Page 112 of Property of Scar

Older power.

And something else.

Something patient.

I push through the inner door and find him exactly where I expected. He remains facing the wall, calm as a man standing in his own kitchen instead of a tunnel full of bodies. Running clearly isn’t on the agenda. Neither is reaching for a weapon.

He doesn’t even bother turning around.

He is at the far end with his back to me, hands hanging loose, not moving a damn inch. Just standing there like he knew we’d come.

And then slowly, he turns.

I have spent weeks remembering Mordain, the myth I took down with the vampire lords centuries ago. But none of it prepares me for this. He doesn’t look alive. Not really. Whatever time has done to him, it’s carved him into something lean and hard, all edges and no softness left anywhere. Pale as bone, dark-eyed, with a face that carries centuries of intelligence arranged into something that almost resembles serenity.

It isn’t serenity.

It’s a look that already knows how this ends, and he just waits for the world to prove him right.

His gaze moves to mine and stays there, and something cold drags down the length of my spine. The deep-body recognition that one predator has for another, when the one across the room has been alive long enough to have buried every challenge it ever faced.

“Scar,” he says, his voice smooth, unhurried, carrying through the chamber without effort. “I wondered when you’d finally make it this far.” He tilts his head, fractionally, studying me the way a collector studies a piece he’s been waiting to acquire. “You look exactly as I imagined.” He lifts his hand, as if he is giving an order, and the rogues begin moving again. I widen my eyes as they start lunging at my brothers, Cali, and Roxy, the fighting starting up around the room behind me. I go to take off to help, but Mordain steps in front of me. “Let them fight it out. You and I have things to discuss.”

I don’t answer him. Instead, I move forward, every sense spread wide, tracking exits, surfaces, and the precise coordinates of every glass panel, piece of equipment, and possible thing he could put between himself and me in the next ten seconds.

His expression shifts into something that isn’t quite a smile. “The vampire who killed his own lover,” he murmurs, like he is recalling something fond. “You were always my favorite tragedy.”

The words stop me cold.

Not the content of them—the certainty. The intimacy of them, the way they arrive already shaped around something specific, something mine, like he has been holding them in his mouth for an eternity and has finally found the right moment to release them.

My jaw locks. “You don’t know anything about—”

“Astrid?” The name falls out of him like a stone dropping into still water, and the ripple it sends through me is something I refuse to show. He watches me with visible pleasure. “Berserker bloodline. Nordic origin. Extraordinary regenerative capacity, remarkable pain threshold. A will forged in steel.” He begins to move, slowly, in a circle that isn’t an attack and isn’t a retreat—just the unhurried movement of something that doesn’t feel threatened. “I chose her specifically, you understand. Not because of what she was. But because of you.”

The room narrows, every line of it pulling tight, and I feel something in me go cold and still, as if the world has reduced to this one moment.

“Formula Twelve…” he continues, his tone carrying the quiet satisfaction of a masterwork finally revealed, “… was the finest thing I ever built. Not in its mechanics… those were perfected over decades of prior subjects. In its elegance…” He pauses, letting it settle. “I designed it to work slowly. To let the subject fight. To give them just enough of themselves to keep choosing to resist.”

Something cuts through me, sharp and hard to place.

She fought the madness for as long as she could.

“She held on longer than any of them,” he states, and there is genuine appreciation in his voice, which is the most obscene thing I have ever heard.

“Months longer than my projections. Do you know why?” He stops moving. His eyes hold mine, dark and unblinking. “You. She was holding on for you.”

Something hits.

Hard.

My grip tightens before I realize I’ve done it, fingers locking down on the stake hard enough that the wood creaks under the pressure. Every muscle in my body pulls taut at once—not movement, but containment. Like something just tried to tear loose and got caught halfway out.

He keeps talking.

I don’t hear it.

Not properly.