Claimed by the vampire prince

Chapter 502: Chapter 502

Morana pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders as she walked the empty road leading to the other side of town where she currently resided. The night air carried a sharp chill, but it did little to quell the unease twisting inside her. The last conversation she had with Circe replayed in her mind on a continuous loop.

Circe had not needed to raise her voice but it still had the effect all the same, her words direct and final. She knew everything now—who Morana truly was to Ragnar.

"I will not help you hide this from him," Circe had said. "Secrets like this do not stay buried forever. When he finds out—and he will—it will cut deeper if he learns I knew and said nothing. You have two weeks, Morana. Tell him the truth or I will do it myself. I will not be your accomplice in this."

Two weeks. The deadline sat like a stone in Morana’s chest. She had offered no further argument after that, even though the deadline hardly favoured her at all.

There was nothing to say that would change the young woman’s mind. Circe’s loyalty, once given, was absolute. And it belonged first to her husband.

She had been walking for almost an hour now, deliberately taking the longer route so she could be alone with her thoughts. The long stretch of room was deserted, the moonlight shining down on the path ahead, flanked by fields and the occasional dark shape of a farmhouse.

She welcomed the solitude. It gave her space to think and contemplate her next step.

She was so deep in her thoughts that she missed the subtle shift in the air.

The first warning came as a faint prickle along her spine, the instinctive sense that she was no longer alone. frёewebηovel.cѳm

Morana slowed, her hand drifting toward the folds of her cloak. But by the time she turned, it was too late.

A presence materialized ahead of her, stepping out from a dense cluster of shadows as if the darkness itself had spat him into existence.

She recognized him instantly. His was a face she could never forget. The same sharp eyes, the same lean frame that moved with predatory grace. The face that had loomed over her in one of her worst moments.

Hatred surged through her, hot and fast.

"To think I would find you here of all places," Arius said, his voice laced with smug satisfaction. "It is truly a small world, isn’t it? Who would have thought this is where it would lead me, working for your long-lost son? He looked for you endlessly, do you know that? Paid me large sums just to hunt you down." He chuckled darkly, a low derisive sound. "But who would have thought the same man he pays to be his tracker is the one who held you down while you struggled as your powers were siphoned away all those years ago.?"

Morana did not waste her breath on words. She thrust her hands forward, unleashing a roaring blast of fire straight at him. The flames tore down the road in a searing torrent, hungry for his flesh.

Arius countered with a surge of inky shadows that collided with her fire in a violent burst. The impact threw them both backward several feet. Morana caught her balance first as she skidded to a stop. She charged at him again, fresh flames coiling around her palms as she closed the distance.

"I was foolish for not figuring it out sooner," Arius taunted, weaving shadows to deflect her next strike. "He may be a spitting image of his father, but he has your temperament. Like mother like son."

"Stay away from my son, you animal," Morana snarled. The fire in her hands burned brighter, mirrored in the fierce light that shone in her eyes.

She attacked again, relentless with her strikes, driving him back with blast after blast. Arius met every strike with his shadows, but he was no longer smiling.

The night around them crackled with heat and darkness as they clashed on the empty road.

Morana pressed forward, flames whipping around her like extensions of her fury. Each blast came faster than the last, forcing Arius to the brink. He danced backward through the shadows, deflecting her attacks with bursts of darkness, but she could see the strain beginning to show in the tight set of his jaw.

"You still hit like a cornered beast," he growled, throwing up a wall of shadow that absorbed her next strike with a hiss of steam. "Always did. Even when we had you pinned and writhing on the floor."

The words were meant to wound, to drag her back to that night of helplessness. Instead, they fed her fire. Morana channeled more power into her hands. She hurled a concentrated lance of fire straight at his chest.

Arius twisted aside at the last moment, but the edge of it caught his shoulder. Fabric burned away with a sharp crackle, and he hissed in pain.

He retaliated with a sweeping arc of shadows that lashed out like whips.

One caught Morana across the ribs, knocking the breath from her lungs and sending her stumbling back. Pain flared, but she rolled to her feet before he could follow up, already summoning another torrent of fire.

"Enough games," she spat. "I will not let you use my son."

Arius laughed, though it sounded more unhinged. "Use him? I’m doing exactly what he paid me to do. Finding answers. Finding you. He wants the truth about his mother almost as badly as he wants his shadows back." His eyes gleamed in the firelight. "Imagine how grateful he’ll be when I deliver you to him. Perhaps I will cut out your heart and send it to him instead."

He told Ragnar the truth about the dark magic blocking his power, but he had purposefully withheld one crucial detail. The only reason Arius recognized that particular form of dark magic was because he had once witnessed the very same thing being done to Morana. He had even held her down himself to ensure the process went smoothly.

Morana’s blood ran cold.

She feinted left with a wide spray of flames, then struck low as she aimed at his legs. Arius leaped back, but the ground beneath him ignited, forcing him back even more.

"You always were stronger than you looked," he admitted. "That’s why they wanted you drained. A waste, really. All that power locked away in a woman who refused to kneel."

Morana charged again, closing the distance until they were nearly within arm’s reach. Fire roared in her palms as she prepared to unleash everything she had at point-blank range.

For the first time, genuine alarm flashed across Arius’s face. Shadows around them surged inward, wrapping the space in sudden, impenetrable darkness. Morana’s flames cut through it, but the black swallowed the light faster than she could burn it away.

When the shadows thinned a moment later, Arius was gone.