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Lance didn’t listen. Without a flicker of hesitation, he ripped the newborn from her arms. He didn’t even look at her, didn’t care that the child was still slick with blood and barely let out his first real cry. He turned and fled, disappearing down the hall with his son clutched to his chest.

Ameega surged forward, but Aribella blocked her path. She shoved her sister’s naked, bleeding body back onto the bed, uncaring of her own pregnancy or the anguished scream that tore from Ameega’s throat. “HIS NAME IS KLEITOS!” she screamed.

“HIS NAME—HIS NAME IS KLEITOS!”

Ameega’s voice cracked as another wave of contractions tore through her, forcing her body to betray her rage with agony. She couldn’t fight Aribella anymore. Her body trembled as the afterbirth began to pass. Her breath came in ragged gasps, and still, she wept. Deep, guttural sobs shook her as she pushed, her cries a haunting echo that hung heavily in the air.

My Naemira turned to me after silently watching from the corner. With a small nod toward the hall, he beckoned me to follow. For a moment I didn’t want to go. I wanted to reach out and hug and tell her someone saw her pain. That she didn’t have to cry alone. But I stepped away from the scene, trailing behind him in silence.

As we walked, he leaned in close and whispered into my ear, "Keep me locked up, and I’ll keep your path to Valentina blocked." Before I could respond to the threat, his body dissolved into that familiar black vapor, slipping beneath the fabric of my shirt and sinking back into the depths of my soul.

A sharp breath left me at the sensation; it was sharp throughout. Almost stronger than before. And then, everything faded into nothingness.

Heaving heavily I sighed as my eyes blinked open. My hand instinctively ran through my hair as the adrenaline faded through my body. It was like being hit by a car as my consciousness returned. My body felt stiff as moved along the chair I was propped on. Valentina at my side her hands were on my face in an instant, and she was practically in my lap.

“Are you okay?” she asked, breathless.

Arianna and Bomani stood just behind her, but their attention shifted when Kleitos slumped against the far wall, drained. “What was that?” Arianna asked him directly.

“I’m okay,” I murmured, eyes still adjusting, but my focus shifted to Kleitos. My mind raced. He was the baby; the one Valentina had told me about. The one Ameega had screamed for. I wasn’t sure if Valentina knew the truth yet, and I wasn’t going to reveal it. Not here. Not now. This was more than a discovery. It was a legacy. I was a part of the Nightwell heritage. My grandmother’s pain had been buried under centuries of silence, her agony dismissed, her child, my father, was ripped from her arms by her own sister.

And Aribella… she looked almost hollow in that memory. Like she hated herself even for asking Ameega to do it—but still did it anyway. Family could be so wicked when they chose to be.

Kleitos’ eyes were hazy, no longer filled with that unshakable resolve. His expression was cracked wide open, and tears bristled at the edges of his eyes like the memory still played behind them.

I had many questions. I had to talk to him now. “Valentina,” I said gently, standing to my feet. “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Without waiting for an answer, I passed through Arianna and Bomani to reach Kleitos. He looked up at me; his expression still fogged with emotion. The anguish on his face made it clear, this wasn’t just a memory to him. It was a wound. One that never fully closed. Whatever amount of time had passed since that day, it didn’t matter. It had just torn him open all over again.

His father had ripped him away from his mother.

My chest ached. I thought of my own mother, Eliza, and the torment I saw in her eyes the day she found out. Her love haunted my memories like a living curse. The ache was bone-deep, rattling my mind and body. But Kleitos... he had experienced it first. The prototype for our pain.

At least I had him now. He found me. Surely, surely, he had found his own mother too.

He had to have.

Holding my hand to him, he took it without hesitation. Pulling himself up, he inhaled a deep, grounding breath. “I know you have questions,” he said, his voice low. “I’d rather answer them outside. It’s not that I don’t trust our friends,” his gaze flicked toward the others “but I want you to hear it first. Then, I’ll decide how much to share with them. All on a need-to-know basis, of course.”

Without another word to the group, Kleitos slung his arm across my shoulders, and together we walked out the front of the cottage. The cold met us instantly, kissing our cheeks and turning them red. We didn’t step beyond the protective dome, but we edged close enough that the world felt distant, quiet enough for the truth.

I ran a heavy hand through my curls, my mind racing as I tried to process everything. The questions swirled in my head faster than I could sort them. I opened my mouth to speak once, but no sound came out. So I started pacing, snow crunching beneath my boots, slush and gravel kicking up around me. But eventually, I stopped in my tracks, turning to face him. “You were the first baby to transition in the 19th year?” I asked cautiously.

He nodded. “Yes. I was.” His voice was steady, but his eyes were far away. “That was long before we vampires discovered the portals to these lands,” he continued. “Back then, we still lived among humans. I didn’t even know what a vampire was. Not entirely. There were legends, of course. Stories the elders told to scare the young. But we all thought they were just that... stories.” He offered a faint smile, but it didn’t touch his eyes.

Taking a step closer, my voice dropped to a whisper. “How did it happen for you? Your transition?” I had wondered about it ever since Valentina first mentioned this story, but she hadn’t known much. Even then, she’d been tight-lipped.

Kleitos closed his eyes, as if pulling a thread from the back of his mind. His silence stretched long enough to make me wonder if he would answer at all. But finally, he spoke. “I was on my way home from hunting,” he said quietly. “I’d just taken down two large boars, not even using a bow. It was too easy that day.” His brows pulled together slightly as he continued. “I remember thinking it felt... off. And before I could make it home, this pain shot up my side. It came out of nowhere. White-hot. Paralyzing. I thought I was going to die right there in the forest.” He paused again, lost in that old memory, his expression growing haunted. “That’s when my Naemira appeared, out of nowhere.” He looked at me; his voice dipped in something dark. “I was lying there, convulsing on the ground, waiting to die. Just… waiting for something to come rip me apart. For a beast to sink its jaws into me and finish the job. But no, fate isn’t that merciful. Fate is cruel.”

Kleitos jaw flexed, the next words slow and bitter. “When it connected with me, it didn’t leave me with a clean little mark on my chest like yours. No. It was angry. It wanted revenge. Revenge on my aunt.” His hand lifted, pointing toward his vivid red eye. “I had no idea what it meant. Who it meant. And it didn’t explain, it forced me to understand. Forced itself straight into the socket.”

He laughed, but there was no humor in it, only exhaustion. “It took me a century to find her…” His voice wavered, slipping into something heavy and sinful, something ancient. “I fought my Naemira for decades. It tried to guide me, but I was too full of myself. Too prideful.” His gaze fell to the snow-covered ground between us. “I couldn’t accept it. Couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that they ripped me from my mother and felt nothing. That a father could discard his first son like garbage.” He paused, swallowing hard.

The wind stirred his coat, but he didn’t flinch. I could see how deep it cut, how fresh that wound still was. My chest tightened. I wanted to pull him in, hold him, do something to ease the ache he wore so openly. “You don’t have to finish that story,” I said gently, resting a hand on his shoulder and giving it a firm squeeze. “Not right now. Not if it still hurts like that.”

He inhaled sharply, letting the cold air fill his lungs and steady him. His expression softened at last, calmed by my words, by the space I gave him to breathe. He didn’t speak again. He didn’t have to.

I’d seen the betrayal with my own eyes. And I had my own twisted version of that pain still haunting me. Stepping forward I wrapped my arms around his waist, holding him close. It wasn’t just for him. I needed it too.

He met my embrace with his own, his arms folding around my shoulders. He pressed a kiss to my temple, his voice breaking softly at my ear. “I’m sorry I wasn’t able to give you better.”