Page 115 of Haunted Crowns
A voice seeped through the stone, faint and cracked like a dying breath.
Raphael.
Stephan’s pulse slammed against his ribs. He paused for a single beat, then rage surged and he moved fast, unthinking, straight to the door.
He yanked the handle, but it was locked. He snarled, feral.
Once. Twice.
His shoulder slammed into the wood. It groaned beneath the force but held. It was not fast enough. His vision tunneled, the world burning red. His father was behind that door, and so was Eris.
A roar tore from him, not rage, but war. He hurled his full weight forward.
The door exploded, wood shattering. They burst in together, Stephan and Yori, fire burning in their veins.
At the center of the chamber knelt Raphael. His head was bowed as he cradled her.
Eris.
She lay limp in his arms, her head fallen back, hair spilling like liquid gold. Stephan’s breath hitched, then vanished. A raw, guttural sound tore from his throat—half gasp, half snarl as his knees buckled.
Then rage ignited. It rose inside him like a cathedral set ablaze, sacred, unstoppable. Damned.
“NO!” He lunged forward, reaching for her.
Gods, no. No.
He would rip her free if he had to.
But then Raphael looked up, and Stephan stopped. His father’s face was ruined. For the first time, Raphael Dragov—the Unrelenting, the Unshaken—was broken.
His eyes were vast and empty, like caverns where something sacred had died. His power was gone. His composure shattered.
Then he whispered, voice fractured by grief. “Niece…” He lowered his forehead to hers, shoulders trembling.
Stephan stood frozen. Rage still burned, but beneath it was something worse.
Raphael Dragov was grieving, and Stephan had never been more afraid in his life.
Yori charged in behind Stephan. He was ready to spill his brother’s blood for touching his daughter. Then he stopped, mid-step and mid-breath. His fingers tightened on the hilt, but he did not draw. Raphael was not holding Eris like a man who had won. He held her like a man who had lost everything. Yori saw it clearly. The truth. The tragedy. A man who had damned his own blood.
Stephan dropped to his knees beside them. He touched her. She was cold. Her skin felt wrong.
She was breathing, yet something in her was absent. Her body lived, but her soul no longer answered.
A sound escaped him—not a sob or a scream, but something torn from grief. “Eris.”
No response.
He cupped her face. “Eris…”
His voice cracked.
Raphael held on, whether from reflex or regret, but Stephan pulled her free and gathered her against him like a shield.
“Wake up.” He whispered the word, pleading, but she didn’t move.
A Dragov never weeps, but Stephan Dragov shattered.
