Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Selena
The evil laughter was all around us as I clasped Rocco’s arm. I broke out in goosebumps, running down from my neck to my arms.
“Come on,” he whispered. “Stay close.”
He didn’t have to tell me that. The Keep had grown darker since we’d been here last—impossibly darker, as if the shadows had thickened into something solid. Even with my vampire eyes, I could barely see three feet in front of me.
Rocco pulled me up the stairs, flight by flight, the laughter dogging us at every turn—bouncing off the stone, shifting direction, impossible to pin down.
But there was something else. Even using vampire speed, I felt like I was moving through mud. Every step took much effort, every stride covered half the distance it should have. As if the Keep itself was pushing against us.
“Do you feel that?” I tightened my grip on his arm. “It’s like we’re walking in quicksand.”
“Vex is slowing us down. Burning the clock.”
A door above us slammed open. I flinched, pressing closer to Rocco, my eyes snapping upward toward the sound.
Lucien stood on the landing, his golden wings tucked tight against his back. Even he was breathing hard—and demons didn’t tire easily. “She’s not up there.” His voice was raw. “No altar. No Raven. Nothing. And it took me twice as long as it should have to search it.”
“You feel it too,” Rocco said. “He’s slowing us down.”
“The whole Keep is fighting us,” Lucien snarled. “Every hallway feels a mile long. Every door takes too much effort to open. He’s playing with us.”
“Then he’s moved her and the altar,” Rocco said. “She could be anywhere in this Keep.”
My stomach dropped. The Keep was massive—towers, corridors, underground chambers we hadn't even seen. Searching every room could take hours we didn't have. And if Vex had moved Raven deliberately, it meant he wanted us wandering. Lost. Separated. Easy to pick off one by one.
I gripped Rocco's arm tighter. Whatever happened, we were not splitting up.
“We split up.” Lucien’s eyes burned. “It’s the only way.”
“Don’t do anything rash,” Rocco warned. “Vex is doing this for a reason. He wants us separated. Panicked. Making mistakes.”
“I’m more powerful.” The voice slithered out of the darkness like a blade across silk. Close. Too close—as if Vex were standing right between us, breathing the same air.
I jumped, my hand tightening on Rocco’s arm.
“Show yourself, you bastard,” Lucien growled.
“You’ll never find me in time.” A pause. Then the laughter erupted again—wild, unhinged, ricocheting off the walls until the whole Keep seemed to shake with it.
We were wasting time. Lucien had gone one direction, we'd gone another, and Vex was somewhere in between, laughing while Raven's clock ran out.
If we split up, we could cover more ground.
Find her faster. It was reckless and stupid and exactly the kind of thing Vex wanted us to do — but the alternative was searching room by room while midnight crept closer.
“I’ll go—”
Rocco yanked me against his chest, knocking the wind out of me. “You’re staying with me. You’re not going off by yourself. Period.”
I wanted to argue, but the words died in my throat. Vex had taken Raven. Raven—who had the strength of three bloodlines pumping through her veins—Dragon. Golden Demon. Fae. The most powerful creature I’d ever met, and Vex had snatched her like she was nothing.
I was just a vampire. No ancient bloodlines. No special powers. Just fangs and stubbornness.
If Vex could take Raven, he could break me without trying.
“We start with this floor,” Rocco said, his voice low and controlled–the voice of someone used to giving orders, even when the world was falling apart, reminding me of the prince he once was. “Selena and I will take one side and you take the other.”
We moved—but every step was a fight. The Keep pushed back against us like we were wading through chest-deep water.
Doors that should have been ten feet away felt like fifty.
My legs burned with the effort, my muscles screaming against a resistance that had no source and no shape.
Vex wasn’t just hiding from us. He was draining the clock one sluggish step at a time.
There were six doors. Four opened into bedrooms—empty, decayed, reeking of dust and old blood.
Nothing. No sign of her anywhere.
No Vex.
Each one a dead end that cost us precious minutes we didn’t have.
My hands were shaking — not from fear anymore, but from the helpless fury of being trapped in a maze while a woman's life bled away somewhere above or below us.
Every wrong door felt like a nail in Raven's coffin.
I wanted to scream, to tear the walls apart with my bare hands, to do something other than open another door to another empty room.
The other two led to turret staircases that spiraled upward into darkness. Lucien had already cleared one. That left the other.
I paused at a narrow window cut into the stone.
Through the glass—or whatever barrier Vex had conjured — I could see the others.
Rose and Alice sat on the ground, pale and spent.
Valentin paced back and forth like a caged animal.
Darius stood still, his face tilted up toward the Keep, staring straight at me.
Could he see us? Maybe. His silver eyes didn’t waver.
Their trust pressed down on me like a physical thing.
Rose, Valentin, Alice, Darius — all trapped on the other side because they'd spent everything they had getting us in.
If we failed, their sacrifice meant nothing.
Raven died. And we'd have let down every single person who'd believed in us enough to cross an ocean.
I wasn't going to let that happen.
They couldn’t help us. Not from out there.
Rocco and I left the turret and headed back down. Lucien was at the bottom of the stairs, vibrating with barely contained fury.
“Time’s running out,” he said. “Where the fuck is he?”
“I don’t know,” Rocco said. “But we keep looking.”
Keep looking. Keep opening doors to empty rooms while the clock bled out.
The futility of it was maddening — and beneath the frustration, a fury was building that rivaled Lucien's.
Vex was toying with us. Dangling Raven's life like bait while we stumbled through his funhouse.
And every second we wasted was a second he won.
The second floor held another hallway lined with doors.
Lucien took one side, Rocco and I took the other.
We moved as fast as the Keep would let us—which wasn’t fast enough.
Every hallway stretched longer than it should have.
Every door resisted before it opened, as if the castle was deciding whether to let us through.
My patience was fraying, thread by thread. Fear had burned away somewhere around the fourth empty room, replaced by something hotter — a white-knuckle rage that made my fangs ache and my vision sharpen. I was done being afraid of this place. Done being herded. Done playing Vex's game.
We came upon a library. Books were scattered across the floor, their spines cracked, pages torn loose and curling at the edges. Bookcases lay toppled like dominoes. Paintings hung crooked on the walls, their frames split, their subjects watching us from tilted angles.
Empty. Again. The rage tightened another notch. How many more rooms? How many more dead ends before midnight arrived and we lost everything?
A doorway at the far end led to a balcony. The air shifted as we approached — heavier, warmer, pressing against my skin like a hand. Every instinct I had was telling me to back out. To hide. To not take another step.
But that resistance — that push to stay away — was exactly why I kept walking. The Keep had been fighting us since we'd crossed the barrier. Empty rooms didn't fight back. Whatever was out on that balcony, the castle didn't want us to find it.
Rocco pushed through the doorway. I followed close behind, stepping out onto a balcony overlooking a courtyard. Dead trees. Empty flowerbeds. Weeds choking what must have once been a manicured lawn. A place that might have been beautiful, centuries ago, before something poisoned it.
“The trees were alive recently,” Rocco said quietly.
“How do you know?”
He pointed. “Dead birds in the branches. Birds don’t nest in dead trees—they need leaves to hide from predators. Something killed these trees after the birds settled.”
Chills rolled down my spine. Vex hadn’t just moved into this castle. He’d infected it. Evil spreading outward like rot, killing everything it touched—even nature.
I glanced at my watch. Less than one hour. We'd been searching for over two hours and had nothing to show for it but empty rooms and Vex's laughter. Raven was running out of time. We all were. “We have to find Raven.”
A cloud slid away from the moon and silver light poured into the courtyard like water filling a bowl. Something caught my eye.
“Rocco, wait.” I pulled him back to the railing. “Down there. Look.”
Below us, in the far corner of the courtyard, the moonlight revealed what the darkness had hidden. A door—half-buried in ivy, set into the base of the Keep’s outer wall. And the weeds and vines around it had been trampled flat. Recently.
Someone had gone through that door. And they hadn’t bothered to cover their tracks. Or maybe they knew it wouldn’t matter — that by the time we found it, it would be too late.
“Lucien.” Rocco’s voice cut through the dark. “We found something.”
“What?” Lucien’s voice came from down the hall. I watched him fight his way toward us—each step a battle against the Keep’s invisible resistance, his face twisted with effort. By the time he reached the balcony, precious seconds had bled away.
I pointed toward the chapel, my hand trembling. Lucien didn't hesitate. He spread his golden wings wide and launched himself off the balcony toward the courtyard below.