Chương 44: There You Are

The elevator doors slid shut behind us, cutting off Corrections and whatever Adrian intended to do with the four vampires we had left in his care. Technically, the facility was beneath us now, though assigning a direction to consequences once they were no longer mine to deal with felt unnecessarily complicated. What mattered was that the four vampires who had mistaken Vaust Royale for their personal hunting grounds were Adrian's problem now.

With Adrian handling them now, the four vampires were effectively out of my hands. I should have felt satisfied, and in some ways I did, but the irritation they had left behind refused to fade. What I had seen below lingered with me. Predators using hunger to excuse cruelty had always tested my patience, but doing so beneath my roof made it far worse.

Hunting people inside my own establishment while pretending that a pair of fangs somehow absolved them of responsibility was the kind of arrogance I had very little tolerance for. That was the sort of stupidity that made me question whether certain bloodlines deserved to continue reproducing. Beside me, Celeste stood with her hands folded neatly behind her back, swaying ever so slightly to the soft elevator music while watching me with all the subtlety of a spotlight. Celeste had many talents.

Subtlety had apparently died somewhere near her cradle and never recovered.

"Mother." Celeste had a particular way of speaking whenever she wanted something from me, all sweetness and easy charm wrapped around just enough innocence to make me immediately suspicious. I glanced at her.

"What are you planning?" Her eyebrows lifted.

"Planning?"

"You have been staring at me since the elevator doors closed."

"I was deciding whether you looked annoyed enough that I should leave you alone or annoyed enough that leaving you alone would be a terrible idea."

"That distinction exists?"

"With you? Absolutely." I gave her a flat look. Celeste smiled, apparently taking that as permission to continue.

"Come spend the day with me." That wasn't what I had expected.

"Doing what?"

"Nothing important."

"An excellent beginning."

"I'm serious." She turned toward me more fully.

"No meetings, security reports, or checking on Adrian. No disappearing into your office because you suddenly remembered twelve things that apparently cannot survive without your personal attention."

"I don't do that."

"You absolutely do."

"I delegate."

"You delegate until something irritates you, and then you appear personally." That was unfortunately accurate. Celeste's smile softened as she bumped her shoulder lightly against mine.

"Come on. We have an entire resort around us. Let someone else keep it running for a few hours."

"And what exactly do you intend to do with those few hours?" Her expression immediately brightened. That alone should have concerned me.

"Food, games, rides, bowling, maybe a few slots, and one of those ridiculous frozen drinks they serve with enough fruit on top to qualify as a small garden." She gestured toward the ceiling.

"You built half of this place around the idea that people should enjoy themselves. I think it's only fair that you occasionally test whether it actually works."

"I own Vaust Royale. I don't need to test it."

"Then consider it quality control."

"That's a shameless misuse of the term."

"It got you to consider it." I looked at her. Celeste looked entirely too pleased with herself. The elevator music continued quietly around us while I considered exactly how much trouble agreeing was likely to cause. Celeste, apparently encouraged by the fact that I had not dismissed the idea outright, continued before I could give her a proper answer.

"Come on, Mother... just a few hours. No meetings, no Demon Spires, no Corrections, no paperwork, and absolutely no finding some excuse to disappear halfway through." She paused, and the slightest hint of amusement entered her expression.

"And maybe, for once, you can go an entire afternoon without getting distracted by thoughts of a certain fox." My attention shifted to her immediately. Celeste held my gaze without flinching; possessing the particular kind of courage that only came from spending far too many years as my daughter.

"I was not thinking about Akane." Her smile widened.

"I did not say her name."

"You implied her."

"I said fox. You supplied Akane yourself. Fascinating."

"I can still send you back to Corrections."

"I would redecorate it." She would. That was the worst part. The elevator chimed as it reached one of the private service levels, giving me an opportunity to end the conversation and return to my office. I could have refused her. I was a primordial vampire, SSS-ranked, owner of Vaust Royale, and mother of six blood-bound children and one dragon who routinely slept on my roof. I could face armies, gods, demons, nobles, politicians, and even Celeste's furniture catalogs without hesitation.

Surely I could refuse a day out. I opened my mouth, only to pause before the answer escaped. The ugliness of what had happened below lingered in the back of my mind. The screams, the memories Nadia had been forced to witness, and that familiar excuse of hunger being used to justify cruelty had left me in a considerably worse mood than when I entered Corrections. Perhaps Celeste had noticed. More likely, she had noticed immediately and decided that dragging me around Vaust Royale was her preferred solution.

I could think of worse ones. Spending a few hours eating, playing games, and actually enjoying the resort I had spent decades building sounded pleasant enough. It simply hadn't been how I expected to spend the rest of my day. Then again, my plans for the evening had already involved dealing with four idiotic vampires. Anything Celeste had in mind was almost certainly an improvement. I gave a small shrug.

"Fine." Celeste froze. I looked at her.

"Don't make that face." Her eyes widened even farther.

"Celeste."

"You said yes."

"I can unsay it." She grabbed my arm before I could reconsider.

"No takebacks. Elevator, family district." The elevator, traitorous machine that it was, obeyed her. We changed direction, and with every level we traveled upward, the atmosphere around us shifted. Corrections disappeared farther beneath our feet as the polished bones of Vaust Royale gradually surrounded us again. Music from the casino filtered faintly through the structure.

Laughter drifted from restaurants, accompanied by the distant rumble of rides from the family district and the constant hum of thousands of guest's spending money, making memories, breaking small rules, and thankfully obeying the important ones. When the doors finally opened, one of Vaust Royale's enormous internal promenades stretched before us. The family district felt less like another section of Vaust Royale and more like an entire city tucked inside it.

The ceiling arched several stories overhead, enchanted to resemble an open blue sky where soft clouds drifted lazily across a false horizon. Decorative streetlamps lined broad walkways crowded with families and tourists, while storefronts overflowed with sweets, toys, souvenirs, enchanted trinkets, plush dragons, plush crows, plush bats, and, despite my very clear objections, plush versions of me. I stopped. Celeste made it another step before the sudden tension in my arm pulled her back.

A nearby shop window displayed the problem with insulting innocence. There, seated neatly among the other merchandise, was a small pale doll with silver-white hair, violet button eyes, a black dress, and tiny felt fangs. I stared at it. Celeste followed my gaze to the display, and then slowly looked back at me. The caution in her expression told me she already knew exactly what I was about to ask.

"Before you say anything…"

"Why does that exist?"

"It sells very well."

"That was not my question. Why does it exist?"

"Children like you."

"Children don't know me."

"They know the simplified, brand-safe version of you." I slowly turned toward her. Celeste answered with a smile that was far too innocent to be trusted. My attention returned to the doll, and that was when I noticed the small tag hanging beneath its feet. Tiny Vampire Queen. I drew in a slow breath. Breathing was entirely unnecessary for me, but every so often it proved useful for keeping certain establishments intact.

"I will burn the shop."

"You approved the merchandise division."

"I approved tasteful merchandise."

"It comes with a tiny throne." My gaze returned to the display. It did. Worse, the throne was accurate.

"Adrian knows about this?" Celeste's smile somehow became even more suspicious.

"He signed the distribution agreement." I stared at her. So my own son had not only known about the dolls; he had personally helped put them into circulation. I would remember that.

"I'm increasing his workload." Celeste laughed softly as we started walking again.

"He already has too much."

"Then I'll find another way to make him regret his actions." That earned a much louder laugh from her as she hooked her arm through mine and guided me toward the food court. Apparently, calling it a food court was considered insulting. Celeste insisted upon referring to the place as a multicultural culinary entertainment plaza, which sounded suspiciously like something created during a meeting where everyone had been afraid to use normal words.

It contained fast food, certainly, but elevated fast food, whatever that meant. Burgers were served on black brioche buns. Fries came dusted with apple-smoked salt. Noodle stalls competed with towers of fried chicken, while nearby vendors sold blood-orange slush drinks designed for vampires, although they contained no actual blood because the health department had opinions.

There were sugar-coated spiral pastries longer than a child's arm, coffee stands, ice cream, skewers, pizza, tacos, and something called dragon-fire wings that Aura had enthusiastically endorsed after eating fifty-seven of them. Celeste insisted that we begin with burgers.

"You own seven fine-dining restaurants in this building," I reminded her as she placed our order at a counter inexplicably shaped like a vintage carriage.

"Yes, and today we eat like people whose napkins are optional."

"My napkin is never optional."

"Spiritually optional."

"That means nothing."

"It means fun."

"It means stains." She ordered for both of us because she was an incorrigible tyrant with annoyingly good taste. We found a corner table overlooking the lower plaza, where children raced toward a carousel shaped like mythical beasts. A little girl eagerly climbed onto a griffin while a boy selected a miniature dragon and immediately declared himself ruler of the sky. I took my first bite and immediately discovered that the burger was annoyingly good.

Celeste watched me with dangerous interest, and when I met her gaze over the next bite, her smile slowly widened.

"Say it."

"No."

"You like it."

"I own the place. Of course it's acceptable."

"Acceptable?"

"Yes."

"You ate half of it in two bites."

"I was hungry."

"You don't need food."

"I was recreationally hungry." Celeste pressed a hand dramatically over her heart.

"That's beautiful."

"It's not."

"It's growth." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"If you call one more thing growth, I will give your burger to a passing child."

"That child would be blessed." I ignored her and took another bite. After food came the theme park attractions. I had allowed Celeste to build them because she argued that families staying at Vaust Royale needed more than gambling, shows, bars, and the occasional controlled danger that naturally accompanied monster society. She had been right again, regrettably. The family district had since become one of Vaust Royale's greatest profit engines.

Children spent money with frightening efficiency when surrounded by bright lights, music, prizes, and adults who had grown too exhausted to say no. Celeste dragged me first toward a shooting gallery. Thankfully, it did not use real guns. The game relied on foam bolts, spell-light targets, illusionary beasts, and carnival bells loud enough to announce every successful hit to the surrounding district. The attendant recognized me immediately and nearly dropped the basket of prizes he was carrying.

"L-Lady Vaust."

"Continue." I waved him off. Celeste picked up one of the toy launchers and examined it with entirely too much enthusiasm.

"We're here to win a prize." The attendant somehow looked even more frightened.

"Of course." I studied the painted targets scattered across the gallery.

"You brought me to a children's shooting game." Celeste lifted the toy launcher and offered it to me with a perfectly straight face.

"I brought you to a test of skill."

"With foam bolts."

"Very dangerous foam bolts." I looked at the painted goblins, then back at her.

"Celeste, I'm three hundred years old."

"And somehow still afraid of losing to carnival equipment." My eyes narrowed. Her smile brightened.

"I can cut curses out of living magic."

"Excellent. Then this should be easy."

"You want me to prove myself against painted goblins?"

"I want to see whether the mighty Helena Vaust can survive twelve targets and a bell." The attendant beside us suddenly found the prize rack fascinating enough to deserve his full attention. I held Celeste's delighted gaze for another moment before finally taking the launcher from her. The round lasted all of twelve seconds. One after another, every painted target dropped until the final goblin disappeared with a sharp clatter.

The victory bell erupted overhead with almost panicked enthusiasm, leaving the attendant staring at me as though he had just watched someone declare war on a children's carnival game. Celeste clapped her hands.

"Mother, you cheated beautifully."

"I aimed."

"You aimed like an executioner."

"Aiming is aiming." The attendant eventually recovered enough to reach for the largest prize on the rack, revealing an oversized plush crow modeled after Vesper. Celeste and I both stared at it. With round crimson eyes and its head tilted at a distinctly judgmental angle, the plush crow seemed to stare right back at us. Whoever had designed the thing had captured Vesper's usual expression with an accuracy that was frankly concerning.

"I want that," Celeste announced.

"For Vera?"

"For me."

"Of course," I sighed. The attendant quickly handed it over. Celeste hugged the oversized bird against herself.

"I shall name him Lesser Vesper." Somewhere in Vaust Royale, I was fairly certain the real Vesper had become deeply offended without the slightest idea why. With Celeste still carrying her oversized prize, we moved on to the next attraction: the roller coaster. The track wound through an enormous indoor cavern filled with glowing crystals, crumbling artificial ruins, and thick banks of enchanted mist.

It plunged low over a shimmering pool before climbing sharply and twisting through a corkscrew beneath a massive dragon-shaped arch. Someone had named the ride Ruin Rush. I certainly had not. Celeste had apparently approved the name while I was away, which explained far more than I cared to examine. Naturally, she insisted we sit in the front row. Once we were seated, the safety bar lowered across my lap with a heavy click.

I looked down at the restraint, tested it once with my hand, and regarded the entire mechanism with understandable skepticism.

"This would not hold me if I actually wanted to move." Celeste glanced down at the safety bar.

"It's mostly there for appearances."

"So are laws and people become remarkably upset when you ignore those?" She opened her mouth to answer, but the coaster launched before she could. The sudden acceleration sent the train racing into the cavern as screams erupted around us from children and adults alike. Celeste joined them immediately, laughing as she shouted with theatrical delight directly beside my ear. I remained silent. Then the track dropped out from beneath us.

For one brief moment, the weight vanished from my body as the train plunged downward, wind tearing past us and the glowing cavern rushing up to meet us. I did not scream, though I enjoyed the drop considerably more than I was willing to admit. The coaster twisted through violet-lit tunnels, raced past illusionary collapsing towers, and plunged beneath animated swarms of bats. At one point, a projected image of a dramatic vampire queen appeared above the track and extended one hand toward us.

"Face the Ruin!" I slowly turned my head toward Celeste, only to find her laughing far too hard to offer anything resembling a defense. By the time the ride finally came to a stop, she was still grinning as we stepped onto the platform, where an attendant promptly approached us with the souvenir photographs taken during the coaster's first drop. Mine showed me staring straight ahead with an expression that revealed almost nothing of how much I had actually enjoyed it.

Celeste, meanwhile, had been captured in the middle of a delighted scream, her silver-blonde hair flying wildly behind her while one arm remained raised triumphantly above her head. The real masterpiece was the row behind us, where three children stared forward with expressions suggesting they had just experienced a personal encounter with divinity. Celeste took one look at the photograph and immediately bought five copies.

"I'm destroying those." She gathered the photographs against her chest protectively.

"You'll have to find all five first." My eyes narrowed.

"Celeste."

"One is for Adrian."

"Absolutely not."

"He deserves to know there's an attraction using his mother's likeness."

"His wife approved the attraction."

"Which is precisely why I expect him to find this very entertaining." I held her gaze for a moment before looking at the photographs again.

"If one of those reaches him, I will know who was responsible." Celeste's smile suggested that it had done absolutely nothing to discourage her. Once she had safely tucked away her collection of future blackmail material, she decided our next destination would be the bowling alley. I was certainly aware that Vaust Royale had one.

I had approved its construction, reviewed the finished plans, and even attended the opening ceremony long enough to cut the ceremonial ribbon and make three contractors visibly reconsider their chosen profession. What I had never done was actually bowl. There had been several reasons for that at the time, but the themed footwear had certainly contributed. Apparently, no one had possessed the good sense to get rid of it in the years since.

Celeste returned from the counter a moment later with a pair held proudly in both hands, and the satisfaction on her face immediately told me I was not going to like what she had chosen. I looked down. The shoes were black and violet, with tiny decorative fangs stitched along the sides.

"Absolutely not."

"Yes." She insisted.

"No," I countered.

"House rules."

"I am the House."

"And House rules require bowling shoes."

"I outrank footwear."

"Not here." The attendant behind the counter had been following our exchange with increasing concern and now looked as though he would have welcomed the floor opening beneath him. With considerable reluctance, I put on the shoes. Celeste immediately produced a camera and captured the moment before I could stop her. I chose to tolerate this offense, mostly because killing my daughter in the middle of a family bowling alley would have caused unnecessary distress among the nearby guests.

Once that indignity was behind me, I turned my attention to the game itself. Bowling was remarkably straightforward. Take a heavy ball, send it down a polished wooden lane, and knock over as many pins as possible. Humanity had somehow taken that simple premise and built an entire recreational tradition around it, complete with specialized shoes, elaborate scoring systems, and refreshments. They remained a fascinating species. Celeste volunteered to go first.

She selected a ball, stepped up to the lane, and sent it rolling with what initially appeared to be a perfectly ordinary throw. Halfway down, however, the ball began drifting dangerously close to the gutter. Then a faint gust of wind swept across the lane, nudging the ball away from the gutter and back toward the center. It struck the pins a moment later, scattering all ten across the lane as I slowly turned my gaze toward Celeste.

"What?" she asked with exaggerated innocence.

"What was that wind?"

"That was ambiance."

"That was cheating," I rebuked.

"You used your heightened abilities at the shooting gallery."

"I aimed."

"With ancient predator instincts."

"Those are attached to me."

"My wind is attached to me." Her logic was as unstoppable as her personality. I turned away and selected a ball. Celeste leaned casually against the scoring console.

"Careful, Mother. Bowling requires finesse." I rolled, and the ball slammed into the pins with enough force to send them scattering in every direction, one embedding itself firmly in the back wall. The impact silenced three neighboring lanes as a nearby child stared at the damage with wide-eyed fascination.

"Strike." I called out before I could stop myself. Celeste slowly turned toward me.

"Finesse."

"I used less strength than usual."

"That sentence concerns me." The scoring machine seemed to hesitate over what it had just witnessed before finally registering the result as a strike. We played three rounds after that, during which Celeste continued making suspicious use of Wind while I occasionally underestimated how much strength the equipment could tolerate. Neither of us acknowledged any wrongdoing. By the end of the game, we had attracted a small audience.

Several staff members lingered nearby under the increasingly unconvincing pretense of working, while curious guests watched from the neighboring lanes. One particularly brave child eventually approached me with his bowling ball clutched against his chest and asked for an autograph. I signed it. His mother fainted. Fortunately, a nearby medical attendant responded with admirable efficiency, leaving Celeste free to collect me and steer us toward the casino floor before anything else could happen.

As we reached the edge of the casino floor, Celeste gestured toward the endless rows of glowing machines.

"Just one." I looked at her.

"One what?"

"One machine. You play until you win something."

"I own every machine in this casino."

"That makes it better."

"It makes it pointless. Any money I lose goes back to me, and anything I win already belongs to me." Celeste considered that for all of half a second.

"Then you have absolutely nothing to lose."

"That's not how gambling works."

"It is when you own the casino." I gave her a long look. She smiled and motioned toward the nearest row of machines.

"Come on. Not everything has to accomplish something."

"That sounds suspiciously irresponsible."

"Most enjoyable things are at least a little irresponsible." Before I could decide whether that deserved an answer, she was already leading me deeper onto the casino floor. The main casino was practically a world unto itself. Slot machines chimed in overlapping waves of light and sound.

Card tables glittered beneath chandeliers while dealers moved with practiced grace between guests who laughed, cursed, drank, lied, calculated, lost, won, and repeatedly convinced themselves they understood probability better than they actually did. I loved casinos, and not merely because of the money. What fascinated me was the peculiar honesty hidden beneath all the dishonesty. Everyone arrived claiming they were there for entertainment, luck, skill, glamour, or escape.

Some genuinely were, but most were simply chasing hunger in one form or another. For some, it took the shape of greed; for others, hope, desperation, risk, or wounded pride. Whatever name they gave it hardly mattered. Hunger remained hunger, and I understood it better than most. Celeste selected a slot machine themed around enchanted treasure chests and dropped into the chair before gesturing for me to sit beside her.

"This is absurd." She fed a ticket into the machine.

"Press the button."

"I could buy the manufacturer."

"Press the button." I pressed it. The reels spun. Crowns, fangs, crystals, playing cards, tiny dragons, and violet sevens flashed across the screen. Nothing matched. Celeste gasped dramatically.

"Mother, you lost."

"I own the casino."

"The machine defeated you."

"I own the machine."

"That makes it betrayal." I pressed the button again. Nothing… Celeste's delight grew. I tried a third time and lost again. By then, she was visibly struggling not to laugh.

"If you laugh, I will have this machine melted."

"It beat you three times."

"It's random."

"It chose violence." I pressed the button a fourth time. The machine erupted. Lights flashed across the cabinet as bells and triumphant music announced the jackpot loudly enough to attract half the nearby casino floor. Guests turned toward us. Several staff members froze. Celeste threw both hands into the air.

"She has conquered the machine!" I stared at the flashing payout screen. The amount was large enough to excite a normal person while remaining completely meaningless to me.

"Wonderful... I have won my own money." Celeste wiped an imaginary tear from the corner of her eye.

"A moving story of perseverance." I stood.

"We're done." She immediately hooked her arm through mine.

"Admit you enjoyed today."

"unlikely."

"Admit you enjoyed parts of it."

"No."

"Admit the burger was good."

"It was acceptable."

"Admit the roller coaster drop was fun."

"It had proper engineering."

"Admit bowling was satisfying."

"The pin deserved it."

"Admit the slot machine humiliated you."

"I will delete it."

"That's a yes." I refused to answer. Celeste leaned more comfortably against my arm as we walked through the casino, Lesser Vesper tucked beneath her other arm like a trophy. Guests parted around us automatically. Some bowed their heads as we passed, while others simply stared. A few attempted to pretend they were not staring and failed with impressive enthusiasm. The entire day had been loud, ridiculous, and completely unnecessary, yet somehow I felt considerably better for having wasted it.

That realization was mildly irritating. Celeste and I had nearly reached the private elevator when the shard inside me suddenly flared. I stopped. It was nothing like the familiar warmth I had carried for nearly a century, nor one of those brief flickers that occasionally reminded me Akane still existed somewhere beyond my reach. It was stronger. A sudden surge of golden heat tore through my chest, so intense that everything around me seemed to recede at once. The casino seemed to fall away around me.

The lights, the music, and the constant chatter of thousands of guests all faded into something distant and unimportant. Even the movement around me barely registered anymore. My awareness had narrowed completely, every instinct drawn toward the presence surging through the shard with a certainty I could not mistake. Celeste noticed the change almost immediately. The amusement vanished from her face as she turned toward me, her attention sharpening with mine.

"Mother?" I did not answer. Some part of me had recognized her before my thoughts could even form the name. Akane. The realization struck deeper than the heat burning through the shard. My fingers curled at my sides as something I had kept buried for nearly a century finally tore its way to the surface. Ninety-nine years... For ninety-nine years, I had carried a piece of her inside me. I had felt its warmth when everything else was quiet.

I had endured dreams filled with memories that were mine and yet somehow belonged to another life. I had remembered touches I had never experienced, conversations I had never spoken, and a love so deeply ingrained in me that even death and time had failed to erase it. I spent nearly a century telling myself those feelings did not belong to me, that I barely knew her.

That whatever existed between us had been inherited from a Helena who had lived another life, made other choices, and loved a woman I had yet to truly meet. It had never mattered. The shard remembered her, my soul remembered her, and somewhere along the way, despite every excuse I had given myself, I had begun to remember her too. She was no longer a presence buried within the shard, a woman haunting memories from another life, or someone forever waiting beyond my reach. Akane was here.

Ninety-nine years of distance had just disappeared. I moved without thought. Celeste called after me, but her voice never reached me. There was no decision to make, no thought of what I would say when I saw Akane, and certainly no consideration for the people unfortunate enough to be standing between us. One moment, I was standing beside Celeste on the casino floor, and the next, I was in Vaust Royale's front lobby.

Black marble stretched beneath my feet, surrounded by towering columns, violet glass, and warm golden light. Beyond the enormous entrance, the fountains cast rippling reflections through the open doors. Every guest in sight had frozen. Staff stood motionless behind their counters, while nearby security guards had moved their hands toward their weapons without actually drawing them. At the center of the lobby, perhaps ten feet away from me, stood a woman.

Long black hair fell in loose waves around her shoulders and down her back, framing a pair of tall fox ears covered in dark fur and softened by pale inner tufts. Delicate gold ornaments and strands of violet jewels decorated her hair, catching the lobby lights whenever she moved. Behind her, nine enormous tails spread outward in a slow, graceful fan.

Their fur was dark near the base before fading gradually into pale silver-white at the ends, each tail moving with an almost effortless elegance that made the space around her feel far too small. She wore a flowing silver-white gown layered in sheer fabric, its surface threaded with intricate gold chains and scattered violet gemstones.

The dress clung to her figure before falling into long, translucent layers around her legs, elegant enough for a royal court while still carrying something unmistakably dangerous beneath all that beauty. Gold jewelry traced along her arms, waist, and legs, every detail arranged with the kind of precision that made extravagance look natural on her. Then her molten-gold eyes met mine. Everything else in the lobby became irrelevant. Pressure rolled outward from both of us. Guests staggered.

Glass trembled in its frames, and the chandeliers hanging overhead clicked softly against their chains. Several weaker creatures dropped to one knee, not because either of us had consciously used magic against them, but because the weight filling the room had become too much for their bodies to ignore. For a fleeting moment, the pressure reminded me of Malcolm's gravity spreading across a battlefield. It was nothing like that. This was not power being imposed on the room. This was recognition.

Something ancient inside me had found something equally ancient standing ten feet away, and neither of us needed words to understand what the other was. Akane smiled. Just enough to soften the intensity in her molten-gold eyes. And somehow, after ninety-nine years of carrying fragments of her inside me, that tiny smile struck harder than the pressure filling the lobby. My attention lingered on her face, tracing features I somehow knew despite never having truly seen them.

There was something deeply unsettling about that familiarity. She was a stranger standing in front of me, yet every instinct I possessed reacted as though she had simply returned to a place she had always belonged. Then, against my better judgment, my eyes slipped lower and settled on her lips. A thoroughly inconvenient thought surfaced before I could stop it. They looked dangerously kissable. What the hell was wrong with me?

I had waited so long to meet this woman, and apparently my first coherent reaction was to wonder what her mouth felt like against mine. Absolutely not… That thought had no right to exist. Unfortunately, some part of me seemed entirely uninterested in asking permission. Akane's smile widened anyway, almost as though she had heard every word inside my head.

"You kept me waiting for an entire six seconds," she murmured, her voice warm, wicked, and so painfully familiar that the shard inside me flared in response.

"How rude." Something inside me gave way. It was the unbearable collision of recognition, attraction, instinct, and nearly a century of emotions I had never asked to inherit, all crashing together while Akane stood there smiling at me as though she already knew exactly what was about to happen. And suddenly, I understood why our other selves had fought the moment they met. There was simply too much between us to do nothing. I moved.

The marble beneath my feet shattered from the force of my first step, and startled cries erupted throughout the lobby as I crossed the distance between us faster than most eyes could follow. Akane did not flinch. Her molten-gold eyes only brightened. I struck her squarely in the center of her body and drove forward without slowing. The impact carried both of us across the lobby and straight through Vaust Royale's grand entrance, sending the doors apart in a violent burst of glass, metal, and glittering debris.

Then we were outside. Cold night air rushed over us as Ravenport opened beneath the dark sky, but our momentum never broke. For several heartbeats, it might have looked as though we were flying across the city together. We were not. One of my hands was twisted firmly into the front of Akane's beautiful silver-white gown as I drove her through the air, while the other drew back, already preparing to hit her again.

Buildings and lights blurred beneath us as Akane turned her head toward me and smiled, not with pain or anger, but with warmth that somehow made the entire situation even more infuriating. As though being driven through the front of my hotel was exactly the welcome she had expected, her expression held the same warmth I might have received if I had rushed forward to embrace her after ninety-nine years apart. The sheer audacity of it made my fist tighten.

"My sweet Helena," Akane murmured. Something about the warmth in those words irritated me beyond reason. So I threw her. Hard. Akane ripped from my grasp and became a streak of silver-white, black, and gold across the night sky. She tore over Ravenport in an instant, passed beyond the city lights, and vanished across the dark expanse of forest surrounding it. Then she hit the mountain. The impact split the night apart.

Stone erupted from the mountainside in a towering plume as the shockwave rolled across the forest, shaking the trees below and sending fractured rock tumbling into the darkness. Dust climbed toward the sky until half the mountain disappeared behind it. For several seconds, nothing moved. I remained suspended above Ravenport on the last remnants of my momentum, staring toward the devastation as gravity slowly began reclaiming me. Below, the city glittered beneath the night.

Behind me, Vaust Royale burned violet against the horizon, its grand entrance now thoroughly ruined. Ahead of me, an entire section of the mountain was simply gone, and from somewhere deep within the devastation came the unmistakable sound of laughter, faint at first before steadily rising through the settling dust.

Akane's laughter rolled out from somewhere beneath the shattered mountain, rich with delight rather than pain, as though being thrown several miles and buried beneath thousands of tons of stone had somehow confirmed everything she had hoped to find in me. I stared toward the smoking crater. All those dreams and borrowed memories, the unanswered questions, and the emotions I had spent so long trying to separate from myself. They had all led me here. To her… The mountain shuddered.

Golden light began bleeding through the cracks as something powerful stirred beneath the shattered stone. A smile crept along my face. Perhaps those memories had understood her better than I ever gave them credit for. And perhaps I was finally beginning to understand why I had never been able to let her go. The mountain split open. I bared my fangs. There you are.