He was starving.

He was exhausted.

The clash of his obsidian blade against his opponent's broad sword rang loudly in the clearing. His sword flipped out of his hand, leaving a stinging cut across his forearm. Sweat ran down his tattooed face, he pushed his hair back behind his slightly pointed ears.

He dodged out of the way of the swinging blade that would have split his face in two and recalled his sword to his hand with a simple spell. The blade landed in his grasp just in time to block the next blow. He still staggered back from his opponent.

This was the longest day of training he'd had so far, stretching far beyond his evening meal time.

Lem's fangs slipped down over his lips. By reflex, he pulled them in. Now wasn't the time to let go and run with his baser instincts. It's what they wanted.

"Again!" The harsh voice egged them on.

Whatever potion they'd made him drink a few weeks ago was changing him. It had burned like fire going down, and then his body had shaken uncontrollably as the effects spread. They were now using magic to hold him back.

"Again!"

Inside, he groaned, but outwardly he forced the dark blade in front of him at his enemy once more, vowing that this bastard of a fay would die first. The blades clashed once more. The hunger he'd worked his entire childhood to control was stronger than it had ever been. Pangs rippled up and down his sides as the thirst grew. He ignored the sensations as he'd been trained to do all of his life. He felt it with a new intensity that was distracting. A knick on his shoulder brought him back to excruciating reality.

He was losing.

He swung left, feinting a blow, looking for a weakness in his opponent's defenses, anything that would give him an edge to end this quickly. The nameless Fay was an expert swordsmen, although Lem was getting better.

He hesitated. Was it his imagination, or was the Fay moving slower? Time seemed to slow and Lem countered every thrust, every parry... He was still hard-pressed, but he counted the swings the Fay made.

There.

The opening was a small one, but a repeated one, the Fay moved in cycles. Lem counted his movements and thrust his own blade under the Fay's wrist, his lips quirked in triumph, as he snapped the blade up, the sword biting through leather, bone, and tendon, his hunger, or was it the potion they'd force-fed him, giving him strength.

A scream pierced the clearing, but Lem couldn't hear it over the pounding in his ears as the metallic smell of blood filled his flared nostrils. His fangs slid down over his lips as he zeroed in on the blue stump, dripping crimson in front of him. To him, it smelled like the sweetest flower, manna from heaven, honey...

He leaped forward teeth bared, ready to sink into the soft flesh--

Only to find his shackles yanked painfully up into the air. Suspended in the middle of the field, he could only snarl in place as he watched the other Fay, a breakaway sect of his Elven brethren, help the swordsmen whose hand he'd just removed. He twisted and turned in what he knew were vain attempts at escape, but he tried them anyway. Everything his parents had raised him not to do, he would have broken every taboo in that single instant to drain this being, who held him captive dry, and leave his body to rot in the blazing sun.

The dark blade was wrenched from his grasp as he felt his feet leaving the ground.

"Bravo," his captor came forth and Lem even forgot that he was hungry as fear coursed through him. This was the author of his torments. There was one name anyone feared above all others. One name who was still whispered instead of spoken out loud. Arkesh had once had armies of mutated beings at his command. His defeat at the hands of the Elves and some of his own monstrous creations had come with a great cost. But his legacy still lived on.

If there was one thing that was stronger than his hunger, it was Lem's hatred of the Fay who stood before him. The being who'd tortured and twisted his ancestors into the creatures they were today. A hundred generations separated Lem from Arkesh and yet almost every member of the vampiric clans felt the deep burning hatred for their twisted creator.

"You are growing stronger my young friend, who would have thought I would find a specimen in such good condition way out here. Are you sure you have no clan nearby? My scouts report no one, but surely there is a village, a human one? You are not Vai-Siri perhaps?" The old Fay's hair was white, a crescent moon tattooed to his forehead marked him as a worshipper of the Demoness Elwe. His blue skin, and those with him, was a trait of those who had taken the mark, casting their Elven brethren aside. It was made as a vow they could never return from, now genetically imprinted onto their very DNA. There was very little Arkesh had not tampered with, and very few he wasn't willing to twist to suit his purposes.

Lem closed his mouth focusing instead on the pain in his wrists. The hands would be stiff and sore in the morning, they always were when Arkesh was in one of his moods. Lem's fangs receded. A few moments of preaching and then Arkesh would feed him. All he had to do was nod his head at the right time here and there.

Arkesh interrupted his thoughts. "You have done so well today my young friend, that I've decided to give you a gift."

"A gift?" Lem's voice was rough, he felt the earth return to his feet and his arms lowered as he was released.

"Oh yes," Arkesh's voice was smooth as silk. Behind him, Lem hadn't noticed was another blue-skinned Fay in white robes holding a chain-bounded human. Gray fur sprouted from the man's shoulders and the top of his head, while his chest was bare, his ears were slightly elongated like Lem's but were covered in hair, his feet were dirty and bare, he only wore pants.

"What is this?" Lem backed away.

"I've brought you a living chalice." Arkesh smiled as if he'd just given candy to a child.

"No." Lem took another step back.

"No?" It was as if the weather responded to Arkesh's anger. Clouds darkened the sun, thunder boomed in the distance. "You have been gleefully drinking the blood of our rejects for the past three weeks... I bring you a chalice, straight from the source, you say, no?"

He wanted to vomit. His fellow captives?

"No," he whispered.

"Ah, but you were so ready to take Dimenthenes blood." Arkesh sighed. "Lock them in together, sometimes the best lesson is a hard one."

Once again, he was lifted off of his feet, but he offered no protest as the shackles dragged him down into the darkness of his cell. He barely noticed being tossed in, the werewolf shoved in behind him. 

"He is not to be released until he's fed." 

Lem blinked into the darkness as the footsteps receded. A rat scurried nearby and with lightning speed he snatched it up, biting into it, draining the creature. 

"That's disgusting," the werewolf whispered from his corner. 

"You serious?" Lem tossed the remains at him. The werewolf caught the drained rat and with a glance at Lem bit into the spine. 

Lem snorted and turned to the Fay who watched over them. Her name was Arikal, she was just as cruel as the rest of them. She loved to watch the torture, and he knew she participated. 

"Hey, Ari, you mind handing me the water?"

"Wet your throat with him," she replied smiling and leaning forward. 

"I thought you'd like a front-row seat," Lem smiled at her. 

"You mean to go through with it? I thought it would be a few days, vampire..." She moved down to the side of the cage, eager, ready.

His hand was through the bars and around her throat before she could scream. "You... No, you're no monster!" She gasped out, fear etched deeply across her features.

"Sure I am," he snapped, his voice hoarse. "I'm the monster you made me." His fangs sank into her throat, and he didn't stop. Nothing had ever tasted so good, he forgot about guilt and where he was. Her hands stopped pushing against his shoulders as he bit deeper. He ripped his head back, dropping her when there was no more. 

He felt renewed, invigorated.

The werewolf was huddling in the corner, staring up at him in fear.

Lem considered him for a moment. "I think you misunderstand my friend. I intend to get us out of here."