Chapter 23 Aurora
The heavy gilded door behind Derzelas’ statue hung marginally open, held by Radu’s black opal pendant. The hinges stayed silent as he widened the gap for me to slip through.
My heart pounded against my throat as I stepped into the dimly lit corridor. Golden light from wall sconces softened the rough sandstone jutting from both sides.
I strained to hear any approaching footsteps. None came.
Radu scooped up his necklace and followed.
“It was supposed to be locked,” I muttered as the door hissed shut behind him.
He pulled back his hood and fixed me with piercing eyes. “What do you think I’ve been doing all this time?” The corner of his mouth quirked up, showing a maddening dimple. “I’ll admit I hadn’t pegged you for being this pious.”
“Oh, hush.” I waved a dismissive hand. “Someone needed to play the part since you avoided the shrine like it carried the plague. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with honoring the God who gave us life. Yours included.”
“No further comment,” he said, reaching for my hand as he passed. His silvery hair fell across his forehead, and my palm itched to run my fingers through it. Until he opened his mouth again. “Now let’s move before that woman comes looking for us.”
I smacked his shoulder. The sound echoed. “She’s one of the most revered women in the Republic,” I hissed. “And cover your head before the guards spot you.”
He caught my wrist before I could pull his hood up.
“There’s no one down here, princess.”
I skidded to a halt and stared at him. “What do you mean?” I whispered, then resumed walking. “There should be two Nightwatch officers guarding the Sleeping Chamber.”
He shrugged, falling into step beside me. “Maybe they got called away with the others, that bastard’s keeping the entire force busy hunting for you.”
“Something doesn’t feel right,” I said. “We barely saw anyone crossing the ward to Moonlight Terrace. If we hadn’t encountered the Nightwatch—”
“Twice,” he cut in, holding up two fingers.
“Right. I would’ve said this was almost too easy. I don’t remember the Temple ever being this deserted.”
We rounded a sharp bend and faced a long staircase. A ceramic bowl of warm lavender oil sat on an ornate pillar. I breathed in the sweet scent before voicing what had nagged at me since we’d surfaced from the catacombs.
“Radu, what if they already know we’re here?”
“More reason to move fast.” Before I could blink, he swept me into his arms and launched himself down the entire flight.
A portal flickered mid-leap, cushioning our landing at the bottom.
He set me down and kept walking like nothing had happened.
“We go in, you claim your power, we portal out. We’re too close to quit now. ”
My knees turned liquid, but that had nothing to do with needing assistance and everything to do with the way he’d manhandled me. Which was outrageous, and I’d analyze it later once we were safe.
Seriously?
I’d survived a century on my own. I could handle a steep staircase.
“You’re right,” I forced out, rubbing my arm in comfort, and crossed the empty vestibule to the archway where golden words gleamed, ‘Herein lie the Great Sons in eternal dream.’
My heart stopped, then galloped at full speed. I drew a sharp breath, read the inscription once more, and stepped through.
The Sleeping Chamber swallowed us whole. Our footsteps thundered against barren walls, and a gasp escaped my lips.
The sheer scale… cream walls stretching endlessly upward, space yawning in all directions, crushed me down to nothing. My chest hollowed. Invisible hands wrapped around my throat and squeezed.
“Fuck me,” Radu breathed behind me. “How big is this place?”
I couldn’t answer. This was what an ant must feel like facing a giant’s doorway, watching titans pace beyond the threshold.
Because it wasn’t just the room’s vastness that locked my knees and stole my breath. Power surged from the center, hitting us like a blast furnace. Even Radu grunted, but whatever he said was lost to me.
I could barely stand.
Drawing another breath, I forced my legs forward.
Thirty feet ahead, the stone gave way to three vast sanctuaries carved into the earth—the resting thrones of the most powerful purebloods who’d ever walked the earth.
Their sarcophagi gleamed with consecrated gold, each lid etched with sigils that pulsed faintly with power, as though they still breathed the names of their makers. The air trembled with quiet divinity.
Between the tombs, a colossal amphora of burnished silver blazed with undying, living fire.
Its flames moved, not with the wind, but with a will of their own—spiraling in reverent, hypnotic rhythms, shaping halos of light that reached out and reflected on the ceiling and walls like prayers given form.
Time slipped away.
I blinked and found myself at the triangle’s center, where the Creators’ magic hit me full force.
Underworld’s tits and balls, what a rush.
My hair stood on end, scalp tingling with electricity. Goosebumps exploded across my skin. The crushing magnetism yanked me downward.
My legs gave out. White-hot agony tore through my thighs and hips as my kneecaps cracked against the hard floor.
“Aurora!” Radu’s voice sounded underwater, muffled by waves of power crashing between us.
I still had enough mind-clarity to know that if I couldn’t resist their combined force, his varcolac blood wouldn’t stand a chance. Worse, they might sense him as a threat and obliterate him.
“Stay back!” I screamed, wrestling my trembling hands upward against the crushing force.
He froze a foot from Dracula’s chamber, his cloak whipping around him. The stubborn bastard had watched me collapse and still reached out, testing the charged air with his palms. He jerked his hands back as if he’d grabbed molten steel.
A string of curses erupted from him—those I heard crystal clear. “Fuck! You okay, princess?”
I started to nod when the magic surged, a familiar current that my body recognized down to the marrow.
Dracula was testing me. His power spiked.
My head whipped back, mouth opening in a soundless scream as every bone in my body turned to grinding glass. Agony with a capital A bleached my vision. Muscles and tendons stretched to their snapping point as violent spasms tore through me.
Despite the fire consuming me from the inside, I heard Radu’s roar. The air splintered as he slammed against the magical wall erected to keep him from reaching me. Blood streamed from his burned knuckles.
“Let me through!” he shouted. “Aurora!”
I couldn’t take much more. With shaking hands, I yanked the sharp needle from my sleeve and jabbed my fingertip. A fat droplet of crimson welled up.
I squeezed, dragging my arm forward, forcing more blood out before the wound could seal. A fifty-fifty chance to get out of this alive was fifty percent better than certain death in the Tenth Ward.
The blood hit Dracula’s golden lid and sizzled into nothing.
Everything happened at once. The agony crested, threatening to tear me apart. My vision went black. This was it—death on my knees before I could save anyone.
Then silence.
His magic drained away like water through sand, flowing back into the floor. The flames froze in their vessel. Radu’s struggle stopped. Ominous quiet settled over the chamber.
A circle formed around the golden lid, and Dracula’s chamber erupted in blinding light.
I fell through collapsing dimensions, my body dissolving and reforming. I screamed, but no sound emerged.
Darkness devoured me, then spat me onto endless cold marble.
The throne room made the Sleeping Chamber look like a closet. Black columns stretched into shadow, carved with figures, sentries, that writhed when I wasn’t looking directly at them. Crimson torches burned without warmth, making the obsidian walls pulse.
An invisible force slammed into my back, and through my lashes, I glimpsed him.
Dracula sat atop a throne carved from a single ruby, nine feet of lethal power wrapped in midnight robes.
Dark hair fell past broad shoulders. Razor cheekbones, diamond-sharp jaw, straight nose, and skin white as fresh snow.
No beard softened his features, only the cruel perfection of a god who had never known weakness.
His crimson eyes burned ancient and merciless, holding power that could unmake worlds.
He was the first vampire, the original pureblood, the template from which we’d all been carved. He could silence a nation just with his name. This was what he chose to be—terrifying, magnificent, untouchable.
When mortals dreamed of dark gods, this was the face that haunted their nightmares. His presence radiated absolute authority, pitiless intelligence, and the calm certainty of someone who had never been challenged. He could have been death itself wearing flesh.
I owed him everything; he had made my people. Yet when he looked at me now, every instinct screamed to kneel. To prostrate myself in submission.
It was like standing before the birth of darkness itself. When the power of those eyes had touched my ancestors, they had no choice but to worship. Now those eyes fastened on me, stripping me bare, peeling away flesh to examine my soul.
“You dare wake me from sacred rest?” His powerful voice shook the walls.
My arms trembled, supporting my weight against the crushing force pinning me down.
“You’ve been gone too long, my lord,” I gasped each word. “You need to see what’s happening.”
“Your petty concerns are beneath me.” He leaned forward. The air turned arctic. “Why shouldn’t I erase you for this transgression?”
Ice coated my lungs, crystal shards blooming up my throat and coating my tongue. My heart pounded against my ribs as the full weight of my stupidity struck me. I’d woken a god, an ancient, indifferent god who could unmake me with a thought. What had I been thinking?
Terror locked my throat. When I finally managed to speak, it came out as a harsh whisper.