Something in his tone cuts through. I release Seth’s throat, stepping back but not far. Every muscle still coiled, ready to strike if he so much as breathes wrong.
Seth sags against the mirror, one hand pressed to his chest, the other still touching his fangs like he can’t believe they’re real.
“He’s not just a vampire,” Zira says from behind me, voice steady and clinical.
I snap my head toward her. “I can see that.”
Stellan moves closer to Seth, studying him with that careful intensity he reserves for things he doesn’t fully understand yet. He reaches out, stops just short of touching Seth’s arm.
“Feel the air around him,” Stellan says quietly.
I force myself to focus past the rage.
The cold isn’t coming from the chamber.
It’s coming from Seth.
Not physical cold. The absence kind. The kind that tastes like nothing and everything at once. The kind that lives in the spaces between worlds.
“Void,” I say flatly.
Stellan nods. “He reeks of it.”
“What the hell is he?” I demand.
Zira steps forward, tilting her head as she studies Seth like a scholar facing a living myth.
“He’s bonded.” Her voice carries certainty. “The snake proves it—Bree’s familiar wouldn’t stay with him otherwise. But something else happened too.” She pauses. “I’ve heard about this. When a bond forms outside the human realm… sometimes the magic doesn’t follow rules. It adapts to the environment. Alters the Feeder’s base nature.”
“You’re saying the Void changed him.”
“No.” Zira meets my eyes. “The bond did. The Void just gave it room to grow.”
Seth shakes his head, backing away from all three of us until his shoulders hit the mirror again.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” His voice is raw. Desperate. “I just—she was dying, I think—and then—” He touches his chest, right over his heart. “It hurt. It felt like everything inside me broke and rebuilt itself.”
The wordshecuts through everything else.
“Bree.” My voice comes out flat. Controlled.
Seth’s gaze jerks to me. “You’re—” He pauses, uncertain. Afraid. “You know her too?”
“Thane.” I force the word out. “And yes. She’s mine.”
Stellan clears his throat. “Stellan. And she’sours, actually.”
I shoot him a look but don’t contradict it. Because right now, that’s the only truth that matters.
The rage drains out of me all at once, leaving only awe and grief.
“She’s alive.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears. Hollow. Hopeful. “You found her. And you bonded her in the Void.”
Silence.
The mirror behind Seth ripples faintly, responding to his presence.
All four of us feel it.
