The silence of the night was heavy as lead. In the underground refuge, Rose watched Natalie standing before her — eyes still red and uncertain, hands trembling as she struggled to restrain the instincts boiling inside.
"Control, Natalie," Rose said firmly, pacing in slow circles around the newly turned vampire. "You are not an animal, even if your body demands blood. You decide how much the beast inside you rules."
Natalie breathed deeply, gasping, fighting to steady herself. Every movement of her mentor felt like a provocation. When Rose suddenly lunged forward, Natalie reacted on instinct, moving with supernatural speed and slamming Rose against the wall. Natalie's eyes flared with excitement, shock… and fear of herself.
Rose smiled, even while restrained.
"See? Strength, reflexes, instinct. But without discipline, you'll lose yourself."
The training continued, blows exchanged, Rose always measured, shaping the young vampire's movements. With each clash, Natalie discovered more of her new senses: heightened hearing catching the creak of stone in the ceiling, her sense of smell detecting even a single drop of sweat on Rose's skin, hunger throbbing with every exertion.
Beneath it all, a new dynamic began to form. Rose, once solitary, now had someone who depended on her. Natalie, torn between gratitude and fear, started to see Rose not just as a guide, but as an anchor amid the chaos of immortality.
Meanwhile, on the other side of London, Alice moved through the shadows. The trail left by Sebastian had led her to an ancient mansion overgrown with ivy, its grimy stained-glass windows reflecting a nearly funerary glow beneath the moon. This was where James, the traitor, kept his dark court.
Alice smashed through the gates as if they were paper, advancing through corridors steeped in dust and old blood. Every corner seemed to watch her. And there, among moth-eaten tapestries, voices from the past emerged.
Flashback: 18th century, Philadelphia.
James, still human — a haughty nobleman dressed in colonial attire — addressed his clan. Ambitious, impatient with family tradition.
"Why submit to tradition when I can forge my own empire?" he declared, moments before betraying them all. The blood of his relatives stained his hands that night. And it was in that massacre that he found the dark pact that would turn him into a vampire: power in exchange for eternal loyalty to the Council.
Alice snapped back to the present, her eyes still burning with hatred.
In the central hall, James awaited her. His figure was imposing, skin pale, smile confident.
"So the heir of Vladmir comes to me at last," he said, raising a crystal goblet filled with blood. "It was about time."
Suddenly, symbols flared to life on the floor. Traps. Chains of blood rose like serpents, binding Alice's ankles and wrists. James laughed.
"Vampiric magic, child. The gift that separates the weak from true masters."
The chains tightened, but Alice roared, calling upon the strength inherited from Dracula. Her eyes burned crimson, raw power radiating from her body. The chains shattered like glass, shards of solidified blood scattering across the hall.
The clash was brutal. James summoned blades forged of blood, moving like whips, slicing through walls and toppling columns.
Alice, swift and merciless, dodged and countered until she finally reached him. The impact of her fists and claws against James's body thundered through the mansion.
He tried to flee, dissolving into mist — but Alice was already upon him. She seized him by the hair and, with a single decisive motion, tore his head from his shoulders.
The body collapsed, blood spilling like a wasted offering. Alice held James's severed head, staring into the void.
"One has fallen," she said coldly. "All of them will fall."
She left the mansion in ruins, carrying nothing but her unbreakable resolve and the weight of a war that had only just begun.