Chapter Twenty-Two
CRAVE
The moment my boots hit the asphalt, Viktor’s smile widens.
Not the confident smirk of a challenger facing an opponent. Something else, something that makes my millennia -old instincts scream warnings my diminished body can’t fully act on.
Triumph.
He’s already won, and he knows it.
“Draven.” My name rolls off his tongue with mock reverence, each syllable dripping with centuries of resentment barely contained beneath a veneer of civility. “You look… diminished. The Binding suits you. Makes you almost mortal. Almost breakable.”
I don’t rise to the bait. I can’t afford to. Every ounce of control matters when you’re running on speed and teeth instead of the crushing weight of Original power.
“You wanted my attention,” I say, my voice steady despite the hollow ache where my strength used to live. “You’ve got it. Let’s finish this.”
Viktor’s laughter spills out, each note unnaturally precise. It echoes where it shouldn’t, crawling over stone and bone alike, cutting clean through the chaos until every other sound seems to recoil from it.
“Finish?” he muses. “Brother, we haven’t even started.”
He gestures, and the fighting around us…
Stops.
Not gradually. Not with shouted commands or tactical withdrawal. One moment, feral vampires are tearing into my brothers’ defenses, and the next, they freeze mid-attack, their movements locked as though someone hit pause on reality itself.
The rogue witches lower their hands, spells dissipating harmlessly into the morning air.
Even the demon-possessed humans go still, their corrupted eyes losing focus as the entities controlling them receive new orders.
Complete.
Instantaneous.
Obedience.
The kind that only comes from one source.
“You see it now, don’t you?” Viktor prowls closer, his movements carrying the fluid grace of a predator who’s never known fear. “You’re wondering how I command them so perfectly. How they respond to my will as though it’s law written into their bones.”
Something shifts.
Sloane goes still beside me, breath catching just enough to notice.
The air around her tightens, light bleeding into her pupils as her focus sharpens beyond the limits of sight.
I don’t see what she sees, not fully, but the effect of it ripples outward anyway, pressure settling between my shoulders like the world has gained another layer.
Her gaze locks on Viktor.
And suddenly, I understand.
Not with my eyes, but with a deep, instinctive certainty as the battlefield seems to rearrange itself around him.
Power stretches outward from Viktor in countless invisible lines, pulling tight, humming with age and authority.
Every vampire here moves in subtle response to those unseen tethers, bodies aligning, instincts bending, will drawn inward toward a single point.
Ancient lines.
Original lines.
The kind of power that doesn’t need to shout because everything already knows to listen.
Sloane swallows once, slow and deliberate.
Whatever she’s seeing, it’s worse than we thought.
No!
The realization hits with the force of a physical blow.
“You’re not just working with the Coven,” I say slowly, each word heavy with the weight of betrayal centuries in the making. “You’re working for them. For one of them specifically.”
Viktor’s smile transforms into something savage and triumphant.
“Finally… I was beginning to think the Binding scrambled your brain along with your power.” He spreads his arms wide, encompassing the frozen battlefield, the positioned forces, the perfect trap I walked into with my eyes wide open.
“Allow me to introduce my patron. My true sire.”
The temperature drops thirty degrees in an instant.
Not the gradual chill of approaching winter.
Not the natural cold of morning dew.
It’s the kind of cold that exists in the spaces between stars, in the void where light goes to die, in the heart of entropy itself.
Thanatos manifests.
Not gradually.
Not with dramatic flair or supernatural pyrotechnics.
One moment, empty air, the next, death incarnate stands ten feet behind Viktor, and reality flinches away from his presence.
He looks exactly as he did last night. Tall, gaunt, beautiful in the way a funeral dirge is beautiful, inevitable, and utterly final.
His pale skin seems to drink the morning light, his black hair absorbs shadows, and his eyes, God, his eyes, they’re not just dark, they are voids. Windows into the absolute ending that waits for everything that lives, breathes, or dares to exist in defiance of entropy.
“Hello, brother.” Thanatos’ voice is the sound of a last breath leaving lungs, of a heart beating its final time, of souls slipping free from flesh. “Did you truly think the Coven would judge you fairly? That we came here seeking truth and balance?”
My Bloodfire surges despite the Binding, ancient fury battling against chains I can’t break as the reality hits me square in the chest. “You rigged this from the start.”
“Of course we did.” He moves forward with that terrible, inevitable grace, each step making the ground beneath him wither and die, concrete cracking, life itself recoiling from his touch.
“You’ve been a problem for centuries, Draven.
Walking away from the Coven. Building your little motorcycle club.
Pretending you could be something other than what we made you. ”
“This was never about judgment,” I say, and pieces click into place with horrifying clarity. “Never about the Law of Silence or the Blood Witch. This was about removing me.”
“Finally… you understand.” Thanatos stops beside Viktor, one pale hand resting on my former brother’s shoulder in a gesture of ownership that makes my stomach turn.
“You’ve outlived your usefulness. Worse, you’ve become an inspiration.
Other Originals watching you, wondering if they too can walk away…
build something that doesn’t revolve around feeding, darkness, and eternal hunger. ”
The air behind me changes. Heat spikes so fast it prickles along my spine.
I don’t turn, don’t need to. The ground hums beneath my boots, magic vibrating through it in sharp, uneven pulses.
In my peripheral vision, crimson-gold light flares and recedes beneath Sloane’s skin, bright enough to stain the air.
Her fury isn’t loud.
It’s heavy.
Volcanic force bottled too tight, power surging hard enough that it bleeds into the space around her, warping it, daring it to crack. Her Bloodfire thrashes, wild and incandescent, and even restrained, even contained, it’s impossible to ignore.
Whatever she’s holding back, it’s taking everything she has not to let it loose.
I glance back just enough to catch the edge of her glow, and panic claws up my spine.
‘Don’t.’ The thought tears through me, sharp and desperate. ‘This is what they want. They want you to crack.’ The warning rips out of me raw and instinctive, panic sharpening every thought as my gaze flicks to her. ‘This is the trap.’
I can see it now, feel the way the battlefield is angling toward her, daring her to snap, daring her to burn too bright.
Her answer hits like a brand to the chest, carrying no hesitation, no doubt. ‘I’m not letting them kill you.’
My jaw clenches. A thousand calculations fire and die in the same instant, all of them ending the same way. ‘They might not give you a choice.’
Thanatos’ smile widens, revealing teeth that are just slightly too sharp, too white, too perfect.
“Your territory. Your scion network. Your carefully cultivated influence across three continents. I’ve wanted them for centuries.
And Viktor here…” he squeezes Viktor’s shoulder with something approaching affection, “… has agreed to serve as my proxy. He gets to lead the Eternal Sins MC across all chapters. I get access to your resources and the satisfaction of watching you die.”
Viktor’s eyes gleam with anticipation. “I’ve been planning this for decades, Draven.
You turned me against my will. Made me your scion, then left me to fend for myself.
It took me years to control my thirst, and even longer to realize I didn’t want to just watch you, the man I looked up to, lose himself in a life of morality and hiding.
” Viktor snarls, baring his fangs. “Every move I have made has been calculated, every piece positioned. The shapeshifter illusions to break the Law of Silence. The public turnings to force the Coven’s hand.
Even the Blood Witch…” he gestures toward Sloane, “… was a gift. One more crime to tip the scales against you.”
“Except she wasn’t meant to die,” I counter, my mind racing through implications, searching for any advantage, any opening. “You sent those scions after her, knowing I’d save her. Knowing I’d break the Law of Balance.”
“Precisely.” Thanatos moves closer, the scent of death rolling off him in waves.
Not decay, not rot, just… ending. The smell of things that have ceased to exist. “We needed you to commit crimes worthy of execution. We needed you to give us justification for what we were already planning. And you played your part… beautifully.”
The Binding throbs, wrapping around my core, and I test its limits for the thousandth time since last night. Still there, still absolute, still reducing me from Original to something barely stronger than a common vampire.
“The trial,” I say slowly, each word tasting bitter on my tongue. “The Convocation at dawn. All of it was theater.”
“Of course.” Thanatos spreads his hands, and where his fingers pass through the air, reality dims. “Oh, we’ll still honor the letter of the law.
You’ll face Viktor in combat as promised.
If you somehow win, if you somehow overcome the Binding and centuries of disadvantage, then…
perhaps we’ll reconsider, but we both know how this ends… don’t we?”
He’s right.
God help me, he’s right.