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“It’s over, Abraham,” he declares. “The gateway will open, with or without your cooperation.”

“Tell that to your daughter,” Abe replies, blood trickling from a gash on his forehead. “Tell that to your precious doctor.”

Dmitri hesitates, glancing around the burning warehouse, taking stock of his fallen allies. His forces decimated, his ritual interrupted, his carefully laid plans crumbling around him.

Then his gaze falls on me, standing over Marco’s body, heart’s blood still dripping from my chin. Something changes in his posture—a new calculation, a shift in strategy.

“Victor,” he calls, voice resonating with compulsion once more. “Come to me, my son. Your service is required.”

And I feel it—stronger than before, almost overwhelming. My body responds against my will, taking one step toward him, then another. The blood bond between us, strengthened by Marco’s heart, pulls me forward like a puppet on strings.

“Kill Van Helsing,” Dmitri commands, gesturing toward Abe’s kneeling form. “Prove your loyalty to your bloodline.”

My legs continue moving, carrying me toward them even as my mind screams in opposition. I’m vaguely aware of Valtu and Adonis shouting, of Ezra rushing to Lena’s side, but they seem distant, unimportant compared to the compelling need to obey my sire.

Abe looks up at me as I approach, no fear in his eyes, only sadness. “Remember who you are, Callahan,” he says quietly. “Not what Dmitri made you, but what you’ve chosen to be.”

I stand over him now, fists clenched, body trembling with the effort of resisting Dmitri’s command. The vampire side of me howls for blood, for obedience, for acceptance from the father I never knew I had. The human side fights back with everymemory, every principle, every moment of connection with Lena, with my new friends.

“Kill him,” Dmitri repeats, impatience coloring his tone. “Now!”

He holds out the blue mordernes blade for me to take. The weapon glows in the firelight, hungry for vampire blood. My fingers wrap around it and I raise it slowly, muscles straining against my own will.

“Victor, please,” Lena’s voice cuts through the compulsion, weak but determined. “You’re stronger than his blood.”

Her voice anchors me, gives me something to cling to in the storm of competing instincts. I focus on it, on her, on the connection we’ve formed that transcends all of this.

And in that moment of clarity, I understand what I must do.

I let my body move forward, as if surrendering to Dmitri’s compulsion. One step, two, circling around Abe as if to position myself for the killing blow. Dmitri’s posture relaxes slightly, victory within his grasp.

Then I pivot, moving past Abe toward Dmitri himself. Surprise registers in his eyes a fraction of a second before my blade plunges into his chest, driving through bone and sinew to pierce his heart.

“I am not yours,” I tell him, twisting the blade deeper. “I never was.”

Dmitri stares at me in stunned disbelief, his compulsion shattered by the mortal wound. “My son,” he whispers, blood bubbling from beneath his skull mask. “My blood…”

“Blood isn’t destiny,” I say, echoing Lena’s words from earlier. “It’s just blood.”

He collapses to his knees, the skull mask falling away to reveal that face so similar to my own—the same jaw, the same brow, features that might have been carved from the same stone. For a moment, I see what might have been, the heritage I couldhave embraced, the father I might have known under different circumstances.

Then his skin begins to gray, cracks spreading from the wound in his chest, turning his flesh to ash from the inside out. His eyes, still fixed on mine, hold a final question that will never be answered.

He’s gone.

I stand for a moment, blade still extended, body vibrating with adrenaline and power and something else—completion. The vampire rage that drove me here hasn’t vanished, but it’s no longer separate, no longer other. It’s simply part of me.

“Callahan!” Ezra’s voice breaks through my reverie. “We need to leave. Now!”

Oh, right. The fire.

The warehouse is fully engulfed now, flames racing along the walls, consuming the wooden beams above. I turn to see Ezra supporting Lena, while Adonis helps Abe to his feet. Valtu is already at a side door, holding it open against the encroaching fire.

I cross to them quickly, taking Lena from Ezra’s arms. She feels impossibly light, fragile despite the vampire strength I know lies dormant beneath her wounds.

“You came for me,” she murmurs, her hand reaching up to touch my face, wiping away a smear of blood—Marco’s blood—from my chin.

“Always,” I promise, cradling her against my chest as we follow the others through the door, into the harsh daylight beyond. “Always.”