WARNING: Please be advised, this chapter contains violence typical of the original canon material.

Amleth massaged the slender foot in his hand. He slid his thumbs along its softly curving arch. Maty hummed a pleased sound. "That's nice," she said.

"It's supposed to be," he replied. "You deserve a reward for your hard work, darling."

Maty had helped him assert order over the dismal room he had commandeered. From among the trash and rotting furniture in the dungeon's cells, they had culled as many serviceable carpets and cushions as could be found. The dinge was now brightened with accents of burgundy and dark wine. She had curated a collection of interesting bottles and jars for him on a side table and filled a set of shelves with as many soggy books as they could support. Maty brought other little gifts for him, too. A green and gold ballpoint pen winked at him from a shelf. It gave him a disproportionate amount of pleasure. He was not ashamed to take joy in the small things. Small things were all he had left.

Eva and Constantine were a world away, defenseless against Godric's unyielding methods. He did not know why his sire had not broken them yet, but that he was seemingly waiting to torture them was unsurprising. Unpredictability was part of Godric's terrifying genius. He had taught his children that, and many other things besides. Perhaps they would somehow appease the ancient. The thought of them somehow surviving gladdened his heart.

"Perhaps I'll sketch your portrait," he told Maty.

She shifted under his touch. "Do you have any talent?"

"My Eva would do a better job of it, to be sure."

"People say she has a gift from God." Maty wiggled her toes to remind him to keep massaging. "I've never seen her work."

"Really? You've not been to the galleries in Paris, then?" he asked.

She laughed lightly. "No."

"What about Vienna? She has exhibited there too."

"I am not well traveled, uncle."

Amleth scoffed. "Says the woman who traipsed across the Sahara as a girl and who survived the North African kasbahs as a newborn."

"You know Master doesn't allow me to go far."

Amleth grunted. He was fairly certain Maty was not exaggerating about her confinement. Roman had kept her on or near the compound for well over a century. Whether the compound was in Greece, Bulgaria, or Turkey was another matter. Maty was forbidden to say. "All this time and you never visited me," he teased. "Not one single trip to see the famed Sheriff of London. How reckless of you. I'm offended."

She rolled her eyes. "I wanted to meet you for so long. You have no idea."

The admission surprised him. "Did you? Who's been telling you about me?"

"You are well-known, Dark Fox."

He cast her a smoldering gaze. "You sound a little starstruck, Maty love. They do say to never meet your idols." She kicked him in the ribs and he laughed riotously. He went to deliver her a sound smack on the rear in retribution when the dungeon gate whined on its hinges.

"Bloody hell," he muttered. He set a protective arm over her legs.

The lead guard, Rashed, stuck his squarish head in the doorway. He looked around skeptically. "Been 'decorating'?" he sneered.

Between assaulting Rashed and stealing his dump of a room, Amleth had not endeared himself to the guard. But then, that had rather been the point. "Why are you here, underling?"

"Get up. Roman wants you."

Amleth picked up Maty's foot and placed a kiss on the tip of her big toe. "To be continued, chérie."

Three other guards waited for him in the hallway. One of them was holding a set of manacles. As he motioned for them to proceed, he heard a crash from behind him. "Oops," Rashed said mockingly. He had knocked over the table with the upcycled bottle collection.

Amleth steeled himself and followed the team. They escorted him through a series of winding, subterranean hallways. He had not gone this way before.

Left, twenty yards. Right, ten yards. Through a gate with a lion's head over the lock. Amleth memorized the twists and turns until they passed through the same gate again going the other direction. "Gods' teeth," he groaned. The guards were trying to disorient him. "Enough with the games, boys. Get on with it."

Rashed shoved him forward. Amleth stopped dead in his tracks. He locked eyes with the soldier. "Rashed," he said in a measured tone. "We talked about this, yes? You had better keep a cool head with me if you plan on keeping your head at all."

Emboldened by the presence of his teammates, Rashed grabbed him by the arm. The cold muzzle of a weapon bit into Amleth's skull. The safety clicked as Rashed flicked it off. "Move your ass," he hissed. His breath was foul on Amleth's face.

"Put the safety back on your weapon. Immediately."

"Fuck you," Rashed spat. Amleth licked his lips in outrage. The metal barrel dug harder into his scalp.

"Go easy, Rash," one of the other guards cautioned.

"I told you not to chain him up," said another. "Fuck's sake, man. He's two thousand years old."

Amleth was not about to correct them. Bora, the guard who usually brought him his meals, stood closest. "Bora bear, be so good as to step aside." Bora frowned in confusion. "Go on. Be quick about it."

The moment Bora shifted, Amleth reacted. The guards were too young to follow his explosive movements. Rashed never had a chance. Amleth threw his arms wide and broke free of the manacles on his wrists. Spinning, he grabbed the weapon trained on him and whipped the loose end of the silver chain from his shackles around Rashed's neck. A quick upward jerk of his knee snapped the chain connecting his ankles. His foot stomped the gun on the ground, destroying it. "Drop your weapons," Amleth ordered.

Bora backed further away. "Put guns down, stupid," he told his comrades. The guards warily complied.

"Take your friends' toys away, Bora. They don't play nice."

"But Mr. Amleth…"

"Now," he warned. Rashed thrashed in his arms while Bora collected the weapons. Amleth reached down the length of the struggling guard's camo pants and found a knife strapped to his ankle. He put the knife to Rashed's neck, right where the silver was searing his flesh. He tugged on the chain, letting it guide his knife, uncaring that the silver was burning his own palm raw.

"Take note, boys. This is what happens when you don't respect your elders."

A spray of Rashed's blood hit the guards' faces. Amleth grimaced as he sawed. He paused occasionally to let the silver chain cauterize the flesh closed so that the vampire would not bleed out. The result was catastrophic. When the last flap of skin pulled free, Amleth flipped Rashed's head in the air and caught it. "No one stake him until I give the order." Amleth kicked the twitching body aside and looked at Bora. "Lead the way, mate."

Bora did, too jarred or dumb to feign misdirection. He led Amleth straight to a secret staircase behind a fortified door. It brought them out to the main floor of the compound further east of where the main dungeon exit sat. They walked down a colonnaded hallway to a Turkish bath.

The grand room was tiled in broad geometric designs. At the center of its gleaming mosaic was a shell-shaped marble fountain. Water from a spigot poured into the shell and trickled through its curved claws to the nested pools below. Roman floated, perfectly relaxed, at the steaming pool's edge. He opened his eyes halfway. The briefest glimmer of amusement passed over his lips as he saw what his guest was holding. "What did Rashed do," he asked, "apart from having shackled you after he was told not to?"

Amleth was tempted to hurl the decapitated head into the water at him, but he decided it might be one offense too many for the evening. As it was, he wanted to see how Roman would react to having his security detail dismantled. "Your underling's excessive force was met with excessive force," he told him.

"Fitting," Roman judged. "Is this a warning or an execution?"

It was possible to piece Rashed back together – Amleth had seen it done - though the wretch would never truly recover. The experience was too psychologically traumatizing, even for the undead. "He had his warning," Amleth decided.

"Very well." Roman flicked a finger for him to proceed.

Rashed's mute eyes screwed up at Amleth. The useless mouth drooled in frothy red bubbles. "Who is his maker?" Amleth asked, mindful that he might owe reparations.

Roman smiled and caught a stream of the clamshell's water over his face. With his silver hair slicked back and the light reflecting off his hollow cheekbones, he looked more dangerous than ever. "No one," he replied. "His maker is dead."

An orphan, then. Like Maty. Amleth swallowed. Like himself, he was reminded. He filed the information away for later. Turning to Bora, he tossed the head to him. "Get rid of that and leave us."

"I let him die slow or stake fast?" Bora asked. The vampire might live another half hour before his spark collapsed without intervention.

"Stake the beast and be done with it."

"Remove the silver from our guest first," Roman added. Bora hesitated. He did not have the key. It must have been on Rashed's body.

"Jove as my witness," Amleth swore. Using the edge of his robe, he gripped the cuff on his left wrist and broke it off with brute force, followed by the others. It was absurd that they thought he could be restrained so easily. Godric had taught him to withstand twice as much silver.

"Join me," Roman offered, once Bora was gone.

Amleth slipped out of his kaftan and into the steaming water. Roman watched him indifferently, giving no clue as to his intentions. Amleth swam to a bench near the ancient. He settled his neck against the tiled lip of the pool and sighed. "Heavenly," he declared. The heat felt delicious.

"Your strength is much recovered," Roman observed. Amleth hummed noncommittally. There were inner wounds that lingered. Worst were the nightly headaches and the confusion that plagued him.

"The migraines will ease with time," Roman said after a beat.

An ice-cold shock streaked down Amleth's spine. Had the ancient had read his mind? Amleth swallowed, his throat tight. "That's a clever trick. Does Prince Niall know?"

Roman smiled a terrifying smile. "Unlike you, Ambassador, I do not have Fae roots - if that is what you are implying."

The water suddenly felt sweltering. Amleth sloshed upright onto the tiled seat. He was not thinking clearly. Roman did not need telepathy to know he was hurting. "Maty's blood would certainly help. She refuses to share. She says you forbid it."

"I do," Roman said. "Taste her and she dies."

Amleth's mind raced, but he could not find the angle. "Why?"

"She is your inferior in every way," Roman explained vaguely, and swam away from him. His back was taut with sinewy muscle.

The room filled with a tense silence while they soaked. At last, when Roman was finished, he stepped lightly from the water and slid a robe over his shoulders. He glanced back. "Come."

Amleth followed him through several interconnected rooms. They passed the sitting room with its stained-glass windows and the main door to the dungeon where Bora stood guard. The few servants in the compound avoided Amleth's gaze in terror. They knew what he had done to Rashed.

Good, Amleth reasoned. They would follow his orders without resistance when it came time to leave this place. Yet why Roman had allowed it, played along even, was beyond him. Perhaps the charade of a useless guard detail was some way to entrap him or dupe him.

"Haleem," Roman called to a scrappy young vampire with quick eyes. "Is everything set?"

"Yes, Master," the servant answered. Haleem ushered them into an office. Amleth froze when he saw the computer on the desk. It was his trading terminal setup from London. He turned to Roman. "Please tell me this isn't all about money for you."

Roman set a hand on his shoulder and Amleth went rigid in fear. "Far from it. But money is always a motivation these days, is it not? You will make a transaction for me."

The ancient released him. Amleth stared at the seat in front of the terminal. "Any trader could get you want you want."

"That is not the case. Please." He gestured for him to log in.

Amleth took a seat. His fingers were stiff with dread. If Roman needed him, then he wanted access to specific accounts that he controlled. He prayed the ancient did not know just how much of Godric's empire had been in his hands. He doubted that Eric had been able to track down all their assets and reassign the account privileges after the family had abjured him. He keyed in the passcode slowly, trying to come up with a plan. There were shell accounts. Fake routing numbers. Perhaps he could foil Roman.

Amleth could practically hear Godric chastising him. Without a clear understanding of his enemy's motivations, trying to be clever would get him killed. How many times had his sire told him: 'Don't be clever, magpie. Be cautious.' Amleth thumbed the biometric pad and leaned into the retina scanner. Until he had more information, he would have to play it safe.

"Excellent," Roman said. "Call up the School of Night account." It took Amleth a moment. The ledger filled one of the screens stacked in front of him and Roman stroked the back of his head in praise.

Amleth's stomach lurched. "And?"

"Move everything in it to the following account." Roman rattled off a number and bank name.

"That is…going to create a red flag."

"I am waiting," Roman replied.

Amleth exhaled. "You understand that stealing $2.8 billion dollars from our community is not going to make you any friends."

"Supporters of that cause are no friends of mine," he said in distaste.

Amleth turned to him. "Fair enough. But I have quite a lot of money wrapped up in this myself. You're going to be robbing me, too."

"How much?" Roman demanded. Amleth told him the figure and Roman's sparse eyebrows raised. "Who were you trying to impress?" he laughed. "The Celt? Or his wife?"

Amleth winced. "It was their wedding gift." He had donated a massive chunk of his fortune on their behalf.

"Such sentiment," Roman sneered.

"I'll make you twice as much," Amleth countered. "No problem. Give me a week." He pulled up the screens for the Tokyo, Shanghai, and Hong Kong exchanges.

Roman laughed again. "Make the transfer, child."

Amleth's heart sunk. The ancient did not want just any money. He wanted the school fund drained.

Fucking vampire.

"And if I refuse?" he dared.

The ancient appeared pleased. "You do not need threats to know what I will do, young Tarquinii. Your kinswoman in the basement will be first. Then your children." He grinned. "I rather think I'll have you help take Madame Rosalyn apart. You took a shining to her, did you not? We'll take extra time with her."

Amleth looked away.

"Do you not want to hear more?"

He did not. It took all of Amleth's restraint not to lose it. He focused on the transaction, and braced himself to destroy Rosalyn's project.

~OOO~

Toward dawn, Amleth pressed a message at his children over and over: Forgive me. Forgive me. Please tell Godric to forgive me.

Using his psychic powers repeatedly sapped him. He slipped unconscious with the sun, tears wet on his cheeks.

A/N: Oof! Heavy angst, lovely readers, because it's coming to a head! The next chapter is well on its way. Thanks for your patience while I worked on this. These are weird times. Please stay safe. And feel free to slide into my DMs if you need to talk. xx, M

Thoughts, theories, screaming from your dungeon? The review box is down below! Reviewers get a full massage from the one and only Dark Fox himself :F