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GAIDA

Dante is slipping away from me, his face growing paler by the second as the weight of thousands of severed bonds crushes his empathic abilities. I grab his shoulders, panic rising like bile in my throat.

“Dante! Stay with me!” I shake him desperately, but his eyes remain closed, his breathing shallow and rapid. “Felix, do something!”

Felix kneels beside us, dark magick pooling in his palms as he presses them to Dante’s temples. “I’m trying to shield him, but there’s too much. The severance is accelerating up there.”

The mural above us moves constantly, making me feel ill just by looking at it. Bloodlines collapse inward like a cosmic drain being unplugged. With each disappearing line, Dante’s body convulses slightly.

“He’s connected to all of them. Every severed bond is hitting him directly.”

“Not just connected,” Felix mutters, his concentration intense as sweat beads on his forehead. “He’s absorbing the shock of each break. It’s killing him.”

I look around frantically, my gaze landing on the circular stone table with its ancient symbols. Something tugs at my memory, a fragment of knowledge I can’t quite grasp.

“This chamber,” I say, my voice trembling. “It was built for a reason. All vampire bloodlines converge here.”

“But why?” Felix asks, his magick flickering as he struggles to maintain his shield around Dante.

I trace my fingers over the symbols on the table, feeling them respond to my touch with a subtle vibration. “Because this is where it all began. The first bond, the first turning.”

As if triggered by my words, the central figure in the mural above us glows brighter, drawing my eyes upward. The image shifts, becoming clearer of a tall figure holding two objects: a sword in one hand and a chalice in the other.

“Draken.”

Felix follows my gaze. “The sword and the chalice. The twin artefacts.”

“One severs,” I say, my hand instinctively reaching for the sword that isn’t there. “And one...”

“Binds,” Felix finishes. “The chalice can restore what the sword breaks.”

Dante moans beneath Felix’s hands, his body arching in pain. Blood trickles from his nose, his ears, and the corners of his eyes. He’s dying right in front of me.

“I need that sword,” I grit out, holding my hand out for it, but of course, it doesn’t appear when you need it to.

Dante convulses again, this time more violently. His skin has taken on an ashen hue, lips turning blue at the edges. We’re running out of time.

“It’s not coming to me!” I shout in frustration.

I place my hand on Dante’s chest, feeling his heartbeat growing weaker.

Felix’s expression shifts, something calculating entering his gaze. “Because it’s being used,” Felix says quietly. “Someone else has it.”

A chill runs through me. “Luke.”

Felix nods grimly. “He must be using it to hold back the ferals.”

I close my eyes, trying to feel the connection to the sword that I’ve experienced before. It’s there, but distant, strained. Through it, I can sense Luke’s fading life force as the sword drains him dry.

“He’s dying too,” I whisper. “The sword is killing him.”

Felix’s eyes widen. “If he dies while wielding it, the sword will be unleashed. With no wielder to control it...”

“It will come to me.”

“No,” he says, shaking his head. “I don’t think it can. You are cut off from it. We need to get out of here. Now.”

I press my palm against the stone table, a desperate plan forming. “This chamber responds to me because of my bloodline. There has to be a way to command it to get it to open its doors.”

Felix carefully lowers Dante’s head to the ground, his protective magick still shimmering around Dante’s temples. “The Aragons were the first vampires after Draken himself. If anyone can control this place, it’s you.”

I close my eyes, trying to feel the ancient magick humming through the chamber. It responds to my presence, but distantly, like an echo of something that once was. I need to forge a stronger connection.

Without hesitation, I bite into my wrist, drawing blood. The coppery scent fills the air as I let the crimson drops fall onto the central symbol of the table.

“Blood calls to blood,” I murmur.

The effect is immediate. The symbols flare with brilliant red light, racing outward from where my blood touches the stone. The entire chamber trembles, dust raining down from the ceiling as ancient mechanisms grind to life.

“It’s working,” Felix says, his voice tight with both hope and fear.

The wall where we entered shimmers, the stone becoming translucent.

Before we can move, a powerful shockwave rocks the chamber, sending us sprawling to the ground. The mural above flickers violently, bloodlines snapping apart faster than I can track them.

“Something catastrophic is happening up there,” Felix gasps, struggling to maintain his shield around Dante.

I crawl to Dante’s side, cradling his head in my lap. His skin is ice-cold, his lips now fully blue. “Hold on,” I whisper, pressing my bleeding wrist to his mouth. “Feed from me.”

He doesn’t. He can’t. He’s too far gone.

“We need to get him out now,” I tell Felix, desperation clawing at my throat.

The translucent wall suddenly solidifies again, the pathway closing before we can reach it. The chamber groans around us, ancient stone shifting ominously.

“It’s collapsing,” Felix shouts, throwing up a shield of dark magick above us as chunks of ceiling fall.

I press my bloody palm against the table again. “I command you to open!” I scream, channelling every ounce of authority I possess into the words.

The symbols flare again but are weaker this time, as if the chamber is dying along with the bloodlines it represents.

“It’s not working,” Felix says, his shield wavering under the assault of falling debris. “The chamber is tied to the bloodlines themselves. As they sever, its power weakens.”

I close my eyes, focusing on the distant connection I still feel to the sword of Mashtar. Instead of trying to call it to me, I reach out through our bond, following it back to its current wielder.

“Luke,” I whisper, my consciousness brushing against his. The contact is fleeting, but enough for me to sense his desperation, his pain, and his overwhelming desire to protect me. “No, Luke, stop!”

Felix grabs my arm. “What’s happening?”

“Luke is using the sword to bind all the ferals to himself. He’s drawing them away from us, away from me.” My voice breaks. “It’s killing him.”

Another section of the ceiling crashes down, narrowly missing us as Felix drags me and Dante closer to the table, the only area still relatively stable.

“The chamber is collapsing because the original bonds are breaking,” I continue, pieces clicking into place. “And Luke is trying to replace them with himself as the focal point.”

“One bond to rule them all,” Felix mutters grimly. “Noble but suicidal.”

Dante’s breathing grows more laboured, each breath a struggle. We’re running out of time on all fronts.

“My dad is stopping him,” I say. “He has the chalice. The sword wants it.”

“Doesn’t help us get out of here,” Felix mutters.

I focus on Dante. He is the more immediate concern. The ferals are hitting his empathic abilities too hard, too fast, too many of them all at once. We have to find a way to shield him from it. But how? Think, Gaida.

We need to get the burden off him…

“Felix,” I say urgently, “I need to blood bond with Dante.”

Felix draws in a deep breath. “You think you can take some of the burden off him by taking on his empathic abilities?”

“It’s worth a shot.” I brush Dante’s sweat-soaked hair from his forehead. “These abilities are killing him.”

Another crash reverberates through the chamber as more of the ceiling gives way. Felix reinforces his shield, the strain showing on his face. “Taking on Dante’s empathic burden could kill you, Gaida. You weren’t meant to have it.”

“It doesn’t matter, if he lives.”

“That’s not what he would think, and you know it.”

“Don’t try to talk me out of it!”

Felix shakes his head but doesn’t waste any more time arguing. “Do it fast. This place won’t hold much longer.”

I nod, knowing it’s all I’m going to get in the way of help from him. This is risky. I have to feed from him to the point where I would drain him, and then he has to feed on me. Seeing as he can’t do that on his own, I’m going to have to make him. It’s going to be ugly, painful, and Felix will probably never want to look at me again.

But I can’t let Dante go through this alone.

I take a deep breath, steadying myself for what I’m about to do. This isn’t how a blood bond is supposed to happen, not in some collapsing ancient chamber, not with one participant unconscious, not with the world literally falling apart around us.

But Dante is dying, and I refuse to let that happen.

I have to do this now.

With trembling hands, I brush the hair from his forehead, and then cup the back of his neck, tilting his head to expose the pale skin where his pulse flutters weakly. I lower my mouth to his throat, fangs extending automatically in preparation.

I bite down hard.

His blood flows into my mouth, and I baulk in shock. It’s cold, much colder than it should be. The taste is wrong, bitter with pain, and the tang of death is approaching. I force myself to swallow, fighting the instinct to pull away.

I take another swallow, and another. My body trembles as his emotional imprint surges through me. This is more intimate than I expected, more invasive. I’m not just taking his blood; I’m taking pieces of who he is.

I have far to go yet, I need to bring him to the brink of drained, so he can replenish his blood with mine.

I pull harder, faster, remembering how it was with Luke. This is the exact opposite of that in every way. This is terrifying.

With tremendous effort, I eventually tear my mouth away from Dante’s neck, his blood smearing across my lips. The wound closes sluggishly, his healing abilities severely compromised.

“Now comes the hard part,” I gasp, still reeling from the intensity of feeding from so much of his blood.

I turn my wrist over, exposing the blue veins visible beneath my skin. With a quick, decisive movement, I tear open my flesh with my fangs, and then I hook my claws into it to stop it from healing, creating a ragged, painful wound. Blood wells immediately, flowing freely down my arm.

“Open his mouth,” I tell Felix, my voice shaking.

As Felix complies, gently prying Dante’s blue-tinged lips apart, I position my bleeding wrist over Dante’s mouth. The first drops hit his tongue. He doesn’t swallow. Doesn’t respond at all.

“It’s not working,” I say, panic rising. “He needs to actively feed for the bond to form.”

The chamber groans ominously around us, and more chunks of ancient stone break loose from the ceiling. Felix’s shield wavers, and his concentration splits between protecting us and helping with Dante.

“Force it,” Felix urges, his voice tight with strain. “He’s too far gone for niceties.”

I nod, swallowing hard. With grim determination, I tear deeper into my own wrist, blood flowing faster now. I press the wound directly against Dante’s mouth, using my other hand to massage his throat, trying to trigger a swallowing reflex.

“Come on,” I growl, desperation making my movements rough. “Drink, damn you!”

Blood gushes across his pale face, staining his lips crimson, but most of it just spills uselessly down his face to the stone floor beneath us. His body remains unresponsive, the precious liquid I’m offering simply running down his chin.

“It’s not enough,” I snarl, frustration burning through me.

A particularly violent tremor shakes the chamber, and Felix grunts as his shield takes the impact of several large stones. “Whatever you’re going to do, do it now!”

With a curse, I withdraw my wrist and instead bite savagely into my own palm, tearing a jagged, agonising wound. Pain shoots up my arm as I rip through tendons and muscle, but I ignore it. Blood pools immediately in my cupped hand, dark and thick.

“Hold his jaw open wider,” I command Felix.

Without giving myself time to hesitate, I pour the blood directly into Dante’s mouth, watching as it fills the cavity. But still, he doesn’t swallow.

“Fuck!” I hiss, dropping my bleeding hand to pinch his nose shut, then covering his mouth with my palm. “Swallow or choke,” I command him, though I know he can’t hear me.

For a terrifying moment, nothing happens. Then, reflexively, his throat works, and he swallows the mouthful of blood.

“Again,” Felix urges.

I tear at my palm again, ripping the wound wider. Fresh pain blazes through my hand, but I welcome it. It keeps me focused. I fill my palm with blood again, the process messier now as my hands shake with adrenaline and blood loss.

“Open,” I demand, forcing Dante’s mouth open again and pouring in the blood.

This time I don’t wait. I immediately clamp his mouth and nose shut, forcing the reflex. His body jerks slightly as he swallows.

“One more,” I say, now tearing at my forearm, creating a new wound as the others begin to clot.

The third mouthful goes down more easily, and I notice a change. The slightest pink returns to his grey lips, a flicker of movement beneath his eyelids.

“It’s working,” I gasp, now pressing my bleeding arm directly against his mouth.

The change is sudden and violent. Dante’s eyes fly open, black with hunger, no recognition in them at all. With supernatural strength, he lunges at me and sinks his fangs deep into my neck.

Pain explodes through my body, causing me to cry out. This isn’t the controlled, almost sensual feeding we’ve experienced before. This is primal, savage, the desperate feeding of a vampire on the edge of death.

“Dante, slow down,” I gasp, but he’s beyond hearing me.

He grips my arms with bruising force, holding me in place as his fangs rip into me as he feeds with mindless desperation. Blood flows down my neck in rivulets, soaking my top.

Felix moves to pull him away, but I shake my head and gasp, “No, he needs this. The bond won’t form if he doesn’t take enough.”

Dante feeds ravenously, making animalistic sounds of hunger that send chills down my spine. I can feel myself weakening as he drinks, my vision blurs at the edges. He’s taking too much, too fast, but I don’t stop him. I can’t.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, Dante’s grip on my arms slackens. His eyes, still black with hunger, show glimmers of awareness. He pulls back from my mangled neck, blood dripping from his chin, looking disoriented but alive.

“Gaida,” he whispers, his voice rough.

Relief floods through me, but it’s short-lived. Almost immediately, I feel a pressure building behind my eyes, a strange buzzing in my head that quickly escalates to a roar.

“Fuck,” I gasp, clutching at my temples.

The world around me suddenly amplifies. Every sound, every sensation, but worse than that, every emotion. I can feel Felix’s worry, Dante’s confusion, but also more, much more. Thousands of emotions not my own crash into my mind all at once.

Grief, rage, fear, hunger. The collective emotional state of every severed vampire bond floods into my consciousness like a tidal wave, drowning out any sense of self.

I scream, the sound tearing from my throat with such force that it feels like I’m ripping apart from the inside. My body convulses, back arching as wave after wave of foreign emotion crashes through me.

“What’s happening to her?” Dante asks, his voice stronger now but thick with concern.

I can barely hear them through the cacophony in my head. It’s like standing in the middle of a stadium filled with people screaming directly into my ears, each voice competing to be heard. Hunger, rage, fear, grief—emotions stripped of context, raw and overwhelming.

“The blood bond worked,” Felix explains, his voice tight with worry. “She’s taken on part of your empathic burden. She’s experiencing what you were, but without your natural defences.”

“Make it stop,” I gasp, curling into a foetal position as my body shakes uncontrollably. “Please, make it stop!”

Dante crawls to my side. He places his trembling hands on either side of my face. “Gaida! What did you do?”

“It’s too much,” I whimper, blood now flowing freely from my nose and ears as vessels rupture under the psychological strain.

The chamber shudders violently.

“We need to get out of here,” Felix shouts, extending his shield to cover all three of us. “Gaida, we need you to open the way!”

But I can’t focus, can’t concentrate on anything beyond the overwhelming assault on my mind. I curl tighter into myself, hands pressed against my temples as if I could physically hold my skull together, and then everything goes black.