1880

The first time Constance was ordered to fast, the Ashe Clan was steeling themselves for the winter of her 40th year. The streets of New Haven were coated with ice, with scarce a soul braving the freezing winds. Not that many humans remained on the streets in Ashe territory. Verdan Ashe saw to that.

One must not let one’s family waste away in these trying times.

The Lord of Ashe was a razor whip of a man. Thin and towering, dark hair graying at the temples, his hands always tensed to strike. He found his fledgling progeny in the hall of his manor, wrapped in a wool coat as she turned a page on her novel.

“The world beyond your nose holds far more value, child.”

Constance smirked without looking up from the page. “It helps to pass the time, sir. I find them a livelier conversation than I’ve found as of late.”

 Verdan stood over her and waited. A standoff between parent and child as the wind howled outside.

“You will not feed.”

Constance exhaled quietly. This was her Maker’s way. No word or acknowledgement for weeks, then a command out of thin air. It took a solid moment for her to register what Verdan had just asked of her. No. He never asked. He declared.

She looked warily up to him. “...Sir?”

“Need I repeat myself?” His jaw tightened. His eyes were as cold and opaque as ice.

“Have I wronged you in some way, my Lord? I did not mean to offend-”

“You will hold your tongue, and you will not indulge your hunger until such time as I allow it.”

Her throat went dry. Indulge ? She was being ordered to starve herself. This was punitive even for Verdan. She had seen her maker’s impatience and cruelty, but for what slight she had earned this punishment, she could only guess. “For...for how long must I fast?”

“Are you permitted questions, child?” His voice was measured, yet it could always cut to the core of her. 

Her eyes slipped to the ground at his feet. “Apologies, sir. No.”

“I will call for you when I’ve use for you.” Turning on his heel, he left his child in the cold of the hall.

First came the hunger. A simple, primal ache in the pit of her stomach that slowly clawed its way up into her chest. Across her shoulders. Behind her eyes.

The hunger gave way to temper. A thin wire in her mind that would snap at every whine of a door hinge or shrill cackle of a laugh down the hall. Each solitary sound drilled its way into her skull. She plucked an entire shawl to string on the second evening trying to push back the sounds, the smells, the agonizing scrape of fabric against her skin as she slept.

Verdan forbade Constance from leaving the house for any business. She was a prisoner within Ashe Manor. Haunting the halls, avoiding the other soldiers and enforcers for fear she’d catch the slightest hint of blood on the air in their wake. That she would lose the thin strand of calm keeping her in one piece.

A weakness soon took hold, seeping into her skin. Her arms heavy at their own weight, her legs shaking beneath her. Holding her book was exhausting. A stroll down the hallway may as well have been a mile in a snowstorm.

Days passed in a crawl, and yet Constance said nothing. Spoke no ill of her maker. Locked herself away in her room as the revelries of tasting nights echoed through the house. She did as she was told. When the slightest twinge of hate, or righteousness threatened to drive her out a window into the open air, she rolled the stories of the Lord of Ashe over and over in her mind.

Verdan’s collection of children ebbed and waned. Constance had the current distinction of being his only living progeny. But dozens had come before her. Some strong, some weaker. None had lasted long under the strain of Verdan’s leash. He grew tired of them, or found them a disappointment. All had met fire or blood at the hand of the man who had brought them into this dark world.

Constance's body had fallen into tremors by the time Verdan summoned her into his office. Her fingers itched from the inside. Every step made her stomach turn. Her skin felt like needles to crepe paper.

Her maker sat at his desk, pouring over an accounting folio. He barely looked up as she forced herself through the door with a wince. “Have you partaken since last we spoke?” His voice was unmoved by her wavering figure in the doorway.

Constance shook her head, clutching at her middle. “I’ve done as you asked,” she murmured. Her hands were trembling. “Will you ask something of me, sir?  Please...”

With a leisure that made Constance want to tear his eyes out, the Lord Ashe cast his gaze to the closed door beside his desk. Without needing to speak a word, Constance knew what he wanted and slowly but obediently opened the door.

The scent that hit her was intoxicating. It filled the room like blossoms on a warm breeze. The lush, gorgeous thrill of summer seeped into her bones. Her head swam as she followed the glint of light on specks of blood on the floor. Leading to a young man, no more than 18, tied down in a chair. His face swollen and bruised with the loveliest shades of crimson and purple. A ripple of lovely red trailed down the chair leg leading to its source. 

The ache behind her eyes tugged downward. She could feel the roots of her fangs digging out. Screaming at her to just let go and rip the boy apart. Everything about them was so soft, wasn’t it. So delicate. 

With a gentle groan, the man’s eyes fluttered open and met Constance’s. Her mouth watered at the sight of the fear in his eyes. The itch under the skin began to burn. She barely felt Verdan step into the room after her. Barely felt the weight of the chair he dragged into place behind her legs. 

“Sit.”

Constance’s fingers traced the air, imagining the weight of the boy's neck. The give of his spine. The pulse of life under her skin. It would barely take any pressure to feel his breath crushed in her grip...

Verdan snapped his fingers. “Sit.”

Her body collapsed into the chair without thinking. Her eyes heavy as she revelled in her first sight of blood in days. The scent of iron and ecstasy filling her nose.

“I told you she was a vision, did I not?” Verdan circled the bleeding man as he whimpered into the handkerchief gagged into his mouth. “Though I have delighted in our discourse this evening, it still remains that you’ve not yet been convinced to provide your associate’s location. Or that of the money for which I am owed. It appears we are at an impasse.” A dagger haad appeared in the Ashe Lord’s hand, following the curve of the boy’s inner arm, down his wrist. 

Anchored to her seat with exhaustion, every fiber of Constance had tensed. A predator inches from the killing blow. A hunger at the core of her being. The Hunger Eternal.

Verdan watched Constance from across the room. A rare glimmer of a smile on his snarled lip. “But my daughter has been so patient. It would be a shame to deny her what she’s sacrificed for her family.”

The man struggled in his bonds. Screaming behind the gag. Pleading for his life.

Another snap.

Her vision went red.

1915

The death of Verdan Ashe sent a chill through the vampires of New Haven. Wild theories of the cause of the coup and who dealt the killing blow spread through the community like wildfire. No two were the same.

Before the coup, few had heard the name Constance Corey. But plenty had heard tell of Verdan’s personal executioner. Never sated by the kill, skulking in the dark in a strung-out haze for her master’s beck and call. 

The executioner ravaged the Ashe Lord’s enemies for half a century, before being turned on her master like a rabid dog. 

As far as the stories were concerned, and as far as most outside the family knew, the young upstart Miss Corey had used the executioner for her own ends as she took over her maker’s empire.

1917  

Constance topped off her glass, licking the rim clean as she quietly hummed to the clarinet crooning over the radio. She returned the decanter to the cabinet in her office. 

Rows of chilled metallic canisters, a week’s worth of food hoarded away for every hint of hunger pain. The new Boss of the Ashe Family was notorious among the ranks for her habit of constantly snacking. Some chalked it up to boredom, others saw it as a flex of her supply lines. 

Constance would let her family waste away in these trying times.

And she had vowed to never go hungry again.