Then the door above us slammed shut with a force that shook the walls. Dust rained from the ceiling. The baby screamed harder.
And somewhere above us, muffled by stone and centuries of dark magic, I heard Vex roar.
The sound wasn’t human. Wasn’t animal. It was something torn from the deepest pit of hell—pure, unbridled rage that vibrated through the walls and into my bones.
Alice’s hold had broken.
Using vampire speed, Rocco and I tore down the spiral staircase, our feet barely touching the steps. The baby was pressed tight against my chest, one hand cradling its head, its screams muffled against my shirt. Behind us, boots hammered the stone—the others keeping pace, their ragged breathing echoing off the tower walls.
We hit the first landing and kept going—down the main staircase, past the blood-soaked entrance hall, through the gaping front door.
Cold air rushed over me, sharp enough to steal my breath. The sun had dropped behind the mountains, leaving nothing but a thin bruise of orange along the horizon. Darkness was swallowing the forest fast.
We didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop. Not with Vex’s roar still echoing in my skull and the certainty that whatever Alice had done to hold him wouldn’t keep him contained for long.
We plunged into the tree line, branches whipping at my arms and face, roots catching at my feet. Rocco ran beside me, one arm braced against my back to steady me as I clutched the baby tight against my chest. The sound of the others crashing through the undergrowth followed close behind.
Only when the castle disappeared—swallowed by the fog and the forest and the gathering dark—did Rocco slow to a stop.
We stood in a small clearing, chests heaving, breath clouding in the freezing air. The baby had stopped screaming. It whimpered softly against my chest, its tiny fingers still twisted in my shirt.
I loosened my grip just enough to look down at it — searching for cuts, burns, any mark that demon might have left. Nothing visible. Just a small, trembling body pressed against mine, its heartbeat fluttering like a trapped bird. Relief flooded through me so hard my knees almost gave out again.
"You're safe now," I whispered, pressing my lips to the top of its head. "You're safe."
No one spoke. The only sound was our ragged breathing and the wind moving through the pines.
I looked around the clearing. Rose leaned against Valentin, her face drawn. Lucien still gripped the shard, its glow dimming against his palm. Raven stood beside him, watchful, her hand on his arm. Darius had his arm around Alice, holding her upright.
Then my eyes found Rocco. He was staring at the baby in my arms with an expression that undid me — raw, aching, haunted. I knew what he was seeing. Not just an infant we'd saved from a demon's blade. He was seeing every innocent thing he'd ever failed to protect.
I held the baby tighter. We'd almost watched it die. One more second — one more heartbeat of hesitation — and that blade would have fallen.
Then Alice collapsed.
Darius caught her before she hit the ground, sweeping her up like she weighed nothing. Her head lolled against his shoulder, her face chalk-white, her eyes closed.
“She’s out,” Darius said, his voice tight. “She gave everything she had.”
I looked down at the sleeping baby in my arms, then back at the dark smudge of forest where the castle hid. Somewhere in that darkness, Vex was awake. Furious. And coming.
“Now we have to survive the night,” Lucien said, his gaze sweeping the dark tree line like he expected Vex to materialize from the shadows at any moment.
Moonlight filtered through the canopy, pale and cold, falling across Rose’s face in broken shafts. She looked exhausted—dark circles under her eyes, her skin drawn tight over her cheekbones—but her voice was steady as she met each of our gazes in turn.
“He can’t come near us as long as we have the shard. It will protect us.”
The knot in my chest loosened—just slightly. For the first time since we’d entered that tower, I felt like I could breathe. But the baby squirmed against me, its whimpers growing weaker, and the relief didn’t last. This child needed warmth. Food. A mother. Not a freezing clearing in the Carpathian Mountains surrounded by strangers covered in blood.
She paused, letting that sink in. “We need to get the baby to safety. I can break the shard in two, but I’m drained. I need to rest before I attempt it.”
A silence settled over the group. Rest. In a freezing Romanian forest with a furious demon somewhere in the dark behind us. Rest sounded like a luxury from another life.
Then Rose’s lips parted slightly, and the moonlight caught her fangs.
Something stirred inside me. Not exhaustion—though God knew I was operating on fumes. Not fear, though it was still coiled tight in my gut. This was different. Deeper. A gnawing, hollow ache that started in my veins and spread outward until my entire body throbbed with it.
Hunger.
