Present.

The wind howled.

Silent snowflakes fell from a black sky overhead. Kane's breath hung in the windy air. He found himself staring out over a white expanse that seemed to stretch forever.

Then, in the distance, he saw a familiar golden shimmer.

His gaze swept his surroundings. The intricate, esoteric stonework of the bridge was crumbling and cracked. No souls were shuffling past to find solace on the other side.

It was quiet. Eerily.

He staggered to his feet. Looking down, he saw that he was in his leather jacket. He'd left it discarded in that corridor of mirrors, no longer ruined with blood. He wasn't in pain, and the fire in his veins had abated.

He was in limbo.

Reid killed him.

That bastard.

Despite the shiver of apprehension from the stretching silence and the gentle snow pattering his form, he smiled. Reid could have taken his vulnerability and done what they both knew the idiot wanted above all else—the reason for the companion bond in the first place—for them to be joined eternally.

The idiot chose the option that he knew Kane wanted. Kane would never have chosen to be a vampire. He would rather have died, but he would have done it for Reid. And Reid must have felt that.

Shit. The moron was probably freaking out, questioning if he was going to return. He had to because Reid wouldn't survive carrying that guilt if he didn't.

Even though he's dead, he's damn grateful, and if he gets out of here, he might feel beyond indebted to the moron if it wasn't Reid's fault that he ended up in the entire situation, to begin with.

Kane hadn't forgotten about that shit. He owed Reid more than a few pinches. Maybe afterward, the idiot would finally get it through his head that sacrificing himself repeatedly wasn't an option. Kane understood why Reid did it—to protect that baby and get revenge for his mother's death. But without Reid, there was no point in fighting.

The world could burn if it meant Reid would be safe.

Moving away from the golden shimmer, he began a slow trudge through the untouched snow that reached his ankles. He felt the cold seeping through his boots and socks, numbing his toes.

Focusing, he could see the purplish glint of the barrier he'd almost fallen into during his fight with the beast. Warily, he kept his peripheral gaze on the nearly invisible wall he passed. He had never dared to enter it because he always thought of it as the void between life and death. He wasn't interested in exploring whatever lay beyond.

There was no shadowy doorway he could run towards. The last time, when that beast had been devouring souls, he'd barely made it to the portal that would take him back to his body.

Dread began to settle, and unsettling thoughts he'd rather not entertain crept into his mind while shivering in the unearthly snowy expanse.

Was this it for him? Would he be cursed to wander aimlessly forever, searching for a way out that he'd never find? Did the beast consume all the souls that had come through, rendering death meaningless because he was selfish and chose to live instead of stopping the damn thing?

He squinted, and in the distance, he could see a cabin. Wisps of smoke rose towards the purplish sky. It felt familiar. A second ago, there had been only blackness overhead.

There was nowhere else to go except forward. The tugging in his soul pushed his legs past the burn from wading through the snow.

The cabin's walls were made of dark logs, and its gabled roof had a thick covering of snow. A window with its blinds closed faced the white valley. The wood-slatted porch had a railing that creaked softly with every gust of snow-dancing wind that blew past, leaving his skin numb.

It felt homey, and he was aware that, in his circumstances, feeling comfortable here was beyond strange. Still, he found himself climbing the staircase up to the door with an unplacable warmth in his heart.

He opened the door, warily moving inside.

The cabin was small, with a narrow hallway to his left that veered out of sight. He could hear the soft ticking of a clock but couldn't see its origin.

There was a crackling fire in a stone fireplace in the corner. A square carpet, slightly off-centre, lay beneath a well-loved brown couch paired with an armchair draped with a wool blanket, its fabric grazing the seat. The dark wood coffee table matched the round dining table to his right.

His gaze settled on the small pine-wood kitchen with polished cabinetry. The blind-drawn window he'd seen from outside was above a deep basin sink, its frame rattling with every gust of battering wind.

A woman was sitting at the table with her back to him. Her brown hair grazed her grey pullover. The chair creaked as the woman turned. He took in her teary green eyes and knew what the familiarity he felt meant, even though he was staring at a face that he couldn't recall ever seeing before in his life.

He knew this woman.

She was his mother.

"Evander," she said, her weepy voice holding a natural rasp. "I've been waiting for you."

Kane kept his distance and rounded the table, putting his back to the fireplace. His gaze flickered to every dark corner of the cabin, and only then did he reply, "What are you?"

She sat up straighter, her brows pinching. Her arm rested on the back of the chair, fingers dangling. Her knuckles had the roughness of skin healing after being split many times over. "You don't remember?" She had a curving scar on her jaw when she turned to stare at the table with an anguished expression, muttering, "Of course..."

Kane growled, "This is a trick."

He must still be under Carla's spell. She's awakened memories that he'd locked away. He couldn't be standing in limbo, staring at his dead mother. He was having a difficult time not going to her like he was some boy who needed comfort from the dead. He needed to get his fucking head straight and get out of here. He had people waiting for him.

She said tiredly, "Sit down, please."

"No."

"Evander, please."

"Stop calling me that," Kane snapped. His breath was coming quickly, and he felt hot despite the bitterly cold wind battering the cabin. "I'm not whatever the fuck... I'm not Evander. My name is Kane." 

He nearly said, Kenneth. He didn't because it would remind him of Reid and that nightmare. He hadn't had a chance to fucking take a breath and deal with how shattered that torture had left him. His tired mind kept replaying Reid's screams.

She scoffed. "For fuck's sake, last time we saw each other, you were Evander and I was your mother."

There are not a lot of people who could make him shudder. Pissed off, Milton would intimidate anyone with a brain. Rising near his height with an icy glare, this woman made him feel intensely scolded.

She neared, her eyes fierce. "We don't have much time, and there's a lot of important shit that you need to know. Alright? So will you stop being paranoid one darn second and listen to me?"

Kane glared. He didn't have time for this. Reid was waiting for him.

He walked past her, fully intending to traverse the wintry expanse in search of the portal back to the land of the living.

"It's gone," she said when he reached the front door.

Despite his resolve to not listen to more bullshit, Kane paused with a hand gripping the door knob. The wind battered and shook the groaning wood. He stared at the aged grooves and prayed that she wasn't about to confirm what he already feared.

"The beast has turned this place into a wasteland. Souls don't pass through here anymore."

Fuck.

Kane turned. She hadn't approached, standing near the armchair. He didn't care that he was acting like an asshole. His nerves were frayed. He needed to see Reid again while the idiot wasn't bloodstained and dying.

"Bullshit," he snapped. "Why am I here?"

"It's too complex for us to understand. All I know is that souls pass somewhere else now. To protect them from being..." She gestured to the window, and Kane thought he could hear distant roaring. "You're here because you're drawn here."

"Drawn here?"

"To the beast."

"Why the fuck would I be drawn to that thing?"

"Because I was."

"Start making sense, or I'm walking out of here and finding my own way out of this place."

She laughed, laying her palms on her hips and smiled at him fondly. "You haven't changed. Still stubborn as a mule."

"Fuck off."

"That is new. You're lucky I'm dead, or I'd have something to say about your mouth." She walked to the fireplace and stared at the flickering flame. "Listen closely, Kane." Her serious tone made the tension in the room rise to clench his fingers. "My name is Sophia Molnár. Neil Molnár was my husband and your father. I've been looking for you." His breath caught, and her gaze found his. "For a long damn time."

"I saw the article," Kane said, feeling faint. "What happened?"

He'd thought that perhaps he had caused the accident. He couldn't control his magic on a good day, and as a child without training, his imagination could fill in the blanks. How else would a fire start on a snow-covered road?

He fucking hoped it wasn't true. He didn't know what he would do if he were the cause of Milton's and his biological parents deaths.

Sophia said grimly, "A car accident."

Kane's heart leapt. "Did I..."

"No—no," Sophia assured, horrified. "It wasn't you."

He tried to keep his expression cold, but his resolve was cracking. His relief must show on his face because Sophia's gaze softened with pity.

"This isn't a trick," Sophia said gently. Then her green eyes grew fierce. "Believe me or don't. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you listen to me for the ten minutes we have together before that beast scents your soul, and then we'll be in a heap of trouble."

"Then tell me," Kane said, his stomach in knots. He heard a roar and felt the cabin rumble. "Fuck. Hurry."

Sophia approached, her gaze wild. "Your gift—"

"I can't die. I fucking know that already."

"No, Evan. You can," Sophia said, grabbing his biceps. "You can." Her gaze flickered over his face. She was looking at the scar on the bridge of his nose, jaw, neck, and all the others he'd forgotten. "You can be hurt. Every time you return from here, you wear that pain. Just like I did when I had your gift."

Dread settled in his stomach. When she had his gift?

Sophia spoke hastily, "The worst scars heal. But they're not gone. You have the damage inside. Do you understand me, Evan? If you keep dying and coming back, eventually, your body won't be able to heal any longer."

"It's getting longer."

"Shit," Sophia cursed shakily. She shook his arms. "How much longer, Evan?"

Kane had no idea why he hadn't pushed this woman away from him and marched through the snow back to his life. Maybe it was the fear in her eyes, lancing him to the spot. He heard himself admit tightly, "The last time was over half an hour."

"That means your body cannot handle the strain," Sophia said with tears in her eyes. "This has to be the last time. You might not get another. Shit, Evan, how many times have you died?"

A lot. "A few times."

"I wish that we had more time. I'd tell you about your father and about you." Sophia slid her hands up to his shoulders, and one of her palms settled on his cheek, stroking his skin with her thumb. "I have to give you the quick version."

Kane nodded. A stray thought passed in his mind: he wished Reid was here. It was a pathetically boyish thought, but he did want the idiot by his side badly. Hannah, too, would ground him and stop him from feeling like he was falling.

Sophia kept her hand on his cheek. "You've heard of transferring magic?"

"Siphoning."

"Yes," Sophia replied grimly, dropping her hand. "When the user's body can no longer handle the strain, our gift is passed on. I know what you're thinking—it's a death sentence. You'd be right. The man who gave me my gift when I was sixteen didn't survive the process."

Her expression twisted, clearly recalling painful memories. "I thought... I was doing what was right. The gift could be used for good, and I did use it to help others. You must understand the order I was born into, which has kept our gift alive through generations. 

"They don't allow pregnancies. Magic passes on to infants. When I carried this gift and fell pregnant, they thought I'd weaken their precious gift. They would have siphoned the gift from me and killed us both."

Kane didn't interrupt. He felt the heavy weight of every precious second passing and knew there would never be enough time.

"Me and your father ran." Sophia smiled wistfully. "We lived for years, just us three." Her expression fell, eyes teary, and Kane's heart ached. "But they wouldn't let us go. The accident... Neil didn't stand a chance when the magic burned up our car. I fought them, Evan. I killed every bastard that dared come for us."

He should have felt relief, but he didn't because he guessed her following words. He didn't know if he could survive hearing them spoken aloud.

"I was injured," Sophia whispered, laying a palm over her stomach as if to stanch a nonexistent injury. "I had no choice—"

Kane threw open the front door.

He didn't hear her move, but she was suddenly in front of him, blocking his half-stumble toward the porch steps. The snow battered his form. Sophia showed no sign of feeling the chill.

"You were dying, Evan!"

"That's not my name," Kane growled childishly. He shoved past her and barreled down the steps with heavy stomps of his boots.

The beastly roars were growing nearer, vibrating the snowy ground and surrounding trees.

"I gave you my gift!"

"Shut up," Kane snarled. He stopped walking. He didn't know how to return to the land of the living without the portal.

The roars grew louder.

Sophia was suddenly beside him. "You never had strong magic." She gripped his arm, and he had to look at her, taking in her teary eyes and trying to keep standing when his legs wanted to give way. "I gave you my magic and my gift."

Kane whispered miserably, "You should've let me die."

Sophia gasped, tears falling. "I couldn't." She grabbed his arm when he tried to walk away. "Listen to me!"

He could shove her away, but he was subdued by her hold more than if he were shackled head to toe.

"This gift came with a prophecy from a seer that the order believes will give the mages ultimate power. They will do anything to ensure that the beast is slain. It was why they wanted our gift so badly. It's why they'll hunt you to the ends of the earth for it."

"Then, I'll just kill the fucking thing." Asha had already had a vision that he was the one to defeat the giant bastard.

Sophia shook her head. "It's not that simple. The beast isn't from this world. It was born from countless wars and bloodshed. The first vampire. The prophecy foresaw its return, the apocalypse it will bring in its wake, and the repercussions of its demise..."

The wind howled around them, and the distant roars grew closer.

Kane whispered, "What will happen?"

"All vampires will die."