MY SUGAR MUMMY IS A BEAUTIFUL VAMPIRE

Reggie, Randall and Gunther stood in tense silence within the small safehouse, the weight of their plans for the night pressing heavily upon them. Nana lingered nearby, visibly dazed and swaying slightly on her feet as the lingering effects of Blake's mind manipulation persisted.

"I'm still so sleepy," she murmured, her words slurring as if drifting in and out of consciousness. "What's going on?"

The three brothers exchanged stunned looks, brows furrowed. Never before had they witnessed someone remaining under the influence of one's powers for this long, especially after putting a significant distance between him and his target.

Reggie stepped forward, his expression softening as he regarded the disoriented young woman. "Nana, you should lie down and get some more rest," he urged gently. "Everything will likely wear off by morning once you've had a full night's sleep."

Nana blinked at him owlishly for a moment before sudden realization seemed to spark behind her eyes. "But wait...what about Blake? Are you leaving him tied up alone at the other safehouse?"

Her eyes widening in horror. The brothers instantly tensed, exchanging dark looks as they processed Blake's current state.

Reggie forced his lips into a reassuring smile, though his eyes remained shadowed. "Don't worry about Blake, everything will be just fine. We have...plans to handle the situation regarding him."

He leveled a meaningful look at his brothers, "In fact, we'll be leaving shortly to retrieve Rose's baby. But we'll return to the safehouse before too long. And we'll all hit the road again."

"Retrieve only the child?" Randall couldn't help but interject, frowning deeply. "You're not suggesting we go after Rose's child and leave Rose herself behind, are you? How will Blake react to this when he wakes up?"

His words dripped with disapproval and thinly veiled accusation. But Reggie refused to meet his censorious stare, shoulders tightening.

"Nana's unusual condition gave me pause," he admitted in a carefully measured tone. "If Blake's manipulation lasted this long, despite no longer being in his presence...who's to say his newfound powers haven't evolved in other unforeseen ways?"

Reggie began pacing in harsh, agitated strides that carried him back and forth across the cracked wooden floors. "We cannot risk him waking and potentially breaking free before we've had a chance to properly restrain him. Securing Rose's child must take priority over all else."

He whirled on them then, eyes blazing with grim conviction. "It's what our lord would want above all," Reggie stated flatly. "Rose sacrificed everything to bring this child into the world. If there's a chance we can save this baby...we must take it."

Randall frowned stubbornly, looking as if he wanted to argue the point further. But Gunther cut him off with a rumbling growl of agreement.

"He's right - Rose made it clear the child is the key to this entire situation. If obtaining the child can nullify the threat Damien poses..." He shrugged his massively muscled shoulders in a gesture of resigned acceptance. "Then we do what we must to retrieve the child from that traitorous wretch, Damien."

A heavy silence fell, each of them imagining the horrors their lord had been forced to endure in bringing this child to term - the agony. If she had risked so much, suffered so grievously for the child's sake...well, they could scarce fathom the true significance of the burden she carried into this world.

"Very well," Randall finally allowed through gritted teeth. "Retrieve the child first. But once we have the child and Rose secured..." His expression became one of harsh, merciless promise. "Nothing in Heaven or Hell will stop me from ripping out Damien's blackened heart with my bare hands."

The vicious vow seemed to crash against the safehouse walls like a peal of thunder. Reggie and Gunther could only nod in cold affirmation, caught up in the same searing wrath and feeling of pitiless resolve. Their path ahead would no doubt be etched in the blood of enemies, it was one they would stride unfalteringly.

"Prepare yourselves," Reggie commanded in a voice edged with steel. "We move out in ten minutes' time."

The brothers split off to check the safehouse for some of the things they knew they might need on the road.When at last they reconvened, utility packs secured, they seemed strangers - feral savages born anew into the brutalities the night would demand of them.

Reggie signaled quiet with a sharp gesture, leading them outside with economical, precise movements. They crept through the gloom to the large SUV stashed behind the cabin's shed and quickly stowed their gear in the rear compartment.

As Reggie moved to pull open the driver's side door, he stilled suddenly, body going rigid as his preternatural senses prickled in warning. There was a sense of...something, slithering at the edges of his perception.

Unease prickled his nape as his eyes scanned the treeline, probing the deepest shadows around the safehouse for any signs of a looming threat.

At last, deeming the coast clear - for now - Reggie shrugged off the instinctive wariness and slid in behind the wheel. He gunned the engine, tires spitting gravel as he peeled away from the secluded safehouse and aimed them toward the twisting mountain road that would lead back to civilization.

Unbeknownst to the rapidly departing knights, a solitary figure materialized from the blackest depths of the forest once their taillights had vanished around the winding bend. Blake stepped from the inky shadows like a wraith coalescing from a nightmare, his crimson eyes burning beneath the concealing depths of his hood.

***

The safehouse was cloaked in unearthly silence, the depth of night pressing in from outside like a smothering weight. In the back bedroom, Nana slumbered fitfully beneath a tangle of thin sheets, brow furrowed as if plagued by restless dreams.

A floorboard creaked, the slightest sound shattering the stillness. Nana felt she was being watched in her sleep. Her eyes fluttered, a soft whimper catching in her throat as she sensed something amiss. Another creak, this one closer, cleaving through the shadows now pooling at the foot of her bed.

Nana's eyes snapped open, instantly flooded with panic as a towering figure suddenly loomed over her. There was no way to make out discernible features in the gloom, only the barest hints of imposing male proportions blotting out the feeble moonlight slashing through the curtain gap.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the cry died on her lips into a choked gurgle of terror. For a pair of eyes had ignited within the darkness like hellish coals - burning a violent, incandescent crimson as they bored into her.

Nana's hands clawed frantically at her sheets as the monstrous figure threw back its hood, allowing the lurid glow to fully illuminate its features. It was Blake, but a Blake she'd never seen before - his beautiful countenance twisted into a sadistic leer, lips peeled back from dagger-like fangs as hot, viscous tears of blood rolled down his chiseled cheeks in macabre streaks.

He seemed to drink in her fear, reveling in the way her slight form trembled and cowered away from his escalating malice. When at last Nana found her voice, it emerged as a breathless, pleading whimper.

"B-Blake...what are you...?"

A low, rumbling chuckle rolled from the towering vampire's chest like a peal of thunder. "Don't be scared Nana, I won't bite." His words dripped with cruel amusement and something far darker - unholy anger.