Chapter 35
Power still rushed through Eris, divine and unrelenting, a storm that took as much as it gave. No queen, not even of Firstblood, summoned such fury without a price.
Her hands shook. Breath came fast, ripped from burning lungs. Still, she kept going. Her warriors needed her. Then, through the haze, through the pain, she saw it.
The Obsidian Order was breaking. The battlefield was shifting. Victory rose like vengeance reborn. The Dragov Legions advanced. Lycans tore through the enemy with the wrath of the old gods. The tide had turned, and it was because of her.
Eris exhaled, a jagged breath, and finally let go.
Her knees struck the earth as a gasp escaped her lips.
Then blood followed, spilling from her mouth, streaking the dirt crimson.
The divine script across her skin flickered, dimmed, and then vanished.
Her body had nothing left to give. She crawled forward.
Every movement was agony. Fingers scraped the soil.
She pulled herself to a jagged rock and slumped against it.
Her head tilted back. Her chest rose and fell in shuddering breaths.
The world blurred, and the sound of war faded.
Still, she smiled, faint and flickering. They were safe. She had won. And now, at last, she could rest.
In the silence where Eris lay broken and breathless, the world remembered fear. The sky stilled and the battle hushed, as something older than war arrived. Smoke-thick silence settled, and the earth recoiled beneath its weight.
From the far edge of the battlefield, Kriponius Dragov emerged, a name that should have remained buried. He walked through the wreckage like a curse made flesh.
His long black cloak billowed behind him, a herald of ruin. Wind whipped his hair around a face carved from shadow, the face of a king who needed no throne.
The weight of his presence was suffocating.
Then his power unfurled. A slow wave of darkness swept forward. Every impure vampire in its path ceased to exist. Not slain. Not burned. Obliterated.
One moment they stood. The next, they were gone. Screams never formed. The battlefield became a graveyard in an instant.
Lycans staggered, instincts reeling. Firstbloods dropped to their knees in fear.
Kriponius had returned, and he saw what his kingdom had become. He exhaled, and the ground shook.
“Kneel. Tremble. For the true King of Dragov is risen.”
The battlefield held its breath. Among the stillness, Kareon moved. If Kriponius stood here, it could mean only one thing.
Stephan was gone. Dead.
Kareon’s mind screamed against it, but there was no time to mourn. She was next. A low growl rose in his chest—part promise, part rage. He bolted, a blur of shadow and fury, one thought burning through every heartbeat: reach her before it’s too late.
His pack watched him go, their Alpha cutting across the battlefield like a storm.
Unstoppable. Desperate. Savage.
This time, Kareon would not fail.
Somewhere between death and divinity, Eris drifted. There was no sound, no weight, no world. Only sky. It stretched above her, vast and empty, while wind pushed strands of her hair across her eyes.
Then came slow and measured footsteps. A presence approached, ancient as time and vast as the night.
She could not move.
Then cold hands found her. Fingers closed around her body and lifted her without effort, while a low growl rumbled through the air—the sound of hunger finally fulfilled.
She opened her eyes and saw him. Kriponius Dragov.
He was tall and imposing, a shadow wearing the form of a man, a horror pulled from the depths of hell. She gasped as terror locked her lungs.
His breath carried the stench of rot, like a grave left open too long. His arms caged her against his chest with unbreakable strength. She could feel the void breathing inside him.
His lips hovered just inches from hers. “At last, we are made one again, my beloved.”
Her breath stopped. Every muscle in her body screamed to run, but nothing responded. She had nothing left to give. His grip tightened, her bones groaning beneath the pressure.
“And now,” he exhaled against her lips, “thou shalt be mine for all eternity.”
A helpless whimper escaped her throat. Then his mouth crushed against hers. It was brutal and greedy, a kiss that felt like a death sentence. Everything in her recoiled. She tasted rot and decay, a plague leaking into her soul.
Then a brutal snarl cut through the air.
Kriponius stopped. His head turned slowly as irritation flickered across his face. Someone had dared to defy him. Then he saw him. He was a beast, vast as the night. Gold eyes burned in the dark. Fangs gleamed. Muscles tensed to strike.
Eris knew him. She would know him anywhere. Her chest clenched as her soul reached for him.
She saw the same fierce gaze, the same steady presence, the same vow that would never break.
"Kareon," she whispered.
Kriponius’s expression shifted from irritation to rage. "Why must it always be they?" he spat. "Always between us, Seraphina. Always taking what is mine."
His anger surged. The air thickened with the weight of his power. Then he let her go. Eris collapsed, her limbs hitting the ground, lifeless.
The moment Kriponius’s grip vanished, Kareon lunged.
It was a collision of fury and bloodlust. A beast fought against a god.
Kareon did not hesitate. He tore through flesh.
He ripped without pause. He fought with the fury of every ancestor who had fallen beneath Kriponius’s reign.
For a single moment, Kriponius was caught off guard.
Then came a vicious kick. Kareon was hurled backward and crashed into the earth.
Kriponius rose slowly, composed and unshaken. He bled, but he felt nothing. His wounds sealed as quickly as they were made.
Kareon did not care. He attacked again, feral and unstoppable. He was a blur of muscle and fury, moving like a force of nature. Kriponius raised his hand, and Sanguine Oath answered.
The moment Eris saw it, the world stopped.
No.
Her heart crashed against her ribs. That was Stephan’s sword—his oath, his life, now clutched in a monster’s hand. Something inside her tore—a deep, silent snap. Breath vanished. The world blurred.
Then the pain hit. It wasn’t grief. It was devastation.
A sound tore from her throat, too broken to be a scream.
Stephan.
Her heart. Her anchor. Her reason.
Gone.
She pushed herself up, staggered, and fell. She clawed at the dirt, tears scalding her face. Her bones screamed, but she didn’t care.
He was gone. And she was fire.
Her voice cracked the silence. “You stole him.” Her eyes locked on Kriponius, burning with a hatred even the gods might fear. “May the spirits shred your name from every stone. May even the dust forget you.”
Kriponius did not turn. His gaze remained fixed on Kareon, the final barrier between him and Seraphina reborn.
He lunged, and Kareon met him head-on. Fangs clashed with steel, monster against monster, and the battlefield trembled.
The Dread King moved too fast, his form a blur of lethal precision.
Sanguine Oath cut the air, striking Kareon’s shoulder instead of his heart. The pain burned, but he kept fighting.
Kareon pulled him close and sank his fangs into the vampire’s throat, a bite that would have dropped any lesser creature. But Kriponius was not lesser. He tore Kareon away and hurled him aside like discarded prey.
Sanguine Oath struck again, carving deep across Kareon’s chest. Pain exploded through him. Then came a final, brutal kick, and a body once unbreakable collapsed. He hit the ground and did not rise. His chest was torn open. His breath came in wet, uneven gasps. The world narrowed to blood and pain.
Through the dark, a voice reached him. “KAREON!”
Her scream ripped through the wreckage, sharp and broken.
She stumbled, then dropped to her hands and knees, crawling through blood and ruin until she reached him, collapsed beside him, hands shaking as she pressed them to his wounds.
Her body curled over his, small and trembling, drenched in his blood.
Her head dropped to his chest. Her fingers knotted into his fur as she clung to him, desperate to hold time still. Their eyes met, and in that one look, they both knew it was the end. Kriponius would finish him before Kareon’s body could regenerate.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, voice cracked and bare.
Her tears struck his face, hot and endless.
Kareon couldn’t speak. But he made a sound, faint and hoarse, more breath than voice.
She understood.
Her chest clenched as grief tore through her. Her hands gripped tighter, trying to stretch the moment, to hold back the blow she knew was coming.
"No," she whispered, raw and trembling. "Don’t say that. Please don’t. You think you failed me?” Her voice faltered. “You didn’t. You saved me in ways even fate couldn’t touch.”
Kareon let out another broken, pleading sound.
Her lips shaped a fragile smile as her voice fell to a whisper.
“Please don’t look at me like that…You know I’d rather die with you than leave you behind.
” She cupped his face, fingers sliding into his hair, anchoring him with the love that refused to let go.
"I love you, Kareon Duskbane. In this life.
In the next. Until the world is nothing but dust and silence… Forever."
A single tear escaped him.
Life had never shown him kindness. But this—this was cruelty beyond measure. To hear the words he had waited a lifetime for…only to die with them on his lips.
Kriponius had stepped aside and watched the cycle repeat. Seraphina, his chosen, had given herself to a Lycan once more. His blood burned. His claws dug into his palms. The scent of their bond, of that beast on her skin, was suffocating.
The way she whispered his name.
She had done it again.
His voice came low and sharp, poisoned with fury. "So this is the beast to whom thou hast yielded thy sacred flesh, Seraphina?"