[Tessa’s POV]
I stand near the back of the ceremonial chamber beneath House Ravencrest, half-hidden in shadows.
Torches flicker against walls carved with ancient symbols, casting dancing shadows across the gathered nobility. Everyone who matters in vampire society is here, whispering excitedly about the historic alliance they're about to witness.
No one questioned where I positioned myself—I'm expected to be here. As Soren's first blood-bonded wife, but no one particularly wants to see me.
I'm the embarrassment they'd rather forget. Present only because my absence would raise questions.
The High Priestess enters through the western archway. She's ancient, this one—old enough to remember when the blood-binding rituals were written.
Behind her, Soren and Diana step into the ceremonial circle.
They look radiant together.
Soren wears black embroidered with the Ravencrest sigil in silver thread, his dark hair pulled back to reveal the sharp lines of his face. Diana is stunning in deep crimson that makes her pale skin luminous.
They look like they were made for this moment. Made for each other.
I press my hand against my chest, where the blood bond sits like a constant ache.
"We gather on this new moon to witness a sacred union," the High Priestess begins. "Two houses, two bloodlines, bound by blood and magic."
The assembled vampires murmur their approval. I see the Dowager Countess in the front row, satisfied and Sylvia practically glowing with triumph.
"Do you both come here of your own will?" the High Priestess asks.
"I do," Soren says, steady and confident.
"I do," Diana echoes.
They move toward the altar where an ancient silver bowl waits. When the High Priestess produces a ceremonial blade, Diana steps forward, extending her wrist with practiced grace.
And suddenly, I can't breathe.
This is it. The moment where I become nothing. Where our marriage becomes a footnote, where I fade into a ghost in my own home.
‘You'll still have a place here. You're still my wife.’
Empty words.
My footsteps echo against the stone. Heads turn. The High Priestess pauses, her ancient eyes finding mine. For a moment, I expect her to stop me, to demand I know my place.
Instead, something like understanding crosses her face. The faintest nod, so small I almost miss it.
"I invoke the Right of Severance," I say, pulling the silver blade from my dress.
Ancient, ceremonial, the kind used for blood magic. The kind that can cut bonds as easily as flesh.
My only way out.
The chamber erupts. Gasps, shouts and movements following after my words.
"Tessa, no…" Soren lunges toward me, his hand outstretched, but he's too far away.
I don't hesitate and press the blade against my left wrist, where his binding mark sits on my skin—three interlocking circles, the symbol of House Ravencrest.
"I, Tessa of House D'Alessandro, sever the blood bond that ties me to Soren of House Ravencrest. I reject you as my blood-bonded soulmate."
I drag the blade across my wrist. The pain is immediate and catastrophic. Not just physical, though the silver burns like acid through my veins, but magical.
The bond doesn't break cleanly; it explodes.
Fire erupts in my chest where the bond lived, spreading outward through every nerve, every vein. I can feel it unraveling—years of connection being torn apart thread by thread, each one a fresh agony. My knees buckle but I force myself to stay standing.
I won't collapse. I won't give them that.
Then I hear Soren’s scream.
He collapses, clutching his chest as if his heart is being ripped out. Because it is—the bond we've carried for years being torn away, leaving raw wounds where connection used to be.
Blood pours from his nose. His body convulses, magic crackling across his skin in desperate attempts to hold onto something that's already gone.
Diana stands frozen at the altar, her face white with shock. She's staring at Soren writhing on the floor, then at me, then back at him. As if trying to understand how this moment was supposed to be hers and became mine instead.
Soren has stopped screaming. He's on his hands and knees, gasping for breath, blood streaming from his nose and eyes. When he lifts his head to look at me, his expression is destroyed.
"Why?" His voice comes out broken, raw. "Tessa, why would you—"
"You know why." My voice sounds hollow even to my own ears.
"I don't—" He tries to stand, staggers. Diana moves to help him but he waves her off. "We could have talked. Worked something out. You didn't have to—"
"Talked?" A laugh escapes me, sharp and bitter. "Like we talked before you announced your second wife in front of everyone? Like we talked when you decided I wasn't enough?"
"That's not—" He's still clutching his chest, like he's trying to hold together something that's already shattered. "The alliance was necessary. It wasn't about you."
"It was always about me." I press my hand to my own chest, searching for even an echo of the bond. Nothing. "I was the one who wasn't strong enough. Wasn't powerful enough. Wasn't worthy enough to be your only wife."
"I never said that."
"You didn't have to."
Silence stretches between us while Soren gasps for air. The bond that would have let me feel his emotions—his regret, his pain, his anything—is gone. I'm completely alone in my own head for the first time in years.
It's terrifying. And liberating. And utterly empty.
"What did you do to us?" Soren whispers, and for the first time, I hear something like fear in his voice. "What did you do?"
"I freed us both." The words come out flat. Final. "You wanted someone more suitable. Now you can have her without me standing in the way."
"I didn't want this." He's looking at me like he's never seen me before. "I never wanted this."
"What did you want, Soren?" I'm so tired. So hollow. "For me to smile and accept it? To share you gracefully while everyone whispered about the foundling who couldn't hold her husband's attention?"
"I wanted—" He stops, and I see the moment he realizes he doesn't know how to finish that sentence.
"Exactly."
The emptiness in my chest grows, spreading through every part of me. The fire dies down to embers, then ash, then nothing at all. The bond is gone. Completely. Irrevocably. Forever.
And underneath the pain, underneath the devastation, underneath everything I thought I'd feel—
Nothing. Just nothing.
My blood drips onto the stone floor, each drop sizzling. Soren is still on his knees, staring at me with horror and something like recognition.
Like he's finally seeing what he's lost.
"Goodbye, Soren," I say quietly.
"Tessa—"
The chamber is chaos around us. Voices shouting, power crackling in the air, the High Priestess calling for order. But it all feels distant, muted, like I'm standing behind thick glass watching a scene that no longer includes me.
I stand there in the center of it all, blood running down my arm, the silver blade at my feet.
Hollow.
Free.
Dangerous.