The pressure in the pace had diminished enough that supernatural beings could at least rise to their knees, if not fully stand. Taking advantage of this retive reprieve, a vampire servant cautiously approached the king's chambers, assigned to inquire about immediate administrative matters that had been neglected during the crisis.

  The servant—Lord Eldridge, normally the pace's Chief of Resource Allocation—entered with appropriate deference, bowing low despite the strain still evident in his movements. Though the crushing pressure had eased, its residual effects continued making formal gestures difficult for all supernatural beings.

  "Your Majesty," he began, his gaze carefully averted from both Lucius and Nova, "the administrative council requires guidance on several urgent matters." He hesitated briefly before continuing, following long-established protocol when addressing issues concerning wereanimal hybrids. "What should be done about the pet?"

  The words had barely left his mouth when Lucius moved—a blur of motion too fast for even vampire sight to track. One moment he stood across the room; the next, he had Eldridge pinned against the wall, his hand around the servant's throat, lifting him completely off the ground. The pressure that had been receding returned in a single overwhelming wave, dropping supernatural beings throughout the pace back to the floor in an instant.

  "HE IS NOT A PET!"

  Lucius's roar was not merely loud but supernaturally powerful, his voice yered with ancient authority that seemed to shake the very foundations of the pace. Windows throughout the royal wing cracked from the sound alone, sending spiderwebs of fractures across priceless gss.

  Eldridge dangled from Lucius's grip, his eyes bulging in terror, his body convulsing under the dual assault of physical and supernatural pressure. The king's fury had returned with such intensity that blood vessels burst beneath the servant's skin, creating a map of crimson across his face as capilries ruptured from the strain.

  "He has a name," Lucius continued, his voice dropping to something even more terrifying than his shout—a deadly quiet that promised violence beyond imagination. "His name is Nova. He is not a 'pet.' He is not a 'resource.' He is not property to be 'done with' like some object."

  Eldridge tried to respond, but could only produce a strangled gasp, his body beginning to shut down under Lucius's grip. Just as unconsciousness was about to cim him, the king released his hold, allowing the servant to colpse to the floor in a trembling heap.

  "Get out."

  The command needed no supernatural reinforcement. Eldridge scrambled backward on hands and knees, not daring to stand or even look up as he retreated from the chamber in blind terror.

  Nova watched this dispy with wide eyes, genuine shock breaking through his carefully maintained composure. In two centuries of captivity, he had never witnessed anyone—certainly no vampire noble—react with such violence to the mere suggestion that he was property. The concept of being defended so fiercely was entirely foreign to his experience.

  Outside in the corridor, court officials who had witnessed the incident exchanged armed gnces, the implications reverberating through vampire society's rigid hierarchy. For centuries, wereanimals and hybrids had been cssified as "pets" in vampire legal frameworks—valuable property to be owned, traded, and dispyed as status symbols. With a single outburst, their king had rejected this fundamental social cssification.

  Yet Lucius had offered no alternative designation. He had decred what Nova was not without specifying what he was instead, creating an undefined status that existed outside vampire society's carefully ordered system. This absence of cssification was perhaps more revolutionary than any new title could have been—a deliberate gap in the hierarchy that challenged its very foundation.

  As Nova continued watching Lucius, confusion and wonder battled across his features. No one had ever defended his personhood before, let alone with such ferocity that it endangered another's life. Whatever connection existed between them—whatever visions or millennia of waiting Lucius had mentioned—it had just manifested in the most tangible decration of Nova's value he had ever experienced.

  Without words or formal decree, Lucius had just revolutionized Nova's status in vampire society more completely than any legal pronouncement could have accomplished. And he had done it with three thunderous words that would echo through supernatural society for centuries to come:

  HE IS NOT A PET!