CHAPTER SEVEN

The blood moon rose swollen and obscene, painting the palace walls the color of a fresh bruise.

Every corridor crawled with anticipation. Servants scurried with silver trays of raw hearts and crystal decanters filled with vampire blood laced with nightshade—just enough to heighten the senses without killing the drinkers. Musicians tuned instruments strung with werewolf gut. Torches burned blue, fed by alchemical fats that whispered when the flames licked them.

Tonight was the Feast of the Crimson Coronation: an ancient rite held only when the moon bled. It celebrated the original pact between Lycan and vampire—before betrayal, before war. Tonight it would celebrate a marriage.

And tonight, someone would die.

Elara stood before the mirror in the queen’s solar, adjusting the final touches to her gown.

It was a masterpiece of menace: black velvet so dark it drank the light, slashed with crimson silk that moved like spilled blood when she walked. The neckline plunged low enough to display Cassius’s bonding mark in all its glowing glory. A crown of silver thorns rested on her midnight hair, each tip dipped in curare.

Seraphine stood behind her, dressed in an identical gown. Identical crown. Identical face.

Only their eyes differed now.

Elara’s were calm, calculating pools of wine.

Seraphine’s burned with barely leashed fury.

They had rehearsed this a dozen times.

At the feast, Seraphine would take Elara’s place at Cassius’s side—close enough to touch him, to whisper in his ear, to slide the star-iron dagger between his ribs when the moment came.

Elara would slip away during the third toast, descend through the hidden passage behind the throne, and reach the beast’s chamber beneath the great hall. There she would break the first three seals early—forcing the god-beast to stir before the appointed night.

Chaos would follow. In the panic, Seraphine would strike.

One heart for the beast. One heart for revenge.

Simple.

Nothing ever was.

“You’re certain the guards will let me pass?” Seraphine asked, voice low.

“They’ll see the queen,” Elara replied. “The mark on your throat is illusion, but perfect. I brewed it myself. It will hold until moonlight touches it directly.”

Seraphine touched the false bonding mark—glowing faintly, warm to the touch.

“And if he kisses me?”

Elara’s smile was thin. “Kiss him back. He likes it when his mate fights a little.”

Seraphine’s jaw tightened. “I’m not his mate.”

“No,” Elara agreed. “But tonight you’ll play the part better than I ever did.”

A gong sounded deep in the palace—summoning the royal couple to the great hall.

It was time.

They embraced once, fiercely, like sisters forged in the same betrayal.

Then Seraphine slipped out first, taking the main staircase.

Elara waited five heartbeats, then took the servants’ passage that spiraled down behind the walls.

The great hall was a nightmare of beauty.

Thousands of candles floated in mid-air, flames the color of arterial blood. Banners of black and crimson hung from the rafters, embroidered with the entwined wolf-and-bat sigil of the new alliance. Long tables groaned under platters of rare meat, crystal bowls of blood thickened with marrow, desserts shaped like screaming faces.

The court filled the hall in tiers: Lycan nobles in fur and silver, vampire envoys in silk and bone. Between them, the tension was thick enough to cut.

At the high table on the dais, Cassius waited.

He wore black armor chased with gold, the torque of kingship gleaming at his throat. When Seraphine entered—gliding down the central aisle with perfect vampire grace—the entire hall fell silent.

Cassius rose.

His eyes devoured her.

Seraphine reached the dais, took his outstretched hand. He pulled her close, kissed her deeply in front of everyone. The bond flared—visible to those who could see such things—a silver thread snapping taut between them.

He did not notice the difference.

Not yet.

They sat. The feast began.

Elara watched from the shadows of a balcony overlooking the hall, hidden behind a curtain of black gauze.

Course after course was served. Wine flowed. Toasts were made—to the king, to the queen, to the child already rumored to be growing in her womb.

Cassius’s hand rested possessively on Seraphine’s thigh beneath the table. His thumb traced slow circles. Seraphine smiled at him, leaned in to whisper something that made him laugh—low, hungry.

Elara felt it through the bond she still carried: a phantom echo of desire, of satisfaction.

She turned away.

It was time.

She slipped down the narrow stair behind the throne, past guards who bowed to the queen’s scent still clinging to her skin. The passage was old, damp, lit by guttering torches. It led deep beneath the hall, to a door of black iron bound with silver runes.

The beast’s chamber.

The door was sealed with seven locks—each a different metal, each keyed to a different bloodline.

Elara drew the star-iron dagger. Pricked her finger. Let three drops fall onto the first lock.

It clicked open.

Second lock—vampire blood from a hidden vial.

Third—her own, mixed with wolfsbane.

The door groaned inward.

Inside was darkness absolute, and the smell of ancient hunger.

Something shifted in the black—a vast shape, breathing slow as continents.

Elara stepped forward.

“I’m early,” she whispered to the dark. “But I brought you a different offering.”

A low rumble answered—like mountains grinding together.

She began the incantation.

Above, in the great hall, the third toast was raised.

Cassius stood, goblet in hand.

“To my queen,” he said, voice carrying effortlessly. “To the mother of my heir. To the woman who holds my heart in her claws.”

The court roared approval.

Seraphine rose beside him, smiling radiantly.

Her hand slipped beneath the table.

Fingers closed around the hilt of the star-iron dagger hidden in her garter.

Cassius turned to her, eyes soft with drink and love and prophecy.

He leaned in to kiss her again.

That was when the first scream came.

Not from the dais.

From the far end of the hall.

A mirror—one of the great silver ones lining the walls—had shattered outward. Shards hung in the air like frozen rain, each reflecting a different horror: wolves devouring their own young, vampires burning in sunlight, a child with eyes of starlight tearing open its mother’s chest.

Then the shards fell.

And the bleeding began.

Blood poured from the broken frame—not dripping, pouring, as though the wall itself had been wounded.

The court surged to its feet.

Cassius whirled, instincts flaring.

“What in the—”

Another mirror shattered.

Then another.

Blood sprayed across tables, across faces. Goblets overturned. People slipped in it, fell, trampled.

Panic ignited like wildfire.

Seraphine seized the moment.

She drove the dagger upward—straight for Cassius’s heart.

But he moved faster than thought.

His hand snapped around her wrist, stopping the blade a hair’s breadth from his chest.

His eyes met hers.

And for the first time, doubt flickered.

“You hesitate,” he said quietly, amid the growing chaos. “My true mate would not hesitate.”

Seraphine twisted, trying to free her arm.

Cassius’s grip tightened. Bones creaked.

“Who are you?” he snarled.

Below, in the beast’s chamber, Elara completed the third seal.

The rumbling grew louder.

The floor trembled.

Dust sifted from the ceiling.

She backed toward the door.

Something uncoiled in the darkness—vast, star-speckled, ancient beyond naming.

It opened eyes like dying galaxies.

And it looked at her.

Not with hunger.

With recognition.

Elara froze.

The beast spoke—not in words, but directly into her mind, a voice like the end of the world.

*You are not the sacrifice.*

*You are the vessel.*

Ice flooded her veins.

She turned to run.

But the door had already slammed shut behind her.

Above, Cassius dragged Seraphine close by her captured wrist.

The hall was descending into madness—people fleeing, mirrors exploding one after another, blood rising ankle-deep in places.

He stared into her face—identical, yet wrong.

“Seraphine,” he said slowly. “My Seraphine… where is she?”

Seraphine laughed—wild, broken.

“Ask your prophecy,” she spat. “Ask the beast you were so eager to wake.”

His eyes widened.

Understanding crashed over him.

He roared—a sound of pure animal betrayal—and hurled her across the dais.

She hit the throne, rolled, came up with blood on her lip.

But she was smiling.

Because behind Cassius, the floor of the great hall cracked open.

A fissure zig-zagged across the stone, glowing with starlight.

Something rose through it.

Not fully formed—not yet—but enough.

A clawed hand the size of a wagon wheel.

Skin like midnight flecked with constellations.

It grasped the edge of the fissure and pulled.

The entire palace shook.

Cassius spun.

For one heartbeat, king and beast regarded each other.

Then the hand reached—not for him.

For the dais.

For Seraphine.

She screamed as it closed around her, lifting her into the air like a child’s doll.

Cassius lunged, shifting mid-leap into war form.

But the beast was faster.

It brought Seraphine close to its emerging face—features still half-shadow, half-star—and inhaled.

Her body arched.

Light—silver and crimson—poured from her mouth, her eyes, her chest.

The bonding mark on her throat flared, then shattered like glass.

The illusion burned away.

Cassius landed on the cracked dais, staring up in horror.

“That’s not—” he began.

The real Seraphine’s soul screamed as it was torn from the borrowed body.

Below, in the sealed chamber, Elara pounded on the door.

“Let me out!” she shouted. “That wasn’t the plan!”

The beast’s voice filled her mind again, gentle as a graveyard.

*The plan was never yours.*

*You woke me early. Now I choose.*

She felt it then—the pulling.

Deep in her chest.

The bond Cassius had forged.

But twisted now.

Rerouted.

The beast was drinking through it.

She fell to her knees.

Above, Seraphine’s body went limp in the beast’s grasp.

Empty.

Dead.

The hand released her. She fell, crumpled at Cassius’s feet.

He stared down at the face—his mate’s face—now pale and still.

Then he looked up at the beast.

“You took the wrong one,” he snarled.

The beast rumbled—almost a laugh.

*Did I?*

The fissure widened.

More of it emerged—shoulders, torso, a second arm.

Starlight poured into the hall, washing the blood away in rivers of silver.

Cassius shifted fully, launched himself at the creature.

Claws met star-flesh. Sparks flew.

But the beast barely noticed.

Its attention was elsewhere.

Below.

On Elara.

She felt the moment it claimed her.

The bond snapped—not breaking, but changing ownership.

Cassius staggered mid-fight, as though struck.

He felt it too.

“No,” he whispered.

He abandoned the beast, leapt down through the fissure, landing in the chamber in a shower of stone.

Elara was on her knees, eyes glowing with captured starlight.

“Elara,” he said—recognizing her at last.

The ghost. The decoy. The woman he had murdered in another life.

She looked up at him.

Smiled.

With teeth too sharp.

“Hello, my king,” she said, voice layered with the beast’s thunder. “You’re late.”

He reached for her.

She rose.

The chamber door blasted outward.

Together—king and vessel—they walked back into the ruined hall.

The beast followed, folding itself into her like smoke into lungs.

The court that remained fell to their knees.

Some in terror.

Some in worship.

Cassius stood before her, chest heaving.

“What have you done?” he asked.

“What you taught me,” she answered. “I took what was mine.”

She stepped close.

Touched his face gently.

He didn’t stop her.

“I loved you,” he said brokenly. “Both of you.”

“I know,” she whispered.

Then she kissed him.

Soft.

Sweet.

Final.

When she pulled back, his eyes were wide.

The star-iron dagger—Seraphine’s dagger—protruded from his heart.

He looked down at it.

Looked back at her.

Fell to his knees.

Blood—his blood—poured across the cracked stone, feeding the beast now living in her veins.

Elara crouched beside him.

Watched him die slowly.

When the light left his eyes, she closed them with tender fingers.

Then she stood.

Turned to the silent hall.

The beast spoke through her mouth, voice filling every corner.

“The king is dead.”

A pause.

“Long live the queen.”

The remaining mirrors—all of them—shattered at once.

And in every shard, the same reflection:

Elara wearing the crown.

The face.

And the apocalypse.