"WHAT?" Mailah pressed, her heart hamring.
Lucson opened his mouth, then closed it. His jaw worked as if words were physically difficult to form. The fear in his eyes warred with sothing else—disbelief, maybe, or denial.
"I need to make sure," he finally said, his voice tight. "Because if it’s who I think it is, it’s impossible. She shouldn’t be able to cross over. The wards, the exile conditions—"
"Who?" Mailah demanded, grabbing his arm. "Lucson, who do you think has Grayson?"
"I can’t—" He pulled away, running a hand through his hair in a gesture of agitation she thought she would never see from him. "I need to confirm before I say anything. Because if I’m wrong, we’re chasing shadows. And if I’m right..."
He trailed off, the unspoken implication hanging heavy between them.
"Can we get him back?" Mailah asked, her voice barely above a whisper. "If it’s who you think it is—can we get Grayson back?"
Lucson didn’t answer imdiately. The silence stretched, broken only by the wind whistling through the empty village outside. When he finally looked at her, the expression on his face made her blood run cold.
Not hopeless. But close to it.
"I don’t know," he admitted, and the raw honesty in those three words terrified her more than any elaborate explanation could have.
"But we can still try," Mailah said, hearing the desperation in her own voice. "We can still try to get him back."
Lucson’s phone buzzed again. He glanced at it, his expression hardening further. "Mason’s sending coordinates. A location where supernatural energy signatures match the pattern from Castelvetro. We need to et the others."
"Then let’s go."
"Mailah." He caught her arm as she turned toward the door. "Whoever took Grayson won’t hesitate to use you against Grayson if it serves their purposes."
"Then I’ll be careful."
"Careful won’t be enough." His grip tightened infinitesimally. "But I suppose we don’t have a choice, do we?"
"No," Mailah said firmly. "We don’t."
They left the empty church, the ghost village bearing silent witness to their departure. As they walked back toward the car, Mailah couldn’t shake the feeling that she might not see Grayson ever again.
********************************************************************
TI beca aningless in the violet-lit room.
Grayson lay on the silk-covered bed, still unable to move despite the partial restoration Seryn had given him earlier. The sedative in his system had worn off enough that he could feel his limbs again, could turn his head and flex his fingers.
But he couldn’t stand. Couldn’t access his supernatural strength. Couldn’t even summon the energy to properly rage against his captivity.
Because Seryn had been draining him.
It had started subtly—so subtly he hadn’t noticed at first. She’d return to the room periodically, settle into that chair beside the bed, and simply... watch him. Talk to him. Ask questions about his life on Earth, his marriages, his attempts at humanity.
And while she talked, she fed.
Not like an incubus fed—not through desire or physical contact. This was sothing else entirely. She was draining his life force directly, bypassing all the normal chanisms that governed supernatural feeding.
It felt like being slowly hollowed out from the inside. Like soone was carefully removing essential pieces of him one by one, leaving empty spaces where power and will and resistance should be.
He’d tried to fight it at first. Tried to block her, to resist the pull of her feeding. But without his full strength, without access to his demonic abilities, he was helpless against it.
And she knew it.
"You’re weakening nicely," Seryn observed from her chair, those violet eyes studying him with clinical interest. "I can feel your resistance crumbling. Soon you’ll be too depleted to even think about escape."
"Why?" Grayson forced the word out through gritted teeth. Speaking took effort now, as if words themselves were heavy. "Why are you doing this?"
"Isn’t it obvious?" She stood, moving closer with that predatory grace he rembered too well. She wore sothing different now, clinging to her form. "I’m making you manageable. Compliant. Helpless."
She reached out, trailing one finger along his jaw. Grayson tried to turn away but didn’t have the strength. His head remained fixed in place, forced to endure her touch.
"When I drain your life force," she continued conversationally, "it doesn’t just weaken you physically. It weakens your will. Your ability to resist. Your capacity for defiance. Eventually, you’ll be so depleted that you’ll do anything I ask. Agree to anything I suggest. Beco perfectly... submissive."
The word landed like a slap.
"That’s what you want?" Grayson asked, managing to inject scorn into his voice despite his exhaustion. "To break ? To turn into so kind of puppet?"
"I want you compliant," Seryn corrected. "There’s a difference. Puppets are boring—no personality, no fire, no challenge. But a demon who retains his essential nature while being unable to act against my interests? That’s far more valuable."
She settled onto the edge of the bed, close enough that he could sll her—sothing between roses and ashes, beautiful and terrible in equal asure.
"As for why I ca to Earth?" Her smile turned sharp. "To stop your wedding, of course. To prevent your permanent bond with that human. Did you really think I’d let you tie yourself to her forever? After everything we shared?"
Grayson’s laugh ca out bitter, breathless. "We didn’t share anything. You manipulated us. Used us. Destroyed thousands of lives while making us think we were doing it for you. For love."
"You did do it for love," Seryn said. "Your love. Not mine. That was never my responsibility."
"And you’ve been watching us? For three centuries? Keeping tabs on exiled demons?" Despite his weakness, Grayson felt rage building in his chest. "Why? What possible interest could you have in us now?"
"You’re mine," she said simply, as if that explained everything. "You and your brothers. You’ve always been mine, from the mont I set eyes on you. The fact that you were exiled didn’t change that. If anything, it made you more interesting—five powerful demons trying to survive as humans, not allowed to use the full extent of your demonic abilities."
Her hand moved to rest on his chest, directly over his heart. Grayson felt her feeding intensify—that terrible hollowing sensation spreading through him like ice through water.
"I’ve watched all of you," she continued. "Lucson building his empire of influence. Mason drowning in nightmares of his own making. Carson barely controlling his chaos. Ravenson feeding on despair until it nearly consud him. And you..." Her eyes glead. "You, trying so desperately to be human. To deny what you are. It was pathetic and fascinating in equal asure."
"If you find us so pathetic," Grayson managed, "why bother? Why co here now?"
"Because you finally broke your abstinence. Finally fed properly. Finally bonded with soone in a way that could permanently alter your nature." Seryn’s voice hardened. "And I couldn’t allow that. You’re mine, Grayson. You’ve always been mine. I won’t let so insignificant human take you from ."
The possessiveness in her voice was chilling—not love, not affection, but ownership. The way soone might speak about a prized possession that had briefly gone missing.
Grayson forced himself to et her eyes despite the exhaustion threatening to pull him under. "After everything you did to us—the genocide, the manipulation, the destruction—you still think you have so claim on us? That we’d ever willingly return to you?"
"Willingly?" Seryn laughed, the sound like breaking glass. "Oh, Grayson. I don’t need willingness. I just need compliance. And soon, you’ll be too weak to refuse anything."
"You’re insane."
"I’m practical." She leaned closer, her face inches from his. "And I’m patient. I’ve waited three centuries. I can wait a few more days while your resistance crumbles completely."
Grayson searched her expression for any hint of the demon princess who’d once seed to care about them—even if that care had been calculated manipulation. But there was nothing. Just cold assessnt and possessive determination.
"Do you even have feelings for us?" he asked, genuine curiosity cutting through his exhaustion. "Or was it always just strategy? Just pieces on a board you were moving around?"
Sothing flickered across Seryn’s face—too fast to identify, gone before Grayson could analyze it.
Then she smiled.
"I forgot you’re not capable of feeling anything," Grayson said before she could respond, the words coming out harsh and bitter. "You’re just a void that consus everything around you. That’s all you’ve ever been."
The smile on Seryn’s face widened, but her eyes went cold as winter. "Oh, Grayson. You misunderstand so thoroughly it’s almost endearing."
She stood in one fluid motion, moving around the bed with deliberate slowness. The shadows of her dress swirled around her legs like living things, responding to so internal rhythm only she could hear.
When she reached him, she didn’t stop at a respectful distance. She climbed onto the bed, settling beside him, close enough that her body pressed against his side.
"I’m very capable of feeling," she whispered, her breath warm against his ear. "But only for those who matter. Only for those who’ve earned that privilege."
Her hand ca up to trace patterns on his chest, following the lines of his wedding suit—rumpled now, disheveled from hours of captivity, but still recognizably the clothes he’d worn to marry Mailah.
The thought of Mailah sent a spike of desperate longing through him. She was sowhere out there, probably terrified, definitely searching for him. He needed to get back to her. Needed to—
"And you, Grayson?" Seryn’s voice pulled him back to the present. "You’ve always mattered more than the others. Even when you were fighting so hard to deny your nature, to play human, to pretend you weren’t what you are—you fascinated . The middle brother. The one trying so desperately to be good."
She shifted closer, her body now partially draped over his, trapping him beneath her weight. Not that he could have moved anyway—the life force drain had left him too weak to do more than breathe and speak.
"I have feelings for you," she said, her lips now dangerously close to his. "I’ve always had feelings for you. They’re just not the soft, human feelings you’ve grown so fond of during your exile."
"Seryn—" Grayson tried to turn his head away, tried to put even a milliter of distance between them.
But she was faster.
Her hand ca up, gripping his face with surprising strength, fingers pressing into his jaw and forcing him to look at her. To et those eyes that held centuries of manipulation and calculated cruelty.
"Don’t turn away from ," she said, and her voice carried power now—the kind of power that made reality itself bend slightly around her words. "Not when I’m trying to show you how I feel."
"I don’t want—"
She kissed him.
Grayson tried to resist—tried to keep his lips closed, his body rigid, every part of him rejecting what was happening. But Seryn’s grip on his face was iron, and his depleted state ant he had no strength to actually fight her off.
And underneath the kiss, he felt it—her feeding intensifying, life force draining faster now, as if the physical contact provided a direct conduit for her to consu him more efficiently.
His vision started to blur at the edges. Darkness creeping in. The weakness spreading through his entire body like poison.
But even through the fog of exhaustion and horror, one thought remained crystalline clear:
Mailah.
The kiss continued, stealing what remained of his strength, his will, his ability to resist.
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