Chapter Fourteen #2
“I did it!” My voice trembles with disbelief and something fiercer, pride, maybe, or the dawning realization of exactly what I’m becoming. “I actually did it!”
“First lesson complete.” Hades almost smiles. Almost. “You can manipulate life force at its most basic level. Now we build from there.”
Over the next two hours, they put me through my paces.
Hades teaches me to sense blood from greater distances.
I practice on club members inside the building, learning to distinguish between supernatural signatures.
Rogue’s lycan blood burns hot and wild, Scorch’s carries the echo of dragon fire, and Hex’s thrums with electrical current from his technomancy.
Oracle works with me on control, showing me how to regulate the Bloodfire so it doesn’t explode out of me every time I feel a strong emotion. It’s harder than it sounds because the fire wants to burn. It wants to consume. Keeping it banked requires constant attention.
“Think of it like breathing,” Oracle advises after I accidentally scorch a target to ash. “You don’t consciously think about every breath. You just do it. The Bloodfire should be the same. Present, but controlled. Part of you but not controlling you.”
“Easy for you to say…” I wipe sweat from my forehead. “You’ve had five centuries to practice.”
“I’ve also died and been reborn forty-three times.” His smile is wry. “Each time, I have to relearn control from scratch. Trust me, you’re doing remarkably well for someone who awakened less than twenty-four hours ago.”
His words actually make me feel better.
Around noon, Reyna joins us. The Valkyrie moves as if she were born to fight, all coiled grace and deadly precision. Her storm-touched armor shimmers into existence around her body, Divine Armor that looks like captured lightning.
“Heard you need combat training,” she says, spinning a spear that definitely wasn’t there a second ago. “Can’t have our new Blood Witch getting her ass kicked by every vampire with delusions of grandeur.”
“I know how to fight,” I protest. “I grew up in foster care. You learn to defend yourself pretty fast.”
“Human fighting?” Reyna’s grin is sharp. “Mm… that’s not going to cut it against supernaturals. We move faster, hit harder, and don’t play by mortal rules.” She gestures to the training yard. “Show me what you’ve got.”
What follows is the most humiliating hour of my life.
Reyna doesn’t pull her punches, kicks, spear strikes, or any of the thousand ways she finds to put me on my ass. My newly enhanced reflexes help, but she’s been a warrior for centuries, and it shows.
“You telegraph your moves,” she says, offering a hand to pull me up for the fifteenth time. “You’re thinking like a human. Worried about getting hurt. But you’re not human anymore, Sloane. You heal fast. You’re stronger than you think. So… stop holding back.”
“I’m not—”
She sweeps my legs out from under me.
I hit the concrete hard, and frustration boils over. The Bloodfire surges, and without thinking, I lash out with it. Crimson-gold flames erupt from my hand, catching Reyna across the chest.
Her Divine Armor screams. The sound is unlike anything I’ve heard, metal and magic shrieking as my Bloodfire burns through enchantments that should be impervious. Reyna staggers back, her eyes wide, smoke rising from the blackened scorch mark across her breastplate.
“Oh my God!” I scramble to my feet. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean—”
“That. Was… Amazing!” Reyna laughs, actually laughs, poking at the damage. “Do you have any idea how hard this armor is to dent? I’ve taken hits from demigods that barely scratched it. And you just burned straight through!”
“I… what?”
“Careful, witch.” She meets my eyes, and there’s respect there now. Not just tolerance or amusement. Real respect. “Even gods respect that flame. Whatever you’re becoming, it’s powerful enough to harm Divine constructs.” Her grin widens. “I like you more already.”
A rush of warmth moves through me, and Crave’s pride arrives with it, firm and unshakable, claiming its place. ‘That was fucking hot.’ He’s damn near glowing with how hard I’m trying, even when I’m fucking everything sideways.
‘Stop, I’m trying to concentrate,’ I send back to him with a warm smile.
His answering affection feels like a caress.
The afternoon brings different teachers.
Seraphine appears with her guitar, settling on a bench at the edge of the training yard. She doesn’t speak at first, just plays. The melody is hauntingly beautiful, threaded with her siren’s magic.
“Your power is tied to emotion,” she says finally, her fingers never stopping their dance across the strings. “I can feel it. The Bloodfire burns hotter when you’re angry, scared, or passionate. It’s normal for Blood Magic, but it’s also dangerous.”
“Why?” I sit beside her, watching her hands move.
“Because power without feeling is just violence.” Her song shifts, growing darker.
“But feeling without control is chaos. You need balance. You need to understand why you’re using your magic, not just how.
” She looks at me, her siren eyes seeing too much.
“What drives you, Sloane? What makes your blood sing?”
I think about that for a moment. About the Emergency Room, about saving lives, about the desperate need to make a difference, to matter, to prove I’m more than another orphan who slipped through the cracks.
About Crave, and the way he looks at me as though I’m both salvation and damnation.
“I want to protect,” I say slowly. “I spent my whole life watching people die. Watching people hurt. I became a nurse because I wanted to fix things. And now…” I look at my hands, at the crimson-gold light pulsing there.
“Now I have the power to actually do that. To protect the people I care about.”
“Good answer.” Seraphine’s song brightens, lifting. “Hold onto that. When the Bloodfire tries to consume you, and it will, remember why you’re fighting. Not for destruction. For protection. For love.”
The word settles warm in my chest.
Love.
Is that what this is?
This desperate, all-consuming need I feel for Crave? For this found family of monsters who have accepted me?
His response reaches me without sound, solid, unwavering, wrapping around the question like it’s already been decided.
‘Yes.’
My breath catches.
“He’s watching you, you know.” Seraphine doesn’t look up, but her smile is knowing. “Your vampire. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you all day. The bond between you… it’s beautiful. Terrifying… but beautiful.”
“It’s invasive,” I mutter, but I don’t mean it in a negative way.
“That too.” She laughs. “But you chose it. Both of you did, in a way. When he gave you his blood, when you drank it, that was consent. And everything that followed? That’s the universe recognizing what you both wanted.”
I want to argue, to say I didn’t have a choice, that I was dying, that it was survival, not desire.
But it would be a lie.
Some part of me knew what would happen.
Wanted it.
Reached for it with desperate hands.
And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
As the sun starts to descend, Eden appears. The Banshee looks nervous, her usual goth aesthetic somehow more pronounced in the fading light.
“We need to talk,” she says, and the seriousness in her voice makes my stomach clench.
We move to a quieter corner of the yard, away from the others. Eden sits on the remains of a blast-scarred wall, and I join her.
“I’m not good at this,” she admits. “The teaching thing. I’m better at predicting death than preventing it.” She fidgets with her hands. “But you need to understand something about your heritage. About what being a Blood Witch really means.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Your ancestor, Lilith.” The name makes the air grow colder. “She was the First Blood Witch. The only one who ever existed with the Voice. The ability to command reality itself through spoken word.”
I remember the woman in my visions. Dark hair, red eyes, and power that made the world bend.
“She could raise armies with a whisper,” Eden continues.
“Could unmake cities with a scream. Could rewrite the laws of nature by believing hard enough and speaking it into existence.” Her purple eyes meet mine, and I see genuine fear there.
“You have that Voice, Sloane. I heard it when you commanded Viktor’s vampires to stop.
You have the potential to become what she was. ”
“That sounds… terrifying.”
“It should.” Eden doesn’t sugarcoat it. “Because Lilith went mad with power. Lost herself to it. Became something even the supernatural world feared. It took six Original vampires, three phoenix clans, and a coalition of witches to bring her down. And even then, they couldn’t kill her. They could only seal her away.”
The words settle in my stomach, heavy as stones.
“Are you saying I’m going to go mad?”
“I’m saying you could.” Her hand finds mine, squeezing gently.
“If you let the power consume you. If you forget who you are underneath all the magic. That’s why training is so important.
Why control matters. Why…” she pauses, seeming to gather courage.
“Why you need to stay connected to your humanity. To Crave. To us. To the parts of yourself that remember what it means to care about things other than power.”
“I won’t lose myself.” The words come out fiercely. “I didn’t survive twenty-five years of foster care and nursing school and every shitty thing life threw at me just to get consumed by magic. I’m stronger than that.”
“I believe you.” Eden smiles, and it transforms her face. “But promise me something. If you ever feel the Voice trying to take over, if you feel yourself slipping, tell someone. Tell Crave. Tell me. Don’t try to fight it alone.”
“I promise.”
We sit together in quiet, watching the sky burn orange and gold. A familiar presence brushes against mine, Crave, shifting with a restlessness he’s barely holding back. He’s given me space today, but the cracks in his restraint are showing.
He wants me.
God, I want him too.
“Go.” Eden nudges me with her shoulder. “Your vampire’s about to vibrate out of his skin. Put him out of his misery.”
I don’t need to be told twice.
I find Crave in his rebuilt room, pacing caged and restless. The moment I close the door behind me, he’s there, pulling me against him with his vampire speed that makes my head spin.
“Hey,” I breathe out against his chest.
“Hey, yourself.” His hands slide into my hair, tilting my head back so he can see my face. “You were incredible today. I’m so fucking proud of you.”
“I almost killed a rat and burned through Divine Armor.”
“Exactly.” His smile is devastating. “You’re powerful, Sloane. More than you realize. And watching you learn to control it?” His eyes darken with hunger. “It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever witnessed.”
“Sexier than destroying your room?”
“Close second.” He leans down, his lips brushing mine. “But I think we can do better than close.”
The kiss starts gently but quickly spirals into something desperate. My hands fist in his leather vest, pulling him closer, and his fangs graze my lower lip in a way that makes my pussy clench.
“We probably shouldn’t.” I gasp between kisses. “Your room just got fixed.”
“I don’t care.” He walks me backward to the bed and pushes me back. “I’ll rebuild it again. I’ll rebuild it a thousand times if it means I get to have you like this.”
His mouth finds my throat, and I tilt my head instinctively. Not to be bitten, not yet, but to feel his lips against my pulse, feel him fighting that hunger while simultaneously drowning in want.
The Bloodfire surges between us, and I feel the answering call of his ancient darkness. The Heart Bind thrums with shared need, making it impossible to tell where my desire ends and his begins.
“Crave…” I moan, my hands finding the hem of his shirt.
Knock. Knock.
We freeze.
“Tell me that wasn’t—” I start but am cut off by the door opening.
Hex stands there, his eyes glowing in an unnatural blue, his laptop tucked under one arm. He takes in the scene, me pressed against Crave, both of us clearly seconds away from tearing each other’s clothes off, and doesn’t even blink.
“We have a problem,” he announces.
I straighten my shirt, trying for dignity and failing miserably. “Yeah. You just walked in on us. That’s definitely a problem.”
Crave makes a sound that’s half laugh, half growl. “This better be important, Hex.”
“It is.” The warlock’s expression is grim. “Viktor.”
And with that one name, our passion fades, and we stand. Crave’s rage threads through me as if it’s my own. He takes my hand, and we walk downstairs. The whole MC is here, and none of them look happy.
Whatever Hex needs to show us, it isn’t good.