Chapter 5

Lucas stumbled back a step, his heart hammering in his chest.

Kin?

What did that mean?

Oliver caught the look on Lucas's face and stepped forward. "What's wrong? What do you see?"

Lucas drew a slow breath, pushing down the surge of power roiling inside him, and pulled the bronze medallion from his backpack.

He held it up in front of Sophia.

The moment her eyes landed on it, her whole body convulsed violently. The bed frame shuddered and groaned.

Her mouth fell open, and she let out a scream — sharp and raw, nothing like a sound a human throat should make. It was more like an animal being slaughtered.

Oliver and the bodyguards outside both clapped their hands over their ears.

Lucas kept his eyes locked on Sophia and pushed the medallion one inch closer.

His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "What are you?"

The screaming stopped cold.

Sophia's eyes slowly turned toward him. The corners of her mouth pulled back into something that wasn't quite a smile.

"You carry royal blood in your veins, and you're asking me who I am?" Her voice had changed — low and rough, like a grown man's. "You don't even know what you are?"

Lucas's pupils contracted sharply.

Royal blood?

He thought about the medallion his grandfather had left him. About what Marco had said — that the Colombo family's daughter had an identical one in her room. About what Michael had told him — that the blood of Pan stirred restlessly inside him.

A terrible thought took shape in his mind.

"I'm not a demon host," Lucas murmured to himself. "I am..."

He didn't finish the sentence.

Sophia's body suddenly arched, lifting off the bed and floating into the air. Black mist poured from her eyes, mouth, nose, and ears, thickening in the air until it took shape — a goat's head, its gnarled horns spiraling upward, identical to the figure on the medallion.

The black goat's head hung suspended in the air, its twisted horns rotating slowly, radiating the stench of rot.

Lucas backed up two steps until his shoulders hit the wall.

The blood of Pan surged and thrashed inside him. Two spots on his scalp burned and pulsed, swelling with pressure that felt ready to split through skin and bone. He clenched his back teeth and bore down hard, holding that force in place.

"Kin..."

The goat's head swung toward him and split into a wide grin that stretched across its entire face.

Then the grin faltered.

It tilted its head. Behind the hollow eyes shaped from black mist, something flickered — confusion. "Why don't you smell like disinfectant?"

When Lucas didn't react, it swallowed the hesitation back into the darkness and kept smiling.

"Why are you suppressing your true nature? Let go. Let the blood of the king awaken..."

Oliver stood frozen in the doorway, his whole body stiff. He looked at the black mist hanging in the air, then at Sophia, swallowed up inside it. His fists slammed into the door frame.

"You said you could save her!"

He screamed at Lucas.

"Whatever it takes — just do it now!"

Lucas didn't look at him.

His eyes stayed on the goat's head, his mind running fast. This thing called him kin. The blood of Pan was churning inside him. The symbol on the medallion matched the shape of this creature exactly. Every piece pointed to the same answer — his origins were far more complicated than Father Michael had ever let on.

But this wasn't the time to dig into that.

Sophia's body was convulsing violently in midair. Black mist kept pouring from her mouth and nose. Her skin had started to crack, tiny beads of blood seeping through the fissures.

If he waited any longer, she wouldn't make it.

Anthony had crept up the stairs at some point and was now huddled behind Oliver, shaking, holding up a crucifix, and reciting an exorcism prayer in a thin, broken voice.

The goat's head heard the words and let out a sharp, mocking laugh.

Sophia's body snapped backward and crashed down onto the bed. The frame buckled on impact, wood splintering across the floor.

Anthony's voice kept stuttering and breaking, the crucifix rattling in his trembling hands.

Lucas shoved him aside.

"That's not going to work on it."

Anthony stumbled into the wall and jabbed a finger at Lucas, his face flushed red. "You — what do you know! The exorcism rites are Vatican-certified—"

Lucas didn't even glance at him. He walked straight to the bed.

Sophia lay twisted among the broken boards, her limbs bent at wrong angles. Black mist coiled around her body, and the goat's head pushed through the haze, pressing close to Lucas's face.

"What do you think you're doing?" The voice was rough and inhuman.

"You want royal blood?"

Lucas stood at the edge of the bed and looked down at the dark mass.

"Then take a good look."

He stopped holding back.

The blood of Pan — contained for eighteen years — broke free all at once.

A pressure exploded out of him, a hundred times heavier than what he'd released in the hall downstairs. The walls split with cracks that spread like roots. The ceiling light shattered and rained glass across the floor.

The two swollen points on his scalp tore through skin. Two black horns emerged and curved upward, their surfaces etched with ancient markings.

His irises bled from brown to crimson. The pupils narrowed to slits and locked onto the goat's head.

This wasn't the out-of-control state Michael had warned him about.

Lucas's mind was completely clear. He was releasing the power of Pan deliberately, while keeping precise control over every current running through him. Eighteen years of training had made this possible — though he knew he couldn't hold this form for long.

The moment the goat's head met those red slit eyes, its grin went still.

It backed away.

A creature that had gathered the full force of a powerful evil spirit — and it backed away half a step the moment it looked into Lucas's eyes.

"No... that's impossible..."

The black mist churned violently. The goat's horns began to crack.

"You're not just a halfblood... you're..."

Lucas took one step forward.

Just one step.

The mist throughout the room exploded outward. It hit the walls with a hiss, scorching black streaks into the plaster.

The goat's head let out a wretched shriek. Its face twisted, and both horns shattered completely.

"My king... please... spare me..."

It was begging.

An entity that had tormented Sophia for three months — that had left every priest in Harmony City helpless — was now trembling in front of Lucas, crumbling.

In the doorway, Anthony's legs gave out. He sank to the floor, mouth hanging open, jaw barely holding together. He'd fought this thing for three months. More than forty exorcism rituals. He'd worn himself down to nothing. And this eighteen-year-old had done it in one step.

Oliver gripped the door frame, his knuckles popping. He'd seen more than his share of violence. But nothing had ever sent this particular feeling through him before — something rising from deep in his bones, something close to awe.

"Get out."

Lucas said it quietly.

The words carried the full weight of Pan's bloodline and filled every corner of the room.

The goat's head began dissolving from the edges, the black mist dragged downward by an unseen force. A crack opened in the floor. A faint dark red light bled up from somewhere below — a rift leading somewhere else entirely.

The spirit thrashed wildly, trying to force its way back into Sophia's body.

Lucas reached out with his right hand, fingers spread, and closed them around the core of the mass.

The mist writhed in his grip, hot enough to burn through steel. It left no mark on his skin.

"I said..."

He shoved his hand forward.

"Get out."

The goat's head let out one final, desperate wail. He drove the entire mass into the crack in the floor.

A low, heavy boom. The crack sealed shut. The red light died.

The room went silent.

Lucas looked down at Sophia.

Her mouth fell open. A thick stream of black vapor rose from her throat and dissolved into the air.

Then her chest moved.

Shallow. Faint. But real.

The cracks in her skin were closing, visibly stitching themselves back together. Color crept slowly into her face, which had been white as paper.

She was asleep — not unconscious, not held under by the spirit, but actually, genuinely sleeping.

Lucas slowly pulled his hand back. The horns retracted inch by inch, disappearing under the skin until only two faint raised marks remained. The crimson faded from his eyes, and the color settled back to brown.

The room tilted. His knees buckled. He grabbed the broken bedpost beside him and held on, just barely staying upright.

Releasing Pan's blood deliberately had cost him far more than he'd expected. His bones ached. His limbs felt hollow. His temples throbbed without stopping.

Rapid footsteps from the doorway.

Oliver pushed past Anthony and crossed the room in a few strides, leaning down close to Sophia's face.

He heard her breathing. Steady and even.

The man who had ruled Harmony City's underworld for forty years — who had killed without hesitation — dropped to his knees beside the broken bed frame.

He reached out with one trembling hand and touched Sophia's forehead.