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“You can stay here another day if needed.”

“I can’t,” I said. “Fucking Bellatrix will be back soon, if she isn’t already. And I don’t want her sending out the cavalry to find me and bring me back dead or alive, or something.”

Magdalena sighed. “She’s terrible. I’m sorry, Aura. I don’t know how you and Irving deal with her.”

I faced her as a memory dropped in. Irving sitting on the chaise with me, confused in so many ways right before I’d left in search of Sylvan. Something was off about him.

“You know what’s odd?” I said to Magdalena. “Years ago, the attack on my aunt’s husband? Bellatrix had compelled my Aunt Mallory and Dahlia right before my eyes. As far as I knew, she never compelled Irving, but his memory of that night is warped. He remembers it differently than I do.”

Her brows drew close together. “So, she compelled him when you weren’t looking?”

“Either that or the poor fellow was so traumatized it fogged up his memories. I’m betting on the former.”

“It’s a good thing she can’t compel you,” said Magdalena.

“Not for her lack of trying.” I rolled my eyes, and the motion made me slightly dizzy. I rubbed my temples and heaved a sigh. I needed to get home, take another draft, and relax.

“Are you going to be alright to get home on your own?” Magdalena asked.

“I have to be,” I responded. “Thank you again.”

The return to Nygaard Manor wasn’t what I expected. The house was completely empty. I walked around, calling for Irving, but he was nowhere to be found.

After taking a bath, I apologized to Nidhogg for not feeding him. I let him slither up my arm and around my neck as I headed to the kitchen to drink a few goblets of blood. I returned Nidhogg to his tank, fed him, and changed into a deep purple chiffon dress with black lace over the bodice. I rolled my hair up into a bun at the back of my head, packed my notes into my briefcase, and headed to the university.

The library was a welcome reprieve. I headed to the archives, keeping my focus on the task at hand, even as I passed the chair. The memory of it sent a thrill through me, but I ignored it, stepping into the archive section. The candles flickered to life, illuminating the shelves below. Row by row, I combed through each of the book titles until my legs grew tired. Finally, I stumbled upon a book entitled The Houses of the Primal Born.

A series of hand drawn genealogy charts, from House Jurado—Magdalena’s family—to a vampire family in the east, and of course the Nygaards, were in the first pages of the book. Listed was Bellatrix, Mallory, Frederich, and of course Adelaide, who had been killed on the day of my conception. The one I could never forget given the amount of times Bellatrix had recalled the story of her sister’s gruesome death at the hands of the lycan—my father—who then forced my conception upon Bellatrix.

As I flipped through the book, I happened upon a few pages with details of the Nygaard family. It wasn’t the text passage that caught my attention, however, but an image of each family member. My mother didn’t keep images of family members in the house, particularly Adelaide, stating that they were too painful to look at. But whoever had drawn them in the book made sure to distinctly illustrate the white hair that each member had. Except for Adelaide, who had a combination of equal parts black and white hair, just as I did.

My stomach dropped. Maybe it meant nothing at all. Inherited traits were bizarre, and it was just an illustration that could’ve also been completely inaccurate. Yet the more I stared at the picture of Adelaide, the more I suspected it was no mere coincidence. It couldn’t be, could it? How?

My heart was knocking against my ribs, and sweat broke out on the back of my neck. I needed to look more into this. Perhaps I was just overthinking, but I fought down the nausea, tucked the book beneath my arm, and exited the library.

As soon as Shan left the alchemy workshop, I set up the microscope and fetched Sylvan’s blood sample to create a slide. His blood was the color you’d expect of lycan blood, bright red, but as I peered at the prepared slide through the lens, there was something in the shape of his cells. It was odd. In a way, it reminded me of my blood. Neither fully vampire, nor fully lycan.

My thoughts whirled as I ran to a drawer to pull out my other slide samples. I compared the human blood to lycan blood and then Sylvan’s. My heart knocked wildly against my ribs, my hands starting to shake as I looked back and forth between each sample, again and again, until my brain finally wrapped around what I was seeing.

It was possible for someone like me to look like a vampire, have all the needs of a vampire, while also carrying the blood of a lycan and experiencing something like Heat. Clearly, it was also possible for someone to appear full lycan—to be able to fully shift, to be an alpha—but also have the composition of human blood.

“Well fuck,” I said aloud. Sylvan was a hybrid himself.

Maybe it was his human blood that gave him immunity against Lobofebris. His venom and antibodies might be just what was needed for the cure after all. I wanted to do a jig around the workshop. I wanted to shout my findings from the rooftops. Instead, I took a deep breath, put everything away, and headed to my office to document my theories and findings.

Stepping into the office turned out to be something I was wildly unprepared for. Sylvan’s scent—our scents—hit me as strongly as a physical blow. I stalled in the doorway, my hand over my chest, trying to get my breathing to regulate. I thought of his hands on me, the smoldering look in his eyes, everything we’d done on my desk in particular, but it wasn’t lust that built up in me. It was a strange pang that throbbed and grew behind my breastbone.

I locked my notes away in the drawer of my desk, and as the exhaustion pressed in, I took my leave from the university.

The fevers returned that night with a vengeance. The sheets beneath me were soaked, my clothes like a second skin. This time there had been no carnal dreams, just images of glowing eyes and frothy venom dripping from a large maw. The fierce snarl that lingered in my memories was as loud as it had been that night. My Heat was over, but the symptoms of Lobofebris prevailed stronger than before.

As I dragged myself out of bed, feathers drifted to the floor. For a moment, I stood there, squinting down at them. On the bed, my pillows had been torn—shredded really. I grabbed for them, and my arms stung something fierce. It wasn’t just sweat that had soaked into my equally shredded sleeves, but black blood. My blood.

I wrapped my arms around myself, a deep shudder running through me as I tried to find some semblance of calm. There was no use in panicking. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. It was worse than any other incident I could remember, but the pains were ironically not as horrid as they had been before.

Shoving the pillows into the hearth, I stripped my ruined clothing from my body and tossed them onto the logs before lighting the fire and retreating to the bathroom. I sat in the dry tub as it filled with water. Unbidden, thoughts of Sylvan in the tub with me flooded my mind. I closed my eyes, and the tears streamed, merciless and bruising.

When the water lapped over my collarbones, I opened my eyes and sat up to turn the lever off. With the blood washed off my arms, the scratched skin was more evident. Claw marks. My hands must’ve partially shifted in my sleep. My arms still wept dark blood, swirling in the water. I drew in a breath and grabbed a bar of soap, rubbing it into the scratches until they stung. At least it was a pain that made sense, unlike the messy oozing of my heart. My chest ached more than my ruined skin, bleeding worse than any wound.