Chapter 24 Through Blood and Fear
THROUGH BLOOD AND FEAR
VASILEIOS
It had been days, or perhaps mere moments since she’d entered my world, and already I couldn’t remember what it had been like before her.
For years, I had existed, not lived. Every hour had been marked by purpose, vengeance the steady pulse that kept me moving through endless, empty nights.
Until her.
Until the girl who had looked at me, not with fear or disgust, but with something that felt like understanding.
I tried to tell myself in the beginning that it was a weakness.
That it was fascination born of proximity, of shared shadows and circumstance.
But the truth was far, far simpler… As much as it wasn’t.
I was falling in love with her.
From the very beginning, I’d known it was a mistake.
She was supposed to be a pawn, a means to an end.
A mortal girl with a pure soul that could tip the scales in my favor and bring my brothers crawling back into the light so I could destroy them.
So, I could take from them just as they had taken from me.
And yet, somewhere between her questions and her trembling smiles, I forgot to remember what the end even looked like.
She never called me a monster, though I saw the truth reflected in her eyes, that she knew what I was, and still, she refused to flinch away.
She looked at me the way no one ever had before.
As if the darkness in me wasn’t something to fear, but something that could be understood, even healed.
She saw me, all of me, the same way she saw the pain in herself…
Something fractured. But not beyond repair, if only someone cared enough to try.
That was when she’d undone me.
No spell.
No curse.
No decades of power could have equaled the force of one small, broken human heart colliding with mine. And when she confessed it, when she stood before me, eyes glistening with tears, telling me she loved all three of us, I should have been furious.
But I wasn’t.
Because the way she said it, it wasn’t division. It wasn’t confusion.
It was truth.
Pure, impossible truth.
She had the heart of a mortal and yet the courage of something far older, far greater. She loved us all because she saw in each of us what we could no longer see in ourselves. And when she spoke those words, I realised just how deep I had fallen.
No power on this earth, no demonic curse, no blood bond, no fractured fate, could have stopped me from kissing her in that storm.
The rain had drenched us both, the world around us vanishing until there was nothing left but the taste of her lips, the warmth of her breath, the sound of her heart hammering against mine.
It had felt like eternity condensed into a single, reckless act.
I knew I shouldn’t have done it.
And yet, if I could live a thousand lifetimes, I would find her in everyone just to kiss her again beneath the rain.
However, love… my love… was never going to come without consequence. For when she wandered into the east wing, my heart had stopped. She wasn’t supposed to see that.
Not yet.
Not her.
What she nearly discovered would have destroyed her innocence and damned what little redemption I still had left to offer. So, when I saw her reaching for the curtain, when I saw her fingertips trembling inches from the truth, I wanted to scare her.
No—
I needed to scare her.
Because fear would keep her safe.
Fear would drive her away.
It would make her run and keep running, far from me, far from the curse that still lingered in the shadows of this house.
And yet… she didn’t. Even terrified, drenched in rain, trembling with rage and betrayal, she still stood before me, defiant and heartbreakingly human.
And I, the monster who had wanted her gone, found myself chasing after her instead. Every instinct told me to let her go.
But every beat of my undead heart defied reason and followed her into the storm. Because she is my undoing.
My damnation.
And perhaps, my only salvation. I had never believed in myths.
Not in the kind whispered through our kind’s history, about the Fated, the bond strong enough to tame the darkness that lived within an ancient demon’s bloodline.
It was a fairy tale meant for those who still had hope left in them.
Hope was something I had buried a long time ago, beneath stone and fire and blood.
And yet… she changed everything.
The first time her skin touched mine, I felt it.
A stillness. A softening of the storm that had lived beneath my flesh for decades. The darkness that had once clawed and raged within me went quiet, as though it knew her. As though it had been waiting for her.
I remember the exact moment it happened, when her trembling hand touched the marred half of my face. No fear. No hesitation. Only that unbearable tenderness that felt like sunlight breaking through my eternal night. It should have burned me.
Instead, it soothed me.
I was too stunned to even breathe. For the first time since I’d inherited this cursed power, the shadow didn’t pulse with hunger or fury. It fucking… purred. Like a beast lulled into submission by the voice of its master.
Her.
She had done what no one… no witch, no spell, no power-hungry immortal… Had ever managed. She tamed it.
Tamed me.
And it terrified me more than any blade ever could.
Because it meant the stories were true. The curse that bound my family, the power that could consume or obey, was ruled by emotion… By love. Only a fated bond could calm it, and for so long, I had believed myself beyond such things.
But she… this fragile, stubborn mortal… had proved me wrong.
Now every moment I spent away from her felt like punishment, every breath she took in my absence an ache I couldn’t soothe. She had become the pulse that replaced my own.
And I couldn’t let her go.
Not for anything.
Not even for her.
And not even for the dagger that had driven me for as long as I could remember.
The irony wasn’t lost on me. For years, I had chased that blade, stained not only with my father’s madness but with my own blood.
I had done so believing it held the key to my revenge and to reclaiming what was rightfully mine.
But now, the only thing I craved was her and she was the one thing I could never truly possess.
Keeping her meant denying her the others.
Denying her the love she had found in my brothers.
The thought clawed at me like guilt given form.
I could see her smile when she spoke of them, the softness in her eyes when she remembered their names. They had loved her too. I had seen it, felt it through the echo that still tied us all.
And yet, I couldn’t bear the thought of her leaving.
So, I told myself that perhaps keeping her was its own form of justice. Perhaps, in taking her from them, I was exacting my revenge after all. But the truth?
It was bitter.
It was selfish.
And it would destroy us both.
Because no matter how tightly I held her, I could already feel it. The slow fracture of her heart every time she thought of them. The pain she hid behind her gentle smiles. The ache that grew between every kiss we shared. I was torn in two, and she was torn in more.
Between what I wanted… And what she deserved.
And yet, even knowing that, I couldn’t stop myself. Because letting her go wasn’t an option. Not anymore.
If the curse was ever meant to be broken, it wouldn’t be through blood or death. It would be through her. Through the light she carried, the warmth she breathed into this cold, endless existence. But she didn’t belong to me. Not fully. Not yet.
And maybe… that was my punishment.
To love her completely, knowing she would never be wholly mine.
It began as a whisper in the air, a vibration beneath the surface of the night that only those bound by blood could feel.
At first, I thought it was the storm returning, the low hum of thunder crawling across the heavens, but this was no sound of nature.
This was older. Sharper. A resonance that hummed through my veins like the echo of a scream.
And I knew instantly what it meant.
My brothers were ready to meet me.
The night wrapped the manor in its mist, swollen with the weight of the storm waiting to break again.
I stood at the threshold, the cold air biting against my skin as I stared beyond the ancient iron gates.
The wards shimmered faintly in the darkness, a veil of power that separated this sanctuary from the world beyond.
They pulsed like a heartbeat, alive, sentient, bound to me.
Within the barrier, my shadows were useless for travel. The magic here was too old, too pure, tied to blood that predated even my own. Magic that had come at a high price and had been money well spent, seeing as it kept my home protected.
So, I walked down the stone steps, the wet gravel glistening under the glimpse of the moonlight breaking through the dark clouds above. I had already retrieved a t-shirt and jacket, along with one of my half masks, despite no longer needing it.
No longer needing it because of her.
I lifted a hand and power slid through my veins like molten iron, the spell I’d cast days ago, once more carrying across the distance, seeking the two who shared my blood. The message was simple, a place burned into the air itself, a meeting point older than the feud between us.
It was how they would know where to find me.
Just like when I knew that they had arrived. A meeting I had almost forgotten about entirely, thanks to my infatuation with my little Rabbit, who I was loathed to leave.
But my blood call carried its own warning.
It thrummed back into me, faint at first, like a whisper against the skin.
Then stronger, vibrating through my ribs until it reached my skull and split the night in two.
The connection between us awoke, the old tether screaming through the decades of silence that had separated us.
Victor.
Talon.
My blood brothers.
They were answering the summons.
The spell had worked. And it was time.
The darkness obeyed when I called it, folding around me, swallowing the cold and the light until the world vanished in a single, soundless pulse. When I stepped through the veil, the city’s scent hit me like a pulse… New York.
But not the one of lights and life. This part of its heart was abandoned, forgotten, where the air was thick with rot and rain, and the streets bled silver beneath the fractured glow of dying streetlamps.
The cemetery loomed ahead, the oldest in the city, its iron gates twisted with ivy. Beyond them lay our legacy carved in stone, the family mausoleum that had once been a monument to our name. Now it was nothing but a tomb for the damned.
This was where I had chosen to face them.
Neutral ground. Sacred once, cursed now.
A place suited for ghosts.
The weight of centuries pressed down as I crossed the threshold, the air colder here, the ground slick beneath my boots.
I could feel them close, that ancient bond humming beneath my skin like a summons, thrumming through my veins, calling me toward the place where I would finally confront the past.
But just as I reached the steps of the crypt, something struck me. Not physical, but primal. A surge through the bond that wasn’t theirs.
No.
It was hers.
A force, sharp and cold, lanced through my chest, stealing the breath from my lungs. My knees hit the wet pavement. My hand pressed against my heart.
The connection.
To my Nessa.
Her name tore through me before I could stop it. Her heartbeat thundered against mine, quick and erratic, filled with fear that wasn’t my own. The air tasted like blood and salt, her terror pulsing through the bond that tied us.
“No…” The word came out as a growl, breaking in the empty street.
The pain flared again, sharper now, the fated link burning with urgency.
Through it, I could feel the echo of movement, a struggle, a scream swallowed by silence.
It wasn’t a vision. It was her, her fear clawing its way into me.
I didn’t need to see it to know. Something was hurting her.
Something had found her. My brothers could wait. Revenge could wait.
Nothing else mattered!
I forced myself to my feet, the shadows rising with me, trembling with the fury that tore through my veins. The world began to bend again, darkness folding in like a tide ready to consume everything in its path.
“I’m coming, little Rabbit,” I whispered, her name soon burning on my tongue like a vow. And then I was gone, swallowed whole by the dark as her name left my lips once more…
“Nessa.”