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CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

WILLIAM

My spectral form leaves frost in my wake as I flee through the stone corridors of SilverGate. Students shiver and glance around in confusion as I pass, sensing my presence without seeing me. My rage is a force, manifesting in the physical world as I go. Mirrors crack, light fixtures flicker, temperatures plummet, and stone cracks.

I need distance. Space to think. To understand what happened in that shower with Isolde. Someone used me, and no one uses me without suffering dire consequences.

For a brief, glorious moment, I’d been corporeal again. I’d felt Isolde’s warmth, her skin against mine, sensations I’d thought lost forever when I plummeted from the Bell Tower a century ago. But then that sigil appeared on her chest, burning beneath her skin, and she’d looked at me with terror.

The memory of her fear cuts through me like a knife. Whatever happened in that shower wasn’t just about us. Someone had weaponised our connection and used it against both of us. Someone branded her against her will, and I will make sure they suffer beyond anything they have ever felt before.

I arrive at the Bell Tower without consciously choosing the destination. The place of my death calls to me. I drift upward, bypassing the spiral staircase, emerging at the top where the great bell hangs silent in the dark.

Standing at the eastern window, the exact spot where I was pushed to my death, I look out over the academy grounds.

How much of my afterlife has been spent staring out at a world I can no longer touch? How many times have I relived that final moment, the whispered words in an ancient language, the sudden push, the terrible knowledge of what waited below?

Now, for the first time in a century, I have freedom. The ability to roam beyond my prison. And what have I done with it? Put Isolde in danger. The one person who could see me, speak to me, touch me.

“Thought I’d find you here.”

I don’t turn at the voice, though every part of my spectral form tenses. “Aquila. ”

CJ steps into the bell chamber, his footsteps silent on the ancient stone. “Didn’t take me long to follow the trail of destruction. You’ve got the professors in a flurry wondering what the fuck entity has crossed over SilverGate’s wards.”

“They never think to look within. Go away.”

He ignores me, moving to stand a few feet away, looking out at the same view. “She’s worried about you.”

The simple statement catches me off guard. “She should be worried about herself. That sigil?—”

“Is dormant for now,” he interrupts. “She’s resting.”

I turn to face him fully, surprised by the lack of hostility in his tone. “Dormant? How?”

“Probably because you left her standing alone in a shower of blood, terrified and feeling enough guilt to weigh down an entire kingdom.”

That stings. It burns through my ghostly veins like wildfire. “I didn’t want to leave her. Things would’ve escalated if I hadn’t.”

“You’ve got anger issues.”

“Says the vampire who rips things apart for fun.”

He smirks but doesn’t look at me. “That’s not anger, that’s a thirst for violence. It’s in my blood.”

“Oh?”

“My father was a Roman Warrior. You heard of Ancient Rome, Harrington? ”

“No,” I say curiously. “What is it?”

“A place where I come from. Nearly three thousand years ago, my father fought for the empire, before he was chosen and turned into a vampire.”

“Your father is three thousand years old?” I’m impressed, despite myself.

“Nearly,” he corrects with a smile.

“Why are you telling me this? It’s information that is… secret, no?”

“Very,” he says, “but who are you going to tell?”

“Fair point,” I mutter. “Does Isolde know?”

“No. And I won’t tell her yet. She has enough to deal with without learning her soon-to-be-husband is from a different realm entirely, with blood that runs through his veins that doesn’t exist in this dimension.”

“You tease,” I mutter. “What are you?”

“Later.”

“More secrets.”

“We all have our secrets, Harrington. Right now, hers are more pressing than mine.”

“Did she tell you what happened?”

“Yes.” His jaw tightens, and I brace for the explosion of jealousy, the threats. Instead, he says, “You were in the shower. Something made you corporeal, water magic, Isolde thinks. Then it turned into a trap. Used your connection to drain her.”

“Drain her?” I mutter. “That makes more sense. ”

“Hmm. She thought it was draining you, but that makes no sense. This is about her, right now.”

“You’re right. That was your assessment?”

“Yes.”

I drift closer, studying him. “And you’re not trying to banish me to the netherworld for touching her? This is uncharacteristically restrained of you, Aquila.”

“Believe me, I’d like nothing better,” he admits with a tight smile. “But right now, you’re more useful alive. Or whatever you are.”

“Pragmatic of you.”

“I’m full of surprises.” He leans his hands on the windowsill, his posture deceptively casual, though I can sense the tension in his eyes. “So. The Butcher of SilverGate. That’s quite the nickname.”

I feel a ripple of unease. “You’ve been doing your research.”

“When someone gets close to what’s mine, I make it my business to know everything about them.”

“She’s not yours,” I say automatically, though without my usual venom.

CJ’s smile is cold. “Oh, but she is. I’ve taken what belonged to me, her virginity, and promised her the world. She accepted it all. She is mine. We can debate your… relationship with her later. Right now, I want to know about you, Harrington. About the Sanguinarch who slaughtered his way through SilverGate’s student body a hundred years ago. ”

“Is that what the records say?” I ask with a wicked smile as fond memories warm my icy form.

“The records say very little. You’ve been largely scrubbed from SilverGate’s official history. Makes me curious. But there are snippets if you know where to look.”

“And where did you look?”

“Under SilverGate’s most dangerous students. Imagine my surprise when I saw your name at the top of a very short list.”

“Let me guess, yours is underneath.”

“Maybe,” he says with a sinister smile.

I drift to the opposite side of the bell chamber, putting space between us. “And what do these stories say?”

“That you were brilliant. Ruthless. That you used blood in ways no one had seen before or since. That students disappeared, only for their bodies to be found dismembered and savaged.”

“Oh, the good old days.” I sigh.

“You expect to get back to that?”

“I’m hardly in a position to do anything, much less chop someone to pieces.”

“And yet you touched my girl.”

“This concern coming from you is rather odd,” I laugh. “How many have you threatened since arriving at SilverGate? How many would you kill to get what you want? ”

CJ doesn’t rise to the bait. “Whoever I have to. But we’re not talking about me. We’re talking about what you’re doing with Isolde.”

“I didn’t plan what happened in the shower,” I say. “I didn’t know it could happen at all. Water magic, allowing the dead to become temporarily corporeal, is not something I have ever encountered.”

“But you took advantage of it,” he says.

“Of course. I kissed her, and she kissed me back. She took my hand and placed it on her sweet cunt, and I buried my fingers deep inside her, feeling her climax all over my hand. It was an epiphany moment.”

“I’m sure it was. Isolde has a way of making a man forget his own name. What I want to know is what happens next. You’ve been given a taste of something you thought was lost forever. Are you going to pursue it?”

The question cuts to the heart of something I’ve been avoiding. What do I want from Isolde? From this strange afterlife I’m trapped in?

“For a century, I existed in a kind of stasis. Not living but not moving on. Then Isolde arrived, and suddenly I had a connection to the outside world again. I want it back. I want my life back, and I want to make those who took it away pay in ways their sick, demented minds cannot even fathom.”

“You care about her,” CJ observes, not a question .

“Yes,” I admit. “More than I should. More than makes sense, given what I am.”

CJ studies me, his expression unreadable. “And if you had to choose between your wants and her safety? What then?”

“Her safety,” I say without hesitation. “She has touched a part of me that I didn’t even know was there. I didn’t know I could care about someone enough to want what was best for them. Her blood sings to me. It calls to me. She occupies my thoughts more than I can explain. I can’t seem to focus on anything else except her. She needs me as I need her.”

He nods slowly, as if confirming something to himself. “Good. Because she’s in danger, and I think you know more about it than you’re saying.”

I drift back to the window. “The sigil that appeared on her chest... I’ve seen something similar before. In my research into Blood Magic and dimensional boundaries.”

“What is it?”

“A collector’s mark,” I say grimly. “A magical tag, meant to track valuable specimens across realms. In the occult black markets of my time, such marks were used to claim rare creatures before they could be captured by rivals.”

CJ’s expression darkens. “The Collectors.”

“Yes. They must have set the trap, knowing about my connection to Isolde. Used it to mark her. ”

“How would they know about you? About your connection to her?”

I shake my head. “Someone inside SilverGate must be working with them. Someone who knew I was trapped in that room, who knew Isolde could see me, who knew about our growing bond.”

“And who knows enough about ancient Blood Magic to set such a specific trap,” CJ adds, his mind clearly working through the possibilities. “The list of suspects is short.”

“Blackridge,” I suggest, though without conviction.

CJ shakes his head. “Unlikely. He collects rare creatures, yes, but he keeps them alive, intact. The Collectors’ methods are too extreme even for him.”

We fall silent, both contemplating the implications. The bell chamber feels suddenly colder, as if the very stones remember my death and echo its chill.

“There’s something else you should know,” I say finally. “About me. About why I was killed.”

CJ raises an eyebrow, waiting.

“My research wasn’t just about Blood Magic in general. I was specifically studying ways to create gateways between dimensions using blood as a medium. Pathways that could transfer consciousness between vessels.”

“You were developing a way to move consciousness from one container to another. Like them. Isolde won’t?—”

“She already knows. I told her.”

He contemplates that for a moment. “So they killed you to stop you learning their methods.”

“Could be.”

He nods.

“Are we actually having a civil conversation?”

He laughs. “Don’t misunderstand, Harrington. I still don’t like you. But Isolde’s safety comes first. If working with you increases her chances of surviving what’s coming, then that’s what I’ll do.”

“A temporary truce, then? For her sake?”

He nods, extending his hand in a surprisingly civilised gesture. “For her sake.”

I reach out, expecting my spectral hand to pass through his as it would with any living being. Instead, our hands connect, a cold shock passing between us.

CJ’s smile turns roguish again. “Don’t forget I’m not from this world, Harrington. Your laws don’t apply to me.”

“Noted,” I murmur. I drift back toward the window, looking out at SilverGate spread below us. “You should know that what happened between Isolde and me wasn’t just physical. There’s a connection there, one I don’t fully understand yet.”

“I know. I’ve seen how she looks at you. How she talks about you. Whatever is happening between you two, it’s more than just curiosity or convenience.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“I’m not blind. Isolde is drawn to you for reasons neither of us fully comprehends. Fighting it would only push her away.”

I study him with new appreciation. “You’re more strategic than I gave you credit for.”

“I’m whatever I need to be to protect what’s mine,” he replies simply. “I’m not oblivious to polyamorous relationships. I have several dads.”

“Oh?” I raise my eyebrow.

“My mother has three husbands. My biological dad and two others.”

“Interesting. So you are open to Isolde being with more than just one.”

“If that’s what she chooses.”

In a swift motion, he leaps out of the Bell Tower, and I watch as he falls gracefully to the ground. He looks up at me with a smile, and in a flash of speed, he is gone.

This conversation has been enlightening. The Collectors took my life a century ago to protect their precious collection. Now, through Isolde, I have a chance to become whole again, and not much will stop me from getting back what I lost.