Dante's POV
The witch's blood smelled wrong.
I stood in the corner of Thornwood Manor's ballroom, watching a young warlock stumble past with a bleeding nose from some magical duel gone bad. The scent hit me like rotting flowers—sweet but spoiled. Witch blood always smelled like that to vampires. A warning. Poison.
Which made being here, surrounded by hundreds of witches, complete torture.
"Remind me why we're doing this again?" Nikolai muttered beside me, his ice-blue eyes scanning the crowd from behind a silver wolf mask. "We could be home. Comfortable. Not surrounded by creatures who'd love to stake us."
"Politics," I said simply, adjusting my raven mask. "The treaty requires vampire presence at their major celebrations. They come to our Blood Gatherings. We come to their masquerades."
"I hate politics."
"So do I." I grabbed champagne from a passing server, not to drink but to look normal. Vampires didn't need food or alcohol. But holding a glass made humans and witches more comfortable around us. Less likely to panic and start throwing magic.
The ballroom buzzed with conversation and laughter. Masked figures twirled across the dance floor while magic sparkled in the air like fireflies. Halloween was the witches' most powerful night. The veil between life and death thinned, and their magic tripled in strength.
It made my skin crawl.
"How much longer?" Nikolai asked.
"Another hour. Then we've fulfilled our obligation and can leave." I counted the minutes until I could escape this place. The witch magic pressing against me felt like invisible hands trying to push me out. We weren't welcome here. Everyone knew it.
A red-dressed witch laughed nearby, showing off a massive diamond ring. Other witches clustered around her, congratulating her on something. The scent of her magic was darker than the others. Ambitious. Greedy.
I dismissed her from my thoughts. Witch politics didn't interest me. I'd lived three hundred and forty-two years by staying out of their business and keeping them out of mine.
"Lord Moretti." An elderly witch appeared in front of me—Elder Thorne, leader of the Sacred Oak Coven. Her wrinkled face attempted a smile that didn't reach her eyes. "Thank you for honoring us with your presence."
"Elder Thorne." I inclined my head respectfully, though we both knew the truth. She didn't want me here. I didn't want to be here. But the treaty demanded it, so we played our parts.
"I trust you're enjoying the festivities?"
"Very much." The lie tasted bitter. "Your coven throws magnificent celebrations."
"We try." She studied me carefully. "Though I'm surprised you came personally. Usually you send representatives."
"Halloween is special." Another lie. I'd come because skipping would've been seen as an insult. Would've given the witches an excuse to break the treaty. "The Blood Moon rising on Samhain happens only once every few decades."
"Indeed." Her eyes narrowed. "Let's hope it brings peace between our kinds rather than conflict."
The warning in her words was clear. Behave yourself, vampire. Don't start trouble.
I smiled, letting just a hint of fang show. "Peace is always my goal, Elder."
She didn't look convinced but moved away to greet other guests.
"She doesn't trust you," Nikolai observed.
"Nobody trusts me. That's why I'm still alive." I scanned the crowd again, counting exits. Old habit. Always know how to escape. "Ten more minutes. Then we're leaving whether the hour's up or not."
That's when the lights went out.
Darkness swallowed the ballroom. Complete and total. Even my vampire vision struggled in the sudden blackness.
Gasps and screams erupted. Someone's magic flared wild, casting crazy shadows across the walls. The crowd pressed together, confused and frightened.
Then I saw it through the massive windows.
The Blood Moon.
Rising huge and crimson over Thornwood Manor, bigger than I'd ever seen it. Power rolled off it in waves that made every supernatural creature in the room gasp.
And my dead heart—silent for three hundred years—BEAT.
Once. Strong and loud like thunder in my chest.
Impossible.
Vampires didn't have heartbeats. Our hearts died with our human lives. Mine had stopped beating in 1683 when my sire turned me. Nothing could restart it. Nothing.
I pressed a hand to my chest, feeling... nothing. The beat was gone. Had I imagined it?
Then the pull started.
Something dragged at me from across the ballroom. Not physical. Deeper than that. Like an invisible rope tied around my ribs, yanking me forward.
"Dante?" Nikolai grabbed my arm. "What's wrong? You look—"
"Do you feel that?" I couldn't breathe. Didn't need to breathe, but suddenly my lungs screamed for air anyway.
"Feel what?"
The pull got stronger. DEMANDING. My body moved on its own, pushing through the crowd. I had to get there. Had to find—
What? Find what?
I didn't know. But every cell in my body knew the direction. Across the ballroom. Through the mass of confused, frightened supernatural creatures. THERE.
"Dante, stop!" Nikolai followed me. "What are you doing?"
I couldn't answer. Couldn't think. The pull consumed everything else. My fangs extended fully. My eyes burned red. Every predator instinct I'd spent centuries controlling roared to life.
The crowd parted without me having to push. One look at my face and they scattered. Smart.
Then I saw her.
A woman in silver, wearing a butterfly mask that covered most of her face. She stood frozen near the wall, one hand pressed to her chest like she couldn't breathe either. Her skin glowed with purple-silver light that pulsed in rhythm with—
My heart beat again. Twice. Matching her pulse.
"No," I whispered. "That's impossible."
But I knew what this was. I'd heard stories. Legends from before vampires and witches went to war. From a time when our kinds could bond instead of kill each other.
The Mating Bond.
It couldn't be real. Vampires didn't mate anymore. We'd lost that ability centuries ago when witch magic cursed our species. We could love, maybe. But not mate. Never mate.
Yet my heart beat a third time, synchronized with hers, and I KNEW.
She was mine.
The woman's head snapped up. Even behind the mask, I saw her eyes widen. Violet eyes. Unusual. Beautiful. Terrified.
She felt it too. The bond snapping into place between us like a golden chain neither of us could break.
I started walking toward her. Couldn't stop. Didn't want to stop.
She backed against the wall, her glow getting brighter. "Stay away from me."
"I can't." My voice came out rough. Desperate. "You're my—"
"I said STAY AWAY!" Her power exploded outward in a wave of purple light.
It hit me square in the chest and should've thrown me across the room. Should've burned me since witch magic and vampire bodies didn't mix well.
Instead, it felt like coming home.
The light wrapped around me, warm and welcoming, and my dead heart beat faster. Four times. Five. Six. Like it was remembering how to work after three hundred years of silence.
The entire ballroom went silent. Every supernatural creature stared at us—the Vampire Lord and the glowing witch, connected by power that shouldn't exist.
Elder Thorne's voice shattered the silence. "What is this? What's happening?"
"The Mating Bond," Nikolai breathed behind me. His voice held shock and something else. Fear? "It's actually real."
The woman in silver shook her head frantically. "No. No, this isn't possible. I don't have magic anymore. I can't—"
"You have magic." I could see it pouring off her in waves now that the bond had opened my senses to her. Powerful magic. Ancient. "More than you know."
"Who ARE you?" she demanded.
I reached up and pulled off my raven mask. Let her see my face. My red-rimmed eyes. My fangs fully extended. Everything that marked me as vampire. As monster. As her enemy.
"Dante Moretti," I said quietly. "Lord of the Southern Vampire Court." I took one step closer. "And apparently, your mate."
Her violet eyes went huge. Recognition and horror crossed her face in equal measure.
Then she ripped off her own mask.
My heart stopped beating again—but this time from shock, not death.
Silver-blonde hair. Porcelain skin. A face I'd seen before in old paintings. In twenty-year-old photographs. In memorial portraits.
She looked exactly like Elena Ashwood. The High Priestess I'd watched die in the Halloween Massacre. The witch who'd been my secret ally. Who'd trusted me. Who'd died because I wasn't strong enough to save her.
"You're Elena's daughter," I whispered.
"Seraphina Ashwood." Her voice shook with anger and fear. "Daughter of the High Priestess your kind MURDERED."
The ballroom erupted in chaos. Witches shouting. Vampires backing away from me. Elder Thorne's voice trying to restore order.
But I only saw her. Seraphina. My mate. Elena's daughter. The one person in the world who had every reason to hate me.
And the Mating Bond—that impossible, ancient connection—burned between us like a star, binding me to the daughter of the woman I'd failed to protect.
She looked at me with pure hatred. "I'd rather die than mate with a vampire. Especially YOU."
Then she ran.
My heart beat seven times as I watched her disappear into the crowd. Seven times, then stopped again.
But the bond didn't break. Couldn't break. No matter how much she hated me, no matter how impossible this was, we were connected now.
Forever.
"What have you done?" Elder Thorne's voice cut through my shock. "You've bonded with one of our witches!"
I turned to face her, letting my full power show. My eyes burned crimson. My fangs gleamed sharp. "I didn't do anything. The bond chose us."
"Then you'll break it. Immediately. We don't allow—"
"You can't break a Mating Bond." Nikolai stepped beside me, protective. "No one can. It's written in the oldest magic. Before your kind and ours went to war."
"That's a myth—"
"Look at him!" Nikolai gestured at my chest where my heart had restarted, then stopped. "His heart beat. For the first time in three centuries, his heart BEAT. That only happens with a true mate."
Elder Thorne paled. Other council members gathered, their faces grim.
The red-dressed witch from earlier pushed through the crowd. "That's my sister. That's SERAPHINA. You bonded with my sister!" Her eyes blazed with fury and something else. Jealousy?
"Your sister?" I looked at her carefully. The resemblance was slight but there. Same bone structure. Different coloring. "Then you know where she went."
"Even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. Seraphina has been through enough today without a vampire stalking her."
"I'm not stalking. I'm—" I stopped. What was I doing? Chasing a witch who hated me. Who had every right to hate me. Whose mother I'd failed twenty years ago.
But the bond pulled at me still. Demanded I find her. Protect her. Claim her.
My heart gave one single beat, like it was reminding me she was still close. Still alive. Still MINE.
"I need to find her," I said quietly. "The bond—"
"The bond is unnatural!" The red witch—Vivienne, someone called her—stepped closer. "Vampires killed our mother. Killed dozens of witches in the Halloween Massacre. And now you dare claim her daughter as your mate?"
"I didn't kill your mother. I tried to save her." The old guilt rose up, bitter and familiar. "Elena and I were working together. Trying to stop the war. The vampire who ordered the massacre was my sire—I executed him for it."
"Lies!"
"Truth." I held Vivienne's gaze, letting her see my sincerity. "Ask your sister. When you find her. Ask her why the bond chose us despite everything."
"I don't need to ask her anything. She's staying away from you. Forever."
Before I could respond, power rippled through the ballroom again. Different from before. Darker.
Every witch in the room gasped and grabbed at their chests.
"What's happening?" I demanded.
Elder Thorne's face went white with fear. "The wards. Someone's breaking through the protective wards around Thornwood Manor."
"Who?"
"I don't know. But they're strong. Very strong." She looked at me with sudden desperation. "Lord Moretti, I know we have our differences, but right now we need—"
The ballroom windows exploded inward.
Glass rained down as three figures dropped through the broken frames. Not human. Not vampire. Not witch.
Demons.
Their eyes glowed red—true red, not vampire red. Their skin looked burned and cracked, showing flames underneath. And the magic rolling off them was old. Ancient. Evil.
One of them smiled, showing rows of sharp teeth. "We felt it. The Mating Bond awakening. The Twilight Witch reborn." His burning gaze swept the ballroom. "Where is she? Where is Elena's daughter?"
My heart beat twice. Hard and fast and PROTECTIVE.
These things wanted my mate.
Over my dead body. Again.
I moved in front of Elder Thorne, fangs fully extended. "You want her, you go through me first."
The demon laughed. "With pleasure, vampire. We've been waiting twenty years to finish what we started. Elena's bloodline ends tonight."
Then all three demons attacked at once, and I realized something terrifying.
Seraphina wasn't just my mate. She was in danger. Terrible danger. The same danger that had killed her mother.
And I had no idea where she'd run to.
My heart beat frantically now, seven times in quick succession, screaming at me to FIND HER. PROTECT HER.
But first, I had to survive three ancient demons who'd just crashed a Halloween masquerade looking for the woman fate had bound me to.
The woman who hated me.
The woman I couldn't let die.