Chapter 29
RAVENA
The door swung open with a loud crash. There she stood—my grandmother.
Her presence hit me like a blade of ice, cold and suffocating, swallowing the air whole. Flanked by guards who moved like shadows, she stepped inside with the slow, absolute certainty of a predator who knew she owned everything in the room.
Behind her, a creature slithered forward—her familiar, but no ordinary beast. A massive black panther, sleek as midnight, with three glowing eyes burning bright yellow. The middle eye stared unblinking, unfocused, yet it felt like it pierced straight through me, reading every secret I thought I’d hidden.
“Don’t look into its third eye.”
This wasn’t just a familiar. It was something twisted, something darker—something born of nightmares and malice.
Her gaze locked with mine—cold, merciless, and utterly without a shred of humanity. I wobbled on shaky legs but forced myself to stand, stepping between Kieran, Ronan and the ones who threaten my loved ones. My body screamed in protest, every muscle burning, every joint aching.
“You must be the witch they’ve been hiding,” she says, voice smooth and venomous, a quiet promise of destruction.
I clenched my fists until my nails dug into my palms. Fury roared beneath my skin, but beneath that fire, something colder gnawed at me—a hollow, haunting ache. How could someoneso monstrous resemble my mother? The resemblance was like a twisted mirror, but the soul behind it was fractured, soaked in darkness and power.
Kieran’s hand finds my leg, steady and firm. That small, grounding touch cut through the storm crashing inside me, reminding me who I was fighting for.
I pushed my head back, eyes hard. “You're the bitch I've been dying to kill,” I spat.
Vespera tilts her head, that snake-like smile stretching wider—slow, deliberate, like a predator savouring the moment before striking. The guards behind her tensed, but she raised a hand, halting them with a simple, commanding gesture.
“You wouldn’t be the first to want me dead,” her eyes roamed over me. “There's something… familiar about you.”
I stay perfectly still, eyes flicking to the two guards moving closer. The Vesperas's low, mirthless chuckle cuts through the air, catching me off guard.
“The woman who’s supposed to be more powerful than me...” She murmurs, her fingers gliding lazily over the sleek head of her panther. “How quaint. And impossible.”
“Not impossible,” I said back without hesitation.
Her dark eyes flash a deep, inhuman midnight black—and in an instant, the air shifts. Heavy. Choked with the weight of dark magic so dense it wraps around my ribs and tightens. It’s worse than my daggers pull. Worse than Darian's shadows that linger within him. I knew she was poisoning him with the darkness, but standing here now, I see it. She isn’t just tainting him.
She is the darkness.
And that's when it hits me—Darian isn't just influenced or following orders; he’s hers. Bound, twisted, and controlled, she is shaping him into a monster that she can wield like a weapon. There must be a reason why someone as powerful as she is would do this to Darian.
“Xarothar,”I called to him silently.
“We are ready.”
I breathe deeply, pushing past the tension until I find it—that silver thread. The steady, humming connection between us. Our magic begins to stir, winding together like it belongs. She steps closer, her steady gaze on me, her panther looking towards Ronan, who is still lying on the floor.
Kieran’s hand tightens around my leg, but I don’t move. I can’t take my eyes off her for a second because who knows what she will do.
Something crosses her face, recognition. “You’re Selene’s daughter.”
She knows. It’s pretty hard to miss. It’s in my face, my fire—everything my mother was, without the curse of my father’s blood.
Fuck that guy.
I meet her stare, unflinching. “You don’t get to say her name.”
She’s the reason my mother suffered.
Vespera never cared. Never noticed when Selene was dragged away by the vampire King—tortured, experimented on and raped for years. All because he wanted to play God and try to create a new species. A weapon to take over all the realms, just like he tried before the Ashen War.
