LOGINKatie's POVThe teleport brought us back into the castle halls in a rush of light and breath. The walls of stone—cold, familiar, and steeped with memory—seemed almost warmer now, as though the keep itself recognized him. Vladimyr’s return pulsed through these corridors like a heartbeat restarting.The twins still clung to him, though their excitement had shifted from tears to restless energy. Tori in particular bounced on her heels, tugging at his sleeve.“You owe me, big brother,” she declared, her eyes bright with mischief. “Years of missing birthdays. You’re not allowed to just vanish and come back thinking a hug fixes everything. I want a spar tomorrow. No excuses.”Rori smirked faintly, leaning back with his usual quiet poise. “Not just Tori. Me too. Don’t think you’ll get away with hugging us into silence.” His voice softened only slightly as he added, “We thought you were gone. You can’t imagine—”Vladimyr cut him off gently, brushing his thumb across the boy’s temple like one
Katie’s POVThe world blurred the instant their small bodies collided with him.Tori’s shriek still rang in the air as she buried herself against her brother’s chest, clutching him as if he would vanish again if she dared to loosen her grip. Rori clung too—quieter, but no less desperate—his slim fingers fisting into Vladimyr’s coat with the kind of ferocity only Victoria’s twin brother could have.I stumbled back a step, half from surprise, half from the sheer sight of it—Vladimyr standing there with both of his little siblings latched onto him, his usually dark, forbidding form softened into something painfully human. His eyes… oh, those mixed bright and blood red eyes that so often flashed hunger or authority, now trembled.His arms rose slowly, hesitantly, as though he feared this wasn’t real. But once they finally locked around the twins, the dam broke.A sound tore out of him—not quite a laugh, not quite a sob. Something raw, jagged, undone. He pressed his face into Tori’s hair,
Vladimyr's POVThe Void should not tremble.I mean.. We already swap our lives! Mine and Lucifer’s.It is nothing—emptiness given form, silence stretched across infinity. Yet after centuries of unyielding stillness, the ground beneath me cracked like glass beneath a hammer.Lucifer stopped mid-laugh, his dark mirth severed in half. “Well,” he drawled, though his eyes glinted sharp and uneasy, “..either eternity finally grew bored of us… or someone knocked on the door.”I didn’t answer.I couldn’t.Because I felt it—like fire racing through my veins. The tether I had carved into myself, the one the Void had gnawed at without success, suddenly pulled taut. Hard. A force outside of nothingness yanking me forward.Katie..Her voice. Her blood. Her heart screaming into the dark.“Katie…” My lips shaped her name as though I were breathing for the first time.The Void resisted, dragging claws into me, unwilling to release its prisoner. But bonds are older than laws, older than even this de
Vladimyr's POVSilence.Not the silence of winter nights, when snow muffles the world into hush, nor the silence of a battlefield after the last body falls.No.. it was nothing like that.The Void’s silence was something else—an annihilation of sound, of thought, of self. It pressed into me, seared through me, until I wondered if even my screams reached my own ears. After the battle, when I completely stopped the void from stretching outside to the vampire realm, I immediately tried to open and escape it. Didn't even care to check my wounds or have time to replenish my bloodlust because all I ever wanted to do was to come back to her..Time did not pass here. Or perhaps it passed so slowly that eternity blurred into itself. I could not tell. Days, years, centuries—it all bent and broke into nothingness.And yet, through that nothingness, I clung.I clung to her.Katie.My love..My heart…My only omega.I smiled bitterly at that word. Sebastian kept reminding me back in the days when
Katie’s POVI felt a shadow stretch where none should be. The weight of presence so overwhelming it rooted me where I stood.Every nerve in me screamed, and yet my heart… my heart leapt.Slowly, trembling, I turned.The snow spun down between us in languid swirls, each flake catching the silver light of the moon, slow as if the world itself wanted to savor the moment. My cloak whispered against the ground as I pivoted, my bleeding hand falling uselessly to my side.And there he was.Vladimyr Schultz..He stood just beyond arm’s reach, tall, unyielding, his mixed red eyes fixed on me with the weight of a thousand untold truths.Snow gathered in his dark hair, melted against the sharp lines of his face, traced over the shadow of his mouth that had once whispered promises into the marrow of my being.I just cannot believe my eyes.My chest caved inward, aching. My lips parted, but the sound caught in my throat, swallowed by the silence stretching between us.The world, the castle, the No
Katie's POVThe morning light poured lazily through the tall glass windows of the dining hall, tinting the silver goblets and polished platters with a soft gold sheen. My seat was already occupied—at least in spirit—by the laughter of two troublemakers before I even sat down.Tori and Rori.“Sebastian, you’ve done it again,” Rori groaned dramatically, lifting the silver chalice of blood to his lips. “Smooth, rich, with just the faintest metallic aftertaste. Tell me, did you put herbs in this?”“Herbs?!” Tori nearly choked on her own drink. “You twit, no one seasons blood. That is horrendously disgusting, Rori!”“It’s not disgusting if it tastes better!” Rori shot back, his eyes gleaming with mischief. “You season meat, don’t you? Why not blood?”Sebastian, ever the picture of quiet composure, bowed politely. “Young Master Rori, I assure you—no herbs. That particular batch came from a stag. Young, healthy. You taste the difference in vitality, not spice.”“Ohhhh,” Rori said, nodding li







