CHAPTER 5

ELENA'S POV

"Viviana! Viviana, wake up!"

I shook her, panic rising in my chest. Her skin was burning hotter, her breathing shallow and rapid.

This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be real.

She was supposed to be my enemy. The woman who stole Lucian from me. The woman who humiliated me in front of the entire vampire council.

But now she was dying in my arms.

"Seraphine!" I screamed into the darkness. "Seraphine, I need help!"

She appeared instantly, materializing from the shadows like a ghost. Her eyes widened when she saw Viviana.

"What happened?"

"She said she was poisoned. By the vampire council. She said—"

"Move aside."

Seraphine pushed me back and pressed two fingers against Viviana's neck before lifting one of her eyelids. Her expression tightened. She turned Viviana's wrist over and examined the skin there, then the inside of her elbow.

"Black veins," she said. More to herself than to me. "Someone used belladonna extract mixed with vampire blood and dark magic." She looked up.

"Deadly nightshade. It's one of the few things that can kill a pureblood."

I froze. "Can you save her?"

Seraphine hesitated. "Maybe. But we need to get her to a safe house. Now."

She scooped Viviana up. "Stay close to me. If they poisoned her they might be watching to see who helps her. That makes you a target."

"I'm already a target," I said bitterly.

We ran through Central Park. Seraphine moved at inhuman speed and I pushed myself as hard as I could, but she still moved far faster than any human ever could. By the time we reached the brownstone I was gasping, my lungs burning, a cramp low in my stomach from the exertion.

Seraphine kicked the door open and carried Viviana to a room I hadn't seen before, some kind of medical space with equipment that looked both ancient and modern at once.

She laid Viviana on a metal table and immediately started pulling out vials, herbs, and tools I didn't recognize.

"What can I do?" I asked.

"Stay out of my way." She was already cutting open Viviana's expensive dress, exposing black veins spreading across her pale skin like cracks in porcelain. "One wrong move and she dies."

I backed against the wall and watched helplessly as Seraphine worked.

She mixed substances in a bowl, liquids that glowed, powders that smoked, and what looked like her own blood. Then she forced Viviana's mouth open and poured the mixture down her throat.

Viviana convulsed violently, her body arching off the table.

"Hold her down!" Seraphine commanded.

I rushed forward and threw all my weight against Viviana's shoulders, helping Seraphine keep her still. Her skin burned against my hands but I didn't let go.

"Come on," Seraphine muttered, her hands hovering over Viviana's chest, glowing with golden light.

"Come on, you stubborn woman. Fight it."

The black veins started to recede. Slowly.

Viviana's convulsions weakened. Her breathing, while still labored, became more regular.

After what felt like an eternity, Seraphine stepped back, her face pale and exhausted.

"She'll live. But she's going to be weak for days. Maybe weeks."

I released Viviana and stepped back, my hands shaking. "Why did you save her? She's been horrible to me. She took Lucian. She—"

"She's also the only one who can tell us what the vampire council is planning." Seraphine wiped blood from her hands. "And whether you like it or not, she just risked her life to warn you. That means something."

I looked down at Viviana's unconscious form.

Even dying and poisoned, she was beautiful. Perfect features. Flawless skin. Everything I wasn't.

"She said her pregnancy was fake," I said quietly.

Seraphine nodded. "I suspected as much. Vampires can only reproduce under very specific circumstances. Vampires can only reproduce under very specific circumstances. For a pureblood like Viviana to be conceived by Lucian, they would have needed a bonding ritual. And a ritual like that only succeeds between true mates. Viviana isn't his.”

"But I do?" The words came out bitter. "I'm his fated mate but he threw me away anyway?"

"The mate bond is complicated," Seraphine said.

"Some vampires fight it. Fear it. Especially powerful ones who are used to controlling everything. A fated mate means becoming vulnerable. For someone like Lucian, that's terrifying."

"I don't care," I said, and I meant it, or I was choosing to mean it. "He made his choice. He can live with it."

Viviana stirred. A soft moan. Her ruby eyes fluttered open, unfocused, and when she saw me she tried to sit up and collapsed back.

"Don't move," Seraphine ordered. "You nearly died."

Viviana's gaze found mine. "You... you saved me?"

"Seraphine saved you," I said. "I just called for help."

"Why?" Viviana whispered. "After everything I did to you."

I didn't have a good answer. Maybe it was because I wasn't like them.

"You said you had information," I said instead.

"Yes. It's about the council."

Viviana's expression steadied. "Not just you. Your baby. They want the child."

My hand went to my stomach.

"There's a faction in the council that wants the child destroyed before it's born," she said. "They're afraid of what it could become. That's why they poisoned me. I found out about their plan and threatened to expose them."

"Which council members?" I demanded.

"Lord Konstantin is on your side. He believes the child could end centuries of supernatural warfare. But Lady Morgana, Lord Draven, and Viktor the Ancient, they're leading the faction that wants you dead." Viviana leaned forward despite the effort it cost her. "And they have Lucian's mother."

That hit me like something physical. "Lucian's mother wants my baby dead?"

"She's the one who pushed him to choose me over you," Viviana said quietly. "She orchestrated everything. And Lucian doesn't know. His mother keeps him in the dark, feeds him lies. She's been controlling him his entire life and he's too blind to see it."

"Then we tell him the truth," I said. "We make him see—"

"He won't believe you." Viviana's voice wasn't cruel saying it. Just tired. "His mother has spent centuries building his distrust of humans. He's not ready."

"Then what do I do?" I asked. "How do I protect my baby from the most powerful vampires in the world?"

"You run," Viviana said. "Disappear. Let Seraphine take you somewhere safe until the baby is born."

"Running won't work," Seraphine said. "They'll hunt her across continents. We need to go on the offensive."

"Against the vampire council?" Viviana laughed weakly. "That's suicide."

"Maybe," Seraphine said. "But Elena is the last Nightshade. We still don't know everything she's capable of."

The pendant around my neck burned hot.

"Get down!" Seraphine screamed.

She tackled me to the ground just as the window exploded inward.

Three vampires crashed into the room. Eyes glowing, fangs extended, moving with lethal purpose.

"Found you," one of them said. A woman with silver hair and violet eyes. "The Nightshade heir and the traitor Drakov. Lady Morgana sends her regards."

Seraphine was already moving. She killed one before he could orient himself, her silver dagger through his heart clean and practiced.

The second one slammed her into the wall hard enough to crack the concrete. She hit it with a sound that made my stomach drop and slid down and came back up slower than before.

The silver-haired woman lunged straight for me.

I rolled aside. She was too fast. Her hand closed around my throat and lifted me off the ground.

"The council wants you dead, Nightshade," she snarled. "I'll settle for the baby."

Her other hand moved toward my stomach, claws extended.

Something inside me responded before my mind caught up to it.

Not the careful controlled attempt from training, lifting three droplets of blood over forty minutes of effort. Something rawer. Something that had no technique and didn't need it.

A wave of gold light came off my skin. The force wasn't aimed. It burst out of me in every direction, wild and uncontrolled, and the vampire flew backward, hit the far wall, and stayed there, stunned, not dead, scrabbling to find her footing.

I dropped to the floor and landed hard on my hands and knees. My whole body was shaking.

The second vampire had recovered enough to come at Seraphine again. She drove him back, two blades working together, and finished it while he was still trying to process that she was upright.

The silver-haired woman found the window and went through it.

Seraphine let her go.

The room was still.

I was still on my hands and knees on the floor, staring at my hands. The gold had faded. I felt hollowed out, wrung empty, the way I'd felt after an hour of training except compressed into ten seconds.

"Elena." Seraphine crouched in front of me. "Are you alright?"

"What did I do?" I said.

"Exactly what you needed to do," she said. "No more, no less."

"She got away," I said.

"I know. She'll report back." Seraphine straightened. "We have minutes."

A sound from outside. Footsteps. More than one set, moving with coordination.

"Reinforcements," Viviana said from the table. "The one who left will have signaled."

Seraphine moved to the garage door and opened it.

A black SUV sat inside, keys already in the ignition.

"Drive north. Safe house coordinates are in the GPS. Go there and wait for me."

"What if you don't come?" I said.

Seraphine looked at me for a moment.

"Then you survive anyway," she said. "You fight. You protect your child. And you make them pay."

The front door exploded inward.

"GO!" Seraphine shouted, already turning toward the sound.

I grabbed Viviana, half-dragged her to the passenger seat, and got behind the wheel. The engine turned over immediately.

I floored it.

In the rearview mirror the brownstone disappeared behind us, lights blazing from the fight still happening inside.

"She'll be alright," Viviana said. She didn't sound certain.

Neither was I.

My phone buzzed on the seat beside me.

I glanced at it.

Unknown number.

“Where are you? Answer me.”

Lucian.

I stared at the screen for one second.

Then the road demanded my attention again and I drove north through empty streets and didn't answer because I didn't know how he'd gotten this number. I deleted the notification without replying. If Lucian had found this number, then nowhere was as safe as I'd believed. I pressed harder on the accelerator.