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Flynn

C old. So damned cold.

My pulse skipped and lurched, my heart straining against the ice crystallising in my chest. Each feeble beat felt like ice shattering—sharp, jarring.

The natural ebb and flow of life stuttering to a glacial crawl.

My lungs too—every breath felt like swallowing shards of metal.

But worse than the physical pain was watching Seb, seeing the raw anguish on his face as his sister, the one he’d thought he’d killed, taunted him.

The water rose around us in twisting columns. Some distant part of me recognised its pull, its familiar song, like the waves back home in Braymore Bay. But this water was wrong . Corrupted.

Vale began to chant in a language that set my teeth on edge.

Around us, perhaps a dozen figures stepped forward.

With horrible, wet sounds, they began to shed their human skin like snakes sloughing off dead scales.

I watched, unable to look away, as Damien’s face—the same handsome face that had entrapped me—split down the middle, peeling away to reveal something ancient and twisted beneath.

His new form was sleek, scaled, with too many joints in his limbs.

When he opened his mouth to join Vale’s chant, rows of needle-sharp teeth gleamed in the moonlight.

I wanted to reach for Seb, to say something, anything, to ease the torment in his eyes. But the water wrapped around me like chains, holding me in place as Magdalena raised the crucifix.

Twelve points of sickly purple light appeared around us. Twelve lights—the harvested power of her previous victims, waiting for me to complete their circle .

The water tightened its grip, and my feet left the ground. Magdalena’s voice rose above Vale’s chant, speaking words that made my ears ring. The purple lights began to spin, faster and faster, leaving sickly trails in their wake.

The frost had crept up my neck and down my arms. My fingers had gone numb, my legs trembled, but beneath all that piercing cold, something stirred.

The magic cultivating inside me—I felt the moment it was finally, finally complete. A visceral thing, like a key turning in a lock, like ice cracking in spring.

The water around me wasn’t just water anymore. With every pulse of those lights, I could feel it changing, becoming more like the sea during a storm—wild, untamed. Alive.

And I knew the sea.

God, did I know the sea.

Every summer spent on my grandfather’s boat. Every winter watching the waves crash against Braymore’s cliffs. Every secret moment alone on the beach, being exactly who I was, not who everyone needed me to be.

The water trembled. Magdalena’s voice faltered.

I thought of all the times I’d run away. First from myself, then from my family. From Tom. But here, now, with Seb’s anguished eyes on me and a demon’s power trying to claim me, I finally stopped running.

I reached out—not with my frozen hands, but with something deeper. Something that remembered salt spray and storm winds and the endless power of the tide.

And the water responded.

The liquid chains shattered. Droplets hung suspended in the air like stars, catching the purple light. For a moment, everything was still—Vale’s chanting cut off, the cambions frozen mid-step, Magdalena’s eyes widening in disbelief.

Then the water answered my call.

It came surging up from the pond, from the waterlogged earth beneath our feet, from the very air itself.

It came with the force of Braymore’s winter storms, with the strength of waves that had carved the coastline.

The cambions screamed as it slammed into them, their scaled bodies thrown against the trees.

“Impossible,” Magdalena whispered. The crucifix trembled in her grip. “Lilith’s power cannot be—”

“This isn’t Lilith’s power.” My voice didn’t sound like my own. It carried echoes of tide pools and ocean depths, of secrets whispered to empty beaches. “This is mine.”

Water swirled around me—not Magdalena’s corrupted tempest, but pure and wild and free . Like I finally was.

The water roared around us, a tempest of my making.

Through the spray, I saw Kit and Rory’s massive shapes lunging for the nearest cambions, joined by the other wolves.

Relief coursed through me when I found Priya had got to her feet.

She had her back against the tree, her blade pointed at a vampire with long silver hair.

I took one stumbling half step towards her, but the power inside me—it was too much. Like trying to contain an ocean in a teacup. My vision blurred, darkness creeping at the edges.

Something warm and metallic filled my mouth. I spat, watching red droplets scatter across the ground. The frost inside me wasn’t gone, but somehow fire now burned through my veins. So much fire. Too much. Too strong.

“Flynn!” Seb’s voice cut through everything else. He was beside me suddenly, his hands gripping my shoulders. “Your heart’s failing. The magic—it’s killing you.”

I could barely focus on his face, but I managed to lift my hands. The water responded instantly, surging up around us in a perfect circle, creating a barrier between us and the chaos beyond. Inside our private whirlpool, the sounds of battle became muffled, distant.

“Let me help you.” Seb’s fingers brushed my jaw, tilting my face up to his. “I can drink from you—draw out some of the tainted blood. It might buy us time.”

I tried to speak, but I could only manage a wet cough .

Seb’s eyes became wild, desperate. “Please, Flynn. Trust me.”

The water continued to spiral around us, but each surge felt like it was tearing something vital from my chest. I nodded weakly, already tilting my head to expose my neck.

Seb’s fangs sank into my flesh with sharp precision. The initial sting melted into a familiar warmth that spread through my limbs. His grip on my shoulders tightened as he drew the blood from my veins, each pull making the intense pressure inside me ease slightly.

I closed my eyes, letting the muffled sounds of the park wash over me.

Metal clashed. Gunshots fired. Wolves snarled.

Priya’s voice rang out in sharp syllables that made the air crackle.

Through it all, the water continued its relentless dance around us, responding to my will even as I weakened.

The roar of it filled my ears like the crash of waves against Braymore’s harbour wall during a storm.

My fingers found Seb’s hand where it gripped my shoulder. I squeezed, his fingers interlaced with mine instantly, and through our connection, I tried to pour everything I couldn’t say into that touch.

After what felt like both seconds and hours, Seb’s cool mouth left my neck, and he pulled back.

When I opened my eyes, the change in him was dramatic.

His skin seemed to glow from within, power radiating from him in invisible waves that made the very air vibrate.

His eyes blazed like twin supernovas, and when he moved, it was with such fluid grace that he appeared to blur at the edges.

“Flynn,” he breathed, and even his voice held new power, resonating in my chest like thunder. “Your blood—”

“Let’s go,” I said quickly. “Let’s find her. Find your sister and end this.”

The water barrier collapsed as my concentration wavered, revealing the battlefield Richmond Park had become.

Kit had Vale pinned against an oak tree, both of them bloodied but neither yielding.

Rory darted between the remaining cambions, a golden blur of fur and fangs.

Near the pond’s edge, a battered Priya now wielded twin pistols, each shot finding its mark with surgical precision .

But Magdalena herself—my stomach lurched at the sight.

She stood at the heart of it all, her crucifix now blazing with purple fire. The twelve points of light had reformed around her, spinning faster than before. When she saw Seb, saw the power radiating from him, her face twisted into something inhuman.

“Brother,” she snarled, but her voice echoed with something else. Something ancient. “What have you done?”

Seb’s new power thrummed in the air between them. “I’m ending this, Magdalena. You, Lilith, all of it.”

The crucifix’s glow intensified as Magdalena lunged for me, her movements impossibly fast. My heart skipped as terror froze me in place—but before she could reach me, Seb materialised between us.

His hand shot out, catching her throat mid-leap.

The violent impact created a shockwave that rippled through the air.

Magdalena’s feet dangled above the ground as Seb held her effortlessly, strength evident in every line of his body, the raw power emanating from him making my skin erupt in gooseflesh.

“You dare—” she choked out, but Seb’s grip tightened.

He moved like liquid mercury, spinning her away from me and slamming her into the ground.

The earth cracked beneath her, spider-web fissures spreading outward from the point of impact.

The crucifix flew from her grasp, skittering across the grass.

I tracked its movement, my palm throbbing at the memory of it burning my skin.

Now it seemed to pulse with malevolent purpose.

Magdalena recovered instantly, launching herself at Seb with unnatural speed.

But he was faster— so much faster. In a blur, he dodged her attack, then caught her arm and used her momentum to throw her through the air.

She hit the pond’s surface with such force that water exploded upward in a ten-foot geyser.

As I watched Seb and Magdalena locked in their violent dance, something twisted painfully in my chest that had nothing to do with the magic ravaging my body.

The cruel symmetry of it all struck me with terrible clarity—Seb condemning his sister to death five centuries ago, and now being forced to do it again.