Page 110 of Nocturne

“Not just your blood type,” Abe corrects. “Your nature. A vampire with AB negative blood. It’s extraordinarily rare, more so than with humans—I’ve encountered perhaps one or two in all my centuries.”

“So they’ll try to drain me dry to open their doorway,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “To escape a world where they can’t freely slaughter humans.”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Adonis says, speaking for the first time since we arrived. “Many of our kind believe humans are destined to destroy themselves and this world with them. That our only hope for long-term survival lies in returning to the Red Realm.”

“Do you believe that?” I ask, looking around at each of them.

“I believe in balance,” Abe says carefully. “In finding ways to coexist. The Ivanovs never sought that balance. They see humans as livestock, nothing more.”

“And what happens if they succeed?” I ask. “If they open this gateway? Theoretically, they would leave this world. Isn’t that for the best?”

“Theoretically, yes,” Abe says. “But you, my dear…you’re the price. Which is why the doorway won’t be opened.”

“We won’t let that happen,” Valtu says.

“When did you learn all this?” I ask.

“Non-stop digging since you left the house,” Ezra says, jerking his shoulder toward Abe. “Their detective skills are on par with Callahan’s.”

The mention of his name makes my heart sink.

“What about Callahan?” I press. “Where does he fit into their plans?”

Another exchange of glances, this one more weighted than before. Valtu opens his mouth to speak.

“Val,” Abe says, a warning in his tone.

But Valtu shakes his head. “She deserves to know what we learned. Especially now.” He turns to me, his dark eyes uncharacteristically serious. “The Ivanovs aren’t just any vampire family. They’re one of the original bloodlines from Skarde. Some of the oldest vampires alive. Their blood carries potency. Power.”

Understanding begins to dawn. “And Callahan?”

“Dmitri Ivanov had a son,” Valtu says simply. “A child he gave up for adoption thirty-five years ago, as an experiment. To see if vampire nature would emerge even without knowledge of one’s heritage. To see if blood truly is destiny.”

The room tilts around me as the implications sink in. “You’re saying…Callahan is Dmitri’s son? He’s an Ivanov?”

“By blood, yes,” Abe confirms gently. “Though not by choice or knowledge.”

“That’s why he’s so strong,” I murmur, remembering how he matched Konstantin in combat despite his newborn status. “Why his transition has been so strange…so violent.”

“And why Dmitri won’t kill him,” Ezra adds, trying to assuage me. “The Ivanovs are obsessed with bloodlines, with legacy. Dmitri won’t destroy his own son, no matter how he was raised.”

“He’ll try to turn him instead,” I say, cold certainty settling in my stomach. “To bring him into the family. To make him an Ivanov in truth as well as blood.”

The silence confirms my fear.

“And you found this out through your detective work too?”

“We suspected when you first described him,” Abe admits. “A vampire who didn’t know what he was until his thirty-fifth birthday? A vampire that was adopted? Then when Valtu met him…”

“He moves like Dmitri,” Valtu interrupts. “Looks like Dmitri, too. I know the Ivanovs. He has the same patterns, the same instincts. Blood remembers, even when the mind doesn’t.”

I rise abruptly, pacing across the room as I try to process everything. Callahan, an Ivanov by blood. A son of the man behind Elizabeth’s murder, behind the ritual killings, behind the horror we’ve witnessed. The same blood flows in his veins as in Dmitri’s, as in Katya’s and the now-dead Tatiana’s.

Wait a minute.

“Tatiana,” I say slowly, making a face. “Katya. They’re his sisters?”

Abe nods. “Yes.”

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