Chapter 4

Three days later, the door to my recovery room slid open.

Vincent entered with Lilith on his arm. She wore a gown of pale silver silk, but it was her left hand that commanded attention.

It rested possessively on Vincent’s sleeve, and the heavy, dark platinum vampire ring.

An ancient, brutal piece of jewelry that symbolized her new status, caught the light with every movement.

A small, contented smile played on her lips as she gazed up at him, the picture of a blissful fiancée surveying her domain.

“Elena,” Vincent’s voice was cool, administrative. “I am told you have made a full recovery from the silver poisoning.” He stated it as a fact, an item on a report.

I pushed myself up slightly on the pillows, a movement that sent a sharp, familiar ache through my bandaged side.

I let the pain show briefly in my eyes before masking it.

“The reports are… optimistic, my Lord,” I said, my voice carefully neutral.

“The superficial necrosis has been arrested. But silver lingers in the deeper tissues, especially where it interacted with… enhanced metabolic pathways.”

I let my gaze drop meaningfully to my own collarbone, where the edge of the Blood Brand was just visible above my gown.

“Some wounds close slower than others. Some toxins are more… persistent.”

Lilith’s serene smile didn’t falter. She stepped forward, her ring glinting as she gestured with a graceful, pitying hand.

“Oh, darling, you hear that? It’s precisely what I feared.”

She turned her concerned face to Vincent.

“The bond. It’s like a conduit, isn’t it? Channeling power, but also vulnerability. That beautiful, terrible mark ties her essence to yours, and when silver attacks her, it’s attacking a part of your domain by proxy. It must amplify the damage, slow the healing… a constant drain on you both.”

She sighed, the picture of compassionate logic.

“For her to truly heal,to become the strong, rested servant you might need again,shouldn’t that painful link be severed? Let her body mend as nature intended, free of such… complicating magic. It would be a mercy.”

She was offering him a solution wrapped in altruism: a healthier, more stable asset, and the removal of a mystical tie to another woman, all in one.

Vincent’s eyes remained on me, assessing the truth of my claimed weakness against the value of the bond.

The Brand gave him control, but it was true.

It created a magical vulnerability we had both exploited in battle, and now it was being used against me in recovery. His gaze was cold, weighing utility against sentiment.

“The bond has served its purpose,” he finally said, his decision made. “Its continued existence appears to be a liability.”

He approached the bed, his movements devoid of ceremony.

“Vincent…” The name was out before I could stop it, a soft exhale laden with the memory of when that mark was a promise, not a liability.

His fingers were deft and impersonal as they loosened the neck of my gown, fully exposing the Blood Brand.

The intricate, luminous sigil, a mix of his blood-ink and my own life-force etched into my skin, pulsed faintly with a warmth that was suddenly agonizing to feel.

His touch on the mark was clinical, but it unleashed a torrent of memory: His fingers tracing the fresh, burning brand a decade ago, his voice uncharacteristically thick in the ritual’s aftermath.

“It is done. Your strength feeds mine; my protection guards you. This is the first thread of eternity, Elena.”

A promise of the Turn, of a shared forever, whispered like a sacrament in the dark.

Now, the same fingers prepared to unravel that thread.

He placed his palm directly over the Brand.

A deep, resonant vibration filled the room, the sound of ancient magic being forcibly unraveled.

The pain was instantaneous and soul-deep, a rending of a fundamental part of my identity.

I cried out, my body bowing under the metaphysical violence.

Another memory flashed: Me, bleeding out from a wound tainted with wolfsbane, my human resilience failing.

Vincent, his face a mask of fury and fear, slashing his own wrist and pressing it to my mouth.

“Drink. The bond will carry the antidote. It will keep you alive.”

The life-saving fire of his blood, and the Brand on my collarbone flaring like a star, pulling his immortal vitality into my fading body.

Now, that same channel was being ripped open in reverse.

The light of the sigil bled from my skin into his palm, its beautiful, complex patterns fading like dying embers.

Each disappearing line felt like the erasure of a shared secret, a battle scar, a night spent tracing its contours in the aftermath of passion.

When it was over, Vincent removed his hand.

My collarbone was bare, only a faint, pink tenderness like the ghost of a kiss marking where the covenant had lived.

The absence was profound—a silent, hollow void where the constant, low-grade hum of his presence had been my world’s background noise.

I felt terrifyingly, utterly alone.

As the last gleam faded from my skin, a corresponding, softer glow on Vincent’s own chest—the master sigil that paired with mine—flickered and died.

Vincent stared at the now-unmarked skin, his own face pale.

For a heartbeat, something stark and unreadable flickered in his eyes—not regret, perhaps, but the disorientation of a man who has just dismantled a cornerstone of his own fortress.

Lilith smoothly filled the silence, her silver-silk form moving to reclaim his arm, her ringed hand patting his sleeve.

“There,” she said, her voice a soft, victorious murmur that filled the silent room.

She looked not at me, but up at Vincent, her eyes holding his. “Now you are completely mine.”

“Yes,” Vincent said,“Now, I’m only yours.”

She looked up at Vincent with a smile of pure satisfaction. “Shall we, darling? Let her sleep.”

Vincent allowed himself to be led away, his last glance at me empty, as if looking at a piece of furniture whose purpose had been temporarily reassigned.

The door closed. In the ringing silence, I lifted a trembling hand to my collarbone. The skin was smooth. The promise was dead.

All that remained was the cold, sharp clarity of a blade that had just been wiped clean of its former owner’s fingerprints.

Five days to go.

The countdown in my mind now pulsed with a new, silent intensity.