Page 74 of The Curse of Blood and Silenc

Balthazar stalked toward Serenity, and the shadows crawled after him like eager pets. “I told you I’d get you back.” His voice echoed with something ancient and evil, like fingernails scraping against my soul.

“Stay away from her, Balthazar,” I growled, but even my rage felt small against the primal, perfect darkness filling the church.

His laugh was the sound of cemetery dirt hitting a coffin. “Or what? You’re in no position to do anything.” He reached for Serenity’s face with fingers that were too long, too sharp, like they were struggling to maintain human form.

“I’ll send you back to Hell in a matchbox,” I growled, my voice rough with suppressed rage. My fangs ached with the needto tear his throat out, to make him suffer for every second he kept us trapped here.

“I think not.” His smile made my blood recoil in ancient horror.

“Balthazar, don’t hurt them.” Serenity’s voice cracked as she looked around the church frantically, taking in each imprisoned face. Her eyes lingered on Enzo’s twisted form, on Rose’s silent scream. “Please.” The single word held all her desperation, all her fear.

“That depends on you.” He lifted her chin with fingers that left frost on her skin. The sight of him touching her made my vision bleed red.

Hatred and anger swirled in me like a hurricane of razors, each second of helplessness adding to the storm. When I got free, there wouldn’t be enough left of him to fill a thimble.

“Don’t listen to him, Serenity!” My voice echoed off the corrupted church walls, carrying all the authority of New Orleans’ king.

Balthazar’s lips curved into a serpentine smile as he looked from me to the hooded figure. “Time to meet our mystery guest.”

The figure reached up with trembling hands and lowered his hood. Recognition slammed into me as he lowered his trembling hands. Costin Tarus, headmaster of Red Rose Academy, here in this unholy circle.

Rose stood there, frozen in place, her eyes the only thing that could move—wide with betrayal as they fixed on the man she’d trusted for so many years.

“I had no choice.” His words were those of a man who had lost everything. “He has Julienne.”

“Remove your glamour,Headmaster,” Balthazar purred, drawing out the title like poison. The air around me grew heavy with anticipation.

Costin’s shoulders slumped in defeat. He began to chant in an ancient language that made my ears ring and my teeth ache—words that seemed to suspend through the chamber like venomous spiders on invisible threads. “Velamen cado, forma vera emergo, essentia mea revelatur.”

The air around him rippled like heat waves, and his human form began to dissolve. The glamour that had hidden his true nature for so long peeled away like scorching paper, revealing what had lurked beneath that carefully maintained mask of humanity.

Oh, fuck.

He was Vlad Tepes—Dracula. My maker. My hand twitched at my side as the blood drained from my face. The vampire who’d spent centuries trying to end me for daring to defy his new vision of what our kind should be.

Love had changed him—Julienne, as he called her, had changed him. I knew her true name, knew how her kindness and wisdom had transformed the most brutal vampire in history into someone who vowed to protect rather than destroy.

No wonder she taught at Red Rose Academy—she’d always had a gift for guiding young supernatural beings. But she too kept her true identity hidden behind glamour and a borrowed name, and for good reason. There were those who would do anything to find her, to use her power for their own ends.

Like Balthazar.

Vlad had transformed from the most brutal vampire in history to preaching that vampires shouldn’t drain and kill humans. According to him, it made vampires too powerful. He wanted us to have willing victims or drink from blood banks.

But that’s exactly how I’d built my empire—by taking power from those too weak to keep it. And I wasn’t ready to give it up just because my maker had found his mate. Only the AeternumStone had prevented him from tearing apart everything I’d built in New Orleans. And now he was standing before me.

Serenity gave me a questioning look. I could read her mind, but she couldn’t read mine. I didn’t even want to utter his name.

Balthazar looked between us. “Ah, let me do the introductions. Serenity, I take it you two haven’t met.” He gestured toward Vlad. “This is Vlad Tepes. Or in your cultural vernacular…Dracula.”

Terror flared in Serenity’s eyes as she gasped, and my chest tightened. She knew exactly who Vlad was—knew that he wanted to kill me, knew that the Aeternum Stone was all that kept him at bay. But to find out now he’d been here in New Orleans this whole time, running that damn school, watching me, biding his time... Rage burned through me, cold and lethal. If I got free of this pentagram, I’d tear him apart for daring to terrify her like this.

Balthazar raised his arms, and the temperature in the church plummeted. When he spoke, his voice echoed with other voices, ancient and terrible, the words crawling through the air like venomous spiders: “Tenebris antiquis, potentia daemonum, animae damnatae, mergemus in carne mortali.”

The black smoke writhed and split into two serpentine streams, each pulsing with faces of the damned as they shot toward Vlad and Petar. Unlike Keir and Trystan, they didn’t resist—they opened their mouths in perfect sync, eagerly letting the smoke pour into them.

Their bodies contorted, backs arching at impossible angles as the smoke disappeared into them. Their eyes turned completely black, then blazed red like fresh blood. Power rolled off them in waves that made my skin crawl, each pulse stronger than the last. Whatever Balthazar had just done, he hadn’t just made them stronger—he’d turned them into vessels for something ancient and unspeakable.

Balthazar rubbed his hands together, power crackling between his fingers like black lightning. “My plan is finally coming together.”

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