfume. His lips parted.

And just when I began to mentally prepare to die,

just when I surrendered to the burn of inevitability,

a voice boomed across the room like thunder cracking through stone.

"Stop."

One word.

One word—and the entire room reacted.

It wasn’t just me.

Every vampire in the room stilled, like something ancient and coded in their bones demanded obedience.

Even Lucas.

He lifted his head from my neck—slowly, reluctantly. His hand stayed twisted in my hair as he turned his eyes toward the head of the table. To the Monster King sitting there, still dripping with blood.

"You will not feed from her while she looks like that, Lucas."

His tone was flat. Not kind. Not protective. Just... disapproving.

A pause.

"It’s bad table manners. How many times must I teach you?"

Wait—what?

Surely I misheard.Surely he meant don’t harm her, or she’s under my protection, or some other vampire code.

But no.

Bad. Table. Manners.

That was why he stopped him?

Not because I was screaming inside?

Not because my blood had already been taken without consent?

Not because I was human and terrified and shaking?

But because... what?

It was a breach of fucking dinner etiquette?

His voice wasn’t angry. He didn’t rise from his throne or bare fangs in fury. He just sounded like a disappointed father whose child had spilled wine on a silk napkin.

Lucas gave a half-smile, still holding my hair.

"My apologies, Father," he said with mock grace. "I forgot... you like your meals fully undressed and seated properly before the feast begins."

He looked back at me, his face twisted in sick humor. "We wouldn’t want to upset the host."

I couldn’t move.

Couldn’t breathe.

Because in this room, being protected didn’t mean being safe.

It meant they weren’t allowed to eat me yet.

The monsters in this room weren’t just predators. They were civilized, ritualistic cannibals, governed not by conscience—but etiquette.

Lucas hadn’t been stopped to protect me.He’d been stopped because he broke the vampire version of table decorum.

And now I knew something worse than fear.

Insignificance.

I wasn’t a person in their eyes.