Chapter Text
James has been a blood sucking monster for as long as he can remember. Has been friends with Sirius Black for just as much. But it just so happens that he has never met Sirius’ brother before.
And he’s starting to realise why.
Regulus Black is beautiful. Smokey, slept in eyes that look half dead and half dreadfully uninterested, lips a perfect dark crimson, glossy and plump, hair long and pinned up into curly spikes and a thin black rope laced around his neck that holds a blood red crystal heart.
He looks exactly like what one would imagine when describing a “vampire”.
And that’s why Sirius has taken around a century and a half to introduce them properly— actually, he’s not even doing it properly. Regulus just came one night and they roused to him playing house in their manor. It would have been treason to force himself into an established coven’s home like he just did but he is given exceptions because he is Sirius’ blood and the coven’s wards recognises blood relations just as much as pact and sire relations.
Maybe they need to make a few alterations…
If Regulus was a muggle, James wouldn’t have held back because he just looks absolutely delectable. Hell, he’d take a sip or two if Regulus offered, nothing better than purelines’ blood after all, considering how pure the Blacks liked to keep themselves. Or… to themselves.
Now, Sirius is simultaneously cursing up a storm for his brother and also hogging him in spontaneous bursts of affection. He offered Regulus a racoon from god absolutely knows where— which Regulus had horrendously declined because he was, verbatim, “friend to the animals” or certain ones as he has established after picking up a rather pointy rock and throwing it half a meter’s length towards a wayward rat, skillfully puncturing it— and sometimes likes to hug him or trap him in a noogie as he rants off. Regulus is stealthy, however, so he gets away most of the time.
James is both surprised and dismayed to learn that Remus and Regulus have been acquainted a long time ago that it’s enough to call them good friends. He seems rather hostile to Peter, though. And yet, they’ve also already met.
James feels left out.
And challenged.
All this to say, Regulus is welcomed into their space— into their coven, really, if he wants it— because they don’t know why he’s here in the first place. He seems rather calm so there isn’t much to worry about because, as Sirius had made sure to let everyone know, Regulus had dealt with it if nothing else.
“So, why have I never been introduced to this one?” Regulus asks as they sit in the common room, eyes firmly on James.
James throws his hands up and looks to Regulus then to Sirius. “Exactly! Thank you!”
“Because I didn’t allow it.” Sirius says, simply, chin raised.
“Why is that?” Regulus asks, tone dripping in sarcasm as he dips his head, leaving a red gleam to his grey pupils from the reflection of his ruby heart. This seems to beset something in Sirius because he visibly rears back.
James suddenly remembers what Sirius had said about his family. The longer you stayed in it, the more… iniquitous one becomes. None of them are really sure when Regulus managed to escape the Blacks. If he ever did, if they’re being realistic. But if he didn’t, Regulus wouldn’t be lounging around, he’d be attempting to murder Sirius in a blood-thirsty endeavour for revenge.
Assuming this isn’t enough to keep Sirius’ doubts at bay, granted they are all morally ambiguous, but Regulus has despicable reputation trailing him like a tail.
Sirius gathers his ground when Remus’ hand settles on his shoulder. “You little shit.” He rolls his eyes and in turn, the wild and vicious intent in the younger Black’s eyes disappear. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But first, you tell me why you’re here.”
“Not that you’re unwelcomed.“ Remus adds in, hastily.
Regulus is not fazed. Instead, he leans back against the back of the couch, leaning only the slightest bit towards James. James can feel his senses rise. Why is he hyperaware of Regulus Black?
“Yes, your wards said as much.”
James feels the sigh he lets out through the vibrations of the leather skin of the seat. Regulus closes his eyes, not clenched, just closed like he’s somewhere safe and peaceful and not being interrogated by doubtful family. Which is fair, he doesn’t exactly have the cleanest record, what with what he got involved in in the last half-century.
James takes this as the chance to ogle. Not that he hasn’t already been ogling him ever since he arrived— rather, when they discovered him in their common room. But he’s only really been able to see from afar.
Regulus is lanky in build. Much like Sirius when James first met him. But that was more because he was transitioning into a new diet. Sirius is much fuller now, a lot less skin-and-bone. His brother, however, seemed to be naturally built like that. James is a hundred and one percent sure Regulus gets more than enough nutrition from whatever blood he’s feasting on on a regular basis. And yet.
From up-close, James sees the fibres of his pale, crystalline skin. It looks unnaturally smooth, from his cheeks, down to the column of his neck and the exposed forearms resting against a few pillows. He looks paper white and stoney. His bone structure looks very narrow compared to James’ own that he could pass as nearly sickly if not for the sheer strength in his fingertips alone.
From the high points of his cheeks and the knobs of his prominent jaw, the slope of his nose and the little bump in the middle, to his deep-set eyes that make him look… not kind, per se, but not unapproachable either, he’s very unique. Pretty. Not in the way Sirius is. There’s a feminine air to both brothers, the androgynous aspect of their features being the very points of their distinctive appearance that make them easy to point out in a room from the lush raven curls to the bow of their mouths. But Regulus is more… fictitious, James would say.
He is very hard to fathom, all in all.
As if defying time, James runs these thoughts within only a few handfuls of seconds because he zones back in just in time for Regulus to speak.
“I fought with Barty.” He announces, quiet, like this was a great deal to him. Which probably is, James wouldn’t know. He doesn’t even know who Barty is (but judging from Regulus’ tone of voice, James doesn’t like him already).
Sirius mock gasps and follows it with a very insincere “Oh, how absolutely horrible, Reg. It’s Barty of course he’s the problem.” to which Regulus’ look returns. James doesn’t see, but Sirius clears his throat, only slightly but all ears pick up on it.
“Barty isn’t very great, I’m aware. But he is family to me.”
“Then… why did you fight. Or, what did you fight about?” Remus asks, tentatively.
“I wanted to become a coven.” All pairs of eyes go wide. This is not a statement that they ever thought would come out of Regulus Black’s mouth because one, Regulus doesn’t do covens. Two, Regulus doesn’t do commitment. And three, seeing as Regulus is the oldest among his peers, he is most likely to be head of house. Which… speaks for itself.
“But you’d imagine why Barty didn’t like that.”
Something clicks into place.
“Wait. Barty? As in Crouch? The head minister’s son?”
“Yes.”
James eyebrows furrow in confusion. He pleads for a second click of understanding but it doesn’t come.
“Wait. Why do we not like Barty?” Though he has not problems not liking Barty if Sirius doesn’t.
“Because he is thoughtless and impulsive and loud and he’s the reason Reg’s been getting into all sorts of things as of late.”
“I’ve been the reason I’ve been getting into things. Need I remind you that I would be head of coven. By face at least.”
“Face and teeth,” Sirius mutters under his breath, leaning back into Remus with all the drama of a wronged theatre maiden. “And cheekbones, apparently. Because that’s what matters when you’re the face of a coven—bone structure.”
Regulus shrugs, delicate and insufferable. “I’ve never pretended otherwise.”
James watches him like one might observe a particularly dangerous flower. Looks poisonous, smells too sweet. One touch and you’re done for.
“I think,” Remus says slowly, like he’s stepping around a bear trap in bare feet, “what Sirius means is that leadership, even in vampiric circles, generally requires more than a symmetrical face.”
“But less than a functioning moral compass,” Regulus retorts, and James swears he sees the corner of his mouth twitch. Maybe. Or maybe that was the glint of candlelight playing tricks on him.
“You’re one to talk,” Sirius scoffs. “You once seduced an entire Romanian nest just to get your hands on a singular volume of necromantic spells.”
“And I got it,” Regulus says mildly. “Your point?”
“My point is you’re a fucking menace.”
“Don’t be bitter that I’m more academically inclined.”
James blinks. “Wait, you speak Romanian?”
“Poorly. But I speak blood fluently. You’d be surprised how far that gets you.”
A beat. Silence hangs. James’ spine straightens ever so slightly.
He’s certain Regulus said that on purpose.
Regulus turns to him, as if finally acknowledging he’s there. “So. Potter.”
“Black.”
Regulus tilts his head, lashes half-lowered. “Which one?”
James’ lips quirk up despite himself. “Touché.”
He hates that Regulus smiles, just barely. Like he’s won something. Like James is a moth and he’s the flame and they both know how this ends but no one’s hitting the brakes.
Remus, ever the awkward family mediator, clears his throat. “So. The coven. You… actually want one?”
“I don’t want a coven,” Regulus corrects, stretching out along the couch like a cat ready to sink claws into the furniture. “I want the autonomy to form one. I want the safety. The recognition. The right to claim my own and protect them without answering to ancient names and decrepit traditions.”
“You want a family,” James says, before thinking.
Regulus’s face shifts, just a fraction. It’s gone before anyone else can register it. But James sees it.
He’s not sure if it makes his chest ache or his fangs itch.
“Don’t we all?” Regulus murmurs.
“Even the pure-blooded undead crave a little domesticity,” Sirius mutters. “Give ‘em a throw blanket and a murder diary and suddenly they want breakfast meetings and cuddle piles.”
Regulus ignores him. Instead, he looks to James, straight through him. There’s a deliberate sort of stillness to his posture now. “And you?”
James blinks. “Me?”
“Yes. You. Do you want a coven?”
He hadn’t thought about it. Not really. He’s always had the Marauders. Had Sirius, had Remus and Peter and all their ungodly, ridiculous chaos. He’s had enough blood and enough purpose to feel full. But there’s something in the way Regulus asks it—like he’s not talking about power structures at all.
“I guess I thought I already had one.”
Regulus nods. He looks at him too long. James feels himself getting pulled into the gravity of those too-dark eyes, drowned in soot and secrets. He’s suddenly too aware of how close they’re sitting.
Regulus is cold. Not metaphorically. Literally. Cold. Like marble. Like nighttime. Like something that stopped has never truly taken a breath.
But James doesn’t move away.
Instead, Regulus blinks slowly, lips parting. “Then you understand why I can’t go back.”
“To Barty?” Remus asks, gently.
“To any of them,” Regulus replies, eyes still locked on James. “The only way to survive their world is to be like them. And I’d rather die.”
No one speaks after that. The fire crackles. The shadows tremble against the walls. Sirius shifts like he wants to say something, then thinks better of it. Remus’s eyes are stormy with thoughts he won’t share.
James, for once in his long life, has nothing clever to say.
Only one thought loops in his mind like a cursed incantation:
This will not end well.
And then, Regulus stands, unfurling like smoke. “Thank you for the seat,” he says, like he hadn’t just split the air with something knife-sharp. “I think I’ll stay in the east wing tonight.”
“You’ll freeze your ass off,” Sirius mutters.
“I’m already half-dead. I think I’ll manage.”
James watches him walk away. Watches the sway of black fabric, the gleam of red crystal at his throat, the aura of a storm that hasn’t broken yet.
He doesn’t stop watching even when the door shuts softly behind him.
“Fuck,” James breathes.
Remus hums. “Yeah.”
Sirius groans into his hands. “I told you so.”
And James, still watching the door like Regulus might step back through it and ask for a drink or for his throat, thinks:
We’re all going to regret this, aren’t we?
Remus pats his knee. “Horribly.”
The silence after Regulus leaves isn’t comfortable. It sits in the room like fog, clinging to skin and fabric, heavy with things unsaid. James doesn’t break it. He just stares at the door, as if Regulus will reappear and smirk at him again like he knows something James doesn’t.
(He probably does.)
Sirius sighs eventually. One of those long, exhausted sounds that comes from the deepest parts of the soul — or what’s left of it, if you’ve been half-dead this long. Or your entire life.
“Alright,” he says, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Fine. You want to know why I never introduced you?”
James turns to him. “Yes, actually. I’ve wanted to know for about—” he checks a non-existent watch “—an hour and a half.”
Remus makes a noise. Somewhere between a hum and a warning.
Sirius ignores him.
“It’s not because I didn’t want you two to meet,” he starts, tone bitter in the way molasses is bitter — sweet, but cloying and burnt at the edges. “It’s because I knew you’d like him.”
James blinks. “Excuse me?”
“You’re not stupid, James,” Sirius says, leaning forward now, elbows to knees, hands hanging between them like claws. “You’re… unfortunately sentimental. You see someone who’s sharp and broken and a little too lonely and you immediately want to fix them. Or feed them. Or fall in love with them.”
“I—what?”
“And Regulus—” Sirius exhales sharply. “He’s dangerous when he wants to be. You don’t know what he’s capable of when he’s hurt. He doesn’t burn like the rest of us, he rots. Slow and pretty and silent. And he takes people down with him.”
James just stares.
“And,” Sirius adds, after a beat, “you’ve always had a thing for sharp, pretty things with bad tempers.”
“That’s—”
Remus cuts in, tone diplomatic. “Not inaccurate.”
James whips to glare at him. “You’re not helping.”
Remus shrugs. “He’s not wrong.”
“Thank you, Moony,” Sirius mutters, dragging a hand through his hair.
James, however, is still stuck on something else. “Wait. You thought I’d… what? Fall in love with him?”
“No,” Sirius says, then reconsiders. “Well. Maybe. But mostly I thought he’d do it first.”
James freezes.
There’s a pause.
And then Remus says, “Oh.”
James says, “What?”
Sirius leans back, like the worst of it is already over. “He used to ask about you.”
James’s heart does something unseemly.
“Back when we were still on speaking terms,” Sirius continues. “Before he got in too deep with the wrong names and the wrong magic and the wrong fucking promises. He’d ask about the coven. About Remus. About the war. About you. Always you.” He doesn’t look at James when he says it. “And I thought — I hoped — that he’d forget. Or lose interest. Or get over it.”
Remus leans forward now, brows drawn. “But why would that be such a problem?”
“Because James would’ve loved him back,” Sirius says simply. “And they would’ve destroyed each other.”
James exhales shakily. “You don’t know that.”
“I do.” Sirius’ voice sharpens like a blade. “Because Regulus doesn’t know how to be loved. And you don’t know how not to.”
That lands like a stake to the ribs. Not fatal. Just enough to make James want to hiss.
Remus watches him quietly. “He’s… still not unwelcomed,” he says. “Despite all of this.”
“I know,” Sirius mutters. “I know.”
James gets up.
“Where are you going?” Remus asks.
James doesn’t answer. Not right away. He moves toward the door Regulus disappeared through. Hand on the wood. Fingertips tingling.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits.
Sirius doesn’t stop him. But he does say, “Don’t let him look at you too long.”
James glances back. “Why?”
Sirius’ expression is carved in stone. “Because you’ll start to see your own ruin in his eyes. And you’ll thank him for it.”
James leaves before he can ask what the hell that means.
The east wing is colder.
Not just in the drafty, manor-way that makes even the tapestries shiver, but something else. Something older. Colder in the bones. Magic that feels like breath held too long. Power curled like smoke inside stone walls.
James walks slower here. Instinctively. As if the house itself is reminding him: Tread lightly.
He finds Regulus by the window, just as expected. Sitting sideways in one of those armchairs no one actually uses, one leg thrown over the armrest, robe falling open just enough to bare the delicate stretch of a collarbone. There’s moonlight — where it came from, James doesn’t know, since the window faces nothing but endless forest — but it paints Regulus in silver, his dark hair and paler skin making him look sculpted. Unreal.
The crystal heart around his neck glows faintly, a pulse like something alive.
“Did you know,” Regulus says, without looking over, “that the wards in this wing haven’t been updated in over a century?”
James lingers in the doorway. “Can’t say I did.”
“Of course not. Sirius doesn’t come here.” He turns his head slightly. “This was our mother’s wing.”
The way he says our mother makes James feel like he’s standing on thin ice, waiting to see where it cracks.
“Did she love it?” James asks, unsure why. Just trying to fill the space between them with something.
“No,” Regulus says, smiling faintly. “But she haunted it beautifully.”
He tilts his head and finally looks at James. And for a split second — just one — James feels like his own heart stutters. Not romantically. Not emotionally. Biologically. Something ancient inside him shrinks back.
Because this is what Sirius meant.
The Blacks are old. Old in the way forests are old — rooted, tangled, dark beneath the surface. Theirs is the truest blood. Not in arrogance. In lineage. In how magic doesn’t just obey them — it remembers them.
And Regulus — Regulus is the last one born of that line before it fractured and fled and burned itself out. Which makes him something like a relic. Or a weapon. Or both.
“I can feel the house reacting to you,” James says quietly.
Regulus quirks a brow. “And?”
“And it doesn’t do that for the rest of us.”
“Because the rest of you don’t belong to it.” His voice is calm, but James hears the undertone. The buried steel. “You occupy it. You thrive inside it. But this house was built on Black blood. It doesn’t serve us. It is us.”
James takes a slow step forward. “Even now?”
Regulus hums. “Especially now.”
There’s something eerie in how still he is. Like he’s not just resting — he’s waiting. Coiled. Watchful. James gets the impression that if he blinked too slow, Regulus would be gone. Or worse — closer.
“You looked at Sirius earlier,” James says suddenly, voice too loud in the quiet. “And he shut up. You didn’t say anything. Just looked.”
“Did I?” Regulus blinks, slow and unreadable.
“Yes. And I’ve never seen him do that. Not even with Remus. Not even with me.”
“Because Sirius,” Regulus murmurs, tone soft as mist, “was born to be the heir of something he chose not to inherit. But I was born to become it. And I didn’t run.”
James doesn’t realize he’s holding his breath until Regulus tilts his head again, just slightly, and his lungs decide it’s safe to exhale.
“You’re afraid of him,” James says quietly, almost to himself. “Your own brother.”
Regulus’ smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “He’s afraid of what I could’ve been.”
A pause.
“What stopped you?”
Regulus rises, slow, deliberate, like the shadows cling to his skin just a second longer than they should. He walks to James — not fast, not threatening, just present. Fully, terrifyingly present.
He stops a foot away. Close enough for James to see the flecks of deep red in his grey irises. Not reflections. Not tricks of the light.
Bloodline.
“I didn’t say I stopped.”
James doesn’t move. Not away. Not closer.
He knows he should. He knows what this is — the quiet thrum of compulsion under the surface, the near-psychic pressure of a true bloodline vampire brushing against his own boundaries. This is the sort of thing they warn you about when you’re turned: Don’t look too long at an ancient. Don’t speak first. Don’t flinch.
He does all three.
And Regulus, of course, notices.
His lips part just slightly, a breath that tastes like winter, like marble and midnight gardens. “You’re still watching me.”
“Hard not to,” James says hoarsely.
Regulus tilts his head. “Why?”
James doesn’t answer.
Regulus reaches up — slow, gloved in restraint — and flicks something from James’ collar. A speck of lint. A gesture so intimate it aches.
“I’m not your ruin,” Regulus says, soft and final. “You’ll do that all on your own.”
Then, just like smoke, he steps away. The air warms slightly in his absence.
James stands there, staring after him. Still trying to remember how to breathe.
“Tell Siri not to worry. I won’t destroy you, Potter.”
Eventually, it’s Remus who brings it up again. Quietly. Days later. As if saying the name Barty too early might summon something shrill and hexed and too emotionally involved.
Regulus is polishing a blade.
James is watching him do it.
There are half a dozen reasons he shouldn’t be watching Regulus do anything — especially something as loaded as cleaning weapons with the same disinterest one might show in brushing crumbs off their lap — but here they are. Daylight dead behind the curtains. Fire low and humming. Regulus’ fingers gleaming faintly with oil and silver.
“You never said why they refused,” Remus says from the doorway, tone even, scholarly. “Barty. Evan. They’ve always followed you. In their own twisted ways.”
Regulus doesn’t look up. “Because they know me.”
James straightens slightly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Regulus pauses, glancing up. “You’re all rather new to me. You see the front. You see the robe, the jewelry, the lineage. You think I’m some cursed boy with a sharp tongue and old blood. They don’t see that. They see… something else.”
“And what’s that?” Sirius asks, arms folded as he leans against the stone arch.
Regulus’ smile is all lips and no joy. “Their leash.”
Remus shifts. “You mean because you’d be head of coven?”
“No.” Regulus sits back, blade still in hand. “Because I could make them follow me.”
Silence drops into the room like a sudden snowfall.
James frowns. “You mean compel them? Like siring—”
“No.” Sirius cuts in. “He means something worse.”
Regulus says nothing. Which is worse than confirmation.
Sirius sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Do you know how old the Black line is? Not just socially. Magically. Our blood’s older than most coven roots. Older than the Pact of Dresden. Older than even the continental thresholds. There are wards across Europe keyed to our name. There are entire families whose bloodlines were bound to ours for protection, power, alliance—whatever. We didn’t make treaties. We made promises.”
“And those promises,” Regulus says gently, “have a voice.”
James is still watching him. “Your voice.”
“Not always. But I am the last. The strongest. The truest. My voice… carries.”
“You’re saying you can command them?” Remus asks, carefully.
“I’m saying,” Regulus says, as if correcting a child, “they’re afraid I will.”
The thing is — James has seen it now.
He saw it that night in the east wing. Saw how the manor responded to Regulus like a wolf recognizing the true alpha. Not in noise or violence. In silence. In submission. The air itself holding its breath.
He thinks about how Sirius fell quiet after one look.
And he thinks about what it must feel like — for Barty, for Evan — to grow up beside something like Regulus Black, watching him get quieter, colder, more aware of what he could do.
Of what his voice could become.
“They refused the coven,” Regulus says, gently returning the blade to its sheath, “because they knew it wouldn’t be ours. It would be mine.”
He stands, brushing invisible dust from his sleeve. “They don’t want a family. They want fire. They want freedom. They want bloodletting and ruin and ash. What they don’t want is to kneel, even if their blood already has.”
James breathes in like it’ll help settle anything. It doesn’t.
“So you didn’t force them?” Remus asks, softly.
Regulus turns his head. “No.”
“Why not?”
This time, he really smiles. A flicker of sharp teeth behind perfect lips. “Because I don’t need them.”
James feels a chill that has nothing to do with the weather.
Sirius scoffs, but it lacks real bite. “You were always like this. Even when you were small. You didn’t cry. You just watched. Like you knew you wouldn’t need anyone if you waited long enough.”
“And I was right,” Regulus says, serene. “You came back eventually.”
That makes Sirius flinch. Just slightly. Enough.
Regulus leaves the room with the elegance of someone who knows the shadows part for him.
James doesn’t follow.
Later, when they’re alone, James asks Sirius something low and uncertain:
“Did you ever wonder what he’d become, if he wanted to?”
Sirius laughs. Bitter and tired.
“No. I wondered what he’d become if someone tried to stop him.”
It’s Peter — of all people — who finally asks:
“So why do you want a coven, really?”
It’s not sarcastic. Not fearful. Just… curious.
Regulus lifts his gaze from the map he’s been redrawing — all of Europe etched in long, trailing ink. Not borders. Not rivers. Just bloodlines. Places touched. People burned.
“What makes you think I want one?” he asks, voice lazy, but not unkind.
Peter shrugs. “You’re chasing something.”
Regulus smiles, faint and almost fond. “I’m containing something.”
The thing about Barty, Evan, and Regulus is this: they were never meant to survive this long.
Not together.
Not like this.
The last ten years were a kind of plague — a decade carved into the underside of Europe, in the quietest ruins of old covens, seedy blood-houses, black-market hunting rings, abandoned courts.
They moved like rot.
Barty with his recklessness, so charming it felt like an infection. Loud, political, too smart, too young. No patience. All fire.
Evan, colder. Precise. Poison with a smile. The one who made sure bodies vanished and no one ever asked why.
And Regulus, the quiet axis they orbited. The one who watched. Who never pulled the trigger, but decided where it pointed.
They weren’t terrorists. Not exactly.
They were corrections.
Barty believed the vampire world needed revolution. Evan believed it needed purification. And Regulus, he never said what he believed. Only ever moved them toward their next target with perfect calm.
High Lords disappeared. Families with centuries of power found themselves disgraced, drained, disbanded. One minor prince of the Germanic blood courts slit his own throat on his own throne after a whispered conversation with Regulus Black. No one knows what was said. Only that Regulus walked out and the prince didn’t.
They were followed by whispers, ash, unrest. Never staying. Always vanishing. Always one step ahead of the coven laws that could never quite catch up.
Because they weren’t chaos.
They were something worse: intentional.
And then Regulus stopped.
Just… stopped.
Said he wanted a coven.
Said he wanted to settle. Anchor. Form.
Barty laughed in his face. “You mean rule.”
Evan didn’t laugh. He looked at Regulus like he was trying to decipher a curse that had changed mid-word.
“We know what happens when someone like you sits on a throne,” he’d said, voice quiet and flat. “You won’t speak. You’ll just look. And we’ll all kneel.”
Because that’s what it always came back to. Regulus never asked for obedience. Never demanded loyalty. He just made it unthinkable to disobey. Because he could.
And Barty, for all his screaming ideology, couldn’t stomach the thought of handing the reins over to someone who never had to raise his voice.
Evan, perhaps more honestly, feared what would happen if Regulus chose to use what he had.
Not political power.
Not beauty.
Not intellect.
But Blood Command.
The ability to issue a single, ancient-rooted order, and have every bloodline tied to him directly or distantly, obey without resistance. Not from fear. Not from coercion. From ancestry. As if magic itself bowed.
They’d seen flashes of it before. Never deliberate. Never prolonged. Just… moments.
The prince who slit his throat.
The way rogue vampires in Bucharest once tore each other apart after Regulus looked at them.
The time Barty, drunk on something lethal, tried to bite Regulus in a show of posturing, only to find himself pinned to a wall by his own body, screaming not in pain, but shame. Regulus hadn’t moved.
Just whispered: “Don’t touch what doesn’t want you.”
And Barty hadn’t tried again.
So when Regulus told them he wanted a coven, they refused.
Not because they didn’t want to belong to something.
But because deep down, they knew: Regulus wasn’t trying to rule them.
He was trying to save them.
Contain them.
End the war they’d become by offering them a bond stronger than fear, a place to rest, an anchor in the chaos.
They refused because they saw it for what it was:
A leash they’d need.
Now, James watches Regulus from across the room, curled up in a worn armchair that makes him look unreasonably regal. The fire paints him in bronze and shadow. His hands are still, as if they’ve never killed.
But James knows better.
“You were trying to save them,” he says, softly.
Regulus doesn’t deny it. “You try living ten years with someone and not learn where they’re breaking.”
“And you didn’t leash them?”
“I could have.” He looks up. “That’s why they left.”
James breathes, low and unsure. “And now?”
Regulus tilts his head. The crystal heart around his throat pulses gently.
“Now I’m offering it to you.”
James’ blood goes cold.
Sirius was right. It’s not the power that’s terrifying.
It’s the way Regulus doesn’t use it.
And still makes you want to kneel.