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29

DANTE

The moment we burst through the library doors, I feel something shift inside me. Gaida’s hand clutches mine tightly. Felix follows close behind, his magick crackling around him like a storm waiting to break.

“This way,” I mutter, pulling Gaida toward the hidden entrance to the underground chambers.

“Wait,” Felix says, his voice low and urgent. He places his palm against the library’s main doors, muttering an incantation. Dark symbols flash briefly across the wood. “That won’t hold them long, but it might buy us a few minutes.”

I nod gratefully. Every second counts now. I have faith in the wards that Luke and Felix built, but I also know that wards can fail. We don’t want Gaida anywhere near them when they do.

A massive crash shakes the building as we head towards the circle etched into the stone floor, which is the entrance to the underground chambers.

“Some of them are here already,” I growl, my senses stretching out to feel the emotions beyond the walls. What hits me is a wave of pure, mindless hunger so intense it nearly brings me to my knees while splitting my head open. “Fuck. There are dozens of them.”

We come to a halt in the circle, and Felix crouches down to get the mechanism open. The floor gives way beneath us and we fall down the tunnel into pitch-black. Felix conjures a ball of blue flame that hovers above his palm.

The emotions coming from that many ferals are unlike anything I’ve ever sensed. It’s hard to breathe, hard to… be.

We hit the deck hard, and I groan, rolling into a ball as the floor above us slams shut, cutting off my empathic abilities as it gets drowned in the dampening magick.

“Thank fuck for that,” I grunt and get to my knees.

Gaida helps me up, and we lace our fingers, needing to stay together. We follow Felix, and through the magick ball of blue, we see that the passage we entered opens into a vast chamber with arched ceilings. Ancient runes cover the walls, glowing faintly with residual magick. In the centre stands a circular stone table, its surface etched with symbols I don’t recognise.

“We should be safe here,” I say, though I’m not entirely convinced. These tunnels give me the creeps. That feeling slams home when the archway we came through vanishes, and we are trapped.

“What the—“ Felix spins around, his flame illuminating his startled expression. “That’s not supposed to happen.”

“Well, it did,” I snap, immediately regretting my tone. It’s not his fault. “Sorry. Those ferals... their emotions are still echoing in my head.”

Gaida squeezes my hand. “Are you okay?”

I nod, though the truth is more complicated. Being an empath around ferals is like standing in the middle of a hurricane. Their emotions aren’t just strong, they’re wrong, twisted versions of what they should be. Hunger without satiation. Rage without purpose. Fear without reason.

“We need to figure out what’s going on,” Felix says, approaching the wall where our entrance used to be. He runs his hand along the stone, leaving trails of blue light wherever his fingers touch. “This chamber wasn’t designed to trap people. It’s a sanctuary.”

“Could the academy’s defences have triggered something?” Gaida asks, moving closer to the stone table. Her fingers hover over the strange symbols. “Maybe the lockdown activated some ancient protocol.”

I join her at the table, studying the markings. “These aren’t like any runes I’ve seen before. They’re older.”

Felix’s orb flares brighter as he approaches. “They’re pre-Sumerian. From the time before written history.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“I know stuff.” He traces one symbol with his finger, his expression growing serious. “These symbols relate to blood bonds and lineage. This entire chamber is dedicated to vampire bloodlines.”

A chill runs down my spine as I watch Gaida circle the table. Her movements are hesitant yet somehow familiar, as if she’s been here before.

“Can you read them?” she asks Felix.

He shakes his head. “Not entirely. This dialect predates most recorded magick. But I recognise enough to know this place wasn’t built as a simple shelter. It’s more like a...”

“Ritual chamber,” Gaida finishes for him, her voice barely above a whisper.

The moment she speaks those words, the symbols on the table glow with a faint crimson light. Gaida steps back, bumping into me. I wrap my arm around her waist instinctively.

“I didn’t touch anything,” she says quickly.

Felix’s eyes narrow. “You didn’t need to. I think it’s responding to your presence.”

“My presence?” She looks up at me, confusion and fear warring in her eyes. “Why would it do that?”

“Because you’re an Aragon. The oldest pure bloodline in existence,” I murmur.

“My family is old, but so is yours,” she says, turning slightly in my embrace. “And there are others.”

I shake my head. “Not like yours. The Aragons were there at the beginning. Everyone knows that.”

Felix’s blue flame splits into several smaller orbs that drift upward, illuminating more of the chamber. The ceiling above is painted with an intricate mural of a family tree, with branches extending in all directions from a central figure.

“Holy shit,” I mutter, staring upward. “It’s a complete vampire genealogy. Every bloodline, every turning, mapped out across millennia.”

Gaida steps away from me, turning slowly as she takes in the enormity of the mural.

Suddenly, the lines start disappearing, one by one.

“Severance,” I say. “This is the beginning.”

“And the end,” Gaida says, meeting my eyes.

The force of the emotions hitting me from the family tree brings me to my knees. It’s like they’re all there, moaning in agony and confusion. I clutch my head, trying to block out the overwhelming surge of pain.

“Dante!” Gaida kneels beside me, her cool hand on the back of my neck. “What’s happening?”

“The bonds are breaking. All of them. Everywhere.”

I try to focus through the pain. The emotions swirling around me aren’t just echoes; they’re live connections to thousands of vampires worldwide. One by one, those connections are snapping like overstretched rubber bands. I grunt as the feelings become too much to bear. I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. It’s crushing my head in a vice too tight, I want it to explode like a dropped watermelon just to end this pain.

“Breathe,” Felix commands, his hands suddenly on either side of my face. Cool darkness flows from his fingertips, a shield forming between my mind and the tsunami of emotions. “Focus on my voice. Block everything else out.”

I grab his wrists, anchoring myself to his steady presence. The pain recedes enough for me to catch my breath, though it still pulses at the edges of my consciousness.

“Something’s happening to the mural,” Gaida says, her voice tight with concern.

Through watering eyes, I fall back to the ground and look up to see the genealogy shifting, lines collapsing toward the centre like tributaries flowing backwards to their source. As each line disappears, I feel the corresponding severance as a psychic snap that sends another wave of agony through my skull despite Felix’s protection.

“They’re all converging,” Felix observes, one hand still on my face while the other gestures toward the ceiling. “Every bloodline is being called back to its origin point.”

“The Aragon line,” Gaida whispers, her eyes fixed on the central figure of the mural. “Draken?”

“The Aragon line was the first,” I mutter. “Your ancestor was the first vampire sired to Draken. The rest followed.”

“So is Draken trying to undo what he did, somehow?” she asks, frantically, shoving her hands into her hair and tugging, a sign I’ve come to know as deep distress. I force myself to focus, even though the severance is slowly killing me. It’s too much. It’s too overwhelming. No single creature can handle this much pain at this rate and volume.

“Gaida,” I say, gripping her hand. “I love you.”

My eyes close, and I hear her drop next to me. “Dante! Don’t you fucking dare!”

But it’s too late.

I’m lost.