The harsh steel of the pistol felt cold and foreign as she pointed the barrel at her human uncle. His eyes were pleading for the bullet, begging her to pull the trigger since this was the quickest and least painful way to die here. She could feel Arlon's bitter breath on the back of her neck as her arm quaked.

Blood blossomed in a scrape down his cheek as red as the summons envelope that had gotten her here. It was that envelope that commanded she leave her life at Karick's school and come to her father's court at Rynoss Keep.

Her teacher, Karick, had dropped her off at the keep at midday. The sun gleamed off his shaved head he used to hide his bright blue hair that marked him as other from the humans as he stood at the bow of his airship. His fingers twitched around his pocket watch as a symbol of his human faith in something more concrete than monsters.

"I want you to be careful, Leith," Karick unwound the silver chain that held the watch against his breast. "We both know your father is not above doing anything to get you to do what he desires, and he holds little regard for humans."

Leith looked out over the deck of the ship across the wild moors once carefully cultivated by human farmers who's now all fled for the safety of the cities. Her father's conquered keep sat as the sole sign of life in the desolate green plains.

"He sent me to your school as a baby so that I wouldn't hurt his favorite human, and now he has the backbone to summon me like a dog," Leith crossed her arms. "I'm not planning on staying very long."

"As much as I want you to embrace your humanity, Leith, you need to remember you are part vox," Karick said as he pressed the pocket watch in her hand hard, the heart indention on the backside pushed into her palm. "I will retrieve you if you press the beacon in the watch. Remember who you are in Arlon's palace."

She hung the watch at her waist. It hooked through the belt loop to fall beside the pistol he'd taught her how to shoot when she was eleven.

He held her hand like a small child as they left the airship and approached the gate of the city. Leith looked up at the high oak doors that blocked the entrance to the keep. They seemed prepared to swallow her like a beast with open jaws.

The guards opened the gates, and Karick let go of her hand to let her handle her father alone. Leith stepped through the gates and straight into the heart of the treacherous palace.

The doors slammed ominously shut behind her as she passed marble columns and ivory walls crumbling into ruin. There was a reason this city had fallen since choosing beauty over security left it easy for the vox to conquer.

Guards hissed at her with sharp teeth and yellow eyes but moved their tridents aside to let her pass into the receiving hall. The room was octagonal like some ancient baptismal and nearly bare except for a few tapestries with fraying ends and a blood-red runner that streaked across the floor to the hollow throne and the small empty stool beside it for the king's favorite lapdog, her mother.

A dozen vox stood around the edges of the room, wearing a mockery of human fashions. The female vox had shredded their long skirts into strips and dyed their stockings, stays, and bloomers in shades as bright as their orange and purple hair. Jewels sparkled on their fingers and necks to show off prizes stolen from drained humans. The men had dyed their cravats bright pink in a show of solidarity with the master of the house.

On the hollow throne, a man sat in a bile green suit in the most ungentlemanly position. One leg was thrown over the other, revealing polished snakeskin boots. His yellow eyes surveyed her up and down before his impassive face broke into a sinister smile.

She tightened her fingers around the pocket watch. The gentle tick beat in a soft rhythm slower than her racing heart.

Her boots clicked loudly on the marble floor as she tried to look anywhere except at the self-proclaimed king of the rotting keep. Her eye caught on moss and lichen growing in the reflecting pool behind the throne with no sign of the colorful fish from her childhood.

"The court bids you welcome, Lady Leith," the man said, rising from the throne. "Welcome home, my daughter."

"Arlon," Leith replied curtly.

"Arlon, is it?" the man walked towards her and wrapped one of her pink locks around his finger. "Not Marquis. Not Father. Not Prince. Such disrespect, darling."

"You've earned none of those titles, Arlon," anger bubbled in Leith's chest like a swell of life energy before a vox consumed it. "You sent me away because I was draining humans left and right as an infant and instead let Karick teach me the ways of the world."

"My daughter has spirit," Arlon laughed. "We shall feast in honor of that spirit today. Bring forth the family of the house."

He clapped his hands, and a side door opened. Two dozen or so humans walked into the room shaking. Their once splendorous clothes were worn and stained. There were several children hiding behind the skirts of their mothers. The youngest had a full head of white hair, showing that he was mostly already drained.

Arlon clapped his hands again, and a well-groomed group of humans entered the room. The leader made her way to the stool at the foot of the throne to sit primly. She was a stately woman in her early thirties with a single wide streak of white in her brown hair. Leith knew she must be Marquess Nadia Ryneoss, her mother.

"Our daughter is home, Marquess," Arlon said as he walked over to her and kissed her outstretched hand. "We must feast. After all, this is a special occasion."

The marquess only bobbled her head. Arlon wrapped his fingers around her chin possessively and tilted her head towards him. Leith knew it was all purely for show, but her stomach still turned as her mother's painted lips curved into a smile as Arlon inhaled deeply and opened his mouth to expose his fangs.

Leith took a breath, and she could see the vulnerable life aura around her mother. It was a sensuous rainbow of pink and purple strands that smelled of rich roast lamb and deep plumb. Her eyes turned yellow as she counted slowly backward from ten trying to ignore the temptation dangling in front of her like a ripe fruit dripping off the vine demanding to be plucked.

Arlon sucked at the air pulling in a long slow draft of the marquess's energy. She moaned softly and quivered on her stool. Arlon's eyes rolled into his head for a moment before he backed away with expert care and straightened his cravat.

"She's a treat, not a meal," Arlon said. "Leith, my child, do you want a sip?"

The question caught her so off guard it took her a moment to realize she was gaping. She'd been banished as a baby for drinking from her mother, and now he was just offering her up like a present to her with open arms.

"No," she said. "I prefer not to drink my own kind."

Arlon chuckled. "Your own kind? You are no more human than I, little Leith. I sent you to Karick so you could be trained in restraint, not to sully your head with ridiculous notions that you could be human. If you stepped into any other city on the continent with that hair, you'd be shot on the spot."

Arlon walked to the crowd of humans. They parted before him, and the vox backed away so their king could have the first taste. He grabbed the shoulder of the little boy hiding behind his mother and latched onto his aura with a vicious thick breath. This time he sucked longer and faster. The little boy screamed silently. He'd been drained so much previously that his voice was already gone.

Leith watched in horror as the little boy slumped to the floor with glassy eyes. The woman he'd been hiding behind gave out a cry, but she was silenced by her own draining as the vox in the crowd began their feast.

Instead of watching the humans fall and the remaining live ones stumble off after the feeding, Leith focused on her father and the marquess.

Arlon strutted back to his throne and sat back lazily. He ran a proprietary hand through the marquess's hair as if to remind the assembled vox he owned her body and soul. Leith was never sure if she admired her mother's sense of self-preservation or if she found her devotion utterly revolting.

The doors of the chamber flew open, and a human entered the court. His dark chestnut hair was swept behind his head, and his suit was finely pressed. He was polished from his top hat to his boots.

That wasn't, however, what Leith found so striking. Instead, it was who the man was and the fact that he had the gall to interrupt Arlon's court proceedings and think he would keep his life.

"Well, well," Arlon said. "This is a day of surprises. Tell me, what can I do for you, Duke Ryneoss."

The former proprietor and noble of the city stared down his nose at Arlon. When his eyes fell on his sister, the marquess, that nose wrinkled in disgust. Then he squared his shoulders and looked at Leith.

"I came to speak to my niece," Duke Ryneoss said.

Arlon raised a pink eyebrow. "I think not. Showing your face here, Ryneoss, was a foolish decision. It was only by my marquess's grace your life was spared."

"Your bastard can speak for herself unless you've drained her so much she has lost her tongue," the duke said. "That I very much doubt. Even you care for her. After all, you brought her into your fold."

"Leave this place," Arlon spat. "I am the master of this hall. I conquered your petty city."

The duke stiffened and reached into his jacket. "Abomination."

Leith saw the flash of silver before she realized that the duke was pointing a gun at her. Before her hand could migrate to the pistol Karick had given her, the shot rang out, and she felt her body flying sideways as the marquess shoved her out of the way of the bullet.

Her palms hit the hard marble floor catching her fall. When she looked back, she watched half a dozen guards pinning the duke to the floor. Arlon was helping the marquess to her feet, brushing off her dress. She had a graze on the side of her arm where the bullet had torn through the fabric of her sleeve.

Leith stood carefully, adjusting her shirt and trying to decide whether it was best to clutch the watch at her waist or the pistol. One was a brutal weapon to punish criminals, but she'd never fired it at a living being. The other was a cowardly potential escape.

"Are you all right?" Arlon asked her.

"I am unhurt," Leith replied. "What will you do with him?"

"I am undecided," Arlon licked his lips.

Arlon waved for servants to escort out the marquess to medical treatment and began to pace around the throne in a frenzied pace. He rubbed his pink beard thoughtfully as if in deep thought.

Finally, he stopped directly in front of the throne. He looked her up and down, and then his lips bent up into a wolfish grin.

"The attempt, dear, Leith, was on your life," he said. "I'll allow you the honor of draining him for his crime."

Her stomach roiled as her mind divided. Arlon had once sent her away for draining, and now this was how he was welcoming her back into his court.

"I don't drink my own kind," her words from earlier, she'd spoken with so much conviction, felt hollow and dry against her lips now.

"You refuse to punish him?" Arlon's self-satisfied smirk rippled into a frown. "Is that the example you wish to set as my heir, Leith?"

"No one deserves to be drained for another's pleasure," Leith crossed her arms.

"Pleasure," Arlon drew the word out in his mouth. "I will only draw it out long enough that it's long and painful as penance for his crimes."

Two of the guards held the duke in place on his knees. Arlon approached the kneeling figure and bared his fangs. The duke gave a cry of panic and tried to flee, but the guards held him in place.

The smell of the duke's life force, so sour and unctuous, permeated the room. Arlon took a deep and sharp breath inhaling the energy so quickly that the duke's body began to spasm.

"Take a sip, Leith," Arlon coaxed. "I am rather full, and this energy is rather repugnant. Help out your old man, please, darling."

"Kill me," the duke said. "I'd rather die at the gun of a half-breed than by the draining of a monster."

Arlon looked at the gun at her waist and smiled. "Well, Leith, go on."

Leith took a step towards her uncle with the pistol in her hand and leveled it just above his pleading eyes. Her finger quivered on the trigger as Arlon's presence made the very hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.

The bullet was a mercy. Still, it somehow felt wrong. She could hear the chiding voice of her mentor Karick reminding her that she was just as much human as she was monster.

"Kill me," the duke begged in a hoarse whisper, his voice already waning from the brutal draining. "Please."

Leith looked into the duke's eyes and lowered the gun. "I don't want a part of this life of killing with you, Arlon."

She turned away and walked straight out of the room without dismissal. She didn't care if her father finished the job and drained her uncle. She clipped the gun back to her waist and fingered the pocket watch instead.

She should have never answered her father's summons and come here. She was no heir to an empire of vox any more than she was human.

She wandered down a side hallway until she ran into a figure. The marquess's arm was bandaged, and she looked at Leith with worry in her brown eyes.

"Where are you going, darling?" She asked in a quiet and controlled voice.

"I'm leaving," Leith said as her fingers twisted the beacon on the pocket watch to summon Karick.

"You know that your father and I love you," the marquess said.

The statement sent Leith reeling. Her mother was her father's property, a silent toy that did his bidding, and he himself was a cruel tyrant. Love wasn't a part of the equation of ruling and conquering.

"You have a funny way of showing it," she said.

"Where will you go?" There was a hint of worry in the marquess's careful mask.

"Anywhere but here," Leith replied, clutching the watch hard enough that the indentation of the heart branded her skin.

"He will come after you," the marquess said.

Leith only smiled. "I know. Goodbye, marquess."

She turned away from the woman who birthed her. There were ways to discover her way in the world without Arlon, and she intended to find one. 

Hey everyone!!! So this is the first installment in a series of short stories that all take place in the same world of humans and vox. I wrote this one for a class at school. Be sure to let me know what you think. I posted this all as one entry because I didn't feel that this could be divided well, and it's really meant to be read all at once.

 I've enjoyed working on these short stories because they allow me to experiment and challenge myself as a writer. The challenge with this story was to use vivid detail and movement, which are things I struggle with. I chose Icarus by Bastille to represent this story because I listened to the song on a loop when I wrote the rough draft because the song reminds me of Leith. I hope you've enjoyed the story. Until next time.

---- Eliana