Chapter 57 Stolen Moments
Kaelen's POV
"MOVE!" I grab Lyra and Stella, pulling them away from the crack.
The First rises from the darkness like a nightmare given form. Its body shifts—vampire one moment, angel the next, demon after that. Never fully one thing. Always all three.
Morgana throws every ounce of power she has at it. Ice, wind, ancient magic that makes the air scream.
It swats her attack away like an annoying fly.
"Run!" Morgana shouts. "I'll hold—"
The First's hand closes around her throat, lifting her off the ground.
"No!" I start toward her, but she shakes her head violently.
"Protect them! The children are what matters!"
She speaks words in a language older than vampire, older than angel. The air rips open beside us—a portal crackling with silver light.
"GO!" she screams, even as the First's claws dig into her skin.
I don't think. Just grab Lyra and Stella and dive through.
The portal snaps shut behind us.
We tumble out into a small stone room lit by a single lamp. The air smells old. Dusty. Safe.
For now.
Stella collapses, her silver glow fading. "Morgana—is she—"
"I don't know." My voice is rough. Through the bond, I feel Lyra's grief and terror mixing with my own. "But she bought us time. We can't waste it."
The room is barely bigger than a closet. Old blankets in one corner. A rusted water pipe dripping into a bucket. One of Morgana's hidden safe houses, probably.
I lay Stella on the blankets. She's unconscious again, completely drained.
"Will she be okay?" Lyra's voice shakes.
"I think so. The power surge exhausted her, but she's breathing steady." I check Stella's pulse to be sure. "She needs rest."
Lyra sinks down beside her sister, and I see her walls finally cracking. Three years of being strong. Three years of carrying everything alone. And now this—angels, darkness, the truth about her mother.
It's too much.
"Lyra—"
"They killed her." Her voice breaks. "They killed my mom because she tried to protect us. And then they turned her into a vampire and used her to betray us. They took everything from her. From us."
I sit beside her, close but not touching. "I know."
"Do you?" She looks at me with eyes full of pain. "Do you really know what it's like to have everything you believed be a lie?"
"Yes." The word comes out quiet. "Seraphine. Four hundred years thinking she died because I failed to protect her. Then learning my own sister killed her. And now—" I stop. "Now learning even that might be a lie. That my father might have orchestrated everything."
Through the bond, understanding flows between us. Not just sympathy. True understanding.
We've both been used. Both been manipulated. Both lost people we loved to plans we never saw coming.
"I thought I was protecting Stella by working as a blood donor," Lyra says quietly. "Thought I was doing the right thing. But I was just playing into their hands the whole time."
"You were surviving. That's not weakness." I touch her hand gently. "You kept your sister alive for three years against impossible odds. That took strength."
"You survived four hundred years of loneliness." Her fingers tighten on mine. "That took strength too."
The mark on my chest burns. Not painful. Just alive. Aware.
"Lyra," I say her name softly.
She looks up at me, and in the lamplight, her brown eyes shine with unshed tears. But also with something else. Something that makes my dead heart feel like it's beating again.
"You understand," I realize. "In ways no one else ever has. Not vampire. Not anyone."
"Because we're the same." She shifts closer. "Both alone. Both hurting. Both trying so hard to be strong that we forgot how to be weak."
The bond sings between us. Gold light pulsing in rhythm with our breathing.
I lean closer. She doesn't pull away.
"I spent four centuries afraid to feel this," I whisper. "Afraid that caring would destroy me."
"And now?" Her voice is barely audible.
"Now I'm more afraid of not feeling it."
Our lips are inches apart. The mark burns brighter. Every instinct screams at me to close the distance, to—
Footsteps.
Above us. On the floor overhead.
We freeze.
Someone is here. In whatever building Morgana sent us to. Walking slowly. Deliberately.
Searching.
I put a finger to my lips, signaling Lyra to stay silent. Through the bond, I feel her heart racing.
The footsteps stop.
Directly above us.
Then a voice speaks. Female. Familiar. Impossible.
"I know you're down there, brother. Did you really think a simple portal could hide from me?"
Nyx.
But her voice sounds wrong. Different. Like when Mom spoke with multiple voices layered together.
"I made a deal while you ran," she continues. "The First offered me something I couldn't refuse. Unlimited power. Freedom from our father's control. All I had to do was help it find you."
The floor above us starts to crack.
"So come out, little brother. Bring the bridges. Let's finish what we started a thousand years ago."
The ceiling caves in.
And Nyx drops through, but she's changed. Her silver eyes burn with red fire. Her body radiates darkness that makes my angel blood scream.
She's no longer just vampire.
She's become something worse.
And she's not alone.
Behind her, stepping through the hole in the ceiling, are three figures I recognize from history books. From nightmares.
The original vampire lords. The ones who ruled before the Council. The ones we thought were destroyed.
They're awake.
And they're smiling at us like we're dinner.