Chapter 15 The Blood Bond Mark
SEBASTIAN'S POV
Monster-Celeste's claws slashed toward Aria's throat.
I moved without thinking, throwing myself between them. Pain exploded across my chest as her claws tore through me instead. Through our bond, I felt Aria's scream more than heard it.
"Run!" I shouted, shoving her toward Kieran. "Get her to the Void Gate!"
"I'm not leaving you!" Aria fought against Kieran's grip, tears streaming down her face.
"Fifty-eight minutes!" Roslyn yelled. "Uncle Sebastian, we're out of time!"
Celeste laughed, her monster voice echoing off the walls. "You think you can perform the ritual? I'll kill you both before you get anywhere near that gate!"
She lunged again. This time, Prince Dante intercepted her, his own power flaring. "Go!" he shouted at us. "I'll hold her!"
Other vampires jumped into the fight—nobles who'd served under Morgana, now trying to redeem themselves. Even some of the human soldiers joined in, firing arrows that barely slowed the creature down.
Kieran dragged Aria toward the door. I started to follow, but Celeste's tail—she had a tail now, covered in spikes—whipped out and wrapped around my ankle.
"Sebastian!" Aria's power flared golden, and suddenly the bond between us pulled tight. I felt her strength flowing into me, and I managed to tear free from Celeste's grip.
We ran.
Through corridors. Down stairs. Out into the courtyard where the Void Gate pulsed like a diseased heart. It was massive now, easily fifty feet tall, and through it I could see darkness that hurt to look at.
"How do we do this?" Aria gasped, holding her side where a stitch had formed. "My mother didn't tell us how to perform the ritual!"
I looked at the gate, at the ancient magic swirling around it. Then I looked at Aria—brave, stubborn, impossible Aria who'd somehow made me feel human again.
"A soul-binding requires truth," I said, taking her hands. "Complete honesty. No walls. No secrets."
Behind us, an explosion rocked the palace. Celeste had broken free from Dante.
"We have maybe five minutes," Kieran warned.
I ignored him, focusing only on Aria. "I have to tell you something. Something I've never told anyone."
"Sebastian, we don't have time—"
"The night my family died," I interrupted, "I could have saved them. I was strong enough. Fast enough. But I froze. I was terrified, and in that moment of fear, they all died." My voice cracked. "For eight hundred years, I've performed that ritual not just because of the curse, but because I believed I deserved to be a monster. That I'd failed so completely that becoming death itself was the only fitting punishment."
Aria's eyes filled with tears. "That's not true. You were young. Scared. That doesn't make you—"
"Let me finish." I touched her face gently. "Then you came along, and you didn't see a monster. You saw... me. The person I used to be before grief broke me. And I realized—I don't want to be death anymore. I want to live. Really live. With you."
Through our bond, I opened myself completely, letting her feel eight centuries of pain, regret, and loneliness—and beneath it all, the fragile hope she'd awakened.
Aria sobbed, but she didn't pull away. Instead, she gripped my hands tighter.
"My turn," she whispered. "The truth is, part of me was relieved when I was selected. Because healing people, helping them—it gave me purpose, but it never filled the hole my stepfamily left. I was so lonely, Sebastian. So tired of pretending I was okay. When I met you, you were the first person in three years who saw through my walls." She laughed through her tears. "Turns out the vampire lord cursed to drain brides was the only one who understood what it felt like to be empty inside."
The bond between us flared brighter, gold mixing with ice-blue.
"I don't want my healing gift if it means living without you," Aria continued. "And I don't care if we only have a hundred years. That's a hundred years more than I thought I'd have when they marked me for death."
"Aria—"
She kissed me, fierce and desperate. And this time, I kissed her back with everything I had.
Power exploded between us.
The bond transformed, no longer just a connection but a fusion. I felt her heartbeat as my own. Felt her fear and love and determination as if they were my emotions. And I knew she felt mine too—all of it, nothing hidden.
The Void Gate's magic reached out, sensing our intent. It wanted a sacrifice. Demanded it.
I felt my immortality burning away like paper in fire. Eight hundred years of endless life, condensed into perhaps a century. My body ached as mortality settled into my bones for the first time since I'd been turned.
Aria gasped, her healing gift tearing free from her soul. The golden glow in her hands flickered and died. I felt her loss through our bond—the emptiness where her power had been, the grief of losing the one thing that had made her feel valuable.
But we held on to each other.
The ritual completed with a thunderclap that shook the earth. Light—pure white, neither gold nor blue but something entirely new—shot from us into the Void Gate.
For a moment, everything froze.
Then the gate shuddered and began to shrink, the darkness pulling back.
"It's working!" Roslyn shouted. "They're doing it!"
But I felt something wrong. Through our new bond, Aria and I both sensed it at the same moment.
The First Curse wasn't retreating. It was curious.
Something enormous moved in the darkness beyond the gate. Not a creature. Not a monster. Something older and vaster than anything with a physical form.
Then it spoke—a voice that came from everywhere and nowhere, ancient beyond measure:
"Interesting. A Sanguine bond, truly formed. I haven't seen one of those in three thousand years."
The darkness condensed, taking shape. A figure stepped through the gate just before it sealed completely.
She looked human—a woman in her thirties with kind eyes and a gentle smile. But the power radiating from her made Sebastian's eight-hundred-year-old strength feel like a candle next to the sun.
"Hello, Aria," the First Curse said pleasantly. "Hello, Sebastian. Thank you for opening the gate. I've been quite bored."
She looked around the courtyard at the gathered vampires and humans, all frozen in terror.
"Now then," she continued, still smiling. "Let's discuss the terms of your surrender. I'll make this simple: serve me willingly, and I'll let most of your people live. Refuse, and I'll do what I did three thousand years ago." Her smile widened. "I'll turn every human into a vampire and every vampire into a human. Let's see how well your two worlds get along when you've all switched places."
Behind her, the gate finally sealed shut.
We'd stopped the monsters from coming through.
But we'd let in something infinitely worse.