“I’m here,” I manage, breath shivering through my lungs.
His relief doesn’t even have time to settle. Because that’s when the sound hits.
A catastrophic, soul-deep crack that shakes the very walls of thepalazzo, his own wards breaking apart in a single, shuddering scream.
It isn’t a sound any human would hear in a thousand lifetimes. It’s vibration. It’s ancient and forbidden, born in the marrow and blooming outward like pain.
The air hums and the chandeliers stutter. Every light in the room dies in the same breath, plunging us into flickering half-light held together by an ancient vampire’s power alone.
Ice floods my spine.
I know that sound.
I prayed I’d never hear it again.
Lucien’s eyes snap toward the balcony and then back to me, and what I see in them steals every remaining breath from my lungs.
A flash of naked terror.
For me.
He’s survived every kind of death the world can conjure.
But this…this is the one thing that terrifies him—losing me again.
“Elara.” His voice fractures around my name, already halfway to violence. “Stay awake. Stay with me.”
But the storm outside has already broken.
And the one inside the walls is only beginning. “They’ve found me,” I whisper.
The word barely leaves my lips before the first blow hits.
Thepalazzoshakes again. The glass dome of the observatory cracks with a thunderous boom and shards rain down like crystal knives.
Wards flare red across the walls, old protection sigils I didn’t realize Lucien had strengthened now straining under the assault.
He lunges out of bed before I can move, naked but for the streaks of dried blood across his wide chest, his hands and powerful arms. His fangs glint in the dim light, eyes gone full gold.
Predator. Protector. Monster of war.
“Whatever you do, you stay behind me,” he growls.
“Lucien, listen?—”
“Stay. Behind. Me.” His voice drops to something primal as lightning flashes. And with it, the scent hits.
Smoke and ash and the stench of sacrificial magic.
My stomach twists as I feel the presence.
They’ve brought the remnants of the coven—the remaining five witches. Not the ones who sealed me centuries ago, but the successors who inherited their vow: if they cannot control the Shackle-Soul, they will reclaim it. Along with the most powerful vampire in existence. And if they must tear me apart to do it, they will.
A terrifying through clogs my throat. “Lucien, did you use your blood to create the wards in this house?” Hair, fangs ground to powder, even fingernails can do the trick but blood is by far the strongest.
His eyes narrow. “I did,” he grates out.
My soul sinks. “They’re using blood keys,” I say, stumbling to my feet. “They kept your blood from the last sacrifice. They would’ve found a way to counter it, to use your blood against you to shatter the ward.”
