Something was burning.

Acrid smoke roused Castor as he wrinkled his nose and bolted upright in bed, cursing when he realized he was burning. A quick extinguish spell put out the flames, but the damage to the pillow was unsalvageable. He tenderly touched the back of his head and cringed at the heat emitting from him like a candle. He hadn't come down with a case of Flarefever in years, not since he was a child.

A rosy, feverish glow enveloped his face, but he thought better of trying to lie back down on bed sheets that weren't fire magic resistant. One weird symptom he couldn't quite recall suffering before was having sore, throbbing gums and an excruciating toothache that made him clench his jaw. Castor had his share of cavities in the past, but nothing compared to the aches that radiated down to his jaw.

Castor couldn't remember being bitten by any of those rotters before they'd fled to Nevermourn to seek shelter, but his memories after that were pretty hazy. Maybe one had snagged him and he hadn't noticed? Rotters carried all kinds of infections and diseases, so it wasn't too surprising, he supposed.

Still, he wished Sebastian was there to explain what had happened and why he was in his special feeding room. It was a place in his clinic he'd purposefully secured for himself to drink blood, but why in the hells was he there? Had Sebastian needed some of his blood?

Instinctively, Castor checked his arms for band-aids then reached up and touched his neck. He gently traced his fingers against two small, swollen puncture wounds, and winced at the slight irritation at being prodded. He hadn't even noticed them with how insanely hot his body felt.

Why would Sebastian have gone for his neck? Warmth crept up his face because he knew how intimate that was for vampires, but then it left him with another unnerving thought. What if it wasn't Sebastian who bit him and took his blood?

When he moved away from the bed, he nearly knocked a tray off the nightstand that held two teeth and an assortment of sharp instruments. He cringed at the sight and rushed to the door, yanking on the knob to no avail.

Silvery wisps sparkled along the frame and he cursed as he tried to break the warded enchantment on the wretched thing. Sebastian had told him once before how he'd had to lock a vampire up for their own protection after they'd lost control of their cravings.

Did that mean the rotters had infiltrated the clinic? Castor stepped away from the door, his hand lingering on the tender pinpricks inflicted to his neck. Why couldn't he remember anything after landing in Nevermourn? What had happened? Lucien was safe, wasn't he? Why wasn't he with him? Why had they been separated?

There had to be a reason why Sebastian locked him in there. Castor moved over to the dark black out curtains and shifted them open, cursing the heavens when the bright morning sunlight pierced his eyes. He blinked a few times in hope of adjusting, but instead, quickly shifted them shut.

Sunlight never bothered him before. Honestly, he loved it. His favorite thing was sleeping while the sun shined through the windows during the day, curled up in his bed like a resting cat.

Something was wrong with him, wasn't there? It explained why Sebastian locked him in and probably bit him. To keep him from losing control.

Castor reeled away from the window, shaky hands grasping the sides of his head in fear of what he might be turning into. What if something was already inside him, slowly morphing him into some kind of monster? Someone living couldn't turn into a rotter like they did in the horror stories, right? He pulled his hands down, inspecting them. His skin looked the same, no traces of flaking or rot, although was he a tad bit pale. But that was normal during the colder seasons, right?

Pain shot through the left side of his mouth. That was certainly not normal. Castor experimentally stuck a finger in his mouth, wincing at the prodding against his sore gums. It ached too much to touch, but just as he withdrew his finger, something snagged the bottom of his lip.

The metallic tang of blood was strong on his tongue. Castor's pulse quickened as he gently grazed his tongue along his teeth, careful not to nick it as he brushed over two sharp, jagged fangs on each side of his mouth. Nausea welled from the pit of his stomach as he spun around and darted into the adjoined restroom to puke his guts out.

This couldn't be happening. Castor cradled the toilet like his life depended on it, until he was left dry-heaving bits of bloodied spit. He tried not to look too closely into the mass of viscous black and dark crimson before flushing it all away, wishing he could also flush those ungodly images from his mind.

Vampires didn't bother with mirrors, but he knew he had to look an awful lot like roadkill by the way he felt. Where in the hells was Sebastian? Where was Lucien?

His throat still burned from whatever awful stuff he'd thrown up, so he staggered out of the restroom and rummaged through Sebastian's cabinets for pain relievers. Anything to take that gods-awful pain away.

He managed to find some pain killers, then moseyed over to the fridge for a bottle of water. It never got any easier finding fresh blood in the fridge, all properly labeled by donor type, but he froze at the sight of the blood bags with his name written on them.

Castor slammed the fridge shut. There had to be a very logical explanation for why Sebastian kept bags of his blood in the fridge. Maybe for testing? Whatever was happening to him, surely he could fix it, right? Castor struggled not to imagine himself as a brain dead rotter wandering the forest for fresh meat, gnawing into his loved ones like a buffet of blood and organs. He twisted the cap off his water and took a small sip in hopes of quelling his queasy stomach.

The icy water tasted heavenly. He chased two pills down with it, hoping for some semblance of relief as he dug through Sebastian's new snack supply in the bottom cabinet. He always kept the new stuff he bought in his own office for when the stashes in the blood donor rooms ran out.

Castor had munched on snack cakes all the time at the clinic, but that first bite had to be the foulest thing he'd ever sunk his teeth into. It tasted like gooey mold and sulfur. He immediately spit it out in the sink, gagging on the aftertaste lingering on his tongue as he gurgled some water to wash it out.

What the hells was wrong with him? Castor finished his water and rested his back against the wall, letting his wary body slide down to the floor. Unshed tears pricked at his eyes, and he inhaled deep, shaky breaths to calm himself down. Why couldn't he eat? Why did everything ache so godsdamn badly? He felt like a stranger in his own body.

So many uncanny thoughts swarmed his mind. He tried to keep focus on breathing, listening for his heartbeat that came at very slow beats. Far too slow to be considered normal.

The door creaked open, and Castor raised his head as Sebastian dashed inside, locking it behind him. Blood sprinkled his white lab coat, he could quite literally smell the gore wafting from him as he crouched to Castor's level. Yet despite the pain and the fear of turning into some ungodly monster, all he could think about was Lucien and if he was safe and locked up somewhere too.

"Is Lucien safe?" Castor rasped.

"Yes, of course. He overused his magic, so he's recovering in a room of his own just down the hall. I should have been here when you woke up. I'm sorry, Castor. This isn't normally how these things are handled, but with six of our employees dead, I've been struggling on my own around here. Still, it's no excuse for leaving you alone. Have you been up long? Does it hurt?"

Castor blinked, struggling to process what was going on as Sebastian gently helped ease him back to his feet. "My mouth kinda hurts," he admitted. "I took some painkillers earlier, but they're not helping much."

"Fangs," Sebastian muttered under his breath. "I really should have been here when you woke up. Those won't help you. They'll just upset your stomach. You didn't take too many, did you?"

"Just two. My bad. I didn't know."

"It's okay. I understand. I know you didn't. This all must be very confusing, and again, I'm sorry. Let me just grab you some ointment, okay? We prescribe it to dhampir children often when their fangs start coming in to help make things less painful for them."

"What's wrong with me, Sebastian?" Castor choked out as he fetched the ointment from his medicine cabinet. "Why am I locked in here? Did I... lose control? Am I turning into one of those rotters or-"

Sebastian spun around with a pained look in his eyes. "No, of course not. The wards are just precautionary and mostly for your protection." He handed him a tube of ointment "Just apply this to your gums very gently. It'll numb the area and taste like peppermint."

"What do you mean, for my protection?" Castor frowned, then applied the ointment as Sebastian instructed.

"I haven't spoken to my wife's family in many years, so it took a lot for me to have to ask a favor from them." Sebastian's gaze dropped to the floor, his eyes softly glowing in the dim light. "But as you know, vampirism transformations were banned for wizards when they enacted the Blood Treaty. So, I had to find a legal loophole. Mave and I never had any children, and with her gone, the Wraith bloodline needs to continue. I've never sired anyone before, so this is all new territory for me as well, but... I had to turn you. You would have died had I not."

Castor's heart plummeted down into his nauseated stomach. "What did you do to me, Sebastian?"

"The only thing I could do to save you." Sebastian sagged into a chair, rubbing at his temples. Dark circles clung beneath his crimson eyes that lightened in color. "I extracted your teeth so you wouldn't endure them falling out like I did. I'd wanted to be here before you woke up so I could ease you better through the transition, but I'm fanging exhausted. I haven't even had a chance to rest for two days straight now."

"Two days?" Castor rasped. "Is that how long I've been out of it?"

Sebastian nodded. "Which is very normal. Your body needed the time to recover from such a traumatic procedure. Lucien's magic repaired much of your damaged skin tissue, but once the venom circulated through your bloodstream and traveled into your organs, it repaired those as well."

"Venom?" Castor asked in a shaky voice.

"It's what keeps us alive, basically. A form of vampire blood, to put it in simpler terms. I had to flush out most of your old blood before your body naturally expelled it out itself. Which would have been a painful, bloody mess. I had no intention of letting you suffer through that though, don't worry."

A cold dread seeped down into Castor's bones as he stared down at himself. "I'm really a vampire?"

"Yes. I know it's a lot to process right now. The changes you'll experience will be uncomfortable and weird, but I promise to do everything I can to make it painless for you."

"I don't know if I can do all this, Sebastian." Castor shook his head, staggering back onto the bed. Bed sheets be damned. "What am I supposed to tell my parents? How can I even go home like this? I don't think I can stomach drinking blood either, but I know I can't eat normal foods anymore. Learned the hard way trying to eat one of those snack cakes." he made a face of disgust.

"Fangs, I didn't realize you tried eating that. I forgot those were even in here." Sebastian groaned.

"Well, forgive me for not knowing." Castor crossed his arms over his chest with a petulant frown.

"I'm not upset with you, Castor. It just means I have to make sure it doesn't mess with your digestive system. Blood should have been the first thing you drank, but it's okay." Sebastian pushed himself out of the chair and stepped over to the fridge for two of the blood bags stashed away. "I'm sure you're parched, huh? Why don't we share a pint?"

"Using my old blood?" Castor frowned.

"Drinking your human blood helps settle the stomach because your body's already familiar with it." Sebastian went rummaging through his cabinets again for two black bat-shaped mugs. "Figured it might feel less weird for you to drink out of these instead of a blood bag."

Despite Sebastian's reassurances how it would make him feel better, one look at the mug had him shaking his head like a stubborn child refusing to eat his vegetables. "I can't drink that, Sebastian. I'm sorry."

"I kept it preserved, so it's still good if you're concerned about that." Sebastian took a sip from one of the mugs to prove so, staining his lips red. "Blood types all have different flavors to them, and you'll learn that too. Yours is O positive, as you know. The most common type, which is very rich in taste. However, you also have very viscous blood."

"Is that bad?" Castor accepted the mug handed to him, curiously sniffing at the thick, crimson substance.

"Not at all. Every vampire has their preferences, of course, but it's a favorite of mine." Sebastian's lips curved into a tiny half smile. "It's tradition for those we sire to share a first drink with them, hence the fancy mugs I brought out. I know you're scared, but I promise, it'll be okay. Drinking blood takes some getting used to."

One tiny sip wouldn't hurt, would it? It smelled awfully good. Castor licked his lips, trying not to think too much about the fact that his own blood smelled so damn delicious to him. He could pretend it was red wine or juice, right?

Castor took one tentative gulp, the cold liquid rushing down his parched throat. He swore the water had tasted heavenly, but the blood was absolutely divine.

Nothing mattered to him in that moment as he swallowed every bit of blood down from the mug, his tongue desperately licking the inner edges of the mug just to savor every bit of it.