Ariana didn't sleep that night.
Not really.
She drifted—and the dream pulled her under like a current of blood.
It wasn't hers.
It was Clara's.
The walls were white. The lights buzzed.
She was strapped to the chair again—but this time, it was Ariana in the restraints.
She saw through Clara's eyes.
Felt the hunger in her stomach. The ache in her shoulders. The copper taste of blood drying at the back of her throat.
Then came the whisper.
Xander's voice.
"I wonder… do you think your sister screamed the first time he marked her?"
Ariana-Clara thrashed.
Xander leaned closer.
"And what if I marked you too? Would she feel it? Would it make her scream this time?"
Pain.
White-hot and spreading.
Ariana jolted awake—screaming. She clutched her side. Damien flew to her side instantly, shirtless and blood-soaked.
He had just returned.
From war.
He pulled her into his arms, grounding her.
"Where did he touch her?" he demanded.
Ariana pointed to her ribcage. "Here. And he's not just hurting her. He's talking. He wants me to feel everything."
Damien's face darkened with rage. "Then I'll send her back every piece of him I tear off."
---
Hours earlier...
Damien had descended into Ashridge's undergrounds—where the vampire world buried its sins.
The scent of betrayal was thick down here. Filth. Desperation. Blood.
The first traitor he found was a blood-runner named Corin—an informant known for trading secrets to the highest bidder.
He didn't last long.
Damien slammed him into a wall of rusted pipework, fangs bared.
"Where. Is. Xander."
Corin whimpered, blood leaking from his lips. "He's… using human labs. Renovated morgues. Places they abandoned during the Fever Wars."
Damien didn't blink.
"Coordinates."
"They move every 48 hours—he's using witches to ward the perimeter—"
Damien didn't wait.
He ripped through the underground like a black plague, hitting every contact, every safe house, every mortal shell Xander might've crawled into.
And with each kill, each whispered confession, the old legend inside him grew louder.
The clan used to whisper it—
The Black Lord.
A vampire king not born, but forged—by rage and sacrifice.
And now Damien was becoming it.
Not for his clan.
Not for power.
But for the girl who made his dead heart feel again.
And for the sister she would burn the world to save.
---
Back in the Keep...
Ariana stood at the window, bruised and trembling.
She could still feel Clara's pain echoing inside her like a phantom limb.
And something else—
Clara's voice.
It whispered from the dream-space, just three words:
> "He's copying Damien."
Ariana's blood ran cold.
Xander wasn't just trying to break her.
He was recreating every moment Damien had shared with her—twisting it. Mocking it. Warping the mate bond into something filthy and false.
She gripped the window ledge, tears in her eyes.
But she didn't cry.
She made a promise instead:
> "I'll come for you, Clara. And I'll make him pay with everything he has."