Page 87 of Blood Vows
Ancient and Ageless.
It wound through the air like smoke, soft and intoxicating, curling its words into the cracks of my mind.
‘So long… buried, forgotten, denied… but you hear me, don’t you, little flame? You can feel me.’
My breath came quick and shallow.
“Who are you?” I whispered, though part of me already knew the answer. It was in the weight of the voice, in the way it pressed against my skin like invisible hands.
‘The truth,’it breathed.
‘The truth they buried beneath blood and lies.’
The room quivered, the shadows thickening around me. The floor creaked beneath me as if something beneath the house itself was shifting, stirring from a long sleep.
I wanted to drop the necklace. I wanted to run. But I couldn’t. My fingers wouldn’t obey. The heat from the stone seeped intomy veins, racing up my arm like liquid fire, until it reached my heart and settled there, pulsing in rhythm with it.
Images flashed behind my eyes… blood… stone… a woman screaming and a dagger glinting in candlelight. And then a voice, this time masculine, low and furious.
‘You promised me a Fated one!’
I stumbled back, clutching my chest, the world spinning.
“Stop,” I begged.
“Please, stop!”
But the voice only grew louder.
‘They never wanted you to know. You are the key, little flame. The bond was never theirs to claim. It was his… our king.’
The light flared, flooding the room in a deep, red glow. My breath hitched. For an instant, I saw something in the reflection of the mirror, not myself, but a woman with eyes like molten gold and a crown of darkness, watching me as though she’d been waiting.
Then, as quickly as it began, the light dimmed.
Silence.
Only my heartbeat remained, ragged and uneven, echoing in the hollow space of the room. The necklace had cooled in my palm, but its pulse still throbbed faintly, alive and aware.
And then I felt it.
A presence.
Not the one whispering to me. Not the ancient thing that had spoken of truths and curses. This was something else…Someone else.
The moment I felt it, I knew.
Vas.
It wasn’t just his presence. It was his pain. His fear. It tore through me like a shuddering breath of winter air, sharp and suffocating. The connection between us burned to life in aninstant, the bond forged by his blood and my veins blazing with warning.
Something was wrong.
I didn’t think.
I just ran.
The corridors stretched endlessly before me, the darkness swallowing the edges of my vision as the pounding of my footsteps echoed against the ancient stone floors. My heart hammered, each beat faster than the last, the necklace still clenched tightly in my hand, its faint glow lighting the way like a dying ember.
