Page 5

Kael exhaled slowly. “Fine,” he said, brushing dust from his sleeve. “You want answers? Here they are.”

I stepped back but didn’t drop my guard. Annika sat at the edge of the sofa, leaning in, her curiosity sharp as ever.

Kael’s expression darkened. “The shifters? They’re pawns. Just muscle for something bigger. Something older.”

“Older?” Annika echoed, her voice soft.

Kael nodded. “An ancient vampire. One that’s been buried so long, most of our kind think it’s just a myth. But it’s real.”

My gut twisted. “Who?”

He hesitated, his gaze flicking to Annika before answering. “Aurelius.”

The name tasted like ash. It echoed in my memory, pulled from stories whispered in shadowed corners.

“That’s impossible,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if I believed it.

Kael shook his head. “It’s not. The shifters and the rogue vamps? They’re working together. Preparing. If they wake him...” He trailed off, but the silence was worse than words.

Annika’s fingers curled into the blanket draped across her lap. “What happens if they wake him?”

Kael’s eyes darkened. “Then we lose.”

I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The fire crackled, but the air felt cold.

“You’re lying,” I said. But the words lacked conviction.

Kael leaned forward. “You think I’d risk coming here if I was?” His voice dropped, steady but tense. “I didn’t send those shifters to kill you. I came to help because I knew where they were headed.” He looked down at his clothes. “Whose blood do you think this is?”

I hated him. Hated the calm certainty in his voice. Hated that it made sense.

Annika looked at me, her eyes wide but steady. “Lucas,” she said softly, “if this is true—”

“We don’t know it is,” I snapped.

“They need her blood,” Kael said, words that hung in the air like smoke, thick and choking.

Annika flinched, just barely, but I felt it. The faint tremor where her arm brushed mine. I wanted to pull her closer, shieldher from the weight of those words. Instead, I stepped between her and Kael, my voice sharp enough to cut.

“Explain.”

We tried our best to keep her magic hidden, but something like that was close to impossible. Still, we tried.

Kael’s expression didn’t change. Calm, but not careless. He knew he was playing with fire. “Aurelius isn’t just buried,” he said. “He’s bound. By blood magic.”

I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. The words twisted in my chest like a knife.

They called him The Blood King.

Aurelius was the first of us—or so the story went. Born from shadow, shaped by hunger. Older than the stars and twice as cruel.

As children, we whispered his name in the dark, daring the shadows to answer. Parents warned us to behave, or Aurelius would rise from his grave and drink us dry. But the truth was worse than the stories.

Aurelius wasn’t a monster lurking in the dark. He was the dark.

He ruled over vampires and mortals alike, his hunger endless, his power unmatched. It was said that he could command armies with a glance, make the skies weep blood, and shatter minds with a word. But it wasn’t enough.

Power never was.