Ant’s body jerked again. A thin sound escaped his throat - something between a gasp and a whimper that Viktor had never heard from him before.
The doorframe cracked under Viktor’s grip.
No.He forced himself to take a breath he didn’t need.Think. There has to be another way.
Able’s barking shifted pitch, becoming more desperate. The dog’s eyes tracked between Ant’s convulsing form and Viktor in the doorway, as if begging him to do something, anything.
Viktor closed his eyes. The mate bond glowed faintly in his awareness - that golden thread connecting his consciousness to Ant’s. Usually, it hummed with a steady, reassuring warmth. Now it pulsed erratically, like Ant’s heartbeat was transmitting directly into Viktor’s skull. Panic. Confusion. Terror that wasn’t quite Ant’s own but was bleeding into him anyway.
And underneath it all, so faint, Viktor almost missed it - a whisper.
Viktor.
The words weren’t spoken out loud. Viktor wasn’t sure it was even a conscious thought. But as soon as he heard it, it was easier to hear again. His name was being repeated as if he were the only lifeline Ant had left.
Viktor. Viktor. Please.
His mate was calling for him. Viktor’s eyes snapped open, and his hands released the doorframe. He couldn’t cross the physical space. Ant was clear that touching him could risk catastrophic damage to his mate’s mind. But the bond between them wasn’t physical. It existed in a space beyond flesh, blood, and magic. The magic behind a mating was far older and more fundamental than any ward Claudius could create.
Ant had reached for him through that bond, which meant Viktor could reach back.
He planted his feet in the doorway and closed his eyes again. This time, he didn’t fight the connection or try to shield himself from the chaos bleeding through from Ant’s side. Instead, he grabbed onto it with both metaphorical hands and pulled.
The bond flared bright in his awareness, and as soon as it did, Viktor poured everything he had into it - his strength, his consciousness, his absolute unwavering certainty that he would protect his mate from anything. Even from visions, he couldn’t see.
Viktor felt his physical body sway, but kept his eyes closed, his focus locked on the golden thread. He pushed his consciousness forward, following it like a rope through fog, forcing his way past interference, static, and the chaotic magical noise he could now tell was saturating the room.
I’m coming, precious. Hold on!
The bond stretched, and Viktor’s awareness split - half of him still standing in the doorway, half of him sliding along the connection into territory he’d never navigated before. The sensation was deeply disorienting. On the one hand, he could feel his fangs fully extended, and the way his fingers were reaching for the doorframe again, but at the same time, he was moving, falling, diving through layers of magic and memories that would turn his stomach if he’d bothered to stop and pay attention.
The static intensified. Viktor snarled and shoved harder. He had centuries of being a stubborn ass on his side, and he wasn’t about to be stopped by something insignificant like a spot of magical interference. The bond flared brighter, and suddenly he was through.
The change was so abrupt it was nauseating. One moment, Viktor was standing in a guest room watching his mate convulse. The next he was...
Here.Wherever here was. The space around him didn’t follow normal rules. It was too bright and too dark all at the same time, and yet the edges were blurring like a painting left in the rain. Viktor could see a room - the same guest room from his physical state, but it was wrong somehow. The colors were oversaturated, and the shadows were moving independently of any light source. And everywhere, everywhere Viktor could sense at least, there was the thick, cloying scent of magic twisted with fear.
A figure sat at a desk, working over financial documents. Viktor’s lip curled. Ronald Finch. Or the memory of him, preserved in whatever twisted vision the wards had trapped Ant inside.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway.
The door opened.
“Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting...” Ronald’s voice was thin, nervous.
Claudius stepped through, Edmund and another vampire flanking him. The scene played out exactly as Viktor had imagined it - Claudius being all polite until he wasn’t, the asshole using a thrall which wasn’t necessary at all, the feeding, and Claudius, fucking Claudius, treating it all like it was a king-sized joke.
But then the entire scene stuttered. Ronald was back at the desk. The door opened. Claudius entered.
“Lord Raven, I wasn’t expecting...”
Viktor’s hands clenched into fists - metaphorical or physical, he wasn’t sure, but he quickly realized what Ant’s problem was. His mate was stuck in a loop…which begged the question,Where the fuck is Ant?
He spun, trying to orient himself in the bizarre non-space of the memory. The room around him felt oppressively small despite its actual size, the walls pressing in like they were alive. The ambient magic buzzed against his skin, but it was nothing like Ant’s magic. The magic trying to smother him was thick, ugly, and felt completely wrong.
Then Viktor felt it, a flicker of his mate’s familiar presence, but it seemed distant and fragmented.
There!Viktor’s instincts homed in on it. Ant’s consciousness wasn’t in the room, and he wasn’t watching the scene like Viktor was. It was as if he had been pulled in deeper, somewhere underneath the surface of the memory, trapped in the mechanism of the loop itself. Viktor dove for it.
