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S ebastian was so caught off guard by the sudden appearance of the blade that it took him a moment to realize what was happening. Isabel slumped into his arms, her eyes glazing over and the sound of her heart coming to an abrupt halt. “What did you do?! ” he screamed at Vlad.

“I told you. The girl has to die,” Vlad replied, his voice entirely business as usual. He pulled the dagger from Isabel’s back, licked the blood from the blade, and put it back in his pocket.

Sebastian’s first instinct was to fly into a rage and tear Vlad’s head off. But the weight of Isabel’s body grounded him enough to avoid starting a war for real. He pressed his ear to her chest and heard her heart beat once, twice…and then stop. “ Dolcezza! ” he howled in agony.

Josephine pressed her ear to Isabel’s back and confirmed her lack of pulse. “Victor, it’s time,” she cried, and stepped out of the way so the master vampire could reach her. “Please let this work!”

Sebastian repositioned Isabel so her arms were around his neck, and he felt her warm blood soaking through his shirt and clinging to his skin.

He swept her hair to one side, exposing her neck, and closed his eyes.

Victor stepped up, fangs extended, and sank them right into her jugular vein.

His fangs remained embedded in her skin for a solid thirty seconds as he pumped venom deep into her body.

Sebastian couldn’t bring himself to look until he felt the extra pressure disappear. Once the bite was finished, he carried her into the next room where a gurney gave him a place to lay her down. Seeing her there, pale and covered in blood, made him dry heave out of sheer despair.

“Wake up,” he murmured, smoothing her hair and running his hand up and down her arm. Josephine stood on the other side and held Isabel’s hand, pressing her forehead to their entwined fingers.

Yet Isabel remained still and cold on the gurney.

“It really should have worked by now, if we were within the correct window,” Victor murmured while standing in the doorway watching the proceedings.

Remus lingered over his shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of Isabel and avoid seeing her body at the same time.

“Give it a few more minutes,” Vlad said. “She was fully dead. Sometimes it takes a few minutes for everything to restart, assuming the brain wasn’t damaged too badly. You might have your healer bite her again, just in case the heart needs help.”

Josephine needed no further prodding. She again bit Isabel’s wrist and licked the wound. “Her skin healed,” she announced, a small light of hope in her voice.

Sebastian perked up and checked Isabel’s neck to discover Victor’s fang marks were missing as well. “That’s good. It has to be,” he insisted, continuing to stroke her face and arms. “Come on, my love. You can do this. You shouldn’t be immune anymore.”

Silence fell over the room as Sebastian examined every feature of his beloved. He couldn’t help worrying that this would be his last chance to see her.

He drank in the way her long eyelashes curled upward. The curve of her lips. How her hair framed her delicate face. The tiny freckle on her nose. He memorized it all.

And then, her eyelids flickered. Everyone in the room held their breath as Isabel’s eyes slowly opened. She took a deep breath and life returned to her face. “My throat is burning,” she whispered in a hoarse voice. “Why is my throat burning?”

Sebastian and Remus let out sighs of relief, while Josephine collapsed against the gurney. “Get her some blood,” Victor ordered, and Sebastian opened the morgue fridge to pull out two bags of blood from the coven’s stash.

“You lost a ton of blood today, so it makes sense you’d need to feed immediately,” he said, and began kneading the bag with his hands to warm it at least a little bit. “This is probably going to be a disgusting introduction to your new life, but this will make you feel better.”

“Let’s sit you up,” Josephine said softly, and helped Isabel upright.

“Open your mouth for me? I want to see if your fangs have grown in yet.” Isabel opened her mouth and her eyes widened in surprise as her fangs extended for the first time.

“Yes, very good! Think of them as straws and you’ll be able to feed just fine. ”

Sebastian positioned the pouch in front of Isabel’s mouth.

“It might help to close your eyes the first time, too,” he suggested.

At Sebastian’s urging, Isabel’s fangs pierced the plastic.

The blood began to disappear and color appeared in Isabel’s cheeks.

“That’s my good girl,” he whispered. “Drink it all up.”

As she drank, Sebastian pierced the second bag and swiftly drained it. It was, in fact, disgusting. But as it flowed into his veins, he could feel the strength returning to his body. He let out a sigh of relief and returned his attention to Isabel.

The bag was empty, and Isabel withdrew her fangs and smiled. “It really worked,” she exclaimed. “I can’t believe it finally worked! You know what this means?”

“That we never have to lose each other again,” Sebastian replied. He wrapped his arms around her and their lips met, drinking each other in deeply, as if making up for lost time. They may have remained locked in that moment for hours if they hadn’t had an impatient audience standing nearby.

Vlad cleared his throat and the pair broke the kiss.

“Yes, very nice, the plan worked. Congratulations on the new member of the family, Victor. But there is still a matter of business to attend to. Sebastian, Remus, follow me. We have to reunite you with the parts of yourselves that were in the paintings.”

“It didn’t happen automatically?” Sebastian looked at Vlad quizzically, and the original vampire sighed.

“No. You really did not even know that? Victor, you have failed these men. When this is all over, I am taking them back to my coven and training them properly. I am well aware you have been under some delusion that I would wipe out your coven if you ever contacted us again, but that was never true. There is no excuse for your family to have no idea how their magic works.”

Victor’s face screwed up in anger, then frustration, then embarrassment. “Of course, Father,” he finally said, hanging his head. Vlad gave a nod and gestured for Sebastian and Remus to follow him.

Sebastian glanced back and forth between Victor and Vlad, feeling a small part of his world beginning to crumble. The war between their covens had been something lingering above them all for his entire existence. And yet it was nothing more than Victor being dramatic?

He couldn’t help mumbling to himself, “I guess that’s where I get it from…”

The three re-entered the crematorium, where the ovens were beginning to cool. “Get some of the ash,” Vlad ordered, “and make sure yours comes from the right oven, Remus.” He waited while they fished some of the ash out of the still-hot ovens and returned to his side.

“Very good. Now, this is just an extension of your magic and should come naturally. You must wet your finger with blood and use it to make a paste with the ash. Ideally this blood should come from the painting subject, but other blood will work in a pinch. Luckily there is plenty of hers available. Then use the resulting paint to draw a symbol on your arm. Something that is uniquely yours. For example, mine is the dragon.”

Sebastian grimaced as he gripped the front of his shirt and wet his fingers with Isabel’s blood. Remus scooped some from the puddle on the floor, and each of them mixed the blood into the ash. Sebastian drew a crude image of the dog pendant on his wrist, while Remus chose the moon.

“Now pull your magic up and call to the missing parts of you. Draw them into your symbol and use it as a door for them to re-enter your body.”

Rather like using a muscle in a new way, it took Sebastian very little time to call his magic up, but much longer to figure out how to use it as Vlad instructed.

Once he felt it reach the symbol and begin pulling in…

something , though? He felt as if he were riding the highest high.

Energy he couldn’t see poured into his veins and pulsed through his body, making him feel stronger by the moment.

Having reduced his magic one increment at a time, he had never realized how much weaker it had become.

But now his body hummed with power. The warm feeling ended and his magic returned to the simmering pool deep inside of him, its width and depth increased twofold. “Wow,” he whispered, flexing his fingers and watching how his tendons moved the black dog.

“That feels much better, doesn’t it? Now that everything has been returned to equilibrium?

” Vlad smiled and clapped a hand on each of the other vampires’ shoulders, and both of them nodded.

“Very good. There are so many more things to teach you both about the magic that we share. Do not let Victor convince you that anyone from your coven is unwelcome in their ancestral home. Just because he and I have not seen eye to eye in a very long time does not mean the rest of you have to stay away.”

Feeling whole for the first time ever, Sebastian clasped Vlad’s hand in a firm handshake. “Thank you, Grandfather. As soon as my wife and I are recovered from this ordeal, we’ll take you up on that offer. Do you mind if I return to her now?”

Vlad patted Sebastian’s shoulder and smiled. “Go. She’s waiting for you.”