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‘Still breathing,’ Rowan replies.

The pain sharpens. Blood fills my mouth, hot and horrible, but not as much as before. Rowan’s stabiliser holds part of the damage back.

Selphine notices and her mouth tightens.

‘What do you want?’ Valentin snarls.

Selphine’s gaze moves to the Heartshard Glass and I see greater hunger than before, naked, feral and fierce. So much that pulling her gaze to answer Valentin seems to take great effort. ‘I want the route to the Blood Chrysalis.’

The room chills. Valentin’s hand tightens on Marek’s throat.

But the other vampire knows this Five Blood won’t kill him. Not when I’m in danger. So Marek smiles despite the pressure. ‘Morrighan made you. She can remake the order. Five Blood is not a closed number, brother.’

‘You are not my brother.’

‘I could be more.’

Selphine steps closer to the Glass. Rowan moves with her, keeping herself between the witch and me.

‘Marek will become the next Five Blood,’ Selphine says. ‘Morrighan will grant what your kind denied him. Immortality without decay. Power without borrowed scraps. A bond capable of surviving the centuries.’

‘With you?’ I rasp.

Her gaze snaps to mine. The pain in my throat eases by a fraction, perhaps because shock loosens her grip.

‘That’s what all of this has been about, hasn’t it? You did all this to become immortal with him?’

Marek’s eyes flash.

Selphine’s face hardens. ‘Do not make this small because you are young.’

‘You used me.’

‘I saved you first.’

‘And then used me.’

‘Yes,’ she says.

The bluntness hits harder than any lie. Valentin’s fury surges through the bond.

Marek laughs, low and pleased. ‘She understands cost. More than you ever did.’

Rowan begins to chant under her breath.

Selphine’s hand snaps towards her but I move first. Widow’s Fang is in my hand before thought catches up. I slash through the gold-lit air between Selphine and Rowan. The blade screams as it meets magic, runes along the steel flaring. Selphine staggers back half a step, surprise cutting across her face.

Then Rowan strikes.

A ring of red-white witchlight erupts under Selphine’s feet, pinning her for the first time.

Valentin and Marek explode into motion.

The room becomes war.

My vampire, the stronger, vastly more powerful Five Blood, drives Marek through the shattered table, then into the floor hard enough to crack stone. Marek answers with a blade of black power that slices across Valentin’s ribs. Blood sprays. My heart lurches, but he doesn’t slow. He catches Marek’s wrist, twists until bone snaps, and buries his fangs in the older vampire’s shoulder.

Marek screams. It’s the first honest sound he makes.