Chapter 24
Cristian
Nadia was cooking again.
She insisted it helped her anxiety—“something about chopping vegetables keeps my neurons in line”—but the sight of her with a knife made every instinct I possessed coil tight.
I sat at the kitchen counter, watching her shoulders move beneath the fabric of her shirt, prepared to steady her if she so much as wobbled.
Ezra sat at the table with his laptop open, typing rapidly, barely acknowledging us. Upstairs, Lena slept. The house was finally quiet after the chaos of the ball.
But the tension from last night still knotted the air between us. I couldn’t get Ambrosia’s words out of my head.
Her breath at my ear. Her voice sliding into me like poison and silk.
Such a fragile little flame. Tethers fade so easily when they’re mortal.
And the way she had leaned closer still, whispering that final cruelty.
I do hope she lasts long enough for us all to have a little fun. Toys break so early.
I’d kept my face and walked away. I’d pretended I didn’t feel her claws in my spine.
But now, the truth gnawed at me: Ambrosia knew something I didn’t.
Nadia scraped chopped carrots into a bowl, humming softly under her breath. Her color was off again, her movements slower, her pulse quieter than it should have been.
The bond tugged uneasily inside my chest.
As Nadia sprinkled salt into a pan, she cleared her throat. “So, what do we think happened to Cristian last night? It was like he was being microwaved from the inside.”
Ezra didn’t look up. “It wasn’t a microwave. Wrong frequency for that.”
I glared. “Speak plainly.”
Ezra sighed, finally meeting our eyes. “Fine. They placed you under a compliance field. Court tech-magic. I helped design part of it. It overrides vampiric reflexes. It’s designed to immobilize you.
Make you malleable. It can pick up on one magical frequency close by and isolate it. Brilliant, if I do say so myself.”
I exhaled through my nose. “Another message, then.”
Ezra frowned. “Message?”
“That they still possess ways to weaken me,” I said. “And that I should not grow arrogant in my relative freedom. It is their way of reminding me I am not untouchable, that submission is… inevitable.”
Nadia’s jaw tightened. “That’s disgusting.”
A sharp beep cut through the kitchen—Ezra’s laptop. His eyes darted across the screen, and something flickered in them—fear, calculation, a modicum of guilt. His fingers hovered above the keys without touching them.
I turned fully toward him. “What is it?”
Ezra didn’t answer. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He clicked to another file with deliberate slowness, as if trying to hide what he’d just seen.
“Ezra,” I said, stepping forward. “What happened?”
He opened his mouth, but Nadia suddenly wavered where she stood, one hand gripping the counter.
“I don’t…” Her voice thinned, breath catching. “Cristian, I don’t feel—”
Her knees buckled. I was at her side in less than a heartbeat, catching her as she collapsed.
“Nadia.” Her name left me harsher than I intended.
Her head lolled against my shoulder, eyes closed, skin gone gray under the kitchen lights.
A terror I had not felt since the night they put me in stasis tore through my chest.
I lifted her into my arms—barely any weight at all—and carried her to the couch. Her pulse was weak. Wrong.
“Nadia.” I tried again, quieter this time. “Open your eyes.”
She didn’t.
Realization struck like a blade drawn across bone.
I turned to Ezra. “What have you done?”
He stood frozen behind the counter, hands braced on either side of his laptop, breath sharp and uneven. The green light from the screen washed over his face, making his panic unmistakable.
“I—I didn’t…” His voice cracked. “I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
“What,” I said, stepping toward him, “did you do?”
Ezra flinched but didn’t run. His eyes flicked to Nadia’s still form, then back to me, guilt strangling his voice.
“I found the bond a week ago,” he whispered. “Its magical frequency. I’d been tracking anomalies, and it lit up my system like a flare.” He swallowed hard. “I thought I could analyze it. Map it. Reverse it.”
My jaw tightened. “And instead?”
His throat bobbed. “I amplified it.”
The words vibrated through me, and a horror so cold it felt like ice in my veins settled in me.
“I didn’t know,” he said. “Not at first. But the last couple of days she’s been getting paler, more tired—and this morning the readings spiked. I tried to throttle it back, but every adjustment made it worse.”
I took a slow, deadly step toward him. Ezra backed up until his spine hit the cabinets.
“She’s human,” he said, voice cracking. “Cristian, I’m sorry. A human body can’t withstand that kind of energy pull. It was already draining her—my interference just accelerated it.”
The room tilted, and I grabbed hold of the counter to keep my control.
“You knew,” I said, each word carved from steel. “You knew she was in danger.”
“I didn’t know know,” he said desperately. “I suspected. I didn’t want to say anything until I had a fix—”
“You endangered her by not telling me.”
Ezra’s breath hitched, the guilt spilling out of him. “I’ve been trying to save her. I swear. But after what happened just now? Cristian…”
He looked at Nadia, then at me.
“I don’t think she’ll survive unless you turn her.”
The world went silent.
Completely, utterly silent.
My thoughts went to Ambrosia and her sentiments. She had been taunting me with this.
The bond inside me thrummed weakly, erratically, like Nadia reaching for me in the dark.
I inhaled through my teeth. Slowly. Carefully. Because if I didn’t, I would tear Ezra apart where he stood.
“This,” I said softly, “is your error to repair.”
Ezra nodded, shaking. “I’ll try. I’ll do everything I can.”
“No,” I said. “You will succeed.”
He opened his mouth to argue, but one look at my face shut him up.
Behind us, Nadia’s breath hitched faintly—too shallow.
My hands trembled, but it wasn’t from rage. It was fear.
For the first time in centuries, I was truly afraid. I could not lose her. Not to them. Not to this. Not to my own damn failure. I should have already found a way to break this bond, but instead, I was letting it destroy her.
Her scent—the one that usually grounded me—was thin, like something being pulled out of her in threads.
She was slipping.
Lena. She was a nurse. Mortal medicine would not cure what ailed Nadia, but it could hold her in place while I fixed the rest. I gathered Nadia against my chest and took the stairs two at a time. Lena’s door was shut. I did not bother knocking. Subtlety was for people with time.
Lena shot upright in bed, hair wild, eyes unfocused. “What the fu—?” Then she saw Nadia in my arms. “Put her on the bed,” she barked, suddenly a general. “Now. What happened?”
I obeyed. For once, I obeyed instantly.
She moved around Nadia with swift precision, checking her pulse, her pupils, her breathing. She flicked on a lamp, then sprinted to a closet and dragged out an orange medical bag.
“What happened?” she demanded again, snapping latex gloves on with the speed of an assassin.
“She said she didn’t feel well. Then she fainted,” I answered. My voice sounded calm, but only because centuries of discipline made it so.
Inside, I was already breaking apart.
Lena shoved me aside with her hip. “Get out of my light, Dracula. And speak faster.”
I stepped back but hovered close. Too close. I could not force myself farther away.
Lena pulled supplies from the bag. I recognized them from one of the shows Nadia liked to watch. Alcohol swabs, catheter, saline, tubing. An IV. She had an IV in her bedroom. I did not know whether to be impressed or horrified.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“What does it look like?” she snapped. “She’s dehydrated, and her pulse is weak. I’m giving her fluids and stabilizing her vitals before I decide if she needs to go to the ER—unless you want to explain to a doctor why your roommate looks like she’s been drained by a vampire.”
I swallowed hard enough to hurt.
If only it were that simple. If only it had anything to do with dehydration.
Lena slid the needle into Nadia’s arm with clinical efficiency, then fiddled with the tube as she checked her watch.
“She has been fatigued for days,” I said. “It has gotten worse.”
Lena shot me a sharp look. “She should have told me she was feeling bad.”
Lena was right. Nadia should have told her. But Lena couldn’t have helped.
Only I could fix it.
Lena narrowed her eyes. “What aren’t you telling me?”
I shook my head. Everything. The bond. Its cost. Its hunger. If worse came to worse… I would turn Nadia. I didn’t need Lena in my way.
If only I had known, from the moment she woke me, that it would do this to her. That the imbalance between us would slowly drain her vitality and transfer it into me, that each moment I touched her, used her energy, steadied her nervous system with my presence… I was stealing time from her body.
Unintentionally. But undeniably.
If only I had known that the tether was a blessing for me and a death sentence for her.
If I had only known, maybe I could have done something sooner. I had been trying to find a way to break the bond, but I hadn’t known it was killing her. I hadn’t known that my life was draining hers.
There were only two solutions: Break the bond as soon as possible. Or turn her into a vampire.
Otherwise, she would die.
Turning her—damning her to my fate—was unfathomable.
But I was watching her fade in front of me.
Lena adjusted the IV bag and checked Nadia’s temperature with the back of her hand. “She’s freezing,” she muttered. “Has she eaten today? Slept?”
“She slept,” I said. “But… no. She has not eaten enough.”
“Christ.” Lena shook her head. “She pushes herself too hard. Always has.”
If only it were that. I moved closer. There was a faint, bluish tint under Nadia’s eyes, and her lips had lost their color. Her breath shuddered on every exhale.
My fault. All of this was my damn fault.