Following Lucius's revetion that he was Subject 23, the stunned silence sted only moments before Dante's scientific curiosity took complete precedence over his shock. While everyone else remained frozen in disbelief, the Archduke of the Northern Dominion stepped forward, his eyes alight with academic excitement.

  "Could we have a blood sample, please?" Dante asked, his tone carrying the eager anticipation of a researcher presented with an unprecedented specimen.

  The temperature in the room seemed to drop instantly. Lucius's expression, which had remained retively warm throughout the meal with Nova, transformed completely. His features hardened into a mask of cold detachment, his eyes becoming distant and piercing as he regarded Dante with unmistakable disappointment.

  "And you wonder why I never told who I was?" Lucius replied, his voice carrying a chill that hadn't been present even during his earlier dispys of power. The sardonic question contained millennia of isotion—the burden of knowing that others would view him as a specimen to study rather than as a person.

  Dante seemed to realize his error immediately, taking a step back. "I apologize, I didn't mean—"

  "Two thousand years," Lucius interrupted, his voice terrifyingly calm but empty of warmth. "Two thousand years we have ruled alongside each other. I have secretly funded your research for centuries. I arranged for you to meet Seraphina, ensured your territories complemented each other's work. I even sent Lilith to you both, knowing she would bridge your approaches and bring you closer together. I have supported every scientific advancement you've pursued."

  He set down his fork with deliberate precision. "And your first thought upon learning my true identity is to ask for my blood for study. Not what this means for our society, not what we've accomplished together across millennia, not even basic curiosity about the experiences that shaped vampire history—just scientific specimens."

  The betrayal evident in Lucius's tone silenced the room completely. The warmth he had shown with Nova had disappeared entirely, repced by the cold distance of a king who had just been reminded why he had kept himself apart for two millennia.

  Valerian's protective instinct emerged immediately, his military training barely containing his anger as he stepped forward. "This is exactly why we never revealed the truth," he stated, his grip tightening unconsciously on Nova's former owner, who winced in pain. "We'd become boratory experiments instead of leaders. You'd want to strap him to a table and run tests for a century once you learned about his sunlight immunity."

  Dante paled at the accusation, but his scientific mind had already clearly jumped to the implications of sunlight immunity, confirming Valerian's point even as he tried to deny it.

  The tension stretched unbearably as Lucius and Dante regarded each other—two thousand years of shared governance suddenly recontextualized by this moment of fundamental misunderstanding.

  "Is Lucius important?" Nova asked suddenly, his innocent question cutting through the tension.

  All eyes turned to him, the unexpected inquiry momentarily breaking the standoff between the ancient powers.

  "My former owner and his friends..." Nova continued hesitantly, "they used to talk about you when they thought I couldn't hear. They said King Lucius was just the 'first king' and wouldn't be the st. That you weren't as important as you thought you were." He looked genuinely confused. "But everyone here seems really shocked by what you said. So... are you important?"

  The question—born from overheard conversations during his centuries of captivity, when aristocrats had mockingly dismissed their king's significance while believing their "pet" couldn't understand—cut through the tension with unexpected effectiveness.

  Lucius stared at Nova for a long moment before something remarkable happened. The cold mask cracked, and for the first time in what might have been centuries, he ughed. A genuine, unrestrained ugh that caught everyone by surprise with its humanity.

  "I'm not sure, Nova," he finally responded, the warmth returning to his eyes—though only when addressing the hybrid. "I'm the reason why all vampires and wereanimals exist in the first pce."

  The simple expnation, delivered with unexpected humor after such profound tension, created a moment of normalcy amid revetions that had shattered the foundations of vampire society.