Page 91 of Blood Vows
“For us.”
He caught her wrist, gentle but firm, lowering her touch.
“Do not play games with me, Calista. You know the dangers of what you suggest.”
“I suggest nothing,” she said, feigning innocence, though her eyes gleamed like cut emeralds.
“I only wish for what every wife wishes. Security. Power. A place among those who rule, not those who serve.” He turned from her, pacing toward the fire.
“You speak of the Fondatori again,” he said with quiet disdain.
“You know as well as I that their power is not ours to claim.”
“But it could be,”she whispered, stepping closer, her reflection caught in the glass of the window beside him.
“You are stronger than they are, Sebastian. Smarter. You only lack the courage to reach for what should already be yours.”
“Courage?” His voice cracked with disbelief.
“You speak of courage, yet what you really mean is greed.” Her smile did not falter.
“Call it what you will. But our sons deserve more than a name whispered in the shadows. Do you want them to live forever beneath those who have taken from us? Those who treat our family as lesser?” He turned sharply, his temper flashing, but she was already closing the distance. Her hands rose to his face, soft, coaxing, the way they had been when love between them had still been real. Her voice lowered, a sweet poison in his ear.
“Do it for them,” she breathed.
“Do it for me.”He froze.
“I will not bargain with demons,” he said at last, the words a tremor of conviction and fear. But she smiled. That soft, knowing smile that promised everything while hiding the blade behind her back.
“You already have,”she whispered. The image shifted. Time fractured. Another night, decades later. Vas in the corridor, hearing the echo of their voices, hearing the argument unfold. Her pleading. His father’s refusal. The crash of glass. The sound of a single word spoken in a tongue not meant for mortal mouths.
Then just like that, time shifted again and to one that was before the argument Vas had heard. The time the demon heard the call of a bargain.
Their mother, Calista stood in an alleyway, cloaked in finery that once held beauty but now stank of decay. Her fingers trembled as she pressed gold into the palm of a hooded stranger.
“Take it… Take their blood. He will never know.” she hissed. And the stranger, that thing in a man’s shape, its features cloaked, took it. The demon’s voice filled the air, smooth and deep, as it echoed through the vision.
“The power you seek is not yours. It belongs to the men of your blood. From father to son, from darkness to darkness. Not to you.” Her rage flared bright enough to burn the heavens. And from that fury, the curse was born, as in her desperation forpower, she made a bargain. Not only for the curse of darkness but something for herself. A necklace forged from her bitterness, a drop of the demon’s essence hardened into crimson crystal. A thing made not of love, but of envy.
A gift. A curse.
And with it, she began to weave her lies.
The scenes bled together, impossible to stop. The father discovering the truth, begging her to stop. The demon appearing, its voice crawling across the walls like smoke. Her rage consumed everything. She had wanted what her husband possessed. The shadows. The control. The worship. But when she could not take them, she made a new bargain. One steeped in deceit.
The necklace was her gift.
I saw it born in a pit of flame, forged from the demon’s own blood, its surface pulsing like a living heart. A cursed stone that could bend truth to her will, that could make the purest love curdle into hatred.
And she used it.
Night after night, she whispered lies into her son’s ears, twisting his heart, poisoning his memories until her husband became the monster she wanted him to be.
As for their father, he had found love elsewhere. His fated mate. His salvation. He had planned to leave that very night, to start again, to escape the poison that his wife had become.
But she had found out.
The vision twisted, and I saw her watching from the shadows of the estate gardens, her pale face illuminated by the soft glow of lantern light that spilled from the stables. Her eyes, green and gold, burned with something unholy as they followed her husband. He was not alone.
