Page 89 of Blood Vows
He woke with a violence that shattered the quiet, his body coiling upright in one fluid motion that was too fast, too inhuman to follow. His eyes snapped open, glowing white, and the air in the room shifted.
Shadows spilled across the floor, crawling up the walls like smoke, alive and furious. The fire surged in the hearth, its light devoured by the darkness that radiated from Vas in waves.
Victor took a step back, his jaw clenched tight as he raised a hand to shield his eyes from the sudden flare. Tal held his ground, his own dagger glinting wickedly in his grasp.
“Vas!” Victor barked, his voice low and strained,
“Stop! You need to stay where you are!” he ordered but Vas’s head tilted slowly toward him, and the sight of his brothers standing there next to his bed was all it took for that decades-oldrage to come roaring back to life. His voice was no longer calm, no longer controlled. It was thunder, jagged and merciless.
“You dare come here…”he growled, rising from the bed to his feet, the darkness lifting him like giant serpents were growing from his back, the sound of his growing fury shaking the walls.
“…Into my home. Into my chamber…. To steal her from me!”
Tal took another step forward, his own fury boiling over.
“You left us no choice!”
“THERE WAS ALWAYS A CHOICE!” Vas roared. The shadows burst outward like a living tempest, slamming into the walls with a force that sent dust and books tumbling from the shelves. Victor lunged first, faster than I could blink, but Vas caught his wrist mid-strike, twisting it sharply until the blade clattered from his grasp. Tal moved next, trying to strike from behind, but Vas turned, catching him by the throat, slamming him back against the wall with a strength that made the entire room tremble.
“Stop it!” I screamed, my voice drowned by the chaos, but none of them heard me.
The dagger spun across the floor, skittering through the blood-red glow of the firelight before coming to rest at my feet.
My breath caught.
Yet each of them was oblivious to it, to what was happening. The fighting continued and I was terrified that anyone of them would get hurt. The power thrummed in the air like a heartbeat, each of them equal in strength.
“Run!” Victor roared, the single word raw with desperation.
“Get out of here!” Tal echoed, still pinned beneath Vas’s grip.
“Don’t move!”Vas snapped, his voice layered with something between command and fear. But I couldn’t listen. My body refused to move, torn between the three of them, between the shadows and the blood and the terrible truth that bound them all.
“Please… please… stop this, all of you!” I choked, tears burning behind my eyes. Because no one listened to my pleas. Instead, the darkness flared again, sweeping across the room like a storm. The lamps shattered, the mirrors cracked, and the wind howled through the open window, carrying the sound of my scream through the night. And somewhere in that chaos, I realized the dagger was humming.
Not from power.
From recognition.
It knew me.
A whisper.
Soft at first, almost like a thought that wasn’t my own. It slipped beneath the roar of my pulse, curling through the silence like smoke. My hand twitched toward the dagger. I knew they wouldn’t stop, not unless I gave them something greater to fear. Something none of them wanted but that would force them to end this madness. So, I reached for it, my fingers closing around the hilt, and before anyone could react, I pressed the blade’s tip to my neck. A sharp sting bloomed as I drew blood on purpose, the metallic scent cutting through the chaos.
It worked.
Every movement froze. Three pairs of eyes snapped toward me, their voices overlapping as they breathed my name in horror.
“Nessa?”The echo of it didn’t stop me. If anything, it gave me strength.
“I swear,” I said, my voice steady despite the tremor in my hands,
“That I will drive this blade into my neck if either of you hurt the other!”
“Hey now, peaches, let’s not act too hasty,” Tal said lightly, though his eyes betrayed his panic.
“Listen to us, firefly,” Victor added, hands raised.
