Hey! So I hope you're ready for some vampires that will truthfully do anything in their power to protect their coven.

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Frank was on the verge of breakdown when he was taken into a throne room of some sorts, surrounded by the alive and breathing walls doused in red too violent and smooth to have been anything but the mixture of blood and paint. The ivory throne at the end of a long row of velvet carpet seemed as baleful as a venomous snake baring its pointed teeth at him, the carvings and the way he imagined the owner of the throne splayed out on the seat just as unkind as a snake would have been once it was ultimately intimidated. As beautiful as she may have been, she stood upon the throne, the finest of fabrics draped over her slender body as her pearl like skin glistened under the fires surrounding the area. Almost as if the flames were a trap, ensnaring Frank and his vampire as they both whirled stood in the center of the cage formed by the spidery fingers of Lindsey, the coven leader beckoning Gerard with the grace of a butterfly gliding across the summer air.

"I hate to barge in on such short notice, Lindsey, but it appears I have some astounding news regarding this little human Gerard decided to bring into our home." Michael trapped Frank against him, his body resembling the cold marble creating the hidden masterpiece of the coven below the ground where it pressed against Frank. One of his hands locked around Frank's throat to keep him pinned in place, a bony white finger slithered over the hammering pulse point under the thin skin of his neck. Frank's fear was equivalent to that of when his throat had been much too close to being ripped out, only this time, his terror reached out to the fate of his own vampire who whirled around and take in the scene taking place in the throne room, flabbergasted to see Mikey holding Frank in a position where the cat had captured the mouse.

"Michael, you are such a dear to me, but I have long since known the reason why Frank is staying with us." Lindsey's voice touched each of the words so they flowed like clear water floating along in a peaceful stream. She slowly stepped down from the steps leading up to the platform of  her elegant throne, standing behind Gerard and brushing the back of her hand along Gerard's arm in a movement so tender that the vampire flinched slightly. He moved away from Lindsey, flitting over to Michael and prying Frank out of his clutches.

Frank gasped as he blinked and suddenly found himself at the other side of the room compared to where Michael had held him captive, now being shoved behind the solid body of Gerard as the vampire adopted a protective stance in front of him.

"Discussions have been made as well as exceptions, Michael. You will not touch him." A flaming arrow would not have compared to the passionate disdain merging into the normal pleasantness of Gerard's voice. Frank, trembling where he unthinkingly grasped Gerard's arm, peered over the vampire's shoulder to see a seething Michael glaring at his brother, while the coven leader seemed mildly unamused by the disruption of her meeting.

"I suppose Lindsey knows all of the reasons as to why you are so keen keep Frank by your side?" Michael spat out, threatening to leak the truth, and despair eradicated any of the hope he might have held inside his heart for the safety of Gerard and himself.

Gerard's posture turned into one of a stone, stiffening every ligament and breathing no more. "There are no other reasons besides the one I have discussed with our leader this evening."

"You are a liar!" Michael bellowed, the strength of a lion's roar living inside the frightening vocalization echoing throughout the entire room. Frank cowarded away, watching in horror as Michael became a streak of color rapidly making his was over in the direction of Gerard. Gerard growled startlingly low in his throat, lunging forward towards the rushing flash headed for his body, and Frank cringed back in preparation for the collision about to take place before his very eyes.

The collision of the two vampires was quickly interrupted by another flash of smudged colors coming in between the both of them, taking the shape of Lindsey as she cried out in pure frustration and pushed the two of them back with enough force to have them skidding across the floor. Frank choked out a startled noise, backing away until his body was pressed against the chilling red wall holding too many secrets for him to doubt that energy thrived inside each of its invisible indents.

The pair of brothers crouched on the ground, halting themselves from hitting the wall, and Frank had never seen such a ferocious look being exchanged between two people. On television, when men got into fights, the tension was thick enough to emit from the screen in heady waves crashing over the audience until every atom in their bodies thrummed with anticipation, teeth digging into their lip as the hostility flashing in the actors' told the people watching that something was about to unfurl, something that required blood to be drawn. None of those staged looks could ever compared to the glares exchanged by trembling vampires exposing their fanged teeth, eyes gleaming menacingly as they would when gazing at prey, only the blood they wished to shed was not the kind they were meant to feast on.

"What in god's name has gotten into you two?" Lindsey hissed, speaking through her clenched and bared teeth. "I will not tolerate you attempting to rip each other's throats out. Tell me what is going on this instant or the both of you will not be seeing anything but your chambers for weeks."

Michael was the first to straighten into a standing position, pointing one of his slender fingers accusingly at Gerard standing still across the room. "Gerard has put our entire coven in danger." His fingers sliced through the air, his arm a blur of movement, and it settled onto Frank who was utterly shaken by everything taking place in the room. "This human is the child Gerard saved those many nights ago, the child you ordered him to kill."

Frank abstained from drinking in the look on Gerard's face, knowing his foolish rambling before had betrayed the both of them, and all thoughts of possible security were set aflame. He felt it, deep in his blood, that all of his cells vibrated in a symphonic rhythm, something deeper than terror beginning to unfold inside his body as the expression on Lindsey's face hardened into pure stone. The way her head moved so slowly, gliding, and her lifeless gaze settled on his face out of all the people standing in the room. He breathed shakily, pressing his palm against the wall behind him and scraping his nails against it in a pathetic attempt to grasp something, pretend it was a piece of his sanity to hold onto before he plummeted into a land where peacefulness could not coexist with the monstrosity of the truth.

"Is this true?" Lindsey's eyes casted down to the ground, her voice eerily calm in the tone she partook in. The delicacy of it would have been enough to fool any unaware human that she was melancholy, analyzing the situation with an emotion similar to disbelief. While knowing about her nature, never knowing what to expect from a woman perfectly capable of masking her rage, Frank didn't mistake the softness of her voice for anything but the velvet covering a pit of fire.

"Lindsey, he- he is not what you think." Gerard spoke up, attempting to sound as placid as possible. His face, as pale as the moon or perhaps even whiter, and the tininess of his pupils, all begged to differ. Frank whimpered under his uneven breaths.

"Is it true or does your brother feed me lies, Gerard?" The woman whirled around. Her skirts were just as elegant as she was in her movements, pooling around her, and her projecting voice filled Frank with endless unease.

Gerard's lips parted, remaining open as his eyes locked with Lindsey's from where he stood. They seldom broke apart from her gaze to look into Frank's eyes, the echoing presence of helplessness glistening in his irises, so deep that Frank's heart tore itself apart as punishment.

"He is." Gerard, voice barely above a whisper, brushed through the air and left behind a trail of mortification. Ghosting over Frank's skin, he became frantic, not wanting any harm to come to the vampire he was learning to care about just as much as himself, a vampire who deserved none of the pain yet to come after showing him nothing but mercy despite putting everything on the fine line between danger and secrecy.

"Please, don't- don't hurt him." Frank spoke, his voice cracking from the neglect he placed upon his vocal chords. He peeled himself away from the wall just as the gaze of three vampires settled on him, two sharp while one gaze begged him not to say anything more. Frank carefully avoided each one, but his eyes planted their focus on Lindsey's face, the porcelain of her unblemished skin.

"You, little one, have no right to speak when you are not spoken to." Lindsey spat with such defiance that Frank fell silent, only for a moment as the shocked shot tingles through the back of his skull, pricking his skin as white hot needles would if they pierced right through his flushed flesh.

"Lindsey, you must understand why I could not do it." Gerard, strained and desperate, stepped forward.

Lindsey whirled around with her hand raised, a sudden strike of black and white soaring through the hair until a harsh sound of impact sounded through the room, bouncing off the walls and drawing a gasp out of Frank. It was seconds later that he realized Lindsey's hand had been source of the sound, roughly landing on the side of Gerard's face and sending his head snapping to the side, reeling from the suddenness of the blow. Frank felt sick seeing Michael smirk from the corner of his eyes, enjoying the punishment his own brother was receiving.

"You think you have any right to speak either?" Lindsey reached out and grabbed a handful of Gerard's hair, roughly yanking his head back to ensure their eyes locked the entire time she spat her venomous words into his face. His eyes were illuminated with fierce hatred, but nothing could conceal the fright filling him as she clutched him tightly.

"You have put this entire coven in danger! Humans cannot bite their tongue and the reason for their demise is their own curiosity, even spreading terrible word about their own kind until one of them is destroyed." She yanked Gerard's hair, emitting a groan from the man. Hysteria was bubbling in Frank's throat. "Not only have you let him live long enough for him to let out word of our existence, but he shares the blood of the one who drove us into the darkness!"

"I couldn't do it. Not again." Gerard spoke through clenched teeth, pained from Lindsey's fingers curling viciously in his black locks.

Lindsey let out a loud, enraged cry, lifting her leg and sharply bringing her knee to the center of Gerard's stomach. The air was drawn out of him, his body folding from the pain, and she used this as an advantage to toss him onto the floor. Frank couldn't take uselessly standing and watching anymore, finally taking action when she lifted her foot in a manner where, if she stomped it, the impact of her heel would make direct contact with Gerard's throat.

"Stop!" Frank cried out loudly. He stumbled forward, already capturing the attention of the coven leader, and he took her distraction as a chance to surge forward and dive onto the ground, shielding Gerard's body and gazing up her wildly with a teary gaze.

Michael darted forward, taking his place beside Lindsey who looked close to shocked as she drank in the sight of Frank taking a protective stance over Gerard. Michael glared in disgust, sneering at the two of them on the ground.

"Whatever is going on here, you know it's for a reason." Frank spoke slowly, choosing all of his words with extreme caution. "I don't know what that reason is, but it was enough to make you understand before. He's only ever tried to protect me."

"As a vampire, our coven comes first, not pathetic humans whose blood is the only thing giving them worth." Michael spoke sharply, almost enough to make Frank flinch if he didn't hold the instinct inside of him.

"He is your brother. Are you really so sick that you find pleasure in watching him be beaten?" Frank couldn't stop himself from saying it, astounded by the amount of hatred living inside of the vampire related to the other on the ground, reeling from the intense blow to his stomach.

Michael's eyes brightened with rage, and he meant to lunge for Frank, but Lindsey's quick hand served as a barrier stopping him from moving any further.

"Michael. This is not your business to partake in. Your presence is no longer needed, go." Lindsey, cold and precise, barely spared him a glance.

The vampire looked at her in disbelief for a long moment until the coven leader turned and gave him a look as sharp at the pointed end of a dagger, cutting into Michael until he screwed his mouth into a tight line and vanished from the room, like he had never been there at all.

Frank looked back at Gerard, assessing the ashen face of the vampire and the considerably wide size his eyes adopted as they stared up at Frank like he was a mad man, and perhaps he was, but Frank would accept anything coming his way if it meant he would repay Gerard for saving him from the greedy hands of bleak death.

"Rise, human, you look pathetic." Lindsey rolled her eyes, taking one graceful step back as she placed her hands on her narrow hips.

Frank was quick to obey out of fear of what she may to if he didn't bring himself to stand on his feet quick enough. His knees shook, aching to give out, and he hoped they wouldn't become so weak that he would become a puddle on the ground once more.

"You too, Gerard. Weakling, I swear you are." Lindsey snapped, harshly crooking her fingers in a gesture for Gerard to lift himself.

Gerard did as told, gritting his teeth together and pressing the palm of his hand against his stomach. Frank's breath caught, wondering if the strength of Lindsey's blow had been enough to bruise him. He wasn't entirely sure if vampires could bruise, but it was clear that pain was something they carried with them into immortality.

Lindsey, analyzing the both of them, couldn't have looked more like an immobile masterpiece than she did in that moment. Cold, hard lines, a fearsome expression flashing across her eyes that shined like two dark marbles carved into the smoothness of her face.

"So, Frank Iero," Her speaking Frank's name sounded like a challenge. "Who have you told about us? Knowing your kind, you must have told at least one person about our nature."

Nothing had ever stopped Frank's heart before. Not the incoming terror coming from near death, not the countless dreams he'd had of monster crawling out of the shadows and coming to wrap their clawed fingers around his throat until not a single breath could pass into his lungs. Until now, in that fleeting moment, his heart hadn't skipped so many beats that he thought his heart may have shut down entirely. His mind immediately filled with images of Jamia, the only person who knew and believed in the existence of vampires. His best friend who had done research beside him for years, digging into the forgotten places of the internet to find victims of vampires, reading up on their knowledge and their sudden disappearance happening too often for it to be coincidental.

It was then that Lindsey's lips curled up into a cruel, slow smile, sending Frank's pumping blood into a chilled state that pained each of the veins beneath his flesh.

"And so you did." She mused, swaying her hips as she moved forward and hooked her finger underneath his chin. He flinched, feeling the tip of her sharp nail placing pressure onto his skin until his head titled back, eyes locking with hers while his heart jackhammered in his chest.

"Mercy, Lindsey, he did not think there were rules-" Gerard cut in, frantic and pleading, but Lindsey hissed, the second set of her fangs sliding out from her gums in a blinding flash of white. Frank cringed away.

"Tell me, Frank who are they?" Lindsey snarled, eyes glinting in a matter to draw terror out of the human in front of her. That she did, but not the sake of his own safety. He feared for Jamia's life and that alone caused him to keep his lips shut, his eyes widening as he stumbled back until he collided lightly with Gerard. the vampire grasped his upper arms, steadying him.

Lindsey laughed, full of bitterness so cold that there was no amount of heat in the world holding the ability to thaw out the ice. She ran her finger over one of her fangs, eyes raking over Frank's entire being until her eyes felt like the legs of spiders crawling all over his skin, the most vile feeling he didn't think anyone could possess.

"Very well, then. If he refuses to speak, I shall receive an answer my way." Lindsey tapped her finger against her bottom lip, painfully beautiful in the way she burned with insanity sparkling in the midst of her bottomless irises.

"No." Gerard whispered, begging Lindsey to reconsider. "No!" He cried again when she moved, but he was too late to stop her.

Lindsey had her hands planted on both sides of Frank's head, shoving him down onto his knees, and the pain shooting through his thighs when his knees came into sudden contact with the ivory marble floor could not compare to the pain that came next. Her eyes, glowing as red as rubies buried in an ancient artifact, gazed so deeply into Frank's until the feeling of her cruel power took over, attacking every cell rushing through his being. Agony filled him where she touched his head, resembling the feeling of his head being split open by two blindingly hot knifes, and no other pain he'd felt could ever compare to the torture he suffered while she grasped him - not when he broke his arm when he was nine, not when he hit his head on the pavement after falling off his bike, it was all child's play in comparison to the deep torment coursing through his brain. He screamed out, clawing at her arms, her hands, but the grip she had on him was much too strong for him to break free of. Her eyes dove into his very soul, pulling apart everything he had stored inside him until it was no longer his own, but hers, and she slowly plucked away at every nerve ending in his brain until he swore he was beginning to black out from the intensity of the pain.

She broke away, but only when Gerard pounced onto her, both of their bodies becoming a flurry of mixing smudges of similar colors as they struggled on the ground, their ferocious noises only slightly breaking through the ringing in Frank's ears. He crumpled onto the ground, feeling wave after wave of lingering agony pulsing inside of his skull. He touched his head, looking at his fingers when they pulled away for any sign of blood, but his fingertips came away empty. He gasped in pain, cringing and attempting to look around and see if Gerard was being harmed.

"Enough!" Lindsey cried out loudly, shoving Gerard off her of until he slid across the floor, but he quickly stopped himself from skidding over the flooring by planting his hands on the ground so harshly that tiny cracks formed underneath the force of his movement. Frank froze up, still enduring a great deal of pain.

Lindsey stood up, her eyes ablaze and her teeth dripping with blood from where she had scraped her fangs across Gerard's jaw, creating a painfully deep line all the way to his throat. Frank held his head tightly, not being able to drink in everything at once when it felt like his skull had been smashed in by a hammer.

"Her name is Jamia Nestor." Lindsey breathed, making Frank grow cold all over again. She wiped away her own blood from the gash going across her cheek. "She lives here in New Jersey, I caught her image and her scent in your memories, Frank." Turning her cheek towards the darkness at the mouth of the hall, she called out to a vampire by the name of Claude.

He appeared beside her, a vampire with fair blonde hair and the beauty of an angel. Frank tried to scramble up, to stop them, but every bit of energy had been sucked out of him and he could only uselessly cry out in frustration, the sound bringing more pain to his head.

"Find Jamia Nestor, she lives in apartment B of the Wilshire apartment complex in Belleville." Lindsey quickly informed him, breathless as she wiped the blood away from her pale face.

"No, please, no." Frank sobbed, flinching deeply at the echoing of his cries inside his head.

"Find of souvernir to bring to Frank after you've finished her off." Lindsey swiftly turned around, meeting the devilish smirk coming to play on the male vampire's lips, so cruel that his angelic featured twisted into that of an archangel come to earth to bring death to the human race.

Frank clawed at the floor when both vampires disappeared from the room, off to murder his best friend, and all of it was his fault. If he had never involved her, if he had listened to her and stayed home instead of tangling himself up into a world he once believed he knew enough of to be a part of, no harm would come to her and perhaps the two of them could have continued living peacefully. He couldn't handle the thought of cold hands wrapping around her, defenseless Jamia and her muffled screams as fangs sank into the thin flesh of her throat, tearing it out until all of the blood in her body drained into the awaiting mouth of the vampire thirsting for blood. Frank was too weak to stand, to crawl, and he pounded his fists against the floor in pure anger at his own helplessness, sobs tearing through his pained body and making his head throb like it had been struck by the concrete dozens of times.

"Frank." A soft voice came into his ears, and as his eyes followed the sound, he picked up the blurry image of Gerard - a pretty imagine of pale white skin and streaks of blood, hair challenging the night with its darkness. Frank couldn't find it in himself to be relieved to see him, not when grief of what was yet to come was filling him so rapidly that his scrambled brain simply couldn't handle it and spots began filling his vision, the sounds around him muffled as they would be if he'd submerged into the ocean and sank below the surface.

He vaguely collected Gerard scooping him into his arms and cradling him like he was a broken china doll, with careful hands and gentle movements. Frank could only slightly feel the heat of his tears rushing down his face, too spent to continue pushing out loud sobs representing the heartbreak violently holding a place in his body. He shivered intensely in place of it, hanging limply in Gerard's arms, and he only shut his eyes when the movement of the air around him told him that they would soon be out of the reach of Lindsey.

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A/N: Already chapter seven, what the hell, it still feels like I'm on chapter three. I added action and plot movement because god knows we needed that, more is coming so I hope your strapped in with your seatbelts on.

How was that? I liked this chapter a lot, the way it came out was pretty cool in my opinion.

So, I'm planning another fic at the moment, which is totally ridiculous because I have so many, but it isn't going to come out as soon as you'd think, I really want to prepare myself for it because it's been sitting in my drafts since 2016. I was actually co-writing it with my ex at one point but, lmao, yeah that's never going to happen as long as I'm breathing, so I'm on my own with this. I've been waiting to reach a certain mentality to be able to write it. It's epic, trust me. Once Upon A Dream who?

"You were meant for this love, you're my flesh and blood."

-aprilxo