2026-01-09 16:33:39CHAPTER 9
Adrian suddenly found himself standing in a dark space, a void where nothing existed. “Hey, are you okay?” Rafael’s voice came from right behind him. Adrian spun around, eyes searching the pitch-black environment. The air reeked of emptiness, laced with a faint, unidentifiable metallic tang. “Where are we?” “We are in your father’s memory,” Rafael replied calmly. “Which has now become a part of mine.” “Wait… you're saying we’re inside your head? Your actual memory?” Adrian asked, his voice rising in bewilderment. He was still reeling from the fact that he was a vampire, but this? Infiltrating someone’s mind felt like something out of a fever dream. “Is that even possible?” He asked himself “It is, Adrian. And we’re already here,” his uncle replied with a soft chuckle. “Did you just read my mind?” “No, I can’t do that,” Rafael said, tilting his head. “But I can smell the confusion on you. It’s thick in the air.” Only a few days ago, if someone had told Adrian the supernatural was real, he would have called them mad. But standing inside a stranger’s recollection, he felt like the only crazy one left. Rafael clapped his hands. The sound echoed through the void, and suddenly, massive wooden doors materialized, surrounding them. Adrian stumbled back, his heart hammering against his ribs. “The fuck!” he breathed. Rafael flashed a small smile, in that moment, he looked less like a man and more like a mischievous child. “These are the Doors of Memory. Each one holds a different piece of the past.” “How do we know which one we’re looking for?” “We don’t,” Rafael admitted. He began walking toward the door directly opposite them. He gripped the heavy brass doorknob and glanced back at Adrian. “No matter what we see, remember: memories cannot hurt you.” He threw the door open. A blinding white light swallowed them whole. When Adrian’s vision cleared, he was standing in a room. It was obscenely luxurious, golden chandeliers hung from the ceiling, their light reflecting off a floor-to-ceiling window and a sprawling queen-sized bed. It was the kind of extravagance Adrian had only seen in movies. Suddenly, a woman stepped out of a bathroom that was easily larger than Elena’s entire bedroom. “Who is she?” Adrian whispered. Rafael’s smile turned bittersweet. “That is your mother.” Adrian’s breath hitched. She had hair like black silk that flowed down her back in waves. Even in a simple white robe, she possessed a grace and beauty that felt otherworldly. She paused, gasping as she looked in a mirror. Adrian went alert, stepping closer to see what had startled her. His heart sank when he saw it: the Valerio family crest. But it wasn't the dark mark he expected. “The crest on her body… it’s like mine,” Adrian said, looking back at Rafael. “It’s white.” “That’s right,” Rafael whispered. “That was where it all started.” Before Adrian could process it, a man entered the room. He had dark brown hair, a sharp, soldier-like jawline, and piercing light blue eyes. Adrian didn't need to be told who he was, the resemblance was like looking into a mirror. His mother gave him his hair; his father gave him his eyes. “Hey, honey, are you alright?” his father asked, his voice thick with concern. “Is something wrong with the baby? Should I call the doctor?” The baby. Adrian realized with a jolt that they were talking about him. He found himself smiling before he could stop it. For years, he’d lived in an orphanage believing his parents were just names on a document, people who didn't want him. But the way his father looked at his mother... it wasn't the look of a man who didn't care. A heavy wave of guilt washed over him for ever doubting them. His mother didn’t answer at first. Instead, she loosened her robe slightly to reveal her chest. When his father saw the white crest, the color drained from his face. “Casa, you know this isn’t right,” his mother whispered, her voice trembling. “The Valerio crest has always been black. Mine was black. Now that it's turned white... it’s an anomaly.” “No one has to know, honey. I’ll find out what this means, I promise.” “And what about our baby?” she asked, her voice rising in panic. “What if it affects him? The Sanguine System Council... they’ll sense this shift. We need to do something now.” “What is the Sanguine System Council?” Adrian asked his uncle. “They oversee the supernatural world,” Rafael explained. “They assign tasks and reward us with gems that can be traded for power or wealth. They control the systems that govern our abilities. The higher your level within their system, the more powerful you become.” “So they created the system?” “No,” Rafael corrected. “The Creator did. They are simply the self-appointed keepers of it.” Adrian nodded, turning back to the scene as it moved forward. “Then let’s go see a Seer,” his father suggested. “They’re the only ones who can explain what’s happening to you.” “Are you crazy? The Council tracks Seers. They’ll know the moment we use powers outside their jurisdiction!” His father placed a hand tenderly on her shoulder. “Don’t let that bother you. I know someone who can help us discreetly. We leave first thing tomorrow morning.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. “And what if it’s because of the baby?” his mother asked, her eyes filling with tears. “What if he’s… cursed?” Adrian felt a tear of his own roll down his cheek. She wasn't afraid of him; she was terrified for him. “Then we’ll protect him together,” his father vowed, pulling her close. “Even if it’s the last thing we do.”
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
THE ACTIONS TO BE TAKING
CHAPTER 173Two weeks became one week became four days became tomorrow.The countdown had not been tracked with the urgency of the first seventy-two hours. It had been tracked with the quieter awareness of something approaching that you had done everything you could to prepare for and were now simply moving toward.Fabian's documentation was complete. Not closed. The review period would continue regardless of the session's outcome, because what they were building was not contingent on a single decision even if the single decision mattered enormously. But complete in the sense of being ready. Everything that could be in it was in it. Everything that needed to be said had been said in the form that would serve it best.The attendance had been confirmed twice. Once in the original grant and once in a follow-up confirmation that Rafael had requested because requesting it was the kind of thing you did when the stakes were high enough to warrant the redundancy.The travel arrangements were
FOR AS LONG AS THEY NEEDED HOLDING
CHAPTER 172The words settled into the household without announcement.Not because they were secret. But because the things that were most real were often the quietest. They didn't require distribution. They existed and the existence was sufficient.The days that followed had the specific quality of days that contain something new that is also completely consistent with everything that preceded it. Not a change in direction. A clarification of the direction that had already been taken.Isabella noticed it in the way the ordinary things felt. The breakfast conversations. The library afternoons. The evening meals that were sometimes just the two of them and sometimes included the entire household depending on where people were in their respective work and what the day had required of them.The ordinary things felt more ordinary.Not less significant. More ordinary. In the way that a word becomes clearer when you know its full meaning. The thing was always what it was. The clarity was ne
REMARKABLE WAY
CHAPTER 171The restaurant was exactly what the search had suggested.Discreet. Unhurried. The kind of place where the tables were far enough apart that conversation didn't travel and the staff had developed the professional invisibility of people who understood that what happened at the tables was none of their business.Lucian was already seated when they arrived.This surprised Isabella. She had expected to arrive first. Had planned for it. The specific advantage of being settled when the other person walked in.He had taken that from her. Deliberately or not she couldn't tell yet.He stood when they approached. A courtesy. Old-fashioned and genuine in the way that the courtesies of people who had been raised with them were genuine, reflexive rather than calculated.He looked at Jean Baptiste.Jean Baptiste looked at him.Forty years between those two looks. Everything that forty years contained."Jean Baptiste," Lucian said."Lucian," Jean Baptiste said.They did not shake hands.
THE ATTENDANCE REQUEST
CHAPTER 170The attendance request was granted on the fourth day.It arrived through the Council's formal communication channel at seven in the morning, which meant someone had processed it outside of standard business hours, which was itself information about the level of attention the request had received.The response was three paragraphs.The first acknowledged the request.The second granted attendance for Adrian Valerio and up to three representatives of his choosing at the full Council session, with the specific conditions attached. Attendance was observational and participatory only by the invitation of the presiding Elder. Questions directed at the attendees from Council members were permitted. No disruption of proceedings would be tolerated.The third paragraph noted that Lucian Ashford had been informed of the attendance grant, as was standard procedure for all parties with active business before the Council in the same session.Rafael read all three paragraphs aloud at the
EXACTLY THE PREPARATION REQUIRED
CHAPTER 169The second week began with rain.Not the dramatic kind. Not the storm that suited the narrative of significant things. Just the steady unremarkable Ottawa rain of early spring that arrived without announcement and intended to stay for a while and didn't particularly care whether this was convenient.Isabella stood at the kitchen window with her morning coffee and watched it.She had been awake for an hour. Earlier than her usual pattern, though the pattern was still forming, still finding its edges in the new context of the estate and its rhythms.The garden was silver and flat under the rain. The tree line was gray. The perimeter lights were off, unnecessary in the gray morning light that was sufficient for human visibility even if it was uninspiring.She thought about Lucian's meeting request.He had sent the location two days ago. A private room at a restaurant in the Byward Market, a place she didn't know but that a brief search had told her was the kind of establishme
EXACTLY WHAT IT SHOULD BE
CHAPTER 168The days that followed had a texture that was new.Not the texture of crisis, which Adrian had become thoroughly familiar with over the past week. Not the texture of sustained alert, which had its own particular quality of attention directed permanently outward, scanning for the next thing.This was the texture of the ordinary that they had been describing to each other across kitchen tables and library chairs and quiet conversations.It arrived not dramatically but incrementally, the way that new seasons arrived. You didn't notice the first day. You noticed on the fifth or sixth day that something had shifted and you couldn't place exactly when.The shifts were small.Isabella found a rhythm in the estate. Not the rhythm of a guest managing the awkwardness of staying somewhere that wasn't hers, but the rhythm of someone who had located the places in the house where she thought best and the times of day that suited different activities and the people who could be interrupt
You may also like
Trillionaire they never noticed
Alfred ifeanyi78.0K viewsGod of War, Returned For His Wife
DoAj43286.0K viewsFrom Darkness to Light: Darwin's Rise
Magical Inspirations78.9K viewsRevenge Of The Rejected Son-in-law
Teddy157.7K viewsThe Hidden Empire of Harvey Kane
Ayo Ola324 viewsThe Invincible Mystic Master
Manita115 viewsThe Kleptomaniac Son In Law Is Back
Mercy. S150 viewsReborn to Build a Billion-Dollar Empire
Divine Ivy140 views