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The dagger’s presence burned against my hip.

A promise of vengeance.

But what was I supposed to do? The blade was so small—

As Lucian’s fingers worked at the fastenings of my gown, my father directed my hands to assist him, to keep his questing fingers away from the hidden weapon.

Panic streaked through me—what if he found the dagger?

What would he do?

Each touch of Lucian’s icy fingers against my skin sent waves of revulsion through me, but I channeled that disgust into focus.

Survival required patience.

Revenge demanded precision.

“Allow me,” the entity—my father—said with my voice, and my hands pushed Lucian’s away. “I want to unveil myself to you... properly.”

“I hate this!” I screamed. “Don’t you fucking dare let him touch me!”

Silence.

Lucian’s pale eyes gleamed with appreciation as he stepped back. He swept his cape from his shoulders and threw it onto the stone floor before he began to unbutton his shirt. “By all means. I enjoy watching.”

I forced myself not to see Lucian’s sons in his movements.

Titus moved like his father—Bastian’s pale eyes were too much like his—

My fingers moved to the intricate fastenings of the black wedding gown, each movement calculated to bring me closer to the dagger concealed within the lace at the waist.

It was small but wickedly sharp, a sliver of blackened silver that belonged in the grimoire’s spine—how much magical blood had it shed in the centuries since it had been crafted? How many dark Sages had watched their life pour out onto its pages only to gain nothing from the cryptic spells within?

I could feel the entity’s malevolent energy pulsing in time with my heartbeat, as if it too thirsted for Lucian’s blood.

“The gown— do you like it?” Lucian asked. “I know it is not usual for a groom to choose his bride’s wedding gown. But I couldn’t resist.”

“You’ve tried so hard to deny your darkness, Avril…” Lucian said thoughtfully, “but it seems I was correct in choosing it.”

“Perhaps I’m no longer denying it,” my father replied, and I gritted my teeth as he allowed a seductive smile to curve my lips and forced my legs to move, carrying me toward the bed.

“You’ve been very secretive,” he continued.

My palm pressed against my hip and found the hidden pocket where the dagger rested. Its hilt was smooth and cold against my fingers.

“Have I?”

With a movement disguised as adjusting the lace, my father guided my hand to extract the weapon.

“Did you think I wouldn’t sense it—my sons aren’t particularly subtle when it comes to their conquests. I am sorry, my dear. I had hoped to keep them away from you… To preserve that precious innocence.”

“Fuck you,” I screamed into the darkness.

The entity didn’t flinch and I felt the weight of the dagger’s hilt in my palm, so slight yet so significant, before my arm moved and slipped it beneath the coverlet at the edge of the bed.

Lucian was too focused on removing his shirt to notice my movements.

“I’ve allowed you to believe you had control,” he said casually. “The blood bond… A simple ritual. They were fools to allow you to execute it. But we both know that it was a weak attempt. They’ve been conspiring against you for weeks…”

Anger rippled through me, but a hollow ache followed. “It’s not true—”

“Don’t listen to him,” the entity murmured in my ear. A strange comfort. “Patience.”

Lucian’s pale torso shone like carved marble in the candlelight—hard muscles and lean lines. If he wasn’t such a monster, I might have found him beautiful. But he disgusted me, and every inch of my body recoiled from him.

The black stains that marked his fingers twisted over his skin like shadows and extended up his arms in dark tendrils that almost mimicked Valen’s elegant tattoos. But this wasn’t art. This was evidence of the dark magic that had corrupted him.

“The lives he has taken to acquire those marks—” the entity murmured bitterly.

“You see what power has given me?” he asked as he suddenly noticed my gaze. “This is the mark of true mastery, my dear. The sacrifice that comes with ultimate control.”

“Sacrifice,” the entity hissed.

“It’s beautiful,” my father said with my voice as my hands continued their work on the gown. Smooth and seductive. Reassuring. Even fawning. If I could have thrown up, I would have.

The black lace of the wedding dress slithered down my body and pooled at my feet like spilled ink.

I stood before him in nothing but the delicate undergarments that had been selected for this night—undergarments he had selected. I felt vulnerable, but also strangely powerful.

The dagger was within reach now.

The moment was approaching.

Lucian’s eyes raked over me with naked hunger. “You are exquisite,” he murmured, stepping closer. “A worthy vessel...”

Vessel.

The word chilled me to the bone.

Not a wife, not a partner— a vessel .

For his child? For his magic? For something worse?

“Come here,” he commanded and extended a hand stained with his dark magic.

My father guided my body toward him with convincing eagerness and laid my fingertips on Lucian’s upturned palm, allowing him to pull me against his chest. His skin was cold, unnaturally so, and the contact made me scream in shock even as my body responded according to my father’s direction.

“Don’t!” I cried into the void. “Don’t you fucking dare!”

Lucian’s hands traced possessive patterns across my skin, and I felt his magic probing at the edges of my consciousness, seeking entry. But something blocked it—my father’s presence, perhaps.

“There’s something different about you,” Lucian murmured against my ear, his voice tinged with curiosity rather than suspicion. “Your magic has... shifted.”

“I’ve changed a great deal,” my father replied smoothly, my hands moving to unfasten Lucian’s remaining garments. “The grimoire has… opened me to many things.”

Soon we were both naked, illuminated by the sickly glow of the candles.

The bed loomed before us, but I couldn’t look at it. I couldn’t bear the thought—

How far was I going to be pushed against my will?

My heart hammered against my ribs as my father guided me to sit on the edge of the mattress and my hand inched closer to where the dagger lay hidden.

Lucian followed, his movements slower than before. Was it the poison taking effect, or merely the deliberate prowl of a predator savoring the moment before the kill?

“I have waited for this,” he said as he knelt before me in a grotesque parody of supplication. “Since the moment I saw you— I knew you would be mine.”

His confession turned my stomach.

“How long ago was that?” I screamed. “How old was I?”

My voice echoed and then faded away.

“He married Julia to bring you back into his hands,” the voice whispered. “And he will pay the price—”

Lucian’s pale eyes burned into mine.

“Oh, I know,” my father said, and suddenly there was a shift in my voice—deeper, harsher, with an edge of masculine triumph that could not be disguised.

Lucian froze, and his eyes widened with the first flicker of uncertainty I’d ever seen in them.

“What did you say?” he demanded, pulling back slightly.

“I said, I know,” my father repeated, and this time he made no attempt to disguise the change. My voice emerged transformed—still coming from my throat but unmistakably male, resonant with a power that was not my own.

Recognition dawned in Lucian’s expression, followed swiftly by disbelief and then volcanic rage.

“Dario,” he spat, and the name sounded like poison on his tongue. “Impossible.”

“Not impossible,” my father replied, using my voice as his instrument of torment. “You arrogant bastard. Did you think death would stop me from protecting my daughter? Did you think death would stop me from claiming my vengeance?”

Lucian lurched to his feet, his face contorted with fury. “You’re dead. I watched you die!”

Sweat glistened on Lucian’s brow and his face twisted in anger and disbelief. His hands clenched into fists, knuckles white with rage beneath the black stains that mottled his skin.

“You watched my body die,” my father retorted. “But souls are harder to destroy— The grimoire saved me. Preserved my essence. For years I’ve watched and waited—”

“Impossible,” Lucian choked out.

“Souls cannot rest when there’s unfinished business.” He laughed, a sound so foreign coming from my lips that it sent chills down my spine. “And you, old friend, are my unfinished business.”

The red orb that had floated so passively nearby glowed brightly, and my hands tightened into fists as Lucian’s magic surged. A wave of crimson-tinged darkness crashed against us with enough force to shake the bed. I felt my father’s presence flare in response, channeling power through my body that I hadn’t known I possessed.

“You think you can challenge me?” Lucian growled as he raised his blackened hands. The stains seemed to writhe across his skin, extending further up his arms and across his chest like dark veins. “In that weak vessel? With borrowed power?”

“I don’t think,” my father replied calmly. “I know.”

Power exploded between us. Lucian’s magic collided with whatever force my father commanded through me. The impact sent reverberations through the room. Candles exploded into showers of hot wax, and a mirror shattered and crashed to the stone floor.

I felt my consciousness being pushed back, deeper into the recesses of my mind, as my father prepared for battle. But before I was completely submerged, I heard his voice, urgent and commanding.

“Reach for the dagger, Avril. When I give you control, strike without hesitation.”

Magic tore through the room like a storm of broken glass. My body moved with a fluidity I’d never possessed as my father wielded my limbs with the precision of a seasoned warrior.

Lucian’s power lashed out in violent bursts of crimson smoke, but there was something erratic in his movements now, a slight tremor in his hands that hadn’t been there before. Valen’s poison was working, corroding Lucian’s control from the inside out, and my father pressed our advantage without mercy.

“You should be more careful about what you drink at celebrations, Lucian,” my father taunted through my lips. “Your sons have more initiative than you give them credit for.”

Lucian let out a strangled cry as he unleashed another torrent of magic that my father deflected with a swift gesture of my hand. The force of it rattled the windows and sent the remaining candles guttering as their unnatural flames danced wildly in the disturbed air.

“Poison?” Lucian spat, his pale eyes narrowing. “You think some pathetic concoction can weaken me?”

But even as he spoke, I could see the evidence of his deterioration.

The black stains on his hands seemed to twist erratically, no longer flowing with smooth purpose but jerking and twitching beneath his skin. His chest heaved with labored breaths, and a thin sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead.

“I think it already has,” my father replied, and my lips curved into a cruel smile that wasn’t mine.

Lucian lunged forward with surprising speed, and his magic coalesced into a physical blow that caught us in the stomach. Pain exploded through my body as we crashed against the wall, and I felt my father’s control waver momentarily.

This was still my flesh taking these hits, my bones absorbing these impacts, and the agony threatened to overwhelm us both.

“You forget your place, Dario,” Lucian growled, advancing on us. “You were always second best. Always the follower , never the leader. Always craving what didn’t belong to you.”

My father channeled my pain into power and drew on reserves of magic I hadn’t known I possessed. My hands flew up, fingers twisting in complex patterns, and the air between us solidified into a barrier of pale violet smoke that repelled Lucian’s next attack.

“And you forget whom you’re dealing with,” my father retorted. “I was never your follower. I was biding my time.”

The magic that flowed through me was unlike anything I’d experienced before—dark and potent, ancient in its resonance. It felt like the grimoire’s essence had been transfused directly into my veins and transformed my gentle, hesitant magic into something primal and untamed.

My body burned with the effort of containing it, muscles straining against the onslaught of power. I could feel my lips cracking from the heat, and tasted blood on my tongue as capillaries burst beneath the pressure.

How much of this could my physical form endure?

A whimper escaped my lips as another wave of magic crashed against me.

“Patience,” my father whispered to me alone. “Just a little longer.”

Lucian gathered himself for another attack, but this time, his movements were unmistakably sluggish. The poison was spreading, its effects deepening with each passing minute.

He hurled a projectile of red-tinged smoke that went wide, striking the bedpost instead of us, but the impact sent splinters of carved wood exploding across the room.

“Your aim is failing you,” my father observed, using my voice to twist the knife of Lucian’s growing weakness. “Along with your power. How long do you really think you can keep control over the Necromi if you can’t control your own sons?”

Rage contorted Lucian’s features as he abandoned finesse for brute force, and charged at us with hands outstretched.

My father spun us aside and used Lucian’s momentum against him to send him crashing into the wardrobe.

The impact shattered the ornate furniture, and hope flared in my chest. “Did you— is he—”

But a roar of pain and anger ripped through the brief silence as Lucian emerged from the wreckage. A shard of dark, polished wood protruded from his shoulder. Blood—darker than human blood should be—oozed from the wound, and his breathing came in ragged gasps.

“I will not be defeated by a ghost and a girl,” he groaned as he ripped the chunk of splintered wood from his flesh with a grunt of pain.

“Not just any ghost,” my father replied. “The ghost of the man whose wife you corrupted and murdered. The ghost of the man who dared to stand against you. The ghost of the father whose daughter you tried to claim.”

My father’s rage flowed through me, amplifying my own, a shared fury that stoked our magic beyond what either of us could have manifested alone.

The power built within me, a pressure that threatened to tear me apart from within.

“Now, Avril,” my father’s voice echoed in my mind. “The dagger.”

In a disorienting rush, I felt control of my body returning.

The transition was jarring, like being pushed into the driver’s seat of a speeding car.

For a heartbeat, I froze, overwhelmed by the sudden sensory input—the pain of my battered body, the taste of blood in my mouth, the scorching heat of magic coursing through my veins.

“Strike!” my father urged from somewhere deep within me. “Now, while he’s weakened!”

Lucian saw the shift in my eyes, the change as I reclaimed control, and understanding dawned on his face. He lunged for me again, but his movements were sluggish, predictable. I rolled across the bed and my hand closed around the hilt of the blackened silver dagger just as he crashed onto the mattress beside me.

“You little bitch ,” he hissed as his blackened fingers closed around my throat. “I should have killed you when I killed your mother.”

His words ignited something primal within me.

My mother’s face flashed before my eyes—but this time it wasn’t her cruelty that I remembered. It was her laughter, and her smile—fleeting moments that weren’t a part of my memories… but Dario’s.

For too long, it had been her final unknowable moments that had haunted me—and then the image of her rotting shade as it reached for me with dead fingers…

With a scream that forced itself from my lips, I drove the dagger upward.

The blackened silver blade parted flesh and bone with terrible ease as it slid between Lucian’s ribs to find his heart.

His pale eyes widened in shock and pain, his grip on my throat slackened, but only a little even as his blood rushed over my hand in a hot gush.

“This is for my mother,” I snarled as I twisted the blade deeper. “And for every woman you’ve used and discarded.”

Lucian’s magic erupted in a final, desperate attempt to save himself. It poured from his wounds like smoke and whipped around us in a frenzy of dark energy that tore at my skin and hair.

The candles extinguished all at once and plunged the room into darkness, broken only by the eerie red glow of his failing power that came from the orb.

“You... cannot... kill... me,” he gasped as blood bubbled at the corners of his mouth. “The Necromi— I will be eternal—”

“ Nothing is eternal,” I replied. Despite the maelstrom of red smoke that raged around us, my voice was steady. “Especially not monsters like you.”

I clamped my legs around his waist and twisted hard, forcing him onto his back.

Straddling him, pinning him to the mattress, I pushed down on the dagger. My magic surged and swirled around my hands, lending strength to my hands and arms as the blade penetrated deeper, until the hilt pressed against his chest.

Lucian’s back arched in agony, and a scream tore from his throat that seemed to vibrate at a frequency beyond normal hearing. The black stains on his skin began to writhe and contort, spreading rapidly across his chest and up his neck like living ink, seeking escape from a dying host.

His hand shot up and gripped my throat with surprising strength, and I let out a cry as his nails dug into my flesh. For a terrible moment, I thought he might overpower me after all—that despite the poison, despite the dagger in his heart, his evil might prevail.

Tears streamed down my face and dripped off my chin as I pushed harder.

“Just— Die!” I screamed.

His fingers tightened, bloody teeth bared in fury as I stared down at him…

But then his grip faltered.

His eyes were fixed on mine and burned with hatred—but then they dimmed. The storm of magic that swirled around us weakened and then swirled into smaller and smaller currents until it dissipated entirely.

“My sons...” he hissed. Blood stained his teeth black in the darkness. “They will never... forgive you.”

“They’ll only be angry that I didn’t let them kill you themselves,” I said through gritted teeth as I pushed his hand away from my throat.

Lucian’s lips moved once more, forming words I couldn’t hear, and his blackened fingers twitched against the coverlet.

The black stains on his skin ceased their frantic movement as they settled into a pattern that looked more like decay than anything… Rotten bastard.

Then, with a sound like a sigh, his body seemed to collapse in on itself.

Not decomposing, but compressing, as if some essential force that had been keeping him inflated had finally been released.

The glowing red orb that followed him everywhere flickered brightly, and then fell to the stone floor with a crash that made me flinch, but I didn’t release my grip on the hilt of the dagger.

The man who had married my mother, murdered her, and sought to claim me was dead. The Romano patriarch, the terror of Messana, had died by my hand.

And in the silence that followed, I realized I could no longer feel my father’s presence within me.

I looked down at Lucian’s collapsed form, the dagger still buried in his chest, my hands sticky with his unnaturally dark blood. Something was happening inside me—a vacuum where my father’s presence had been, drew me toward Lucian with the inexorable pull of a tide.

My fingers trembled as they reached for the dagger’s hilt, not to remove it, but to press deeper. I didn’t understand the compulsion that gripped me, but I couldn’t resist it any more than I could stop my own heartbeat.

“Father?” I whispered, searching for any remnant of his presence. But the hollowness inside me remained, a space waiting to be filled.

Power radiated from Lucian’s corpse in waves I could almost see—dark currents that lapped at my skin like hungry tongues. The black stains that had marked his hands now spread across his entire body, transforming from random patterns into deliberate shapes that now resembled arcane sigils.

My hands moved of their own accord, one gripped the hilt of the dagger while the other pressed flat against Lucian’s chest. Words bubbled up from some place deep inside me, from knowledge I hadn’t known I possessed.

The language was ancient and twisted, each syllable like a thorn in my mouth as I spoke.

“From flesh now still and soul undone, let dying fire pass to one.”

The words flowed from my lips without conscious thought and echoed in the darkened chamber.

Lucian’s blood began to move beneath my palm, not flowing outward but creeping up my fingertips. It climbed my wrist in thin rivulets that burned like acid.

“By blood unbroken, bond be sealed. Their power mine—by death revealed.”

The air in the room thickened and pressed against my skin with suffocating weight. The dagger in Lucian’s chest vibrated against my palm, gently at first, and then stronger. Its blackened blade glowed with a dull red light that pulsed in time with the words I continued to chant.

“Through marrow deep and shadow’s claim, I rise reborn, and bear their name.”

Pain exploded through my body as the power transferred—not just magic, but knowledge, memories, secrets that had been locked in Lucian’s corrupted soul.

I saw flashes of his life: rituals performed in blood-soaked chambers, women sacrificed on altars of ambition, the slow corruption of his sons from innocent children to damaged men.

And I saw my mother.

I saw Lucian’s hand at her throat, her dark eyes wide with betrayal as he drained her life force to fuel his next ascension. I felt his pleasure at her suffering, his contemptuous dismissal of her obsessive and twisted love.

She had traded me for that marriage.

That was her prize.

And he had killed her and taken her power when he’d tired of her.

I knew now that he had always intended it to be that way.

My back arched, and I screamed as the visions tore through me, each one a fresh wound in my psyche. But still the power flowed, filling the vacuum left by my father’s departure, transforming me cell by cell into something new and terrible.

“Avril.”

My father’s voice, no longer inside my mind but beside me. I turned my head, vision blurring with tears and power, to see a translucent figure standing beside the bed.

“Father,” I gasped in a voice that was raw from the spells I’d cast and the screams that had ripped from my throat during my possession. “You’re still here.”

“Not for long,” he replied and his form wavered like a reflection in disturbed water. “What binds me to this world grows weaker by the moment.”

“Don’t leave me,” I pleaded. I reached for him with a hand that now bore the faintest trace of black staining at the fingertips—like Lucian’s, but new, still developing.

“I have to,” he said, his expression gentle yet resolved. “My task is complete. Lucian is destroyed. You are safe... and powerful beyond what even I imagined possible.”

Another spike of pain ricocheted through my body and my body contorted again. The transfer of power continued, flowing up my arms and spreading through my chest. I could feel it changing me, not just physically but fundamentally—altering the very fabric of my being. The magic that had once been gentle and hesitant was now something darker, more assertive.

Everything I’d been was burning away to be replaced by a knowledge that felt ancient and merciless.

“This isn’t what I wanted,” I whispered, though even as I spoke, I felt the pull of the power, and the seductive whisper of what I could become.

“It’s what was necessary,” my father replied. “And now it’s what you are. The heir of Withermarsh, in truth, not just in name.”

His form flickered again, growing fainter. “Your stepbrothers will return,” he continued urgently. “They won’t understand at first. They’ll see only what Lucian taught them to see—power as something to fear, to resist, to overthrow.”

“They’ll hate me,” I realized, thinking of Titus’s expression of betrayal at the reception, of Valen’s cold fury, of Bastian’s bitter stare.

“Perhaps,” my father acknowledged. “But they are bound to you, and you to them. In time, they’ll see that what you’ve done was for them as much as for yourself.”

The last of Lucian’s power surged into me, a final wave that left me gasping. The black stains on my fingertips crawled higher and wrapped around my wrists in delicate patterns.

“You are the mistress of Withermarsh now,” my father said as his voice grew distant. “The estate belongs to you. The Necromi belong to you— The city…” He paused to take a shuddering breath. “Remember who you were, Avril. Remember what made you different from them.”

His form was barely visible now, a suggestion of a shape rather than a definite presence. “I’m proud of you,” he whispered.

Then he was gone, dissipating like mist in the morning light.

The space where he had stood was empty, and I was truly alone.

I collapsed on my side next to Lucian’s body, my leg still sprawled over his thighs. The damask coverlet stuck to my blood-slicked skin, but I was too exhausted to move. I wanted nothing more than to fall into the black void of unconsciousness, but the power that thrummed through me kept me alert and hypersensitive to every shadow and sound in the chamber.

The brand on my thigh pulsed painfully enough to make my breath hiss through my teeth, but then it stopped. I reached down to trace a tentative, blood crusted finger along the place where the brand had been, but my flesh was smooth and unblemished.

The entity—my father—was gone.

Only I remained.

Mistress of Withermarsh.

Heir to Lucian’s power.

The words swirled in my mind as my body shuddered and adjusted to the influx of power. I knew I should feel horror at what I’d done… at what I’d become.

I should feel guilt for the dark road I’d chosen, for the innocent girl I’d left behind.

Instead, I felt only justification.

I had killed a monster who deserved to die.

I had avenged my mother.

I had claimed the power that Lucian had withheld from his sons—I had taken the power that should have been my father’s.

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the canopy of the bed where Lucian had intended to claim me.

My naked body tingled with new awareness, every nerve ending alive with magic that recognized no boundaries, no limitations. The black markings continued to spread slowly across my skin, not corrupting but transforming, creating a map of the power I now commanded.

Titus. Valen. Bastian.

How would they react to what I had done?

I’d asked them to trust me—bound them to it. Forced them to comply.

They were already angry with me.

Against my will, Lucian’s words flooded back into my mind. And with them—doubt.

An edge of paranoia that didn’t feel like it belonged to me.

Would they rebel against me?

Would they try to kill me for what I’d done? For the legacy I’d stolen from them?

Would they ever trust me again?

My rage, my grief, my fear had kept me from considering anything but what I needed.

My desire for freedom, and my father’s desire for revenge, had overridden my awareness.

With a groan, I pushed myself off the bed and stood.

My body felt strange and unnatural, and my movements were uncertain. My skin ached and every muscle was on fire. But I was alive. I was changed.

Lucian’s orb lay on the stone floor, broken in half with shards scattered across the stone. The red glow was gone, and it looked like frosted glass, drained of Lucian’s life force and power.

Withermarsh was mine.

The Necromi were mine.

If I wanted it, Messana was mine.

But I needed more than possession of an estate and a group of followers to hold on to what I’d taken.

I needed allies.

I needed Titus, Valen, and Bastian.

But the power I’d taken... It terrified me.

I could feel it now, humming along my skin, resonating with the new markings that spread like delicate lace over my arms. My transformation was not complete.

But when it was...

What would I become?

Despite the magnitude of the magic that coursed through me, I felt strangely small in the shadow of what I had done.

My gaze flickered to the bed where Lucian’s corpse sprawled in a grotesque display on the rich damask.

I had expected triumph, but in its place was uncertainty.

For the first time since my father had possessed me, I felt the weight of being alone.

Truly alone.

“They will never forgive you…”

I glared at Lucian’s corpse.

A liar to the last breath.

They would forgive me.

They had to.