Chapter 49: The son of Adesina

I arrived home shortly after dusk.

I pushed the gate open and drove into the compound, the tires crunching softly against the gravel before I parked the car. The house stood quietly under the fading light, the familiar structure looking almost indifferent to my return.

I stepped out of the car, grabbed the box from the passenger seat, and walked inside.

The moment I entered, I placed the box on the table in the living room. The house was silent… except for a faint noise coming from deeper inside.

A dragging sound.

Chains shifting against the floor.

I removed my lab coat and tossed it onto the couch without much thought.

The noise came again.

My prisoner was awake… trying to move around in the room where I had chained him.

I ignored it for the moment and walked into the bathroom. The warm water from the shower washed away the long day at the hospital, the scent of antiseptic and blood fading from my skin.

After a few minutes, I stepped out, dried myself, and went into my bedroom.

I stood in front of the mirror for a moment, examining my reflection. My body was still perfectly built—unchanged by time, the same form I had carried for centuries. Not a wrinkle. Not a scar that remained for long.

Just another reminder of what I was.

I got dressed, adjusting my clothes before turning away from the mirror.

Then I walked down the hallway to the room where I had chained my prisoner.

The sounds of movement grew louder as I approached the door.I opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was dimly lit, the single bulb hanging from the ceiling casting long shadows across the walls. The metallic scent of blood filled the air.

My prisoner hung where I had left him.

His arms were stretched out to the sides, each wrist bound tightly with chains fixed to iron hooks in the wall. Beneath each of his wrists sat a bucket—both of them half-filled with dark red blood that had slowly dripped from the cuts I had made earlier.

The floor around them was stained from the days of slow draining.

He looked far worse than the last time I had seen him.

His body had grown thin, almost skeletal. His skin was pale, stretched tightly over his bones, and his lips were dry and cracked. Weeks of blood loss and starvation had left him weak enough that he could barely lift his head.

Exactly the way I needed him.

His eyes slowly lifted when he saw me.

“I’ve told you everything I know,” he said weakly, his voice hoarse from thirst. “You promised… you promised to let me go if I told you everything.”

I walked closer to him.

“I do plan on letting you go,” I said calmly.

Hope flickered briefly in his tired eyes.

“But first,” I continued, “you’re going to take me to the Count.”

His eyes widened instantly.

“No,” he rasped, shaking his head as much as the chains allowed. “No… you don’t understand.”

His breathing grew heavier.

“They will kill me if I bring you there,” he said. “They’ll know. They’ll know I led you to them.”

Then he looked at me with a mixture of fear and disbelief.

“You’re a Dhampir,” he whispered. “If I bring the Dhampir to their home… they won’t just kill me. They’ll tear me apart.”

I pulled a chair across the floor and placed it in front of him before sitting down.

The chains creaked softly as he shifted his weight, his head hanging low from exhaustion.

“Collins,” I said calmly. “Isn’t it better than dying by my hand?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

His hollow eyes stared at the floor as he thought about it. The room remained silent except for the slow drip of blood falling into the buckets beneath his wrists.

After a while, he spoke.

“Maybe… you should just kill me.”

The words came out weak, but there was a strange relief in them.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I leaned back slightly in the chair.

“Collins,” I said, “what do you actually know about me?”

He lifted his head slowly and looked at me.

“You are the son of Count Adesina,” he said hoarsely. “And you are the devil himself.”

His eyes hardened despite the weakness in his body.

“You will be the end of us all.”

I chuckled quietly.

“My mother,” I said slowly, “was a slave who served my so-called father.”

Collins remained silent, listening.

“He seduced her,” I continued. “Promised to marry her… promised her a life she never could have imagined.”

I paused briefly.

“And eventually he got her pregnant.”

I rested my elbows on my knees as I spoke.

“When his wife found out… she chased my mother out of their home.”

My voice remained calm, almost indifferent.

“With nothing.”

“Not even her clothes.”

“She was lucky enough to find refuge in another household.”

.I leaned back in the chair, watching the slow drip of blood into the buckets.

“And then I was born,” I said quietly. “In the house that gave my mother refuge.”

I rested my hands on my knees as I spoke, my eyes fixed on Collins.

“For a while, life was… normal. The family that took my mother in treated us kindly. The people around us welcomed us. I grew up like any other child, loved and accepted by everyone who knew me.”

I paused briefly.

“But that peace did not last.”

“Fourteen years later, the war against the vampires began. Hunters rose across the land, and many of my father’s kind were slaughtered. Villages turned against them, kingdoms declared them enemies, and one by one they were hunted down and destroyed.”

Collins watched me carefully as I continued.

“A few years after the war began, a prophecy surfaced. It spread quickly among the surviving vampires.”

I leaned back slightly in the chair.

“It spoke of a son of Adesina… a child born half human and half vampire… who would one day bring an end to the entire vampiric bloodline.”

I let the words hang in the air.

“And that child,” I said calmly, “was me.”

Collins swallowed but said nothing.

“From that moment on, every vampire that heard the prophecy began searching for us. My mother and I became targets. There was nowhere left for us in Oyo.”

“We had no choice but to flee.”

“We spent years moving from place to place, never staying long enough to be found. Always running. Always hiding.”

My voice remained steady as the memory unfolded.

“One night, while we were hiding in the mountains, we stopped to rest. We believed we were finally far enough away from the hunters.”

I shook my head slightly.

“But we were wrong.”

“Fulani bandits found us that night.”

The room grew quiet.

“They attacked without hesitation.”

I stared at the floor for a moment before continuing.

“My mother was slaughtered right in front of me.”

A slow breath escaped my chest.

“And that was the moment my vampire nature awakened.”

I looked back at Collins.

“It happened in seconds. Strength I had never known filled my body. My senses sharpened. My hunger… became something else entirely.”

“The bandits never stood a chance.”

“Within moments, I had torn them all apart.”

The buckets beneath his wrists caught another slow drip of blood.

“After that night, there was nothing left for me.”

“So I ran.”

“I ran from kingdoms. From hunters. From vampires. From anyone who might recognize what I was.”

“For centuries, I kept moving.”

Then I leaned forward slightly, my voice firm.

“But I’m done running now.”

“I’m going to face him.”

“Count Adesina.”

I could see the pity in his eyes.

For a brief moment it looked like he was about to say something, but before he could speak, I heard footsteps outside in the front yard.

I stood up immediately.

The faint crunch of gravel beneath shoes carried through the quiet compound.

I looked back at Collins.

“Not a sound,” I said coldly. “If you make a single noise, I will make you beg for death… and I still won’t give it to you.”

His lips pressed together and he nodded weakly.

I stepped out of the room and locked the door behind me before walking down the hallway.

By the time I entered the living room, she was already there.

My girlfriend stood in the middle of the room, her phone raised in her hand.

“I saw your text,” she said sharply. “You don’t even have the balls to break up with me in person?”

Her eyes burned with anger.

“Such a coward.”

I stopped about six feet away from her, slipping my hands into my pockets.

She stared at me, waiting for a response that didn’t come.

“Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “Why would you quit your job and break up with me at the same time?”

Her voice rose with frustration.

“Do you even realize what you’re throwing away? You have the perfect life here. The best career in the hospital. The governor as your client. Everyone respects you. You have a future here.”

I said nothing.

She stepped closer.

“Stephen, talk to me.”

My eyes remained fixed on her.

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said calmly.

Her face twisted with irritation.

“Oh really?” she snapped. “Try me.”

“You can’t understand,” I repeated.

That only made her angrier.

She threw her hands into the air.

“Unbelievable,” she said. “Eight years together and this is how you end it? A text message and some mysterious ‘you wouldn’t understand’ nonsense?”

Just then, a faint sound echoed from the hallway.

Something shifted inside the room where Collins was chained.

Her head turned immediately.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I said.

She narrowed her eyes.

“Don’t lie to me.”

“It’s nothing.”

Her gaze sharpened.

“Do you have another woman in this house?”

“No.”

But she was already shaking her head.

“That’s it, isn’t it?” she said bitterly. “You’re cheating on me.”

“That’s why you’re quitting your job. That’s why you’re leaving Ibadan. You’re running off with someone else.”

“That’s not—”

She pushed past me before I could finish.

“Let me see for myself.”

She rushed toward the passageway that led to the back rooms.

For a brief moment, I considered stopping her permanently.

Killing her would be easy.

Too easy.

But a missing woman connected to me would bring police attention I didn’t need.

So instead, I followed her as she hurried down the hallway toward the locked door.

I caught up to her just before she reached the door at the end of the passage.

I grabbed her arms and pushed her against the wall.

Her back hit the plaster with a dull thud.

She gasped and struggled immediately.

“Stephen!” she shouted. “You’re hurting me!”

I tightened my grip just enough to stop her from moving.

“Priscilla,” I said firmly, staring directly into her eyes, “you need to get the hell out of here.”

She froze for a moment.

Then her expression changed.

“There it is,” she said quietly.

Her eyes searched my face.

“Those eyes… those dead eyes of yours.”

She shook her head slowly.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll leave.”

Her voice hardened.

“And I’ll never come back.”

I slowly released her arms.

She stepped away from me and walked back toward the living room without saying another word.

From the hallway, I watched her pick up her handbag from the table. She wiped her cheeks with the back of her hands, trying to clean the tears before opening the door.

A moment later, she stepped outside and closed it behind her.

The house fell silent again.

I stood there for a few seconds before turning and walking back down the passage.

When I unlocked the door and stepped into the room, Collins looked up weakly.

The noise Priscilla had heard earlier was obvious now.

One of the buckets beneath his wrists had tilted slightly when he shifted his weight, causing the metal chain to scrape against the hook in the wall and the bucket to knock against the floor.

I pushed the bucket back into place with my foot and pulled the chair toward him again.

Before I could sit, Collins spoke.

“I’ll take you to him.”

I looked at him.

“To the Count.”

His voice was dry and weak.

“But I need to feed first,” he added. “If I’m going to travel, I won’t survive in this condition.”

I stared at him for a moment, then stood up again.

“Stay alive,” I said.

I left the room and walked down the hallway to my bedroom.

Inside, I opened my closet and pushed aside a row of hanging shirts.

Behind them was a small hidden refrigerator built into the wall.

I opened it.

Inside the refrigerator were rows of sealed blood bags stacked neatly on top of each other. The cold light inside the fridge reflected through the dark red liquid, giving the entire compartment a deep crimson glow. Each bag was labeled, just like the ones in a hospital blood bank—carefully arranged, preserved, and ready.

I reached in and grabbed five of them.

The plastic felt cold in my hand.

I closed the refrigerator door, pushed the clothes back over it, and walked out of the bedroom.

When I returned to the room where Collins was chained, he lifted his head weakly.

I dropped the blood bags onto the small table beside him.

His eyes moved from the bags… to me.

His expression twisted with irritation.

“This?” he said hoarsely. “This is how you feed?”

“Yes,” I replied calmly.

He shook his head slightly in disbelief.

“You drink it from bags?”

I shrugged.

“I’m still half human,” I said. “I’m not a complete savage like you.”

He scoffed weakly.

“Whatever.”

I reached into my back pocket and pulled out the key to his chains.

The metal clinked as I unlocked the shackles around his wrists. The moment they came free, Collins immediately lunged for the blood bags like a starving animal.

He tore one open with his teeth and began drinking.

I sat down and watched him.

He didn’t bother with any dignity. He drained the first bag within seconds and grabbed another, squeezing the plastic as the blood poured into his mouth.

The buckets beneath his wrists remained half filled with the blood I had drained from him earlier.

By the time he finished the fifth bag, some color had returned to his face.

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and let out a long breath.

Then he looked at me.

“Well,” he said, his voice stronger now.

“Let’s reunite you with your dad.”

A small smile spread across my face.