Hellbound With The Vampire King

In the dungeon of Darkshade royal house, twenty minutes ago.

The dungeon lies deep beneath the royal house, it's stone walls exuding an aura of cold, damp dread. Torches flicker, casting eerie shadows on the walls the sound of dripping water and distant, mournful moans of prisoners echo through the air.

The dungeon's entrance is guarded by two imposing, bat-like creatures with glowing red eyes, flanked by two knights stationed there on duty.

As Eiravyn with his royal commander and some other knights descend the worn, spiral staircase, the air grew thick with the scent of decayed flesh and dried skeletons. The cells were narrow, iron-barred cages that seemed to whisper cruel secrets to those who dare listen, despite the fact that the path were lit with torches, inside the cells were dark, there was no light source in the cell rooms. Rusty chains clank and rattled, binding prisoners in place, some too tired and exhausted, while a few still screamed, growling wildly at the knights stationed at the cell room.

Eiravyn walked past them without blinking or flinching, his footsteps strong and imposing, yet one prisoner stretched out his hands from the iron-barred cage and tried to hold his robe as he passed his cell room, screaming, and snarling wildly.

"Quiet!" A dark-haired knight wiped his hands that were still on the iron-barred with a silver cuffs, the prisoner whined pitifully and quietly retreated into his cell.

Eiravyn made his way to the center of the dungeon where six knights stood in a straight line, the moment they saw Eiravyn, they all bowed.

"Apologies, Your Majesty. We made a mistake," The knight Rafal said gloomily. He had a unique physique and facial features with bright red eyes and blonde hair, his shoulders broad with tiny waistline; he looked like a strong warrior.

All the six knights standing all knelt down to their liege.

"Your Majesty, we deserve death. Don't forgive us… No… We-we mean, please forgive us for this mistake." They all chanted in unison.

Eiravyn just stood there, looking at them without saying anything, when Commander Celrean approached them from behind and knelt down before Eiravyn, taking their place.

"It's my fault, Your Majesty. If you want to punish anyone it should be me, I should have checked on them the minute I came back from the task you assigned to me."

The moment the other knights who were still standing saw their commander kneeling down, they all knelt down with him.

"Please punish us, Your Majesty." They all chanted in unison.

Eiravyn could only sigh when he saw the display of loyalty they all had towards their commander, despite Celrean being cold-looking and tough on them. He didn't feel betrayed with the respect they showed Celrean; Instead, he felt assured. After all, Celrean is in charge of training the knights, while he only showed up to the training ground some time to supervise them.

"No need for all these, since the prisoners were caught anyways, you can all stand up. It would have been a different story, if they were not caught. You already proved your worth by catching them on time. But there should never be a repeat of this incident ever again." Eiravyn ordered in a stern and harsh voice, his tone cold and commanding.

"Yes, Your Majesty." The whole knights chorused.

The news his commander had told him while he was dining with his mate was that there was a slip in the security system in the dungeon, and the turned vampires who were caught at the territory of the vampire kingdom a month ago escaped. But luckily, they were caught by the knights patrolling the dungeon's entrance before they could leave the kingdom.

The only problem was that, how did they manage to escape the dungeon with all the knights placed here to guard the place and area? Is it that they were super-trained vampires or his knights were getting rusty?

…

A little backstory about the establishment of the dungeon.

The dungeon was created by Eiravyn to hold murderous vampires — vampires who've committed treason against the throne, vampires who've broken the king's law.

Each prisoners had different cell rooms depending on their crime. some were unrepentant and murderous they were kept in a different cell and were locked with silver chains — silver causes pain, weakness to a vampire and is very deadly if ingested. These prisoners are kept in the deeper part of the dungeon, every day, they were faced with heavy punishment and torture until Eiravyn decided to kill them.

Eiravyn could easily kill them but he preferred inflicting long-term pain and torture on his prisoners — their scream of pain and anguish were music to his ears, especially those who'd committed heinous crimes.The cells for those who'd committed treason against the throne were place in a smaller cell close to the entrance of the dungeon. They were kept there for three days, undergoing torture before they were eventually decapitated at the town square for all the people of Darkshade kingdom to witness — a deterrent to others. Some were unfortunate enough to face pain and torture for several days, depending on their crime.

The cell for the vampires who'd broken the law is a much more comfortable cell, depending on how repentant the prisoners were. However, their family wouldn't go unpunished — if the prisoners weren't repentful, family members would have their fangs forcibly extracted ( painful and renders them near-human). If the offender was from a pure-blood lineage and high-ranking, their family would be demoted to the lowest hierarchy — maids or servants.

The dungeon was a secret known only to the knights of the kingdom who've pledged their loyalty to their king, and to Eiravyn personal guards — no other people in the kingdom know its existed.

Back to the present…

"How did the prisoner escape you all?" Eiravyn suddenly asked, as this kind of thing had never happened before.

The knight with the blonde hair, Rafal, stepped forward to respond to this.

"It was during the afternoon shift and Sir Kael was supposed to take over from the morning shift, but he had a running stomach and couldn't make it. All the other knights were busy, and only Keleb — who'd joined a few months ago —was available. So Sir Kael asked him to swap shift with him… it seemed he had been tricked by the prisoners. Your Majesty."

The younger knight standing behind Rafal, Keleb, lowered his head, knowing he was the causes of this. He had a pitiful expression on his face.

Eiravyn smirked. "It's seems this prisoner has some kind of special skills most of you don't have. Why not have him tutor you guys." His voice dropping to a low octave. Before he turned to Celrean.

"You need to keep the knights in check, or do you want me to do that for you?"

The knights standing in the room all exhaled sharply, even though they were scared of Celrean training method, they were still fine with it but with their king training them was even more menacing than their cold-hearted commander, only King Eiravyn aura could make you feel drained and weak. They held their breath, waiting for their commander response.

"Your Majesty, I failed you, I promise to keep them in check." Celrean responded gloomily.

"Now! Take me to this interesting prisoners that dare escape my most trusted knights." Eiravyn ordered, humming towards the end of his comment, a smirk evident on his cold face.

"This way, Your Majesty." Celrean said.

When the prisoners were caught in the beginning, he had not had the chance to see them before he went to the human realm.

Eiravyn and Celrean walked to a dark corner of the room where a dark cell stood, the smell of burning flesh lingered in the air around that place. It seemed they had been tortured when they were caught earlier.

Eiravyn flicked his hands and in the next second the dark room turned bright, and torches emerged from thin air, lighting up the place.

One of the turned vampire, was chained with a silver cuff, the man smiled an unsettling grin, his eyes wide and intense, his lips stretched revealing his sharp fangs, an unnerving, gleeful energy streaming off of him.

"It's been so long, we saw light in here, right, Christian?" He asked the other prisoner in the cell.

The other man who was seated at the far corner of the room, didn't answer his question, instead his eyes were closed and his head leaned against the wall, almost like he was meditating.

The first man turned to Eiravyn, ignoring his silent roommate, his appearance rag like, there was a tear on his trousers were a burn like wound was visible, an awful smell, emitting out of the wound.

"To what do we owe this gracious visit, Your Majesty?" The man asked. The way he said the 'Your Majesty' almost felt like he was mocking Eiravyn.

"How dare you address His Majesty as such, kneel down and bow your head at once or I will have your head." Celrean clenched his teeth and drew his sword, but Eiravyn stopped him. The man suddenly erupted with laughter, laughing loudly like a maniac as he watched Celrea, daring him to do it.

Eiravyn watched him for a long time, his expression dark and imposing. 'Ah! It seems the person who turned them into vampires had given them much needed information as he recognized him.' Eiravyn muttered to himself while studying the man.

"Let's get straight to the point," Eiravyn said dryly. "Who turned you to vampires?"