67 pages • 2-hour read
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Content Warning: This section discusses sexual content, cursing, graphic violence, death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, child abuse, sexual assault, substance use, pregnancy termination, rape, gender discrimination, disordered eating, and mental illness.
Over the next four weeks, the bond intensifies, and the polycule moves around to avoid Cornelius’s people, who keep finding them. Mina can feel Malachi’s heartbeat when he’s miles away. She rubs her hand on her chest where she feels him, and Rylan tells her to stop. They bicker about neither one of them wanting to be bonded to the other. Rylan goes to the balcony, shapeshifts into a bird, and flies off, going in the opposite direction from Malachi. Mina wants to call Rylan back with her powers but refuses to control him. Meanwhile, Wolf paints in the basement. Mina feels separate from the men because of her seraph powers.
Malachi returns. He doesn’t think Cornelius knew Mina’s mother was a seraph. Malachi can tell Mina and Rylan have been bickering. Rylan is prejudiced against seraphim because of their actions in the distant past. Malachi kisses Mina, and she asks him to bite her. He does. Then, he gives Mina oral sex. Wolf comes into the room, and Malachi tells him to join in.
Malachi returns to giving Mina oral sex, then bites her vagina. She orgasms. Wolf and Malachi kiss. Wolf penetrates Mina while using his blood powers to stimulate her clitoris and nipples. Wolf performs oral sex on Malachi at the same time. Mina thinks about how Malachi keeps the polycule together. Malachi tells Mina to drink from Wolf, and Wolf cuts his neck with a knife. Mina orgasms, then Wolf does. Malachi penetrates Mina while Wolf bites her. Mina orgasms again. Malachi orgasms next. Mina wonders if she’ll get pregnant.
Mina can feel Rylan flying in the distance and desires him. As Wolf plays with Mina’s breasts, he and Malachi talk about their history and whether Mina will come between them. Mina doesn’t like being talked about as if she isn’t in the room. She gets up and says she wants to shower and sleep alone.
Rylan appears in Mina’s bedroom, naked after shapeshifting. He says he couldn’t stay away from her because of the bond. Mina apologizes for the bond. Rylan says he can try to resist, even have Wolf maim him, but he wants Mina. Rylan kisses Mina violently. He bends her over the window ledge and penetrates her. His hands turn into claws that cut Mina’s hips. Rylan moves them to the bed and penetrates Mina while on top of her. She asks him to bite her. He bites her deeply. She orgasms, and then he orgasms.
There is too much blood everywhere, Mina thinks. Malachi comes into the room and yells at Rylan. Rylan cuts his neck with his claw, but Mina is too weak to sit up. Wolf comes in and demands that Rylan help Mina feed. As Mina drinks from him, Rylan gets another erection inside her and moves until they orgasm again. Malachi pulls Rylan off of Mina so Wolf can feed Mina his blood. Mina tells Malachi to release Rylan, but he doesn’t, and Mina orders Malachi to do so with her magic. She feels guilty and tells him to leave the room.
After he leaves, and she finishes feeding on Wolf, Mina asks Rylan if he’s okay. He says that’s what he should be asking her and is upset the bond made him lose control. Mina asks Wolf to prepare the spare bedroom because they ruined Mina’s bed with all the blood. Mina leads Rylan to the shower, and he pulls her in with him. She washes him. When they get out, Wolf and Malachi are there. Wolf wraps Mina in a towel and carries her out of the bathroom. Malachi tells Rylan that he told him so.
In the morning, Mina wakes up after her men do and joins them in the sitting room. She says she’s putting them in danger, and Wolf reminds her that she was the one who got severely injured. Malachi blames Rylan for pushing away the bond’s power. Rylan agrees. Mina reminds everyone that seraph bonds are new to three out of the four of them, and they’ll make mistakes.
Mina asks what they were discussing before she came in and guesses that it is her father. Wolf says he knows someone who could break a seraph bond. Malachi clarifies that Wolf knows a demon. Mina is shocked to learn that demons exist and asks what they are like. Wolf says they’re tricky and to only go to them when the situation is desperate. Mina believes they are desperate. Rylan is surprised she wants to break the bond. She says she doesn’t want to have power over others. Wolf heads out to meet with the demon.
Rylan doesn’t think the demon plan will work. Malachi reminds Rylan not to test the bond again, Mina says they should drop it, and Rylan storms off after saying Mina is already acting like the heir. Malachi asks Mina to join him on the couch. She apologizes for using the bond to control Malachi. He’s ultimately glad she stopped him from killing Rylan. Malachi says magic generally has a steep learning curve and forgives Mina as long as she doesn’t intend to compel him again. Malachi also apologizes.
Mina and Malachi talk about the bond, which Malachi doesn’t want to escape. Malachi suggests the power to compel him might be from her father, who can compel by speaking. Mina asks if he can feel her emotions. He reluctantly admits that he can feel them, but only when they are extremely strong. Then, he offers to teach her how to shield her thoughts. Mina is upset that Malachi didn’t mention knowing her emotions or shielding earlier. She thinks Wolf or Rylan are willing to kill her, and Malachi reassures her that Wolf likes her, and Rylan won’t hurt her like last night again.
They talk about sparring before practicing shielding the next day. Malachi admits that Mina is getting better, even though he always wins. He encourages her to fight dirty and suggests that they have Wolf train with them. Mina says that it will end in sex and the exchange of blood. Malachi likes that idea and reassures her that he wanted her before the bond. He wants to be with her forever and get her pregnant. Mina suggests they work on the latter.
Mina and Malachi stimulate each other manually. They talk about Rylan shapeshifting when he has sex with Mina. Mina realizes Malachi wants to have sex with Rylan. When they talk about Rylan’s claws, Malachi moves and penetrates Mina. They talk about how all four of them should be together. Mina orgasms, and they continue having sex.
The next day, Mina senses that their space is being invaded. Malachi and Rylan take her seriously, but she doubts her powers. Rylan shapeshifts into a bird to investigate and confirms that Cornelius’s people have found them. Malachi carries Mina. She suggests he keep one of Cornelius’s people alive for questioning. He reluctantly agrees to try after she is safe. A few hours later, they slow down near a farmhouse. Malachi has Mina jog the last short stretch to the house, and her knee doesn’t hurt at all. Vampire blood has cured her.
As they jog, Malachi and Mina talk about the scarcity of bloodline vampires. She thinks about pregnancy as a way to secure the future of Wolf and Rylan’s lines, which have some other members, as well as Malachi’s line, which is only him. Mina voices her concerns about being a good mother because she had a terrible childhood. Malachi asks her if she wants to be a mother. She says part of her always wanted to be a mother. Malachi admits to wanting a family.
Mina asks if Malachi wants to leave if she gets pregnant with Wolf or Rylan. Malachi says he would never regret staying with Mina. Wolf and Rylan are inside the house when Malachi and Mina enter. Malachi tells Rylan the plan to capture one of Cornelius’s people. Rylan agrees to go with Malachi to complete this task.
Wolf says he’ll watch out for Mina while the others are gone. Malachi asks Wolf to put down a blood ward. Mina thinks it will be a trap, but Wolf explains that it’s to keep the enemy out, not trap anyone within. Wolf needs blood, Malachi offers to provide it, and Wolf insinuates that they also have sex while biting. They walk into another room. Rylan starts to follow, and Mina stops him, clarifying that the other men are about to have sex.
Rylan is surprised that Mina isn’t jealous; she says it’s because Malachi and Wolf’s relationship predates her relationship with them. She mentions Rylan’s history with Malachi and intuits that she stole Rylan’s true love. Rylan psychically feels her pity and doesn’t want it. She projects anger instead. Mina apologizes for projecting, Rylan calls it a burden, and she backs him into a corner. Once she realizes the bond is allowing her to overpower him, she apologizes.
Rylan grabs her arms and is confused by her lack of desire for power over him. Mina wants to have sex with Rylan and tells him to let her go if he hates her. He says he doesn’t hate her; he is trying to release his old prejudices against seraphs. Mina says she’ll do whatever it takes to break the bond. Rylan doesn’t want her to give up her life to the demon. He lets her go and asks to have sex with her. Mina consents. She says he doesn’t have to put semen inside her if he doesn’t want to risk getting her pregnant.
Rylan pins Mina against the kitchen counter. He says he can live with impregnating her, shapeshifts so his hands are claws, and rips Mina’s shorts and underwear off. They kiss, he performs oral sex on her, and he shapeshifts his tongue inside her. Then, he penetrates her, making his penis larger with his magical power. Mina puts his claws on her hips. He picks her up with them while penetrating her. She orgasms, then he orgasms.
Rylan suggests they get dressed and leads Mina into a room that has clothes that fit her perfectly. Mina notices him staring, and he admits his attraction to her is growing. She says hers is as well. Rylan suggests they go to Wolf and Malachi. Mina says they would love for Rylan to join in their sexual escapades. He knows, and they continue towards the other men.
There is a blood barrier around the bedroom that Malachi penetrates Wolf in. Mina and Rylan comment on how beautiful the men are. She kneels before Rylan and asks to give him oral sex. He consents, and she tells him to watch the men. She uses both her mouth and her hands. He takes control of the thrusting in her mouth, looks at her, and penetrates her vagina. Rylan cuts his neck with his nail, and Mina drinks from him. She orgasms, and he orgasms. She hopes he doesn’t regret filling her with semen.
Mina sees that Malachi has been watching them from the doorway. Rylan and Mina get dressed. Malachi says Wolf will protect Mina and kisses her. She tells Rylan and Malachi to be safe, and they leave. Wolf invites Mina through the blood ward. It feels different than the one around Malachi’s house. Wolf pulls her onto the couch and says they are going to summon the demon.
While Wolf plays with her breasts, a demon appears. His name is Azazel, and he gets upset when Wolf uses it. They talk about Mina being an attractive seraph. Then, Wolf asks about the bond. Azazel touches Mina’s chest, where she feels connections to her men. He says he will break the bond if Mina is in his service for seven years. Wolf tells Azazel that they will have an answer in a week. Azazel disappears.
Wolf refuses to let Mina take the deal, because seven years in the demon realm doesn’t always equal seven years in the human realm. He says Malachi would also refuse to let Mina take the deal, and Rylan would oppose it, but less dramatically. Wolf says he doesn’t mind the bond and will kill Mina if she turns into a tyrant while playing with her clitoris.
Mina wants Wolf to promise to kill her if she abuses her power. He refuses, saying she might abuse it by accident. They talk about when they first met. As Wolf undresses Mina, he says she can’t make a deal with the demon. Wolf penetrates Mina and says the demons will trap her because she’s so sexy. He denies that he’s jealous and bites Mina’s breast. She says she wants more bites. He agrees; he wants to mark her like Rylan. However, he just makes little bites. They both orgasm.
Mina can feel Malachi and Rylan approaching in the distance. She asks Wolf about feeling her emotions and about wanting to shield them. He thinks knowing what she’s feeling is useful. Wolf also talks about his past with Rylan and Malachi, back when they were all having sex together and with other partners. Rylan has only shapeshifted during sex with Malachi, Wolf, and now Mina.
Malachi and Rylan arrive covered in blood. Wolf won’t let them in, saying they could be a glamour spell from Cornelius. Mina says the bond tells her it’s them, and he notes that the bond is useful. Wolf takes down the blood ward. Malachi stumbles into the room. Rylan catches him and puts him on the couch. Rylan and Malachi smell the brimstone from the demon’s visit. Mina tells Malachi to drink from her to heal, and he does. They engage in friction play, and Mina orgasms. Rylan says they need to move, and Malachi asks what happened with Azazel.
Rylan says they can talk about it in a safe location: a house in the Colorado mountains owned by a friend. He carries Mina, and they all run to a stashed truck. Mina falls asleep on Wolf’s lap in the back seat. They approach the house on a narrow road as the sun is rising. The place is built into the side of the mountain. They walk through a series of narrow hallways before reaching a living room. Rylan says that they are surrounded by rock, and no one can burrow to the house.
Rylan and Malachi insist that Mina get cleaned up and eat something. Malachi washes Mina and himself in the shower. He tells her to accept the bond and not put herself in danger trying to break it. She feels trapped and without choice when it comes to her seraph power of bonding. There are clothes for Mina in the bedroom, and she asks about the owner of the house. Malachi says Rylan will speak about that. Everyone gathers in the living room.
Wolf tells the others about the demon bargain. Rylan refuses to allow Mina to accept the deal. Mina argues with him, saying she wants to negotiate with Azazel. Malachi and Wolf also insist that Mina refuse Azazel’s deal. Malachi relays what he learned from Cornelius’s hunter: Cornelius knows Mina is part seraph because her magic left a trace in the house when they broke the blood ward. Rylan says the plan of getting Mina pregnant and overthrowing her father remains the same.
Wolf and Rylan argue about Rylan’s previous contempt for the bond. They also argue about Rylan’s love for Malachi, as well as Rylan’s initial jealousy transforming into his liking the bond. Malachi intervenes before the argument turns violent. Rylan apologizes. Malachi says it was never going to be just him and Rylan. Rylan supposes “it’s not a bad thing to have an abundance of love” (265) and admits he wants to have sex with the men as well as Mina.
Malachi tells Rylan to kneel before him. Rylan performs oral sex on Malachi. Wolf asks if Mina’s threatened by Rylan, and she says she isn’t. Wolf manually stimulates Mina. Malachi asks to penetrate Mina. Mina agrees, and Malachi does while Wolf holds her in her chair. Malachi tells her she’s theirs, and they are hers.
Mina agrees with Malachi. He plays with her clitoris, and she orgasms. Then, Malachi orgasms and kisses her. When Malachi moves away, Rylan takes his place, again asking for Mina’s consent. She agrees. Mina asks Wolf if he consents, and he does. They all choose to be with each other. Malachi tells Rylan to bite him instead of Mina. Malachi teases Mina by moving Rylan’s penis on her clitoris. Wolf plays with Mina’s nipples and suggests she pierce them with silver, which would keep them from healing and be a little painful all the time. She likes the idea.
Malachi bites Rylan and puts on lube. As Rylan penetrates Mina, Malachi penetrates Rylan. Rylan breaks the arms of the chair they are in. Wolf breaks the back of the chair and holds Mina above him. Wolf puts on lube and penetrates Mina anally. Everyone moves together, and Mina orgasms so intensely that she passes out.
Mina wakes up and worries about the men. They also passed out, but they wake up moments after her. Rylan says he’ll explain this seraph power later. Mina realizes that her hands have turned into claws. Wolf creates a little spark of fire with his fingers. Rylan shapeshifts an arm and realizes he shares his powers with Mina. He can also feel Wolf’s blood powers. Mina is able to make the fire grow like Malachi. Malachi thinks sharing powers is useful. Rylan plays with the fire next.
Mina asks how to shapeshift her claws back to human nails. Rylan tells her to focus on what her regular hands look like. Mina is overwhelmed by the new powers. Malachi holds her. She waves her hand, accidentally moves Wolf by shifting all his blood, and apologizes. Everyone showers and gets into bed together. Rylan thinks they shared powers because they chose each other and expressed explicit consent.
Malachi says the plan is still the same, and they can take some time to learn about their new powers. Mina learns that Cornelius lied when he said it takes bloodline vampires decades to control their powers. Wolf thinks Mina will master her new powers in a month or less. Mina internally thinks about how she loves her men but can’t say it out loud. They all fall asleep.
When Mina wakes up, Wolf is kissing her vagina, and Rylan is kissing her breasts. Malachi is giving Rylan oral sex. Wolf moves so he can penetrate Mina’s vagina, and Rylan moves to Mina’s clitoris, with Malachi following to continue performing oral sex on Rylan. Mina orgasms. Then, Wolf orgasms. Malachi orders Rylan to fill Mina with semen, and he does. When Rylan bites Mina, Malachi tells him not to.
Rylan and Mina argue that she is fully recovered. Mina realizes that all of her scars have healed. Malachi’s scars remain. Malachi kisses and penetrates Mina while she watches Wolf and Rylan cuddle. Mina’s hands become claws again. She orgasms and loses consciousness.
When she comes to, Mina sees the remnants of a fire she started while orgasming. Wolf jokes about Mina chastising Malachi for starting fires during sex, and Rylan says he doesn’t think fire or smoke can hurt Mina now. Rylan pricks his finger on Mina’s claw and feeds her some blood. He consents to her cutting him with her claws, and she cuts his throat, then drinks his blood.
Malachi says they need to get out of bed and train. Mina reluctantly agrees. Rylan and Wolf stay behind to have sex. Malachi and Mina go to the fancy gym in the mountain house. They spar for an hour, and Malachi says Mina is improving. She keeps smiling, and Malachi tells her to enjoy being happy. Then, they work on magic by Malachi guiding her through a meditation where she learns to feel her magic move. Malachi stops the session and orders Mina to eat.
First, they take a shower together. Then, they find Rylan and Wolf in the kitchen. Mina chooses an apple and PowerBars to eat, admitting that she doesn’t know how to cook. Rylan says he’ll learn to cook for her. Azazel appears. Malachi puts himself between the demon and Mina. Rylan curses as Wolf pins him to the counter. Wolf tells Rylan not to attack. Malachi tells Azazel that Mina isn’t making a deal. Azazel threatens to take Malachi to the demon realm.
Wolf tells Azazel to stop his posturing. Mina tells Azazel she’s not making a deal with him. Azazel says six vampires are heading towards their mountain and disappears. Mina senses that this is true; she didn’t before because Azazel’s power was overwhelming her senses. Malachi tells Rylan to protect Mina. Wolf and Malachi head out to face the enemy.
Rylan takes Mina to a security room and looks at the various cameras, guessing that Cornelius sent two teams. Rylan says the original owner of the house was a friend who died, and the current owner is his friend’s granddaughter. One of Cornelius’s tank-like vehicles heads towards the house on its narrow road. Three masked invaders are inside the narrow hallway of the house.
Mina is concerned because she can’t feel the vampires approaching. Rylan says the group is masking their presence, and he will go and face them. He tells Mina about an escape hatch that she can take if something happens to him. After kissing Mina, Rylan leaves the security room and shapeshifts into a wolf. Mina turns off the lights, as Rylan asked her to, and the cameras go on night vision.
Mina hears her father’s voice on one of the vampires’ radios. He orders the vampires to round up Mina’s men. The vehicle that Malachi and Wolf are approaching explodes, knocking them out long enough to be trapped by Cornelius’s vampires. Cornelius uses his compulsion on Rylan to make him stand still, then sleep. He orders his vampires to bind Rylan with silver. Then, he addresses Mina, asking if she’s hiding somewhere.
She cries and goes through the escape hatch and out of range of Cornelius’s powers. After moving through a tunnel, Mina finds a box with a flashlight, boots, a coat, and water. She dresses and follows the singular path through a cave. The bond informs Mina that her men are on the move, away from her. She must follow them to avoid the bond hurting them, and she knows Cornelius is headed for his compound in Montana.
When Mina emerges from the cave, she sees an armed woman. The woman is Rylan’s friend’s granddaughter, who owns the house and introduces herself as Grace. Her security system alerted her about the intruders. Grace offers to give Mina a ride because her family owes Rylan a debt. The off-roading vehicle is loud enough that the women can’t speak casually as they travel.
Mina gets nauseous and yells at Grace to pull over. Grace does, and Mina vomits. Grace jokes about Mina being pregnant, and Mina feels a magical baby forming inside her. After eating some of Grace’s mint gum, Mina gets back in the vehicle and admits she’s pregnant.
In Part 2, the polycule is on the run. They eventually wind up in a bunker “built into the side of the mountain” (254). Like the gothic house in Part 1, this place turns out to be a trap. At the end of Part 2, Cornelius captures Mina’s men. Before that happens, Mina and her lovers develop their relationship. The shift from a static prison of Malachi’s warded house to a series of temporary refuges underscores how mobility does not equal freedom; the characters must continuously renegotiate safety, intimacy, and strategy under the constant pressure of pursuit. The subtitle “Heir” foregrounds the political stakes of these movements, emphasizing that every choice about sex, pregnancy, and alliance is also a choice about who will control the future of the vampire world.
Robert explores The Power of Consent and Choice through the seraph bond that Mina has with her men. Rylan tries to resist the bond, which backfires with him biting Mina too deeply during sex when he finally gives in to the bond. For Mina, being unable to have sex without bonding with her partner is “another choice, taken away” (258). She hates that her newfound magical powers interfere with another’s free will. However, she did choose to awaken her powers with sex instead of violence: “[She] didn’t choose the bond, but [she] chose this. Pleasure instead of violent pain” (184). Choosing love is the next step. Azazel’s offer to break the bond at the cost of seven years of service introduces a second layer of consent: Mina must decide not only how to interact ethically with her lovers under the bond, but whether to accept a predatory, asymmetrical bargain that echoes the exploitative deals Cornelius has made on her behalf. The text thus contrasts magical compulsion that Mina never wanted with contractual consent that is technically voluntary but shaped by desperation, illustrating how choice is constrained differently at interpersonal and systemic levels.
In Part 2, everyone in the polycule makes the conscious choice to be with one another all at once. What follows is unlike the first time the four of them had group sex—a ritual to break the blood ward and unlock Mina’s powers. After their second act of group sex, they begin to share bloodline vampire powers. They can all magically command fire, blood, and shapeshifting. Rylan says, “[M]aybe it happened because we chose this. Tonight, I mean. Maybe the bond responded to that willingness” (282). They weren’t trying to escape from a prison, but learning to love one another. By tying the redistribution of power directly to explicit mutual consent, the narrative frames healthy nonmonogamy as a collaborative practice in which all parties assume both risk and responsibility. The shared abilities highlight the idea that ethical intimacy changes everyone involved, making each character more vulnerable to the others but also better equipped to confront external threats together.
Robert is also Reimagining Romance Beyond Monogamy in the Court of the Vampire Queen. Malachi is at the center of the polycule: “he’s truly the one who holds [their] little foursome together” (175). Rylan wanted to be monogamous with Malachi, which is why he struggles against the bond at first. Eventually, Rylan defines sharing Malachi with Wolf and Mina as “an abundance of love” (265). Multiple partners mean more affection and intimacy. However, to obtain this means overcoming interpersonal conflicts. Mina realizes that she loves all of them, even Rylan, in addition to “want[ing] them all inside [her]” (250). She doesn’t confess her love aloud until Part 3. Part 2 traces this shift from reluctant coexistence to chosen family, showing how jealousy, old grievances, and differing expectations of commitment must be spoken aloud and renegotiated rather than magically erased. In doing so, the text reframes romantic fulfillment not as finding a single ideal partner but as building a network of relationships that can accommodate multiple histories and desires.
Mina’s hesitation is partly because she is Overcoming Trauma and Discovering the Self. Her seraph identity isolates her: She’s “surrounded by men, but just as alone as [she] was in [her] father’s compound. Separate. Other” (166). Her isolation in the compound was because she seemed to be a magic-less dhamphir. This time, her isolation is because of her magic powers. She isn’t being traumatized by her lovers like she was by her father. At this point, Mina is experiencing “pleasure and pain and power. [She] never knew it could be like this, never knew that [she] could have anything but pain” (235). The cultish trauma she endured caused her to believe that she would experience the same kind of treatment from everyone. Malachi, Wolf, and Rylan treat her differently. This helps her reframe her thinking and learn to accept her differences. She accepts that “the list of what [she doesn’t] know only seems to grow longer with time instead of shorter” (192). Mina’s identity changes over time, and she must process her experiences of torture in order to accept that. Robert offers Mina as a representation of trauma survivors regaining their identity as a part of their healing journey. Her pregnancy intensifies this process: As she becomes the literal heir-maker in a system obsessed with lineage, Mina must confront what it means to create a family that does not repeat Cornelius’s abuses. The narrative aligns her growing comfort with her powers and desires with a developing sense of responsibility toward the life she carries, suggesting that healing involves not only reclaiming the past but also consciously reshaping the future.
In addition, Cornelius’s ambush at the mountain bunker marks a structural and emotional turning point in the novella. All three men charge out to protect Mina, and their immediate incapacitation demonstrates both the limits of the polycule’s newfound unity and the ongoing reach of Cornelius’s power. Their capture also underscores how quickly the family Mina has built can be taken from her, which heightens the desperation that shapes her later choices. Once they are gone, Grace emerging introduces a new axis of possibility; her presence ensures Mina’s survival and plants the narrative seed for Grace’s eventual offer to take Mina’s place in Azazel’s bargain. In this same sequence, Mina realizes she is pregnant, a revelation that reorients sex from pure pleasure to both political and existential strategy. Robert repeatedly emphasizes climax because orgasm is a mechanism through which Mina unlocks, shares, and stabilizes power. Choosing sex becomes a way of choosing each other and the future they intend to defend; pregnancy transforms intimacy into inheritance, making every sexual decision an act of both love and rebellion.
Robert develops the symbolism of eyes and fire in Part 2. When they are arguing about Rylan resisting the bond, Wolf’s “eyes flash crimson” (263), and “Rylan’s eyes have gone pure silver” (263). Their eyes changing color is a physical representation of their extreme emotions. In Part 2, Mina gains the power of fire and accidentally sets a fire while having sex. This echoes how Malachi set fires while they were having sex in Part 1. When they begin sharing their powers, fire represents their connection. The fire within the polycule can be contrasted with the fire that the demon Azazel wields in his realm. He tells Malachi, “demons can show [him] what true fire means” (295). This foreshadows how the epilogue takes place in the demon realm and signals a qualitative difference between intimate, transformative power and destructive, transactional power. Eyes, flames, and shared abilities become visual markers of shifting alliances: In the mountain house, the same element that once signified uncontrolled lust now also represents coordinated defense, while Azazel’s threat hints that fire can be weaponized by systems that recognize only dominance. Part 2 thus marks a transition from interior exploration to external confrontation, preparing the narrative for the larger conflicts over inheritance, tyranny, and liberation that follow.



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