~ALARIC'S POV
"Dravenna?" Zephyrus spat, his voice sharp with disdain. "No thanks, brother. She's got I'll-take-all-of-you written all over her." I could hear the curl of his lip, the faint edge of irritation as memory clearly soured his mood.
I hummed after listening to his words while Lucian shifted beside him. My jaw tightened as I weighed the implications, because Zephyrus opinions mattered more than he thinks.
"Zeph's not a fan," Lucian said quietly, stating the obvious.
A sharp snort followed. "Fan?" Zephyrus snapped. "She's been throwing herself at us for centuries. Like we need that kind of drama infecting the realm." I heard him shift. "What's the play, brother? You need a vampire pawn to warm your throne?"
My expression didn't change but my voice hardened like a warning wrapped in calm. "We'll discuss this further. Stay focused, Zephyrus."
Silence.
"Sure," he said at last, clipped and resentful. "Focused." His words were obedient but his body was not.
Lucian stepped in with an even tone as he summarized the proposal again, the risks, the leverage, the long history behind Dorian's renewed interest. I listened without interrupting, absorbing not just his words but the unease humming beneath them.
Zephyrus listened too.
But he listened too quietly which was unlike him.
I sensed the moment his attention slipped, the faint shift of weight, and the restless scrape of his boot against the floor.
I heard it before I felt the faint unmistakable crackle of flame which was soft at first, like embers being coaxed awake. Zephyrus's temper had always announced itself that way. The flames on his head never exploded immediately; it simmered before it burned.
His breathing had gone sharp and controlled. Too controlled.
Then he spoke.
"What about Dove?"
My fingers stilled against the manuscript beneath my hands, as the room seemed to sharpen around me, my senses locking onto him. "What about her?" I asked with an indifferent tone, though my attention was anything but that.
Zephyrus didn't answer immediately. When he did, there was something unfamiliar in his voice, like concern edged with something dangerously close to possessiveness.
"You're accepting a marriage alliance with the Vampires," he said. "What happens to Dove?"
I leaned back slowly, taken aback, not by the question itself, but by the implication behind it. My thoughts stalled, rearranging themselves and I was trying to understand why he brought her into this conversation.
My hands steepled together. "Why," I asked carefully, "would my political marriage concern a mortal?"
The air around me changed.
Not with the heat coming from Zephyrus' head this time, but with a dense pressure that felt suffocating, as though the room itself had leaned closer to listen.
I did not move.
Blindness had taught me discipline. Stillness was not absence, but control. I turned my head slightly toward Zephyrus's voice, tracking him by the faint hitch in his breathing, a subtle disturbance he made in the air.
"She is not a thing to be weighed against alliances," I said evenly. "Nor a weakness to be paraded in council chambers."
"That's not what I meant," Zephyrus said, with his frustration flaring, and I heard his fire stir again, a restless crackle beneath his skin. "You know it isn't."
Lucian's voice cut in, measured but tense. "Zeph, choose your words carefully."
"I am," Zephyrus shot back. "That's the problem."
Heavy silence followed after his words, before a feeling stirred low in my chest. It wasn't painful but I knew what it was because it was unmistakable.
The bond.
It felt like a pull which was subtle and insistent, threading outward, not just toward Dove, but also sideways, and branching toward them.
My brothers.
The pact had never been singular.
Centuries ago, when I had stood holding hands with a human who had no business bargaining with a demon lord, I had sworn the oath in my blood alone.
But blood, once spilled does not remain solitary.
Demons are not made to stand apart. Our power is braided, and shared by instinct, by lineage, by fate itself. What binds one of us echoes through the others, whether invited or not.
I had known this.
I had simply chosen not to speak it aloud.
Lucian shifted with uneasiness rolling off him in a careful restraint. "Alaric," he said quietly, "if the pact has begun to... respond, then Zephyrus may be sensing more than he understands."
Zephyrus exhaled hard. "I didn't ask for this," he muttered. "But I can feel it. Whatever she is to you, whatever the promise her ancestor made with you was—it didn't stop with you."
My jaw tightened.
No. It hadn't, and we all knew this.
"She is mortal," I said at last, my voice low, final. "And this realm is not built for her survival. Her presence must remain contained and hidden."
"And if it can't?" Zephyrus pressed.
I turned my face forward, blind eyes fixed on nothing and everything.
"Then we adapt," I said. "As we always do."
The fire in Zephyrus's aura flared sharp and bright before it dulled.
Dove had not only entered my world.
She had crossed into my brothers also.
The fate had reached through blood and dragged my brothers into a promise that could no longer be undone.
The bond recoiled at that thought, tightening like a noose around my chest.
Zephyrus's concern was no longer instinct—it was expectation. And expectations left unchecked, had a way of turning into demands.
I straightened, schooling my expression into something colder and distant. A lord's mask, reforged in iron and certainty.
This conversation had gone too far, with too much being said and implied.
"So, she means nothing?" Zephyrus whispered. "Got it."
My fingers continued to trace the manuscript, forcing my expression into neutrality but Zephyrus words was making it harder. "Explain."
His breath hitched, as the fire stirred, again.
The sudden rush of sound with flames licked higher atop his head, and clouded the room with a Smokey smell.
"I thought you had Lucian and I watch over her all these years," he said, his words coming out faster and more rough. "I thought we brought her here because she was supposed to be by our sides. With us."
A short humorless and detached laugh escaped me. "Our sides?" I repeated, disbelief threading my voice.
My palms flattened against the manuscript on the desk before me. "Zephyrus," I said quietly, "Dove has nothing to do with this. This alliance is about the stability of the realm. Nothing more."
His disappointment was palpable, though he masked it quickly. "I understand," he said.
He didn't.
And that unsettled me more than I cared to admit.
I straightened in my chair, blindfolded gaze fixed forward, voice lowering as I spoke with deliberate detachment. "Dove is here because her soul was promised to me. Nothing more. Nothing less." My fingers tapped a slow rhythm against the armrest. "Her essence is mine, and that is the extent of it, okay?"
Zephyrus's restraint finally cracked. I heard the violent whoosh as fire surged upward and uncontrolled. Heat flooded the room, candles flickered wildly as shadows leapt along the walls.
"So that's it?" he demanded, fury blazing in both his sound and presence. "She's nothing but a resource to you?" He paused, "A vessel?"
Something cold twisted in my chest.
I leaned forward, my voice dropping into a dangerous register. "How dare you question me." The growl beneath my words vibrated through the room. "You think you understand the burden I carry? The cost of my power? The weight of my responsibilities?"
Zephyrus let out a short, sharp and disbelieving laughter. "Burden?" he echoed. "You call it a burden now?"
The fire around him flared higher, heat licking the edges of the room. "You sat there and told me she was nothing. That she's a tool you plan to discard when you're finished with her soul."
Lucian shifted sharply. "Zeph—"
"No," Zephyrus snapped. "No. Don't soften it." His voice cracked with something raw that was beneath his fury. "You made us bring her here. You bounded her to us without our consent. You let us feel it. And now you're pretending it doesn't matter?"
I felt the pressure in my chest tighten, the bond responding to his agitation like a live wire.
"You mistake necessity for cruelty," I said coldly. "And sentiment for truth."
Zephyrus stepped closer. I heard the scorch of his boots against stone. "Then tell me this," he demanded. "If she's just a means to an end, why does the bond reacts and strengthens?"
Silence slammed into the room.
Lucian inhaled sharply.
I did not.
"That," I said, my voice clipped and precise, "is not your concern."
"Like hell it isn't," Zephyrus shot back. "You don't get to drag us into this and then order us not to care."
I turned fully toward him, blindfolded gaze locking on his presence. "Care," I said slowly, "is a weakness you cannot afford."
Zephyrus's fire surged again, and by now, I was sure his hair, irides and wrists are consumed by flames. "No," he said. "It's a weakness you refuse to admit you have."
My palms slammed into the desk, hard.
The shockwave rippled outward. I felt the displacement of air, the startled crash of bodies against stone and heard the abrupt crash as both of my brothers were thrown back with their bodies striking the wall with a dull thud. Candles flickered wildly with their flames screaming in protest.
"What else would you have me give her?" I snarled. "The throne?" Disdain laced every syllable. "I am the Lord of the Demon Realm. Why would I bind myself to a mere mortal?" My voice sharpened, as the flames around Zephyrus hissed violently, reacting to my own fury.
"Ephemeral." My voice dripped with scorn. I reached for reason because emotion was no longer an option.
"She will wither in less than a century. She cannot bear heirs strong enough for the throne, and the Council would never accept a low-ranked demon, let alone a human as queen - nor would I degrade myself by offering one."
The room trembled with my fury.
Lucian recovered first, stepping forward with a measured calm. "Brother," he said gently, "let us exercise patience."
I raised a hand.
"Leave."
The word was final.
Zephyrus pushed off the wall and stormed out from my chamber, his silence louder than any argument while Lucian lingered a moment longer.
"I'm sorry, brother." he said quietly.
His apology went unanswered.
"Call in Ivara."
Lucian exhaled softly and followed Zephyrus out, the door sealing behind him.
Silence reclaimed the room.
I remained seated and unmoving, as I listened to the soft crackle of candle flames. Dove was mine, and was bound to me by ancient pact and blood.
I had ordered her brought here myself because it was the agreement- the day she turned twenty-one was supposed to be a soul reclaiming day.
And yet, I still hold back.
A human in the demon realm was a vulnerability that could not remain hidden for long. If words spread, she would become a target, and I would be forced to protect her.
I thought of the consequences, the complications of having her here. I am a being of power and darkness, I cannot afford to be tied down by a fragile mortal.
My jaw clenched together at the thought of it.
Now, she was becoming a liability, and soon will become a weakness that could be exploited by my enemies.
I could not afford weaknesses.
Yet as the candles burned low, shadows stretching long across the walls, one truth settled heavily in my chest:
I need to keep her close and safe.
And I would keep her mine,
until she fulfilled her purpose and restored what had been taken from me.