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Chapter Twenty-Two

I feel magic brush against my skin before the elevator doors open.

The shimmering barrier recognizes my supernatural nature and allows me to pass.

“We designed this level of the building to contain vampire strength and train young ones. The walls are reinforced with magical dampening fields to protect the structure from collateral damage,” Costin explains.

“But it’s never been tested against a hybrid.”

Sully and Anthony accompany us.

My parents remain upstairs, finalizing plans for tomorrow’s confrontation.

I’m almost relieved to be away from their watchful eyes, especially my father’s calculating gaze.

I’m not sure we can trust him.

I wonder if that is why Astrid kept him with her instead of coming down here.

The spacious chamber is impressive.

Various training equipment is scattered throughout.

Combat dummies, weapons racks, and what appears to be an obstacle course fill one half.

The other half is open space, presumably for sparring or, in my case, power testing.

“How do we do this?” I ask, moving to the center of the open area.

“Start small,” Costin suggests.

“We need to establish a baseline. Use the telekinetic power to show them what you know you can do.”

Anthony sets up a series of progressively larger objects along a table.

“Move these one at a time. Let’s see what you can handle.”

I focus on the pencil first, lifting it easily.

Then the book.

A weight.

A chair.

A training dummy.

Each object rises at my command, hovering steadily before returning to their place.

Then, just because I can, I let the cold power flow through me and I lift them all at once, including the table.

I let them dance in circles above our heads like a poltergeist.

“Show off,” Anthony teases.

I set them back on the ground in no particular order.

“Good,” Sully approves.

“Now something more challenging. Anthony?”

My brother steps forward, a mischievous glint in his eye.

Blue magic wraps his hands, winding up his arms and down his waist and legs

“Try to lift me,” he challenges.

I narrow my focus, directing the telekinetic force toward him.

I feel his magic resisting mine.

For a moment nothing happens, then he gasps as his feet leave the ground.

I raise him three feet in the air, holding him steady despite the counterforce of his magic urging me to set him down.

“Holy shit,” he breathes.

“This is unnerving.”

I set him down gently.

“What else?”

“Distance,” Sully suggests.

“Can you affect things you can’t see?”

They test my limits.

I do what they ask, moving objects around corners, through walls, based solely on my awareness of their presence.

The power stretches, adapting to each new challenge.

“Now defense,” Costin says.

He nods to Anthony, who raises his hands, blue magic coalescing between his fingers.

Before I can tell him I’m ready, a magical bolt flies toward me, fast as thought.

Instinctively, I raise a hand, the power surging up to create a shield of pure force.

The bolt splashes harmlessly against it, dissipating in a shower of blue sparks.

“Again,” I say, feeling more confident.

“Stronger this time.”

Anthony doesn’t hold back.

The next bolt is brighter, faster, carrying enough magical energy to stun a vampire.

It meets the same fate as the first, dissolving against my telekinetic barrier.

Sully whistles low.

“Impressive.”

We continue the tests, discovering my limits.

I can deflect physical attacks as well as magical ones.

I can affect multiple targets simultaneously.

I can control the force with increasing precision, from a gentle touch to enough pressure to bend metal.

But with each demonstration, the cold detachment grows stronger.

I feel myself slipping further away, the human part of me receding as the power expands.

I don’t like it.

I want to tell them to stop, but I know I have to push through.

“One more test,” Costin says finally.

He looks to Sully, who nods in silent agreement.

They move to opposite sides of the room, circling me like predators.

For the first time, I feel a flicker of unease.

These are two of the strongest creatures I know.

“The goal is simple,” Costin explains.

“Stop us.”

They attack simultaneously.

Sully charges with werewolf speed while Costin blurs into vampire movement.

The two supernatural predators converge on a single target.

Me.

Time seems to slow.

The power rises, not in a controlled surge but in a tidal wave of fear.

I don’t think, don’t plan, simply react.

My hands extend, one toward each attacker.

The telekinetic blast catches them both midair, freezing them in place.

Sully’s eyes widen in shock.

Costin’s face shows a mixture of pride and concern.

I hold them suspended, neither able to move forward or retreat.

The truth is I’m not sure how to turn it off.

My heart pounds.

The power inside me shifts.

The cold surges, not content to simply hold them suspended.

It wants more.

It wants to squeeze, to crush, to demonstrate complete dominance.

A voice whispers to do it, to destroy everything, bring the building down, burn the city.

My fingers begin to curl inward.

I feel the pressure around them increasing.

“Tamara,” Costin warns, his voice strained.

“Enough.”

Sully coughs violently.

I don’t release them.

I can’t.

The power has taken over, flowing unchecked through my veins.

My vision dims at the edges, turning red.

I feel my fangs extend and my claws lengthen.

The hybrid is emerging, driven by this new, cold force.

“Tamara!” Anthony’s voice cuts through the haze.

“Stop!”

I turn toward him, a snarl building in my throat.

He takes an involuntary step back, his hands raising defensively.

“This isn’t you,” he says, his voice steadier than his stance.

“Control it.”

But it is me.

This is what I’m becoming.

Power without conscience.

Strength without humanity.

The realization hits me like a physical blow, bringing me back to myself just enough to see what I’m doing.

“Anthony,” I plead, not understanding how to stop it.

He charges at me, knocking me in the chest.

I resist the urge to shove him back.

We land hard on the ground.

The impact makes me release the telekinetic hold.

Costin and Sully drop to the ground, both landing in crouches, ready to defend themselves if necessary.

Anthony rolls away from me, leaving me on the ground.

“I’m sorry,” I whisper, staring at my hands as if they belong to someone else.

Whatever I absorbed in the crypt, it’s not just vampire coldness.

It’s darker.

Hungrier.

“I don’t know what happened.”

“I do,” Costin says, straightening slowly.

“The power is feeding on your emotions, or rather, your lack of them. Without humanity to temper it, it becomes pure force, unchecked by conscience or compassion.”

Sully rubs his throat and breathes deeply.

“That was unexpected.”

“We need to be careful,” Anthony says, looking between us.

“If Tamara can’t control this new ability?—”

“I can,” I interrupt, though I’m not entirely convinced.

“I just need practice.”

“No,” Costin says firmly.

“What you need is to reconnect with your humanity. The vampire detachment is natural, but it’s being amplified by whatever power you absorbed in the crypt. If we don’t find a way to balance it...”

He doesn’t finish the thought.

He doesn’t need to.

We all understand the implication.

I could become something worse than Elizabeth.

“I’ll help you,” Anthony offers.

“We could try some meditation techniques for grounding you.”

“You should be around your pack members,” Sully adds.

“Being around werewolves might help strengthen that side of your nature. The wolf is emotional, instinctual, the opposite of what you’re experiencing now.”

I nod, grateful for their support even if I can’t fully feel that gratitude.

“For now, I think that’s enough testing,” Costin says, his tone brooking no argument.

“We should rejoin Astrid and Davis to finalize our plan for tomorrow.”

As we return to the elevator, I catch Costin watching me with an expression I can’t quite decipher.

His concern is mixed with a deep fear.

I wonder if he’s scared of me or for me.

I should be upset by that.

Instead, I find myself wondering if that fear is warranted.

If I’m becoming something that should be feared.

The thought follows me on the elevator ride up, lingering as we rejoin the others.

My father is gone.

Astrid doesn’t say to where and I don’t ask.

Costin brings me more blood and demands I drink it.

The others tell Astrid what happened, and they fall back into their plans.

I find myself drawn to the window overlooking the city.

I want to float down there like a cold wind and wrap myself around the helpless people below.

When Astrid and Anthony finally leave for their own quarters within the building, and Sully leaves to gather the wolves, I find myself alone with Costin in the penthouse.

“You should rest,” he says, watching me from across the room.

“Tomorrow will be challenging without the added strain of exhaustion.”

“Do vampires even get exhausted?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“Or is that just one more human thing I’m supposed to outgrow?”

His expression softens.

“We feel fatigue, yes. Not in the same way as humans, but we can be depleted.”

I nod, moving toward the bedroom.

But at the threshold, I hesitate.

“Costin?”

He looks up from the plans spread across the table.

“Yes?”

“What if I can’t come back from this? What if this is just what I am now?”

He crosses to me in three long strides, taking my face in his hands with a gentleness that belies his strength.

“Then I will love you anyway,” he says fiercely.

“But I won’t stop fighting for your humanity, Tamara. Not ever. The fact that you even ask me that tells me it’s still there.”

The intensity in his eyes stirs a flicker of warmth in the cold void.

I grasp at it, desperate not to lose this last connection to what I was.

“Stay with me,” I whisper.

“Please.”

He nods, following me into the bedroom.

We don’t speak as we prepare for sleep, moving around each other with the comfortable familiarity of lovers.

When we slide beneath the sheets, his arms encircle me, pulling me against his chest as if he can physically prevent me from slipping further away.

I close my eyes, letting the rhythm of his heartbeat lull me toward unconsciousness.

As sleep claims me, I feel the cold power recede just slightly, allowing me a moment of peace.

But peace doesn’t last.

In my dreams, I stand in a vast, empty landscape.

No horizon, no sky, no ground.

There is just endless gray nothingness stretching in all directions.

And I am not alone.

“Hello, Tam-tam.”

Conrad stands before me, not as the vengeful ghost who haunted me, but as the brother I knew in life.

His smile is the same smirk he always wore when he thought he knew something I didn’t.

Which, honestly, was always.

“This isn’t real,” I say, watching him warily.

“You’re gone. I freed you.”

“Did you?” He circles me slowly, hands clasped behind his back.

“Or did you just open a door to somewhere else? Somewhere I can see things more clearly now?”

“What do you want?”

He stops, studying me with an intensity that’s unsettling.

“What I’ve always wanted. To be seen. To be powerful. To matter.” His smile turns bitter.

“The things you were given without even trying.”

“I never asked for any of this,” I remind him.

“Didn’t you?” He laughs, the sound hollow in the empty space.

“You were always special, Tamara. Even as a mortal. Father’s favorite. Anthony’s precious sister. Astrid’s pet. The dragon’s chosen. Costin’s obsession. My responsibility. Even the mother who gave you up did so out of love. Mine left me at a gas station so she could fuck some lowlife for crack.”

There’s no hiding the envy in his voice, or the resentment that festered for years until it erupted in betrayal and attempted murder.

“And now look at you,” he continues, gesturing to me.

“More powerful than any of us could have imagined. A hybrid with magic to boot. Everything I ever wanted.”

“And it’s destroying me,” I say flatly.

“Is that why you’re here? To gloat?”

“No.” He steps closer, his expression shifting to something more complex.

“I’m here because we’re still connected, you and me. Maybe we always will be.”

“Connected how?”

“History. Shared experiences. Trauma bonds.” He shrugs.

“Take your pick. Or maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe I’m just what’s left of your conscience, wearing a familiar face.”

I don’t know what to make of that possibility, so I ignore it.

“Is our deadbeat dad scrambling to protect his image? Or has he still not bothered to show up for more than two seconds?”

I don’t answer and he laughs like he already knows.

“Seriously, you have to tell me. How does it feel to shove your superiority in Lady Astrid’s smug bitch face?” Anthony smirks.

“Just between us. Admit it. It feels great, doesn’t it?”

I frown.

“Don’t pretend like you and Astrid are friends now,” Conrad smirks.

“You can’t have forgotten the first twenty seven years of your life because mommy likes you now. Here, let me remind you. Listen.”

Conrad cups his hand to his ear and pretends to listen.

“What do you want me to do with it, Davis? It can die.” Astrid’s voice whispers from my childhood.

It.

Not she.

Not Tamara.

She said it.

The sound is faint but clear.

I’ve heard those words echoing in my head for decades.

The memory stings.

I was five.

Too young to understand what death really meant, but those words, and the way they were spoken, lodged deep in me anyway.

They shaped everything.

For most of my life, I was treated like a fragile butterfly that the supernatural world could crush for fun.

Because that’s what monsters do when they’re bored.

They break delicate things.

I was told to be careful.

That I needed protection.

That I couldn’t survive on my own.

But I’m not that delicate mortal anymore.

The butterfly didn’t get crushed.

It evolved.

Now that I’m a hybrid, Astrid doesn’t look at me like I might break.

She watches me like I might break those around me.

And it’s not pity, it’s pride that I see in her face.

Like she’s suddenly realized I’m not just her pretty family secret in a dress.

I’m a Devine.

Thane’s blood.

Vampire-marked.

Dangerous.

“There it is,” Conrad whispers.

“I knew you remembered.”

“Of course I remember,” I snap.

The coldness is back fueled by my childhood suffering.

“She used to pity you. Now she has to respect you. Make her fear you. You’re not something that needs protecting anymore. You’re what the monsters should be afraid of. It can die? No, Tamara. They can die.”

“What do you want from me, Conrad?”

Even as I ask it, I think I know the answer.

It’s what he always wanted.

Revenge.

And I’m the only way he can get it where he’s at.

“Nothing. For once in my miserable existence, I don’t want anything from you.” He looks almost surprised by this realization.

Nearly as much as I am.

“But I do have something to give you.”

“What?”

“Information.” His smile returns, tinged with malice.

“About our dear uncle.”

I find myself interested despite my suspicion.

“Mortimer?”

“The very same. Did you know he’s been studying you since you were a baby? Not just because you were human in a supernatural family. But because you were something else entirely.”

“What do you mean?”

“I found his journals when I was going through the family papers after I framed you for the birthday fire. Fascinating reading.” Conrad’s eyes gleam with remembered satisfaction.

“He called you a blank vessel because you could hold magic due to your blood, but did not naturally create your own. He made sure that you didn’t absorb any. Then, after you got the amulet, that kept you from gaining power since Draakmar’s magic took over and acted like a shield.”

“Why would he do that?”

Conrad laughs.

“Does it matter? Mortimer always has a scheme. First he was going to fill you with the magic he wanted. Then, when you got the amulet, he decided if you couldn’t be magical on your own, he’d make you valuable in other ways. Hence all those suitors he paraded before you. Chester, Jasper, Rex, Leviathan…”

I remember Mortimer’s constant attempts to marry me off to powerful supernatural families.

Chester Freemont wasn’t the first, just the latest and most persistent.

Jasper Blackwood, my cheating liar of a college boyfriend, was on Mortimer’s pre-approved list.

Jasper only dated me to get close to the Devine family and repeatedly asked me about shipping schedules and my access to family money.

There were others, but they seemed to have left less of an impression.

“Rex?” I frown.

Conrad shrugs.

“No clue.”

It kind of makes sense now.

If I’m a blank slate, he could use that to create whatever he wanted with my children.

It also explains Leviathan’s interest in me, how he knew I’d be able to survive as a hybrid.

So many failed plans for my life.

None of them mine.

“But there was something else,” Conrad continues.

“Something he kept hidden even from our father. A ritual he developed, specifically designed to extract and transfer magical potential.”

My blood runs cold.

“Transfer to whom?”

“To himself, of course.” Conrad looks positively gleeful.

“Our uncle has been plotting to steal your power for decades, waiting for the right moment. And now that you’ve manifested abilities beyond what anyone expected, he’s more determined than ever.”

“That’s why he allied with Elizabeth,” I realize.

“She’s helping him get to me.”

“Bingo.” Conrad taps the tip of my nose, and I jerk my head back.

“And here’s the best part. None of them know. Leviathan thought he was making you his queen. Elizabeth thinks she’s going to be some super villain.”

“Huh. It’s not a bad plan,” I say, admiring the cunning it’s taken to get Mortimer this far.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“He’s vulnerable during the ritual. Completely exposed. If you were to interrupt it at precisely the right moment...”

“He’d be defenseless,” I finish.

The tactical implications are immediately clear, even through the emotional distance that’s become my new normal.

“One last thing before I go,” Conrad says, almost fondly.

“You’re leaving?”

“This is it, Tam-tam. My final curtain call.” He spreads his arms.

“I’m only here to deliver this message, one last ’fuck you’ to dear Uncle Mortimer and the family. Consider it my parting gift. You can kill them all, Tamara. You have that power now. Our neglectful father who would rather fuck his way through Europe than protect his family. Our bitch mother who only cares about you now that you’re special. Anthony is, well, Anthony. Spoiled little rich boy. I couldn’t care less what you do to him.”

“Why help me at all?” I ask, genuinely curious.

“You tried to kill me. Multiple times.”

Conrad’s expression turns serious for perhaps the first time since his death.

“I owe you. You freed me when you could have left me to rot. And because in the end, I’d rather see you win than them.” He smirks.

“If anyone’s going to bring down the Devines, it should be another Devine.”

He begins to fade, and his form becomes translucent.

“Goodbye, Tam-tam. Try not to suck at being supernatural, will you? Some of us never got the chance.”

With those words, he’s gone, leaving me alone in the endless gray.

But as the dreamscape begins to dissolve around me, I feel something stirring in my chest that wasn’t there before.

Not love or forgiveness for Conrad, but something simpler, more human.

Understanding.

I wake with a gasp, sitting upright in bed.

Costin is instantly alert beside me, his hand on my arm.

“Tamara? What is it?”

I turn to look at him, and for the first time in days, I feel tears prickling at my eyes.

Real, human tears.

“I know what Mortimer is planning,” I say, my voice thick with the emotion that I’d thought lost.

“And I know how to stop him.”

For the first time since the church collapsed around me, I feel like myself again.

Not a hybrid.

Not a vampire or werewolf or magic vessel.

Tamara.

Flawed, complicated, determined.

Ready.

He pulls me down on the bed beside him.

“Tell me everything.”