Chapter Fifteen
CRAVE
The clubhouse is still tense from Viktor’s last message when Eden stumbles into the middle of the clubhouse and collapses.
Not a stumble.
Not a faint.
A full body drop to her knees like someone cut her strings, and the scream that tears from her throat isn’t human. It’s pure Banshee, a raw, anguished death song that shatters every window we just finished repairing and sends cracks spiderwebbing up the walls.
“Eden!” Seraphine rushes to her, but I’m already moving, vampire speed carrying me across the room.
Eden’s eyes roll back, showing only whites, and blood streams from her nose in twin rivers of crimson. Her body convulses, back arching at an angle that should break her spine, fingers clawing at the concrete hard enough to leave grooves in the stone.
“Three,” she gasps between screams, her voice layered with the voices of the dying. “Three deaths. Downtown. Right… n-now. I h-hear them—” Another scream cuts off her words, and the lights overhead explode in cascading bursts of sparks and glass.
Sloane’s terror hits me from across the room, sharp and bright, her magic flaring in a burst of crimson-gold beneath her skin. I send calm surging back along the tether between us, even while something inside me braces for a fight.
“Turn on the TV,” Hex commands, his fingers already flying across his laptop. “She’s never wrong. If she’s sensing deaths downtown…”
Rogue grabs the remote and hits power. The screen flickers to life, and what we see makes my thousand-year-old blood run cold.
“Breaking news, mass attack downtown, multiple casualties, I honestly can’t believe what I am witnessing.
” The camera is shaky, clearly shot from someone’s phone, but the image is unmistakable.
A figure in the center of a crowded street, moving with inhuman speed.
Three humans on the ground, throats torn open, blood pooling beneath them in expanding circles of crimson on the asphalt.
And the figure standing over them, fangs descended, eyes glowing that terrible red of a feeding frenzy?
It’s me.
“What the actual fuck?” Scorch breathes.
But it can’t be me.
I’m standing right here, watching myself on television commit the exact crime that will bring the Coven of Crows down on our heads with absolute finality.
The camera zooms in, and I see my face, the angular features, the silver eyes now burning red, even the leather vest with the Eternal Sins MC patch clearly visible. The figure, me, looks directly at the camera and smiles, blood dripping from fangs that are undeniably mine.
Then it moves.
Grabs the nearest body, a young woman, college-aged, terror frozen on her dead face, and bites again. Not to feed. To turn. I watch myself force blood down her throat with brutal efficiency.
Creating a scion.
In public.
On camera.
Breaking every law we have.
“That’s not you,” Sloane whispers, sliding her hand into mine. Her conviction surges through me, warm and absolute, anchoring me in place. “That can’t be you. You’re here.”
“It’s an illusion.” Hades steps closer to the screen, his necromancer’s senses reading the death residue even through the digital feed. “Look at the edges. The way reality shimmers around it. Someone’s projecting that image.”
“Viktor.” The name comes out as a snarl, my Bloodfire surges so violently the shadows in the room reach for me alive and hungry.
“This is his endgame. Make it look like I’m exposing the supernatural world.
Force the Coven to execute me. Leave the club leaderless and vulnerable so he can swoop in and take control of every Eternal Sins MC chapter. ”
On screen, the attack continues. Police sirens wail in the background. More cameras appear, drawn by the chaos, and I watch myself, not myself, turn the second victim.
Then the third.
“Hex,” I bark, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Can you—”
“Already on it.” His eyes glow that electric blue, technomancy blazing as his fingers become a blur across the keyboard.
“Scrambling facial recognition. Flooding social media with deepfake tags. Making it look like an elaborate hoax. But C-Crave…” Hex’s voice cracks slightly.
“It’s spreading too fast. Someone’s boosting the signal, paying for promoted posts, pushing it through every channel simultaneously.
I can slow it, but I can’t stop it completely. ”
“The supernatural world is seeing this too,” Ronan adds quietly, his fae senses reading probabilities. “Every faction. Every court. Every territory. They’re all watching you… watching this breaks the Law of Silence on live television.”
Sloane’s fury coils up with mine, her Bloodfire catching alight from the heat of my rage. The magic inside her spikes, wild and dangerous, so I catch her hand, grounding her before it detonates.
Control.
We need control.
Before anyone can speak, Oracle detonates.
There’s no other word for it. One moment, he’s standing by the fireplace, the next, his entire body ignites with flames so intense that the air around him warps and shimmers.
Phoenix fire, the kind that burns through lies and illusions, that sees truth where others see only shadows, erupts from every pore, turning him into a pillar of living flame.
“Back!” I shout, pulling Sloane away as the heat becomes unbearable even for me.
Everyone scatters, but we can’t look away. Oracle’s head snaps back, his eyes rolling until only white shows, and when the flames surge higher, so hot they burn blue-white at the edges, his mouth opens.
The voice that emerges isn’t his.
It’s layered, a thousand voices speaking in perfect unison, carrying the weight of every truth ever spoken, every lie ever burned away by fire. The Fire of Truth, the rarest of his phoenix gifts, speaks through his voice with prophetic force.
“The shadow casts false light. Viktor’s blade hides behind stolen faces.
One among the turned holds the power of mirrors…
illusion made flesh, reflection made weapon.
He wears another’s skin while the true devil watches from darkness, counting the moments until the Crows descend and tear apart what remains. ”
The flames pulse, and Oracle’s body convulses. Smoke pours from his mouth, and the words keep coming in that terrible, multi-toned voice.
“Three humans dead by Viktor’s hand. Three more turned to serve his war. The Law of Silence shatters not by the accused but by the accuser. And still the world sleeps, not knowing the monsters that walk among them wear masks of flesh and lies.”
His flames roar higher, and I smell burning wood, singed leather, the acrid scent of my own hair starting to singe even from ten feet away.
“The Coven comes. Three days remain. Three deaths call them. Three more will fall before this ends unless the Blood Witch rises and the Shadow learns to burn.”
The final word echoes through the clubhouse, and then Oracle’s flames extinguish all at once. He drops to his knees, gasping, smoke rising from his clothes. His eyes are still white, still seeing things the rest of us can’t, but his voice is his own again when he speaks.
“Viktor has a shapeshifter,” he rasps. “One who can project illusions so perfect they fool cameras, fool magic, fool reality itself. That’s how he made you appear downtown. That’s how he’s breaking the Law of Silence while keeping his own hands clean.”
“Fuck.” Scorch’s veins glow molten red, dragon fire rising in response to his rage.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Smoke pours from his nostrils in thick plumes, and when he exhales, actual flames lick out.
His skin is heating, the dragon inside him pushing at the surface, demanding release.
“He’s framing you, and the Coven won’t care about the truth.
They’ll care about results. About exposure. About…”
“About punishing someone,” Dread finishes, his fear projection starting to leak.
The air grows heavy, oppressive, and I feel the weight of a thousand terrors pressing down.
“And you’re the perfect scapegoat, Prez.
Original vampire. Leader of a club that’s been pushing boundaries for decades.
They’ll make an example of you whether you’re guilty or not. ”
Sloane’s hand squeezes mine, her Bloodfire rising fast, each pulse stronger than the last. Rage blooms inside her, catching on mine, feeding off the connection between us until the air itself shivers with crimson-gold heat.
“He dies,” she snarls, and the Voice of Lilith bleeds through, that terrible, reality-warping command that could unmake cities. “Viktor dies screaming. I’ll burn him until there’s nothing left but—”
“Sloane.” I grip her shoulders, pulling her focus to me.
I send calm pouring into her, control, discipline, every hard-won lesson from millennia of taming the monster inside me.
“Not like this. Not when you’re learning.
Your power… if you lose control now, you could level this building.
Kill everyone inside. Is that what you want? ”
Her eyes are pure molten gold, the crimson swallowed by rage, and for a heartbeat, I think she might try it. Might let the Voice loose, damn the consequences.
Then she blinks, and the gold recedes slightly.
Just slightly.
“No,” she whispers. “But Crave, he’s destroying you. He’s going to get you killed, and I can’t… I won’t—”
“I know.” I gather her against my chest, her heartbeat hammering into me through the bond, panicked, furious, alive. “But we’re not acting from rage. We’re acting from strategy. From—”
And while I am trying to calm Sloan, suddenly Scorch explodes.
Not metaphorically.
His dragon fire erupts in a pillar of flame that punches through the ceiling, sending chunks of concrete raining down around him. His veins aren’t just glowing, they’re burning, molten channels of fire visible beneath his skin.