Fangless: The Alpha's Vampire Mate
Chapter 235: A Hand Stained, A Hand Clean

Chapter 235: A Hand Stained, A Hand Clean

Ol’gaz fed off Florian’s crumbling resolve. Every flicker of doubt, every fleeting moment of denial, gave the demon strength.

Florian’s mind was unraveling strand by strand, and Ol’gaz wrapped himself tighter around it, his influence rooting deeper with every moment of weakness.

Florian had always been an easy target. From the beginning, his mind had been soft and fragile, shaped by fear and dependency.

As a child, he had clung to Riona, allowing her to bear every burden, to solve every problem. She had cared for him so completely that she left no room for him to grow, no space for him to fail or succeed on his own.

There was truth—sharp and painful—in the words he had hurled at Riona during their last meeting. Though he hated himself for it, a tiny, bitter part of him blamed her.

Riona had always meant to protect him—but Ol’gaz didn’t care for the truth. He latched onto that sliver of blame, stretched it, and warped it until it consumed Florian’s thoughts.

The demon’s voice grew louder in Florian’s mind. She made you weak. She made you useless. Each word struck like a hammer against Florian’s resolve, splintering it further. And Florian, lost in the storm of his guilt and anger, began to believe it.

He told himself he had pushed Riona away to protect her—to shield her from the darkness that had taken root within him. But Ol’gaz whispered the truth he didn’t want to face: You wanted her gone. She’s the reason you’re broken.

Florian could no longer distinguish his own thoughts from Ol’gaz’s whispers. What had once been faint doubts were now deafening truths, magnified and twisted until they became unbearable.

His mind was no longer his own; it belonged to the demon who thrived on his pain, who would stop at nothing to hollow him out completely.

And Florian, drowning in self-loathing, was too far gone to fight back.

"Shut up!" Florian screamed, slamming his fists against the cold stone floor, the sound reverberating in the dark chamber. His voice cracked with desperation, but it only fueled Ol’gaz’s cruel delight.

The demon didn’t stop. He didn’t even pause. Instead, Florian’s outburst confirmed what Ol’gaz already knew: the young vampire was crumbling, weaker with every passing second.

Florian squirmed on the ground like a fish stranded on sun-scorched sand, his movements wild and pitiful.

Across from him, the other Florian crouched, a shadow of himself. Ol’gaz wore Florian’s face, but wrong—too wrong. The grin stretched too wide, his head tilted at a chilling angle as if studying a cornered animal.

His arms hung loose, resting casually on his knees, exuding an air of terrifying ease. He was a grotesque mirror, a dark parody of the real Florian, who clawed at the stone floor with such ferocity that his nails splintered and cracked.

"You’re pathetic," Ol’gaz murmured, his tone cutting through the air like a blade. The voice that came from Florian’s lips wasn’t his—it was Ol’gaz’s guttural, mocking growl. "Is it so hard to admit, child?"

He leaned forward, his blackened eyes gleaming with cruel amusement. "The truth has been staring you in the face. It gets easier, doesn’t it? With each drop of blood. With each kill. It’s like breathing now. Natural. Addicting."

Florian froze, his breath coming in short, uneven gasps. Ol’gaz’s words sliced through him, dredging up truths he didn’t want to face.

The first kill... It wasn’t Ol’gaz who had done it. No. That was all him. Long before the demon had seized control, Florian had killed.

In Wintertooth, the young vampire pup had died by his hands. He hadn’t drunk the child’s blood, but it hadn’t mattered—the life had been snuffed out all the same.

It was terrifying how quickly he had adapted to killing, how easy it had become to drink the blood of his own kind.

At first, he had fought the thirst, clawed against it with everything he had. But each time he fed, it became harder to resist.

The satisfaction didn’t last. The hunger came faster, fiercer. The periods of feeling full grew shorter, the cravings more relentless.

He needed more. Always more.

"No!" Florian screamed, curling in on himself, his entire body trembling as if it might shatter.

Ol’gaz threw his head back and laughed, the sound a guttural rumble that shook Florian to his core. It wasn’t just a laugh—it was triumph.

"Don’t lie to yourself, Florian," Ol’gaz said softly. "Don’t pretend you don’t feel it—the rush of power, the way it sings through your veins. You don’t hate the blood. You hate that you love it."

Florian’s stomach churned, bile rising in his throat. He clenched his fists, but his arms felt heavy, useless, like lead weights dragging him down.

A grin spread across Ol’gaz’s stolen face, splitting it wide into an expression that Florian had never worn—an expression that didn’t belong to him. It was wrong, unnatural, and yet... Ol’gaz intended to make it permanent.

To make this Florian the new reality.

"GAAAHHH!" Florian thrashed wildly, kicking at the air, but his movements were weak. His limbs felt like dead weight, his strength a distant memory.

Ol’gaz only inched closer, unbothered, his evil twin crouching low as if savoring the sight of Florian’s desperation.

"You can’t fight me," Ol’gaz said, his tone almost pitying. "You are me, Florian. The sooner you accept it, the stronger we’ll become. Stop running. Stop struggling. You’re only hurting yourself."

The worst part was that he believed Ol’gaz’s words. When he heard them spill from the demon’s lips, wearing his own voice like a mask, they didn’t sound foreign—they felt like his own thoughts.

And that terrified him.

The demon, draped in his stolen face, leaned closer, his expression a twisted mirror of Florian’s own. He saw the hesitation, the doubt, and smirked.

"Come now, child," Ol’gaz purred, his voice honeyed with false warmth. "Don’t you want to prove yourself? Don’t you want to stop being so... pathetic? Power is right here—within your grasp. I’m the only one who truly cares about you."

Florian’s sobs grew quieter, his hands limp at his sides.

The other him—the cleaner, untarnished version—extended a hand. It was immaculate, free of blood and grime, the nails unbroken, the skin smooth as if it had never known violence. Nothing like his.

Florian’s gaze shifted between that hand and his own, caked with dirt and dried blood, trembling.

He stared at the figure before him, struggling to reconcile the polished imposter with the wreck he saw in his reflection. But the longer he looked, the more he began to convince himself—this was his face. His hands. His clean slate.

"Let’s climb to the top of the world," the demon urged. "We’ll do it together. You and me. What do you say, son?"

Somewhere deep inside, a spark of fear flickered. Not fear of the demon. Not fear of the blood.

Fear of himself.

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