The Heart Bind shows us each other’s intentions before they fully form, synchronizes our actions with precision that makes Viktor’s eyes dart between us, unable to predict where the attack will come from because we’re attacking from everywhere at once.
My fist drives toward Viktor’s face, and he blocks with the blade. But Sloane’s Bloodfire ignites across his back at the same moment, the flames erupting from nowhere because she doesn’t need line of sight anymore. She hasmine, sees through my eyes, strikes from angles he can’t possibly defend.
Viktor screams, not in pain but in frustration, born of centuries of careful planning disintegrating into ash. He whirls, the blade lashing out in a desperate arc meant to catch both of us, but we’re already gone, separated and circling, predators stalking prey that’s finally beginning to understand its position in the food chain.
“You should have killed me when you had the chance,” I growl, my voice carrying no mercy. The hollow ache where my Original power used to live still throbs, the wounds Viktor’s blade carved into my flesh still bleed, but none of it matters anymore. “One strike. That’s all it would have taken. But you were too busy gloating.”
“Too busy playing with your food,” Sloane adds, and her Bloodfire builds around her hands, spheres of condensed magic that pulse with lethal intent. “Fatal mistake.”
Viktor’s eyes dart between us, searching for an opening, a weakness, anything he can exploit. But there’s nothing. We’re not individuals with gaps in our defenses anymore. We’rea unified front, each of us covering what the other can’t, compensating for every limitation, amplifying every strength.
“This is impossible,” Viktor snarls, but the word sounds hollow now, unconvincing even to him. “The Binding should have destroyed you. Made you mortal.Killable!”
“It did,” I reply, and there’s no bitterness in the admission, just cold fact. “Iammortal enough to die. These wounds won’t heal. Every cut your blade lands makes me weaker, but you forgot something important.”
I blur forward. Viktor raises the blade, but Sloane’s Crimson Sight shows me the exact moment he’ll commit to the strike, and I break left half a heartbeat before he moves, before his muscles even fully tense, because I’m not predicting his actions anymore.
I’mseeingthem throughhereyes before they happen.
My shoulder drives into his solar plexus with every ounce of speed I still possess, and the impact lifts him off his feet. The Original-forged blade spins from his grip, clattering across concrete, and before he can recover, Sloane’s magic wraps around his limbs.
Not Hemomancy, not Bloodfire, but something else. Something that looks like crimson-gold chains manifesting from nowhere, binding his arms, his legs, holding him suspended three feet off the ground while he thrashes and roars.
“I’m not alone,” I finish, and step back to stand beside Sloane. “That’s what you forgot. It’s what Thanatos forgot. That’s what the entire Coven forgot when they decided to test us.”
Her weight presses suddenly at the back of my skull, heavy and unsteady, a tide pulling hard after it’s already broken. The relentless heat that’s been raging across the battlefield falters, stuttering in uneven pulses. Somewhere deep in me, a familiar strain echoes, the kind that follows pushing far past the point of endurance. The pressure behind my eyes wavers, the fire on the field dimming just enough to tell me she’s reachingher limit. The magical cost of controlling so much power while maintaining her humanity is staggering. Blood pours from her nose, her hands shake, and I know without asking that she’s burning herself from the inside out to hold this moment together.
But she doesn’t waver.
She doesn’t break.
She doesn’t surrender to the easy path of letting Lilith take control and obliterate everything in her path.
She holds the line because that’s who she is.
A woman who saves people.
Who chooses control over chaos.
Who wields godlike power with a nurse’s precision and a warrior’s heart.
My mate.
My partner.
My equal.
The realization settles into my bones with absolute certainty. Not just that I love her, I’ve known that since the moment her blood sang to mine, but that she’s transformed me into something better than I was. Not stronger in the traditional sense. I’m diminished, Bound, mortal enough to die from wounds that would have been laughable a week ago.
But I’mcompletein ways I never was during millennia of invincibility.
“Hades blessed me with a stake,” I say quietly and reach into my jacket.
The moment the words leave my mouth, Viktor’s expression changes.
He twists violently against the mystical chains, muscles straining as he wrenches one arm free, then another. The magic tears, screaming as it stretches, and for a heartbeat, he almost makes it. He drops hard, boots skidding against concrete beforehe turns and runs, speed blurring his form as he bolts for the edge of the battlefield.
No.
