Chapter Twenty-Five #3
My eyes widen in shock, every inch of me tensing as the rest of the coven bare their fangs at her for the mark of disrespect she just showed.
“You dare—”
“Quiet, Nyx,” Khaos placates my sister while I grab Sloane and pull her back toward me. But she doesn’t back down, her eyes focused on Khaos, his tense on her.
“Speak, child,” he says in a kind voice that I have never heard from the First.
She inhales sharply, hesitates, and looks back at me, a hint of reservation in her courage.
I don’t know what she is after, but I know her, and if she has something to say, it’s for a reason.
So, I subtly nod, giving her the push she needs.
She steadies her shoulders, turning back to Khaos, and puffs out her chest to make herself look strong.
She doesn’t need to. She’s one of the strongest people I have ever met.
“Back then… when you used your powers, I felt something. I know Crave did too… what was that?” She asks.
Raising my brow, I tilt my head, because I am actually curious about that too.
Khaos’ gaze slides past me and settles on Sloane. Just long enough to make my jaw tighten.
“As you know,” he says mildly, almost bored, “I am the First.”
I don’t react. I’ve heard this story more times than I care to remember. But Sloane stiffens beside me, and that’s what Khaos is watching for.
“The first vampire ever born into creation.” He begins to pace, slow and deliberate, boots echoing softly against the floor. “That doesn’t just happen,” he continues. “It requires magic. Blood Magic.”
I feel Sloane’s breath hitch. My hand tightens at her back, grounding her without a word.
“Centuries ago…” Khaos says, glancing over his shoulder, “… the love of my life was a Blood Witch.” His eyes flick back to Sloane.
Not curious… assessing. “She was powerful enough to gift me witch-born abilities,” he goes on, his tone almost fond.
“To help me survive the curse of immortality she already carried.”
I watch the realization dawn on Sloane’s face, piece by piece, and something dark coils in my chest.
“I was human then,” Khaos states. “Inexperienced and desperate.” A faint smile curves his mouth.
“So, I cast my own spell. I asked for immortality so that I could stay in this life with my love forever.” He stops pacing.
“To keep that immortality, though, it came at a cost,” he says calmly.
“I had to sacrifice five humans.” Sloane goes very still.
“Five lives…” Khaos continues, “To live for eternity.”
I don’t look at him. I watch her. Understanding crossing her features as she glances at the rest of the Coven of Crows, and then to me.
We were the sacrifices.
“And that…” he says softly, “… is where everything went wrong.” He lets the silence stretch, savoring it.
“The spell backfired. To survive it, I had to feed the magic. Blood… human blood… was the only thing that worked.” His gaze drifts, distant now, like he’s watching a memory rot.
“At first, it was survival,” he says. “Necessity.” Then his eyes snap back to Sloane’s. “But then the bloodlust took hold.”
My grip tightens as I feel her recoil.
“I craved blood, I needed it, I worshiped it…” Khaos finishes, voice smooth and merciless, “… more than I ever craved her. Plus, I also had my five other scions now, who craved blood just as much as I did. There was no room in my life for a Blood Witch who looked at me like I was a monster instead of the man she loved.” He smiles.
And I realize, too late, that this was never about me hearing the story again.
It was about making sure Sloane did. She furrows her brows, staring at him. “So, you are both a witch and an Original vampire?”
Khaos tilts his head. “I am what is called an Apostate. Neither witch, nor vampire, yet somehow both. It is confusing, I understand.”
I step forward this time, clearing my throat. “So why did we both feel a pull toward you when you used your magic?”
Khaos exhales, his eyes meeting mine like a void of endless concern flowing through them aimed right at me.
“Because Draven, my scion, you are now neither witch nor vampire, yet somehow both. You are an Apostate like me. You are bound to a Blood Witch that cannot be undone. You are an Original vampire. The two living together in one body will always create this entity. There is no undoing it. There is no coming back from it. There is only using your gifts wisely. The voices of my Blood Witch tried to overrule me. She tried to darken me. It is why I have been silent for five hundred years. Because letting her in… releases the khaos within me.”
Sloane lets out a shaky breath, and I know what she is going to ask before she asks it. “Was Lilith your Blood Witch?”
Khaos breaks into a hint of a smile. “No… quite the opposite. Her name was Eve. After she was banished from the garden, and that abomination Adam treated her the way he did, Lilith took her under her wing and taught her Blood Magic. Made her into a Blood Witch, and that is when I met her… and Lilith. But it was Eve who stole my heart and is still coursing through my veins to this day.”
Sloane turns to me, trying to hide her smile. I grip her hand even tighter as I furrow my brows in confusion. “You say I am an Apostate, Khaos, but you stripped me of my Original powers.”
Nyx chuckles from behind Khaos, her shadows moving in their delight right along with her. “Do you not feel the difference already, brother? Is being a mere vampire that close to being an Original that you didn’t feel when I sent your powers back to you?”
I stand taller, realizing that I do feel stronger.
My senses are more alert. My wounds, though still present, are very slowly healing from the Original blade, which they would never do if I were an Original.
But I am not an Original anymore. I am an Apostate.
And the Original injuries don’t count, apparently.
I let out a small laugh as I pull Sloane to me, probably a little too tightly. She lets out an oomph at the strength with which I hold her.
‘Easy, tiger.’
I smirk down at her, then glance back up at the Coven of Crows.
At my family.
“Thank you,” I state.
Khaos nods just once, and the gesture carries more weight than any spoken word. It’s approval, dismissal, and acknowledgment all at once.
Then they turn. Not walking away, not fading into shadows or blurring with vampire speed, they simply stop existing in this space, their presence withdrawing from reality as though they were never here at all.
The sensation is immediate.
The pressure lifts.
The cold recedes.
The weight of their cosmic attention releases, and suddenly I can breathe again, think again, and do something other than stand here bleeding and terrified.
The warmth returns to the air.
The sun, which I hadn’t realized had paused in its approach, continues to rise over the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and gold.
And silence, true silence, finally descends over the battlefield.
I turn to Sloane, and the moment our eyes meet, her knees buckle.
I catch her before she falls, vampire speed overriding the pain of my wounds, and pull her against my chest. Her heart pounds too fast, too hard, her body shaking with aftershocks of channeling power that should have killed her three times over.
“You did it,” I murmur against her hair, feeling her blood, warm, precious, and alive, seeping into my shirt where she’s pressed against me. “You held the line. You saved us all. You proved them wrong about everything.”
“We,” she whispers, her voice barely audible. “We did it. Together.”
She sags into me as she finally succumbs to the fight.
Her weight is unsteady, trembling, every muscle pulled tight with damage that hasn’t finished tallying itself.
Heat bleeds off her in uneven waves, pain echoing through her frame in sharp aftershocks that make her breath hitch.
For a heartbeat, fear coils there, too, the residue of witnessing something no one should ever see.
Then it eases.
Just a little.
The tension loosens, relief slipping in a quiet exhale she’s been holding for far too long.
It’s done. The worst of it, at least.
The world hasn’t ended.
We’re still standing.
Her hand finds my chest.
Not searching.
Not desperate.
Certain.
The contact lands deeper than any wound I’ve taken today. There’s no hesitation in it, no doubt. Just a fierce, devastating certainty that cuts through everything else she’s endured.
Love.
Unconditional. Unyielding.
Given freely to something that never deserved it, and somehow believes it anyway.
I close my arms around her, holding her there as the truth settles with quiet finality.
I may be a monster.
But I’ll spend whatever eternity I have left becoming worthy of the woman who chose me anyway.
My brothers approach from the perimeter. Rogue and Scorch in the lead, Dread close behind, all of them battered and bloodied but alive. Oracle’s phoenix flames still burn. Hades’ white eyes still glow with necromantic power.
The club survived.
My family survived.
Because of Sloane.
“Get Oracle and Hades,” I tell Rogue, my voice rough with emotion I can’t quite contain. “She needs healing. Now.”
“On it.” Rogue doesn’t question, doesn’t hesitate, just turns and sprints toward the clubhouse where the healers are already gathering supplies.
I look down at Sloane, at this impossible woman who walked into my bar at what feels like a lifetime ago and turned my entire existence upside down. Who chose to drink my blood, chose to become something new, chose me over safety, over normalcy, over a thousand easier paths.
“What happens now?” Sloane asks, echoing the question she posed before this battle began, before Viktor, before the Coven’s judgment, before everything changed.
I think about Thanatos cast out and broken at the bottom of a chasm. Of Viktor reduced to ash that scattered in the wind. About Nyx’s final words, granting us freedom we never thought we’d receive. And the future stretching ahead, uncertain and dangerous, is ours to claim.
“Now?” I say, and for the first time in centuries, I smile. Really smile. Not the predator’s grin or the fighter’s snarl, but something genuine. Something human. Something I thought I’d lost millennia ago when they dragged me screaming into darkness.
“Now we heal. We rebuild. We figure out what it means to be the first Blood Witch and Bound Apostate in history.” I brush blood-matted hair from her face, gentle despite the violence we survived.
“We teach the supernatural world that monsters can choose love over power. Immortals can find purpose beyond hunger, and two impossibilities fused can become something even the Coven of Crows has to respect.”
Her crimson-gold gaze locks onto mine, steady and unflinching. There’s no fear and no hesitation, just a quiet, immovable resolve that settles between us like a promise already made.
Her fingers tighten around mine, grounding, insistent.
Not goodbye.
Not surrender.
A vow.
Whatever comes next, she’s already chosen it, chosen us. Chosen to keep fighting, to keep building something out of the wreckage we’re standing in.
This isn’t an ending.
It’s the first step forward.
“Now…” I finish, my voice dropping to a whisper meant only for her, “… we burn brighter than anything they’ve ever seen. Together. Always together.”
She reaches up, her bloodstained hand trembling as it cups my face. Her thumb traces my cheekbone, gentle despite the violence we survived, despite the exhaustion threatening to pull her under.
“Together,” she echoes, and there’s no fear in her voice anymore. No doubt. Just absolute certainty that makes something in my chest constrict.
I lean down, closing the distance between us, and kiss her.
Not the desperate, hungry kisses we’ve shared before.
Not the claiming, possessive ones born from fear of losing each other.
This is different. This is soft despite the blood and ash coating us both.
Gentle despite the wounds still bleeding beneath our clothes.
Sacred despite the battlefield surrounding us and the judgment we survived.
Her lips taste of copper and power, of humanity and magic fused into something impossible.
The Heart Bind flares between us, not with pain, terror, or desperation, but with something else.
Something that feels suspiciously close to peace.
To completion. To coming home after millennia of wandering in darkness.
When we finally part, her forehead rests against mine, our breaths mingling in the space between us.
“I love you,” she whispers, and the words carry a weight that has nothing to do with magic or power. Only truth, simple, devastating, absolute truth. “Monster and all. Apostate, Blood Witch, vampire, and all. Bound and all. I love every impossible piece of you.”
My throat tightens with emotion I don’t have words for. Emotions, I didn’t think I was still capable of feeling after centuries of being darkness incarnate.
“I love you,” I whisper back, and mean it with every cell of this healing, immortal, supernatural body. “My mate, my savior, my impossible, magnificent woman who chose a monster and made him want to be better.”
The sun rises fully over the battlefield, painting everything in shades of orange and gold, bathing us in light that should burn but doesn’t. Light that feels less like an ending and more like a beginning.
And for the first time in millennia, I’m not afraid of it.
Not when I’m holding Sloane.