Chapter 13
Thirteen
EMIL
The blood never looks the same twice.
That is the first thing I notice as I watch it move through the glass tubing—thick, dark, almost luminous under the lab lights. Vampire blood reacts to intention. To proximity. To hunger.
It knows what it is meant for.
It knows what I am meant for.
Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. They called me mad when I first proposed this, but look at it now. The blood recognizes its master. It sings to me, even through the glass. Can Serj hear it? No. Of course not. His senses are dull. Human. Pathetic. He sees science. I see destiny.
Serj adjusts the centrifuge with shaking hands. I hear it—the tremor in his breath, the frantic rhythm of his heart. Everything sounds louder lately. Sharper. The hum of the lab presses against my skull like a living thing.
Good.
Fear keeps people honest.
My senses are making me see everything more vividly, clearly. Now I see the truth.
His fear is a symphony. I can almost taste it in the air. Salty. Sweet. It tells me he respects my work. He respects what I’m becoming. Soon they’ll all respect it. They’ll have no choice.
“Careful,” I say calmly. “If you contaminate the sample, you’ll have to start again.”
“Yes—of course,” Serj mutters. “Everything is stable. The reaction is…consistent.”
Consistent.
The word irritates me.
I step closer, eyes fixed on the vials lined up like offerings. Each one holds power. Each one is proof that I was right and the world was wrong.
Vampires were never meant to rule the night.
They were meant to be ended.
Consistent? Is that all he sees? This isn’t consistency—it’s evolution.
Revolution. The blood is adapting, yes, but it’s also communicating.
It’s showing me the way. The future. They all called me obsessed when I began this journey.
They whispered behind my back. “Emil has lost his mind.” “He’s chasing ghosts.
” “His grief has broken him.” Fools. All of them. I wasn’t broken. I was being remade.
“Tell me again,” I say. “Slowly.”
Serj swallows. “When consumed by a vampire hunter, the blood doesn’t corrupt the host. It doesn’t turn them. It adapts. Enhances. The hunter remains human, but gains—”
“Say it,” I snap, turning sharply. “I want to hear you say it again.”
He flinches. “—the strength, speed, heightened senses. Regeneration. Abilities comparable to a vampire’s.”
Comparable.
I exhale slowly through my nose.
Not enough.
I need to be better, and with my skills and the blood of the First Turned, I will be better.
Comparable? That word tastes like ash in my mouth.
I’m not aiming for comparable. I’m aiming for superior.
Transcendent. The vampires had their turn at evolution, and what did they do with it?
They preyed on the weak. They hoarded power.
They became stagnant parasites feeding on humanity’s progress.
No more. I will take their gifts and perfect them.
I will become what they should have been. What they were too corrupt to become.
“And the mind?” I ask. “What happens to the mind?”
My scientist hesitates, as if I already don’t know the answer. He thinks I’m going to lose it, he repeats it over and over again. I see how much he trembles as the days pass by.
He worries about my mind. Sweet, simple Serj.
He thinks the blood is breaking me when it’s actually completing me.
The thoughts come clearer now. Faster. I can see patterns I never saw before.
Connections. Solutions. The world makes so much more sense when you stop listening to the noise of morality and start hearing the music of power.
I smile. “That’s what I thought.”
The blood I’ve already taken hums beneath my skin. Hot. Restless. Alive. It sharpens my thoughts, strips away hesitation, burns doubt down to nothing.
This is not madness.
This is clarity.
The world has always been diseased. Vampires are merely the most visible symptom. Parasites masquerading as gods. Immortality without consequence. Power without accountability.
They think they’re gods. Immortal beings above mortal concerns.
But what have they done with their eternity?
Nothing. They hide in shadows, feed on the innocent, accumulate wealth and power without purpose.
They’ve had centuries to advance humanity, to guide evolution, to perfect existence.
And what did they choose? Indulgence. Stagnation.
Parasitism. They don’t deserve their gifts.
I do. I will use what they’ve squandered.
And Flynn Lancaster—
My jaw tightens.
Flynn Lancaster is the worst of them. Together with his friend they will die a slow and painful death.
He’s a relic. A lie. A monster pretending at morality while his kind poisons the earth. A vampire who dares to believe himself different just because he now seems to have a reason to walk the same ground as me.
A vampire who touched my daughter.
Oh, Flynn. Flynn, Flynn, Flynn. You think you’re different.
You think you’re redeemed. You play at being human now, walking in the sunlight of my daughter’s affection.
But I see you. I see what you are beneath that carefully constructed facade.
You’re just like the rest of them—selfish, possessive, consuming.
You took her from me. Twisted her. Made her doubt her purpose.
Her destiny. You filled her head with nonsense about love and choice when she was meant for greatness.
For power. For standing beside me as we remake this broken world.
Fate might have brought you together, but I will break that monstrous bond.
The blood surges harder at the thought.
Talulla.
My creation. My most incredible weapon, and he took her from me.
I close my eyes for half a second, just long enough to picture her as she should be—at my side, focused, sharpened, unstoppable. Not hiding. Not running. Not wasting her gifts on him.
She was perfect before you. So focused. So dedicated.
She understood the mission. She understood her purpose in this grand design.
And you—you whispered poison in her ear.
Made her question everything. Made her weak.
But she’ll come back to me. She always does.
Blood calls to blood. And when she sees what I’ve become—what we can become together—she’ll understand. She’ll remember who she truly is.
Flynn Lancaster stole more than time.
He stole obedience.
But that will be corrected.
Flynn will bleed.
And when I take his blood—when I tear it from his body and drink until the truth spills free—he will tell me everything.
Where the Original is hiding.
Where the rot began.
Where justice must be delivered.
I’ll drain him slowly. Make him watch as his power becomes mine.
Make him understand, in those final moments, that he was never the hero of this story.
He was merely a stepping stone. A resource.
His blood will tell me everything I need to know—where the Original hides, how the curse began, how to end it all.
And then I’ll use his remains to fertilize the new world.
The better world. The world I’m building.
My mother’s face rises unbidden in my mind. Pale. Still. Gone before the world was ready to be fixed.
The rage comes easily. It always does.
Vengeance is not cruelty.
It is balance.
They took her from me. The vampires. The sickness.
The rot that spreads through this world like a cancer.
They took her and left me alone to clean up their mess.
But I will. I’ll cleanse this world of their taint.
Every last one. And when it’s done, when the world is finally clean, she’ll be able to rest. She’ll see what I’ve accomplished in her name. She’ll understand.
“Your results confirm it, then,” I say quietly. “A hunter can become more than human.”
“Yes,” Serj replies. “But Emil—prolonged exposure, prolonged consumption—it will have side effects. Heightened aggression. Paranoia. Obsessive ideation—”
I laugh. Here we go again.
The sound echoes wrong in the sterile room, too sharp, too loud.
“Side effects,” I repeat. “You scientists and your soft language.”
I lean closer until his fear spikes, rich and unmistakable. “This isn’t obsession,” I tell him. “This is purpose.”
Side effects? He calls this a side effect?
This is evolution. This is transcendence.
The aggression is clarity. The paranoia is awareness.
The obsessive ideation is focus. He’s so trapped in his limited human understanding that he can’t see what’s happening.
What I’m becoming. I’m not losing my mind—I’m expanding it.
Breaking free of the constraints that hold lesser men back.
He opens his mouth and then closes it.
Good.
“You will continue refining the process,” I say. “I want the blood stabilized. Transportable. Ready when I bring Lancaster in.”
Serj nods quickly. “Of course.”
I straighten my coat and catch my reflection in the glass—eyes too bright, smile too sharp.
Perfect.
This is what leadership looks like.
My thoughts are abruptly interrupted as I hear the door open. “Knock next time. We’re working.”
Nora’s presence is soft, careful. A disruption. “Emil,” she says gently. “Dinner is ready.” Nothing else.
I turn to her.
For a brief moment, an idle thought crosses my mind—how fragile she is. How easily she could break.
The thought passes.
Useless.
My wife needs to remain exactly the way she is.
Calm. Loving. Not asking questions.
I will need her soon.
I will need her voice when the time comes. Her influence. Her connection to Talulla.
Talulla will listen to her mother.
Talulla will come home.
I smile. The one she fell in love with. The one she trusts.
“I’ll be right there,” I say warmly.
Relief softens her face. Then fear. Her eyes are scanning the situation, but no words come out of her mouth. Just her posture turning colder until her gaze is back on me. A small tug on her lips masks her real sentiment, but she still remains silent.
And then, she leaves.
I turn back to Serj. “Continue,” I order, tapping my finger on the steel table.
And as I walk away, the blood in my veins hums in agreement. It’s almost time to start my revenge and to take home what’s mine.