Only when the last ruddy drop had passed her lips did Rose finally set the cup down, drawing in a deep, shuddering breath. Some of the haze of ravenous hunger began to clear from her senses, allowing shame to creep in at her uncivilized display.
"Forgive me," she murmured, unable to meet Dumphries' gaze. "That was...unbecoming of a lady."
To her surprise, the weaponsmith let out a hearty laugh, waving off her apology.
"No need to be contrite, Rose. You've been put through the wringer by that conniving beldame you call 'mother'." His expression hardened briefly. "If anyone understands the demands of our unfortunate conditions, it's me."
He jerked his chin towards the corner where the disheveled human still huddled, unmoving. Rose felt her stomach churn queasily, though she could not deny the vitae coursing through her had temporarily sated the gnawing ache.
"I did not realize things had become so...dire," she said carefully. "When I left the palace, the old traditions still held sway. The taking of human life carelessly was sacrosanct."
Dumphries snorted derisively at that. "Times change, and traditions become...malleable in the wake of necessity." He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table's battered surface.
"You've been away for quite some time, Rose. While you were gone...well, let's just say some power shifted in ways that upended the old order."
Rose's brow furrowed slightly as she studied her old friend's weathered features. There was a hardness there that she didn't recall, an edge of bitterness that hadn't existed before.
"What happened here, Dumphries?" she asked softly. "What could possibly drive our people to such depravity as enslaving humans?"
The weaponsmith was silent for a long moment, idly running one calloused finger along the grooves in the tabletop. When he spoke again, his voice was low and tinged with barely suppressed anger.
"The Outsiders happened. Those damnable feral savages from beyond the barrier..." He trailed off, jaw clenching as his gaze bored a hole through the dingy wall opposite them.
"They tried, at first. Called up the knightly orders, conscripted any able-bodied vampires to fortify the borderlands and stanch the Outsider incursions. But..."
His voice trailed off, leaving Rose's heart pounding in trepidation.
"But what?" she pressed urgently. "Spit it out, man!"
Dumphries sighed heavily, suddenly looking decades older than his years.
"The old ways proved...insufficient against their overwhelming numbers and savagery. Even turned humans, bolstered by our supernatural gifts, proved little match once the Outsiders adapted their tactics."
A creeping sense of dread unfurled in the pit of Rose's stomach as his meaning became clear.
"So this..." She nodded towards the wretched captive human. "This is how you've resorted to bolstering our forces? Capturing innocents, draining them as...as livestock?"
Though she had witnessed the truth of Dumphries' words with her own eyes scant hours ago, she still could barely bring herself to acknowledge the reprehensible practice out loud.
To his credit, the weaponsmith did not attempt to deny or obfuscate, merely meeting her horrified gaze steadily.
"Like I said - dark times, dark necessities. You've been gone for far too long to fully grasp how desperate the struggle has become. How easily our entire world could be consumed by the Outsider hordes if we don't take action...
Though the vampires tried to bury the memory of the outsiders and their own dark past, they knew deep down that they could never truly escape them. The outsiders were a reminder of the tenuous balance between the human and vampire worlds, a balance that could be shattered at any moment.
So every night, in the name of all that was unholy, the vampires prayed that the outsiders whose true identity were Dhampirs never remembered them.