Thank you to Skeletal Princess and Jessilee1027 for such awesome and regular review – also thank you to Guest (no name darnit ;/) for their review too :)
The stake bent as it hit the vampire's midsection at full force, furthering its destruction by exploding into a thousand pieces.
Ingrid gaped.
Vlad was perfectly fine. And fully awake.
It took him several seconds, Ingrid had frozen – still captivated by the lack of damage to his torso, to realise his situation before his face darkened like a storm cloud.
"Ingrid." His voice was steady for now but his eyes glittered red, a vampiric trait that not even argentalium could supress. "What. Did. You. Do?"
He shifted and looked down at his midsection, his uninjured midsection. He slowly patted his chest, toying with the rip in his shirt until he dug a finger sized splinter from within his jacket. It was the tip of her stake, curving like a crescent moon with a flattened angle where the peak should've been. "You tried to stake me." His lips curved sadly as he held up the varnished pine. "I'm guessing you didn't expect this conversation."
Ingrid's teeth jutted out from behind an ugly snarl. "No I didn't." A candelabrum had been gleaming on the mantelpiece and she quickly snatched it. "And I intend to finish the job."
As she advanced towards him Vlad thrust his palm out on instinct, all the power he could muster heading straight to his hand to obliterate Ingrid. She froze, expecting to be incinerated but all she felt was a miniature shudder within the air around her. She smirked.
"Can't even summon a fireball?" Victory was finally hers, the breakage of her stake previously was a fluke and she would prove it. As she neared him, Vlad looked between her and his palm with panic, shaking it as if it would make his powers work again. "Pathetic."
A metre from him she flitted, appearing behind him and locking the makeshift stake around his throat. He felt like prey; though his heart didn't beat nor did he excrete fluid via his pores he still reeked of fear, a delicious scent that had never emanated from her brother ever before.
As she considered how she could best dismantle her sibling for good Vlad struggled, wriggling and hissing under her arms like a clutched snake. It didn't bother her: Vlad had no strength to escape and he couldn't even walk!
However she forgot just how strong vampiric instincts are even despite Vlad's humanness. His fangs burst out of his gums and he sank them straight into Ingrid's wrist.
A vampire's jaw was one of the strongest areas of their anatomy and Vlad managed to drink more than enough of her blood before she ripped her arm away.
Ingrid's blood wasn't as good as pure human blood but it was far above the strength of synthetic soy blood and Vlad felt so much stronger. He was fully capable of snatching his sister's wrist and using her stolen strength to hurl her over the sofa and smack her into the floor.
They both leapt to their feet and faced each other down.
Ingrid lashed out, her nailed hands twisted into a deadly claw shape – just as Vlad threw a punch with all his strength.
He was unable to see the result however as his stamina wavered and his vision blurred. Ingrid's nails had torn away a large percentage of the skin on his right cheek and the momentary strength gained from stealing her blood had faded.
His balance dissolved and he dropped to the floor, unconscious before his head hit the carpet.
Much to contrary belief, the Count was no oblivious. He knew his children believed him ignorant and unable of understanding any opinion other than his own but he preferred that way. He knew very well that children were often the biggest threat to a clan leader and especially with how Vlad was diverging he preferred to be underestimated.
He had been the same with his father. It made him somewhat proud that no matter how much his son tried to be different he couldn't deviate from his genes and the traits he'd taken from his father. This was also a bad thing considering how the Count and his siblings had attempted to take power.
That wasn't the point though. The point was that the Count wasn't oblivious so he did hear the sound of his two children try to kill each other and did come running.
He flitted into the throne room just in time to see Ingrid slam loudly into the wall and Vlad drop heavily onto the floor.
It was not hard to guess what must have transpired. Except…
The shards of wood puzzled the Count as he knew that Ingrid would not have missed – and Vlad had been in no shape to stop her.
Yet again he found himself slinging Vlad over his shoulder and yelling for Renfield.
His boy was fading. Or so that's how it felt. He had become so strong only to lose every single drop. So light and so fragile – pale and gaunt even for a vampire.
After laying his son back on the sofa, paling slightly at the clawed flesh on the Chosen One's face, he looked to where his daughter was unconscious.
In a moment of weakness the Count wondered how far things had gotten from what it once was. Everything had gone exactly how he'd wanted it; Vlad had accepted his destiny and his title; he was able to mooch off Vlad's power; Magda was long gone from his thoughts and there had been no tearing him off his pedestal.
So why did it not feel like a victory? Despite six centuries of icy unfeelingness he couldn't seem to stand watching his children try and dust one another.
His eyes softened for a split second before he was snatching Renfield by the ear again and yelling for him to sort things out.