Tous les chapitres de : Chapitre 31 - Chapitre 40

The silence that followed the scream was more terrible than any sound Iris had ever heard. Through the bond that still connected her to Damien, she felt the exact moment when his humanity died, replaced by something that wore his face but carried none of his compassion. The predatory satisfaction that flooded through their connection was like acid in her veins, burning away every hope she had clung to during the dark weeks of Evangeline's siege.She pressed her hands against the window, watching the fog swirl around shapes that moved with inhuman grace. Through the supernatural mist, she could see glimpses of what Damien had become: a creature of fluid violence, his movements no longer constrained by the careful control he had maintained for sixty years. The townspeople who had been drawn to the manor by Evangeline's influence now scattered like leaves before a hurricane, their vacant expressions replaced by the primal terror of prey animals who had finally recognized their predator.

The protective wards around the Whitmore house shattered at dawn.Iris felt the exact moment when the barriers collapsed, the sensation like glass breaking inside her chest. The creature that had been stalking them through the night withdrew as the first pale rays of sunlight painted the eastern sky, but not before leaving a message that made her blood freeze in her veins.Carved into Sarah's front door with supernatural precision were words that spoke in Damien's careful script but carried none of his warmth: "Come to the manor at sunset. Come alone. We finish what Eleanor started.""He's still in there," Iris whispered, tracing the carved letters with trembling fingers. "Somewhere beneath the hunger, beneath Evangeline's influence, part of him remembers what we had."Sarah examined the message with the clinical eye of someone who had spent decades interpreting supernatural communications. "This isn't Damien reaching out to you, child. This is the creature wearing his face, using his

The abandoned textile mill on the outskirts of Millbrook had been empty since the war ended, its machinery stripped and sold, leaving only hollow spaces where industry once thrived. Now it served as the perfect hunting ground for creatures who preferred their prey isolated and their kills unwitnessed. In the depths of its basement, where sunlight never penetrated even at noon, Evangeline had created her temporary court.Damien knelt before her in the darkness, his head bowed in submission that would have been impossible just days ago. The blood of seven townspeople coursed through his system, each death adding another layer of intoxication that made rational thought increasingly difficult to maintain. The creature that had consumed his conscience purred with satisfaction at the memory of their fear, their desperate attempts to flee, the exquisite moment when hope died in their eyes."Look at me, my beautiful boy," Evangeline commanded, her voice carrying the hypnotic power that had en

The greenhouse felt like a tomb in the pre-dawn darkness, its glass walls reflecting nothing but Iris's own pale face as she hunched over Eleanor's journals spread across the potting bench. Three days had passed since Damien disappeared with his maker, three days of watching the supernatural plants wither and die despite her desperate attempts to sustain them. Their voices had grown increasingly frantic, a chorus of botanical terror that spoke of approaching darkness and the spiritual destruction of the man she loved.Her hands shook as she turned another page of Eleanor's cramped handwriting, searching for anything that might explain the symbiotic relationship between Damien and the garden. The memory bloom sat beside her on the bench, its petals already beginning to curl with the same blight that was spreading through the rest of the collection. If it died, she suspected any hope of reaching the humanity Damien had stored within its supernatural essence would die with it."There has

The greenhouse trembled as if struck by an earthquake, but Iris knew the violent shaking came from something far more terrifying than any natural disaster. The supernatural plants were screaming. Not the gentle whispers of communication she had grown accustomed to, but raw, primal shrieks of botanical terror that clawed at her consciousness like fingernails on glass. Every specimen Eleanor had cultivated over six decades was dying in synchronous agony, their collective death song reverberating through dimensions that human ears weren't meant to perceive."Sweet Mary and Joseph," Sarah gasped, pressing her hands against her ears as the plants' voices rose to a crescendo that seemed to shake the very foundation of reality. "What's happening to them?"Iris staggered toward the memory bloom, her gift allowing her to understand the true horror of what they were witnessing. Through the plants' shared consciousness, she could feel Damien's stored humanity being systematically torn apart, pie