Master

Chapter 41

Lincoln's P.O.V

"I'm not one for speeches or extensive, unnecessary conversation, but Malcolms has made the case that some form of a speech, or explanation, is quite necessary here."

The group of near forty blinks up at me.

Wide-eyed and as stiff as a board, they all had that slightly terrified look the previous Anouk Clan clan members had in their first few days at the castle. I assumed that like them, our newer clanmates would lose that look soon enough and stop looking so stereotypically pale around me.

Besides attempting to relax a newborn... me? That would just be a waste of time.

"Firstly, you should know - and eventually accept - that as vampires, what we are, or rather, who we are, goes beyond our individual selves." I explain as I walk the length of the training room, "in simple terms, that means that there are more pieces to each of us that link us to our species, than there are things that make us our own people."

A glance around revealed that the majority understood what I was trying to get across. For the ones who didn't, I add, "we were established for group work."

That gets a few quick nods as shame fills a few eyes. It was an unnecessary embarrassment, but I don't comment on it since it would only make them feel worst in this situation. 

In time, they'd come to know that I didn't expect any more from them that what they were capable of, and knowing all about the foundations of our species was nothing any newborn was expected to know.

I keep my eyes off them to provide a moment of relief instead.

"You are here today for me to show you how to fight properly, but also to expose you to how it feels to have my control overcome you," I continue in time with my slow steps, "but both require the same level of understanding of our kind before we can attempt either."

Tightening my hands behind my back, I take in a needed breath before continuing.

"When the witches crafted me, they added something to my genetical makeup. Over the course of decades, I've studied every bit of witch magic that I could in the hope of understanding exactly what that something was in more detail than just something that I felt in my blood. 

Millenniums later and I've come to accept that that is all there is to it - something that lives in my blood. Something they put in my blood," I clarify as I raise my hand to look over the flesh, "that 'something' is made of magic, and when a vampire is turned, that magic is passed on. It's the same thing that keeps you alive, even in death, and what also allows our lifespans to carry on unnaturally."

I take a moment to listen to the blood that rushed through us all, moving in a rush beneath our skin in a manner that would kill any other being. Whatever it was, it kept us alive and strong, without our hearts pumping, the magic kept our bodies always moving like an eternal machine.

It was magic, years of study didn't change that simple fact. It was just... magic.

"As I'm not fond of magic and disorder, I've taken to naming that 'something' Lyrra."

Was it petty and incredibly childish to name the greatest of living show of witch magic an elven name? Yes. 

But I didn't think about that when it brought me pleasure each time to know that beyond the grave, in some magical afterlife, the witches probably screeched every time I demeaned their power in that way.

The fact that I was spreading my childish revenge was acceptable in my eyes.

Finding where I'd ended in my makeshift speech, I carry on with a dutiful mask of calm. "Whether or not the witches intended us to carry on this long or for this connection to me to remain, I am not sure. But it has and there is a piece of me in every vampire that followed, in all of you."