Five

The witch arrived at the Obsidian Palace just as the last light bled from the sky. She was old, older than most vampires cared to remember, with milky white eyes that saw more than any sighted person ever could. Her name was rarely spoken aloud, most just called her the Seer. Two of Elias’s guards escorted her through the winding halls, but she moved like she already knew every twist and turn, gnarled staff tapping against the black marble floor.

Elias waited on the throne, fingers drumming restlessly. He hadn’t told anyone why he summoned her. Not even Lucian. The bond still pulled at him, low and constant, like a bruise he couldn’t stop pressing. When the witch finally stepped into the throne room, she stopped a few feet from the dais and tilted her head, blind eyes fixed somewhere near his chest.

“You called for answers about the fire in your blood,” she rasped before Elias could open his mouth. Her voice carried that dry, certain weight that made lesser men sweat. “The bond. The wolf king. I see it twisting around you like chains made of moonlight and shadow.”

Elias sat up straighter, jaw tight. He hadn’t said a word about any of it.

The Seer smiled, thin and knowing. “There is a prophecy, Vampire King. Older than your kind and the wolves combined. It has waited for this moment.”

She lifted one wrinkled hand, and the candles in the room flared brighter for a second.

“Two forbidden creatures, bound by moon and blood,

King of fur and fang, king of night and flood.

When hatred’s blade meets desire’s cruel kiss,

The thread awakens what fate cannot dismiss.

Reject the call and the world shall crack wide,

An ancient hunger wakes, no place left to hide.

The Devourer rises, devours all light,

Empires fall to eternal night.

But if they yield and seal the mate’s true claim,

Moon and blood become one flame.

Werewolf and vampire, hand in bloodied hand,

Forge alliance where once only graves spanned.

The most powerful force this realm has known,

Rulers of a new age, on a united throne.”

Silence fell heavy over the throne room. Elias stared at her, the words sinking in like cold iron. Forbidden creatures. Mated. Alliance after decades....centuries of slaughter. The Devourer. He didn’t know what that last part meant, but it left a sour taste in his mouth.

“Impossible,” he muttered under his breath. The thought of submitting to that pull, of actually mating with Ronan Voss, made his stomach turn even as the bond throbbed warmer in response. Him and that arrogant, blood soaked wolf? Ruling together? The packs and the covens would tear each other apart before they ever accepted it.

The Seer chuckled like she’d heard his thoughts. “Many things seem impossible until the world forces your hand, Nightshade. The choice is yours, but the threads are already pulling tight. Reject it and everything burns. Accept it… and you may survive what’s coming.”

She turned without waiting for questions or payment, staff tapping as she shuffled back toward the doors. Elias didn’t stop her. His mind was spinning too fast, prophecy, Devourer, mating with the enemy. It was madness. A trick or a curse disguised as destiny.

Once her footsteps faded, he rose from the throne and headed straight for his private chambers, waving off Lucian’s concerned look. The heavy door shut behind him with a solid thud. He poured himself a fresh goblet of blood wine, downed half of it in one go, and dropped into the chair by the window overlooking the dark gardens.

That was when it hit.

A sudden wave of sensation slammed into him so hard he nearly dropped the goblet. Heat. Friction. The unmistakable feeling of a thick cock driving deep into a warm body. Not his body. Ronan’s. Elias gasped, gripping the arm of the chair until the wood creaked. He could feel it all, the desperate, angry rhythm of thrusts, the slide of skin, the hollow frustration bleeding through the bond like poison.

His own cock hardened instantly, traitorously, pressing against his trousers while nausea rolled through his chest. He knew what was happening. Ronan was fucking someone. Pouring all that rage and need into another person’s body. Elias could feel the wolf king’s dissatisfaction, the way the pleasure wasn’t landing right, but it still hurt like a blade between the ribs.

“Bastard,” Elias hissed through clenched teeth. His free hand pressed against his stomach as another phantom thrust echoed through him. His hole clenched uselessly, body reacting against his will. Jealousy burned hotter than the arousal. He wanted to rip the nameless woman apart. He wanted to be the one Ronan was slamming into so hard. The contradiction made his head throb.

Tears of fury stung his eyes. He was the Vampire King. Ancient. Feared. Reduced to this, sitting alone in his chambers while the bond forced him to experience his so called mate claiming someone else.

The sensations kept coming, relentless. Ronan’s growls, the slap of skin, the growing frustration that only made the alpha fuck harder. Elias curled forward, breathing ragged, fangs fully extended. The bond didn’t care about his pride. It just kept feeding him every detail.

He sat there in the dark, alone with the unwanted pleasure and the sharp sting of betrayal, wondering how long he could endure this before he did something reckless.

The witch’s prophecy echoed in the back of his mind, but right now all he could focus on was the feeling of Ronan buried inside someone who wasn’t him.