Chapter 25
Twenty-Five
FLYNN
The moldy smell hits me first—damp earth and rot and something older. Decay that’s seeped into stone over decades, maybe centuries.
Underground.
The realization comes slowly, fighting through the fog in my head. My thoughts are sluggish, disconnected.
How original, Emil.
I groan as I push myself up from the concrete floor, every muscle protesting. The silver bullet wound in my stomach is healing—slowly, too slowly—but at least it’s healing. The wooden fragments are gone, expelled by my body’s desperate attempt to survive.
Talulla.
Her name cuts through everything else, sharp and immediate.
Where is she? Is she safe?
All in one piece, I note clinically, running my hands over my body. The wound is closed, just a tender spot now. My ribs are intact. No broken bones.
But then I look at my hands, and my stomach drops.
No daylight ring.
I snort as I stare at my hands, flexing my fingers in the dim light. “Yeah, definitely not surprised about that.”
“Shut up,” a male voice says from behind the bars.
I turn, and recognition slams into me.
Him.
The motherfucker who drugged Talulla. The one who touched her while she was vulnerable and afraid.
Red floods my vision. The bloodlust I’ve been keeping at bay surges forward, hot and vicious.
I approach the metal bars slowly, deliberately, letting him see the monster in my eyes.
“I’m going to rip your throat out and use it to drink whiskey from it,” I growl, and I mean every word.
The thirst is growing, spreading through my veins like fire. I haven’t fed properly since before the attack. And now, with fresh blood so close, with the scent of this bastard’s fear in the air—
Control. I need control.
“Sure thing, mate, you do that,” the asshole replies, but I can hear the tremor in his voice.
Good. Be afraid.
The door swings open, and I know it’s Emil before he even comes into view. I can smell him—gun oil and silver and something else now. Something wrong.
Blood.
Vampire blood.
The scent is faint but unmistakable, woven into his sweat, his breath, his very pores.
He’s drinking vampire blood. Lots of it. Too much of it.
Emil Popescu, the great vampire hunter, has become an addict.
“Mr. Lancaster, finally awake I see.” His voice is too calm. Too calculated. The voice of a man who thinks he’s in complete control when really, he’s spiraling into madness.
I’ve seen it before. Done it. The act can be sensual, and so intimate, but like this? This is a gamble with sanity. When crimson replaces water, then it’s time for absolution.
Because he just became the very thing he’s been hunting.
A monster. Just like me. Maybe even worse.
“Emil, what the fuck are you doing?”
“What I was supposed to do a long time ago.”
“Where’s Talulla?” The question tears out of me before I can stop it.
“My daughter’s location doesn’t concern you.”
My daughter. Like he has any right to call her that.
“Yes, it does.”
Every cell in my body is screaming at me to break through these bars, to tear him apart, to find Talulla and get her the hell out of here.
But the bars are silver. Pure silver. And I’m still weak. Too weak to break through.
Trapped. I’m trapped and she’s out there and I can’t protect her.
“Flynn, just tell me where he is and I’ll make your death less painful.”
Vlad.
Of course. This has always been about Vladimir. About Emil’s obsession with killing the Original, with avenging his mother’s death.
Even though Vlad didn’t kill her.
“And why would I do that?”
“Because if you don’t, I’ll kill you in front of your mate and let you watch her suffer.”
The words are like ice water in my veins.
He’ll hurt her. He’ll use her to get to me.
But I can’t betray Vlad. Not after everything. Not after almost six hundred years of loyalty and brotherhood.
But Talulla.
Talulla is more important than anything. Anyone.
The realization should terrify me. The fact that I’d betray my maker for a woman I’ve known less than a year, but it doesn’t.
Because she’s not just a woman. She’s my mate. The other half of my soul. And I’d burn the world down to keep her safe.
“Listen to your words, Emil, you’re completely out of your mind. Talulla will never forgive you.”
“I just need her skills, she can hate me all she wants, I don’t care.”
The casual cruelty in his voice makes me want to vomit. This is Talulla’s father. The man who raised her, who trained her.
And he’s talking about her like she’s a tool. A weapon to be used and discarded.
Monster.
“He didn’t kill your mother, and you know it.”
Emil laughs at that, and the sound is wrong. Too high, too manic. “I don’t care about that either.”
The admission should shock me. But it doesn’t. Because I already knew. Deep down, I’ve always known that Emil’s crusade was never really about justice or vengeance.
It was about the hunt. The kill. The power.
“Then why would you go so out of your way when you know he’s innocent?”
“Innocent is a very big word, Flynn, he did kill you and many other people in the last six hundred plus years.”
True.
I can’t deny that. Vlad has killed. We’ve all killed. That’s what vampires do—we survive, and sometimes survival means taking lives.
But not like this. Not with this cold, calculated cruelty.
“He hasn’t in a very long time.”
“I can take him now, Flynn, I have the tool to take him and all of you down.” The confidence in his voice is chilling. Because he believes it. He actually believes that drinking vampire blood makes him strong enough to kill the Original.
Delusional.
“Good for you,” I say, letting the sarcasm drip from every word. “You scare me so much, I’m shaking in my boots.”
“You’re the one behind bars, Flynn. You should be scared.”
I reach out and touch the metal bars, feeling the silver burn into my palm. The pain is immediate and excruciating—like pressing my hand onto a red-hot stove.
But I don’t let go.
I hold on, letting the agony ground me, letting it remind me what I’m fighting for.
Talulla. I’m fighting for Talulla.
“As I was saying, I’m so shaking in my boots.” I force my lips into a smile, making sure he can see my fangs.
Emil spits, narrowing his eyes at me. “Enjoy these last moments of your non-life because you’re not getting out of here.”
He turns and walks out, the door slamming behind him.
I continue to smile until I’m sure he’s gone. Until the footsteps fade and I’m alone again.
Only then do I let the smile drop.
Fuck.
Fuck, silver does hurt like a bitch. And yet, I can’t seem to let go of the bars completely. My fingers hover near the metal, close enough to feel the heat radiating from it.
It’s as if the pain reminds me I still have a lot to fight for. As if I can feel Talulla’s touch just a little longer through the agony.
I finally let go and step back, cradling my burned hand against my chest as it slowly heals.
A new set of footsteps approaches. Different from Emil’s. Lighter. More measured.
The door opens, and I freeze.
Nora Popescu.
Talulla’s mother stands in the doorway, and for a moment, I can’t breathe.
Because she looks so much like Talulla. The same delicate features, the same strength in her eyes.
But where Talulla’s eyes are full of fire and defiance, Nora’s are full of something else. Sadness. Resignation. And something that might be regret.
“Leave us,” she says to the two men keeping an eye on me.
“Emil said—”
“Emil is not here, just stand outside this door while I talk to our prisoner.”
“But—”
“Stefan, are you truly going to disobey my orders?” There’s steel in her voice now. The voice of a woman who’s used to being obeyed.
“We’ll be right outside, shout if you need us.”
“Good boy.”
As soon as the door clicks shut, Nora paces right in front of me.
She knows. She knows what Emil’s become.
“Well, this I very much did not expect,” I start, trying to assess her calm look.
Talulla has so much of her mother in her, and it’s just now that I see the resemblance. She’s stunning, and her presence is comforting. This is where Talulla gets her soft side, the gentle and caring one.
“It’s very nice to see you, Nora, it’s been what, twenty years?”
“Twenty-two.”
Twenty-two years since I saved her life. Since I pulled her out of that nightmare while Emil was too busy hunting to notice his own daughter in the hands of a maniac.
“Beautiful as ever.” It’s not flattery. It’s the truth.
“I’m not here for compliments, Flynn.”
I snort. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
She takes a step closer, and I tense, ready for—what? An attack? But instead, her eyes soften as she meets mine. Gratitude. She’s still grateful.
“You know I’m forever in debt to you.”
The words hit me like a punch to the gut. Because this, I absolutely did not expect it.
“Nora, there’s no debt, I did what anyone would have done.”
Lie. It’s a lie and we both know it. Most vampires would have let her die.
“You know that’s not true.”
“Is Talulla okay?”
The question bursts out of me, desperate and raw.
She nods. “Yes, she is.”
The relief is so intense it nearly brings me to my knees. “Why are you here, Nora?”
“You need to be honest with her, now more than ever.”
The word is a knife between my ribs. I shake my head. “I know it’s hard to believe, but I was going to tell her everything right before your husband showed up.”
“What does she know?”
“That I was turned during the first war.”
“Which I suppose she thinks is War World One.”
I sigh. “Yeah, I guess I could have been a little more specific there.”
“Which war was it again?”
“The first battle of the War of Roses.”
“Ah yes, so British of you.” There’s a hint of amusement in her voice, and it’s so unexpected that I almost laugh.
“I still don’t understand what you’re doing here, Nora. You hate me, you hate everything I represent.”
She tilts her head to the side, and the gesture is so like Talulla that my chest aches. “That is very incorrect. I might not love the idea of my daughter falling for a vampire, but I certainly don’t hate you. Far from it actually.”
“She didn’t just fall for me, we—” I sigh, trying to explain it in more words and finding none. “She’s my mate.”
My mate. My soul. My everything.
“I know.”