Chapter Eleven
The fabric was soft under Ant’s fingertips. A simple cotton blend that Ant already knew was a burgundy color. The seat cushion was slightly worn at the edges where…
Ant’s vision hit him, and grabbed hold of him.
It was the sounds that got to him first. Not the ordinary noises of people going about their day, or even any sounds pertaining to Finch.
No, it was a deafening roar of overlapping voices, screams, laughter, and pleas that had soaked into the walls of the coven over the centuries.
The ambient magic of the estate didn’t just amplify the vision - it grabbed hold of Ant’s consciousness and scattered it across every traumatic death that had ever occurred within these walls.
His vision whited out, almost as though it warped, and then snapped back into focus.
Ronald Finch sat at the desk, pen in hand, reviewing a column of numbers on a bank statement.
His lips moved as he tallied figures, completely absorbed in his work.
The laptop sat closed beside him. Papers were spread across the desk in organized piles - evidence of shell corporations, falsified documents, and forged signatures.
The vision was sharper than usual. Ant always saw the events as though they were happening, but it was as if someone had taken his vision and polished it. Every detail stood out, from the way Ronald’s wedding ring caught the lamplight to the slight furrow between his brows as he concentrated.
Footsteps in the hallway.
Ronald’s head lifted. His hand stilled on the paper, the pen tip resting against a number.
Ant tried to catalog the details of the scene with his usual detachment.
He’d learned from a very early age that he could not afford to be emotionally invested in the visions he was given.
But the magical distortions around the estate pressed against his mind, creating an interference that made it difficult to maintain the observer’s distance his gift normally provided.
The door opened without a knock.
Ronald turned in his chair, surprise flickering across his face. “Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
Claudius stood in the doorway, tall and lean in formal evening wear that looked like it belonged in a different century. Two other vampires flanked him - Ant recognized them as faces he’d seen at dinner. Edmund and another whose name he hadn’t caught.
“Mr. Finch.” Claudius’s voice was pleasant, almost warm. “Burning the midnight oil, I see.”
“I was just double-checking some calculations before I turned in for the night.” Ronald’s tone was professional, as if he were speaking to a respected colleague, but Ant noted how his body language had shifted.
His shoulders were tense, and his fingers curled slightly around the pen.
The accountant’s instincts were screaming danger, even if his conscious mind hadn’t caught up yet.
“I should have some preliminary findings for you by morning.”
“How thorough of you.” Claudius stepped into the room. The other two followed, closing the door behind them with a soft click that Ronald’s eyes tracked with growing alarm.
The attack was imminent. Ant could see, just in the casual way Claudius moved, and how behind him, the other vampires positioned themselves, blocking the exit. Ronald’s breathing sped up as the instinctual part of his brain recognized the trap his rational mind was still processing.
“Actually,” Ronald said, his voice tight, “I think I’ll call it a night, if it’s all right with you. It’s been a long day, and I…”
He stood, and Ant noticed he was still holding the pen. Ronald started to move toward the door...the door of the room Ant and Viktor were sharing.
Claudius was faster.
One moment, he was three feet away. The next, he stood directly in Ronald’s path, close enough that the accountant stumbled backward in surprise.
The pen fell from his fingers, bounced once on the desk, then rolled to rest on the blotter.
That’s not… Ant’s mind stuttered, immediately clocking the disconnect between the pen in the crime scene photographs and what he was seeing, but the vision hadn’t ended.
“I insist you stay.” Claudius’s voice remained pleasant. His hand came up, pale fingers catching Ronald’s chin. “We have so much to discuss.”
The vision wavered as the ambient magic surged, and Ant felt the edges of his consciousness fray. It was as if the magic in the walls knew what Ant would see next and wanted to show him more - every death, every scream, every moment of terror that had saturated the walls.
Focus. Ant dragged his attention back to Ronald Finch. Just this death. Just this moment.
Ronald tried to pull away, but his body locked mid-motion, freezing completely, his muscles rigid. Only his eyes moved, wide with dawning horror as he realized what was happening.
Claudius had used the vampiric trance, locking Ronald into place.
Ant had read countless papers written by Doctor Pike about the thrall effect, but he’d never seen it in a vision.
Ant did know that in every case where a person was under a vampire’s thrall, the victim remained conscious and aware, feeling everything, but utterly paralyzed.
“There we are.” Claudius tilted Ronald’s head to the side, exposing the throat. “Much better. Edmund, what do you think? Should I make this quick?”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Edmund’s voice was lazy, amused. “He’s been poking around in your business for months. Seems like he deserves a proper send-off.”
“Fair point.”
Ronald’s eyes darted frantically in their sockets. His chest moved with shallow, rapid breaths. He was clearly terrified but had no way of getting away.
Claudius’s fangs extended. He leaned in slowly, deliberately drawing out the moment as if he was savoring Ronald’s fear.
The bite itself was almost gentle, given the scene itself. Claudius’s fangs made two neat punctures before he began to feed from the terrified man.
Ronald’s eyes went glassy. His breathing hitched, then steadied into a slower rhythm. The trance kept him upright, kept him frozen in place while his blood drained into Claudius’s mouth.
Ant forced himself to observe rather than react. The vision was a documentary of events. He didn’t feel Ronald’s pain and had no way of feeling the horror Ronald was going through. His job was to witness, nothing more.
After thirty seconds, Claudius pulled back. Blood stained his lips, and he licked them clean with obvious satisfaction.
“Excellent vintage,” he said conversationally, as if discussing wine. “You can taste the fear. It adds a certain...complexity, I believe you would call it, to the flavor.”
Edmund laughed as Claudius bent to feed again.
The vision should have ended there. It wasn’t possible for a vampire to drain a person’s blood completely.
There was a certain point where there just wasn’t enough blood left in a person’s system to power the heart, and the body automatically shut down.
Ronald’s death would break Ant’s connection to the event, releasing him from the reading, and Ant could feel that moment approaching.
But something was wrong. Just as Ant was sure he would see Ronald’s body slumped over the desk – which was surely the next part - the vision stuttered and then restarted.
Ronald sat frozen at the desk, pen in hand. Footsteps in the hallway. The door opened without a knock.
No.
Ant tried to pull back, to break contact with the scene, but something was holding his consciousness hostage - as if it was him who was being held in a thrall, which was completely impossible for a magic user of his abilities to be.
But somehow, the magic interference in the room had wrapped around his vision like chains, holding him inside the loop.
Ronald turned in his chair. “Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
“Mr. Finch. Burning the midnight oil, I see.”
The conversation played out exactly as before. Every word and action in the scene was completely identical to the first time Ant had seen it.
“I insist you stay.”
The trance locked Ronald’s body. Claudius tilted his head, exposing his throat. Edmund made his comment about proper send-offs. Claudius fed, pulled back, fed again.
Then the vision stuttered and reset.
Ronald at the desk. Footsteps. The door opening.
“Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
Ant’s mind screamed in protest. His gift had never trapped him in a loop before.
Every single time he’d done a scene reading, he was shown the past once, and one time only, before it released him.
But the wards around the room were interfering somehow, twisting his magic into something completely haywire.
The vision played through again. Ronald’s fear. The trance. The feeding. Claudius’s laughter.
Reset.
Again.
Ronald turned in his chair. “Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
Every loop dug the traumatic event deeper into his mind. Ant tried to catalog details, worried he might have missed something, and that was why his magic was playing up, but the repetition was eroding his ability to separate the observer from the observed.
“I insist you stay.”
Ronald’s eyes, wide with terror. The pen falling. Claudius’s fangs.
Reset.
“Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
Ant’s sense of time fractured. How many loops? Five? Ten? The vision showed no variation, no escape hatch. Just Ronald’s discovery, his fear, his frozen horror, and then his death. Over and over and over again. Ant’s own sense of awareness began to fragment under the assault.
Focus. He tried to ground himself, to remember his training. You’re Doctor Anthony Channon. You’re conducting a scene reading. This is a vision, not reality. You can break free.
But it was as if his mind had lost track of the way out, and the loop kept dragging him back under.
Ronald at the desk. Footsteps. The door.
“Lord Raven…”
Ant’s breathing became erratic in the physical world - he could feel that much through the thin tether connecting his body to his consciousness. His heart rate spiked. Able was barking, but the sound was distant and muffled, like it was coming from underwater.
The vision reset again.
Claudius’s voice, oh, so pleasant before he went in for the kill. Ronald’s terror. The trance. The feeding.
Ant tried to force himself out, to simply let go of the chair, but his hand wouldn’t obey. His gift held him locked to the scene with the same iron grip that Claudius’s trance had used on Ronald.
Viktor.
The thought was instinctive. Their mate bond was still there, a golden thread connecting them even through the magical chaos. But the wards around the room muffled it, made the connection feel thick and sluggish.
Another loop. Ronald’s pen falling. Claudius leaning in. Edmund’s laughter.
Ant’s consciousness was splintering. The detachment that allowed him to witness trauma without experiencing it was crumbling. He could feel the edges of Ronald’s terror starting to bleed through, could feel the echo of paralysis in his own frozen hand.
Viktor, please.
He pushed the thought through their bond with all his remaining strength, hoping his mate could hear him through the magical noise, through the thick walls of the mental prison the wards had created.
Ronald turned in his chair. Footsteps in the hallway. The door opened.
“Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting…”
Ant’s consciousness flickered. His sense of self wavered between observer and observed, between his reality as Doctor Anthony Channon conducting a scene reading and Ronald Finch dying at his desk.
The loop pulled him under again and again, to the point where he couldn’t tell if the terror coursing through him was memory or present reality.
Viktor. Viktor. Please!
The plea was fainter now. Desperate. His mate bond glowed weakly through the chaos - the only anchor he had left.
Claudius’s fangs. The feeding. The laughter. Reset. Ant felt his mind beginning to break.