“Your power is tied to emotion,” she says finally, her fingers never stopping their dance across the strings. “I can feel it. TheBloodfire burns hotter when you’re angry, scared, or passionate. It’s normal for Blood Magic, but it’s also dangerous.”
“Why?” I sit beside her, watching her hands move.
“Because power without feeling is just violence.” Her song shifts, growing darker. “But feeling without control is chaos. You need balance. You need to understandwhyyou’re using your magic, not justhow.” She looks at me, her siren eyes seeing too much. “What drives you, Sloane? What makes your blood sing?”
I think about that for a moment. About the Emergency Room, about saving lives, about the desperate need to make a difference, to matter, to prove I’m more than another orphan who slipped through the cracks.
About Crave, and the way he looks at me as though I’m both salvation and damnation.
“I want to protect,” I say slowly. “I spent my whole life watching people die. Watching people hurt. I became a nurse because I wanted tofixthings. And now…” I look at my hands, at the crimson-gold light pulsing there. “Now I have the power to actually do that. To protect the people I care about.”
“Good answer.” Seraphine’s song brightens, lifting. “Hold onto that. When the Bloodfire tries to consume you,and it will,remember why you’re fighting. Not for destruction. For protection. For love.”
The word settles warm in my chest.
Love.
Is that what this is?
This desperate, all-consuming need I feel for Crave? For this found family of monsters who have accepted me?
His response reaches me without sound, solid, unwavering, wrapping around the question like it’s already been decided.
‘Yes.’
My breath catches.
“He’s watching you, you know.” Seraphine doesn’t look up, but her smile is knowing. “Your vampire. He hasn’t taken his eyes off you all day. The bond between you… it’s beautiful. Terrifying… but beautiful.”
“It’s invasive,” I mutter, but I don’t mean it in a negative way.
“That too.” She laughs. “But you chose it. Both of you did, in a way. When he gave you his blood, when you drank it, that was consent. And everything that followed? That’s the universe recognizing what you both wanted.”
I want to argue, to say I didn’t have a choice, that I was dying, that it was survival, not desire.
But it would be a lie.
Some part of me knew what would happen.
Wanted it.
Reached for it with desperate hands.
And I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
As the sun starts to descend, Eden appears. The Banshee looks nervous, her usual goth aesthetic somehow more pronounced in the fading light.
“We need to talk,” she says, and the seriousness in her voice makes my stomach clench.
We move to a quieter corner of the yard, away from the others. Eden sits on the remains of a blast-scarred wall, and I join her.
“I’m not good at this,” she admits. “The teaching thing. I’m better at predicting death than preventing it.” She fidgets with her hands. “But you need to understand something about your heritage. About what being a Blood Witch really means.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Your ancestor, Lilith.” The name makes the air grow colder. “She was the First Blood Witch. The only one who ever existed with the Voice. The ability to command reality itself through spoken word.”
I remember the woman in my visions. Dark hair, red eyes, and power that made the world bend.
