We reached the front steps just as bodies spilled through the main doors—peasants shoving past each other, some stumbling out while others pressed inside. Their movements were wrong, too fluid, too synchronized.
"Why are villagers here at this hour—"
"Fuck." Nathaniel's hand shot to his coat, producing two silver stakes before I could finish. "The group by the door—they're turned. All of them."
He pressed a third stake into my palm, the metal cold enough to burn. "Stay clear of the initial clash. Only engage if one gets past me."
"Nathaniel—"
But he'd already launched forward, body coiled violence given form. The first vampire barely registered his approach before silver punched through its chest. The creature dropped like a cut string, limbs going slack.
Sidestep left. Drive upward beneath the ribs. Wrench free.
The second fell before it could scream.
Duck under grasping hands. Pivot. Strike between the shoulder blades.
A third collapsed across the threshold.
His movements stripped to pure efficiency—no flourish, no wasted motion. Each strike delivered with the precision of a man who'd done this a thousand times.
Bodies accumulated around him like shed coats, their faces still wearing the confusion of newly turned peasants who'd never learned to use their new strength.
"Christ." He wiped sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, stake still gripped tight. "We leave the corpses. The sun will scatter them at dawn."
Screams erupted from inside the manor—sharp, human, terrified.
We bolted through the doors together. The entrance hall had become a battlefield. Nicholas grappled with a vampire bent over a serving girl, her white apron already blooming red. The creature's head snapped up at our arrival, mouth dripping crimson.
"The main hall!" Nicholas shouted, muscles straining as he fought to keep the vampire's fangs from his throat. "More of them—the servants—"
Nathaniel sprinted toward deeper screams without hesitation. "Silver or iron to the heart!" His voice cracked back like a whip. "Nothing else stops them!"
Nicholas adjusted his grip, producing a hilted knife from his belt. The blade punched up beneath the vampire's shoulder blade with wet precision. The creature convulsed, toppling away from the maid who scrambled backward, hands pressed to her bleeding neck.
"Get her to the kitchen," Nicholas commanded the nearest footman. "Bar the doors. Let no one in without my voice."
Nathaniel had already vanished into the castle's depths. I stood frozen for a heartbeat, stake heavy in my hand, before one thought crystallized with perfect clarity: Kathrin.
Alistair could survive almost anything. But losing his mother would destroy whatever humanity remained in him.
I ran for her apartments, boots skidding on polished floors. The corridor stretched endless, portraits of dead Blackwoods watching my desperate sprint with oil-dark eyes.
Her door stood open. Wrong. Everything wrong.
A vampire hunched over Kathrin's collapsed form, shoulders working as it fed. Her blood had already pooled on the Persian carpet, spreading like spilled wine.
I charged without thinking, stake raised high.
The vampire's head snapped up—a young man's face, someone's son before the turning, gore painting his chin black in the lamplight. His hand struck mine before I could complete the thrust. The stake flew from my grip, clattering across the carpet toward the far wall.
He lunged. I dove for the weapon.
We crashed together onto the floor. Pain exploded through my hip as we hit, my shoulder grinding against wood. His weight crushed down, fingers tangling in my hair, yanking my head back to expose my throat.
"Pretty lady." His voice came out slurred, drunk on fresh blood. "You smell like life. Like two lives."
I clawed forward, stretching for the fallen stake just beyond my fingertips. His grip tightened, hauling me backward.
"The baby makes it sweeter." Breath like copper against my neck. "Can hear both hearts racing."
My fingers swept carpet, searching, desperate. Nothing but Persian wool and Kathrin's cooling blood.
"Stop fighting." The vampire's mouth opened, teeth gleaming. "Won't hurt long."
My hand shot out, fingers clawing across carpet. Cool metal kissed my fingertips—the stake, just there. His weight shifted to pin my reaching arm. I twisted hard, driving my knee up into his ribs.
"Bitch!" He reared back.
I lunged for the weapon. His hand caught my wrist, slamming it against floor until bones ground together. The stake spun away into shadow.
"Pretty lady thinks she's strong." He forced both my wrists above my head, single-handed grip like iron shackles. "Two heartbeats racing. Mother and child. Delicious."
My free hand found his face, nails raking flesh. He snarled, jerking sideways, grip loosening just enough. I wrenched one arm free, hammering my elbow into his throat.
He gagged, doubling forward. I bucked hard, trying to throw him off, but his weight crashed back down, heavier than physics should allow.
We rolled across Kathrin's blood, slipping in the cooling pool, each fighting for leverage the other wouldn't yield.
"Enough games." His knee ground into my ribs.
Glass shattered somewhere below. Screams erupted—servants, guards, the whole manor under siege. Footsteps pounded overhead, beneath, everywhere but here.
The vampire's hand tangled in my hair, yanking my head sideways. Not to bite—to slam my skull against the floor. Stars exploded across my vision.
"Should've stayed quiet in your pretty room." Another slam. Pain bloomed like fire. "Should've let the monsters play."
Images erupted behind my eyes—not memory but desire:
The weight of my child finally in my arms, solid and warm and real.
Alistair beside me with that careful new tenderness, learning to hold something so fragile.
Nathaniel's rare laugh echoing through sunlit rooms when danger had finally passed.
Maeve in the library, eyes bright with discovery, pulling another forbidden text from hidden shelves.
I wanted all of them. I wanted the impossible configuration of our fractured family somehow made whole. Wanted quiet mornings and loud arguments and the precious ordinary that we'd lost to fangs and silver stakes.