The ancient stones of Valerian Castle weep crimson tears in the moonlight as Damon's blade slices through the neck of another Shadow Order assassin. Silver blood spatters across the marble floor where his ancestors once danced, now slick with death and betrayal. His chest heaves with unnecessary breath—a habit from his mortal days, centuries past—as he surveys the carnage surrounding him.
"Prince Damon," hisses Lucien, the Shadow Order's most ruthless enforcer, stepping over the bodies of fallen vampires like they're mere obstacles. His obsidian eyes gleam with malicious hunger. "Your royal blood will taste sweetest when seasoned with defeat."
Damon's silver eyes blaze with preternatural fury as he raises his ancestral sword, moonlight dancing along its enchanted edge. "You'll have to catch me first, you parasitic fool."
The words barely leave his lips before Lucien strikes with inhuman speed, his claws whistling through the air where Damon's head was a split second before. The vampire prince spins gracefully, his movements fluid as water yet deadly as lightning, bringing his blade around in a perfect arc that would have severed Lucien's arm—if the enforcer hadn't dissolved into shadow at the last moment.
"Running again, little prince?" Lucien's voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere, the shadows themselves seeming to mock Damon's efforts. "Just like you ran from your betrothal to Princess Isla. Just like you ran from your responsibilities to our kind."
The mention of Isla's name sends a spike of guilt through Damon's undead heart, but he forces the emotion down, channeling it into cold rage instead. "I chose freedom over your twisted version of duty. Some prices are too high to pay, even for immortality."
Shadows coalesce around the great hall's perimeter as more Shadow Order vampires materialize from the darkness. Their pale faces are masks of ancient hunger, eyes glowing like dying stars in the moonlit chamber. Damon counts twelve—no, fifteen—enemies surrounding him, each one powerful enough to level a city block. Under normal circumstances, he'd relish the challenge. Tonight, survival takes precedence over pride.
"The Shadow Order grows tired of your rebellion, Damon," declares Elder Morgana, her voice like silk wrapped around steel as she glides down the grand staircase. Her raven-black hair flows behind her like liquid night, and her crimson dress seems to absorb the moonlight. "Your royal bloodline carries power that belongs to all vampire-kind, not hoarded by one selfish prince."
Damon's grip tightens on his sword hilt, knuckles white beneath his pale skin. "My blood is my own. I'll see it spilled on these stones before I let you harvest it for your dark rituals."
"That can be arranged," Morgana purrs, raising one elegant hand.
The attack comes from all sides simultaneously. Vampires move like liquid death, their forms blurring as they close the distance in heartbeats. Damon's sword becomes a silver whirlwind, deflecting claws and fangs with desperate precision. Every parry sends sparks cascading through the air, illuminating faces twisted with supernatural malice.
He spins left, ducking under Viktor's sweeping claws, then pivots right to drive his elbow into Seraphina's solar plexus. The impact sends her flying into a marble pillar, which cracks under the force. But for every enemy he strikes down, two more seem to take their place, the shadows birthing new threats with each passing second.
Blood—his own precious royal blood—begins to seep from a dozen shallow wounds. Each drop that hits the floor makes the Shadow Order vampires' eyes burn brighter with anticipation. They can smell his power, taste it in the air like the finest wine.
"You cannot fight us all, young prince," Elder Morgana calls out, her voice eerily calm amid the supernatural chaos. "Surrender now, and we'll make your death quick. Continue this futile resistance, and we'll drain you slowly, savoring every drop of your royal essence."
"I'd rather die fighting than live as your puppet," Damon snarls, channeling his remaining strength into his vampiric speed.
He becomes a blur of motion, his form shifting between solid and mist as he employs every technique learned through a century of existence. His blade finds gaps in supernatural defenses, sending more Shadow Order vampires to their final deaths. But exhaustion weighs on him like chains, each movement slower than the last.
A clawed hand rakes across his back, shredding his silk shirt and leaving four parallel gashes that burn like acid. Another catches his shoulder, spinning him around just as Lucien materializes from shadow, fangs bared for the killing strike.
Time slows to a crystalline moment as Damon sees his own destruction approaching. Lucien's fangs gleam like ivory daggers, aimed directly at his throat. The other vampires close in from all sides, their combined hunger creating a suffocating aura of impending doom.
Then instinct overrides conscious thought.
Damon's vampire prince heritage erupts in a explosion of pure power that sends shockwaves through the castle's ancient stones. Windows shatter, raining crystal fragments like deadly snow. The force throws his attackers backward, their inhuman shrieks echoing off the vaulted ceiling as they crash into walls and furniture.
But the power surge leaves him drained, his immortal strength flickering like a candle in hurricane winds. This is his only chance—perhaps his last chance.
Without hesitation, Damon sprints toward the shattered remains of the great hall's stained glass window. The opening beckons like a portal to freedom, moonlight streaming through in silver ribbons that seem to call his name.
"Stop him!" Morgana's voice cracks like a whip through the air.
Shadow tendrils reach for him, grasping like desperate fingers as he leaps through the window frame. For a heart-stopping moment, he hangs suspended in the midnight air, the ground three stories below rushing up to meet him. Then his vampire agility takes over, allowing him to land in a perfect crouch on the castle's outer wall.
Behind him, enraged howls split the night as the Shadow Order realizes their prize is slipping away. But Damon doesn't look back—he can't afford to. Not when freedom lies just beyond the castle grounds, in the dark forest that has sheltered his kind for millennia.
He leaps from the wall into the embrace of ancient oaks, their branches welcoming him like old friends. His feet barely touch the forest floor as he runs, using every shadow and moonbeam to mask his flight. The trees blur past in a green-black tapestry, their leaves whispering secrets only vampires can hear.
The sounds of pursuit echo behind him—breaking branches, inhuman snarls, and Morgana's voice commanding her followers to spread out and surround the forest. But the woods are vast, and Damon knows pathways that predate the Shadow Order's corruption of vampire society.
As he runs deeper into the wilderness, branches catching at his torn clothes and moonlight creating a shifting maze of light and shadow around him, one thought burns brighter than all others in his immortal mind.
Never again will he trust his own kind. Never again will he believe in the honor of vampire nobility or the righteousness of their ancient ways. The Shadow Order's betrayal has shown him the truth—his people are nothing more than sophisticated predators, willing to destroy even their own for the promise of power.
The forest swallows him completely, its darkness offering sanctuary from the horrors behind him. But as he runs through the endless night, Damon doesn't realize that his flight from the vampire world will lead him to something far more dangerous than any Shadow Order assassin.
It will lead him to hope.
It will lead him to love.
It will lead him to an extremely beautiful seventeen-year-old human girl who will make his undead heart beat again—and in doing so, put them both in more peril than either could possibly imagine.