Fear like she’d never felt before coursed through her body, pushing her legs faster and faster until the stone walls of the hallway were nothing but dark blurs.

Without giving it a second thought, for better or worse, she cut right and pushed through the blackened doors then flew across the black marble. She ran up the stairs, and didn’t stop moving until all she could see was the wall of ivory bones that made up the back of Stefan’s throne.

She sucked in mouthful after mouthful of cold air, attempting to catch her breath as the muscles in her legs throbbed a spiteful rhythm.

“I assume you now understand what you perceived to be a stranger inside you, is in fact your beast?” Stefan asked. His usually serious voice was filled with no small hint of amusement.

Stupid goblin has a death wish. “Yeah, I got that now.”

“You don’t have to hide, Logan. In his current state, Odin will not follow you here.”

She would’ve argued she wasn’t hiding, but considering her crouched position…yeah. She stood up and shook out her legs as pain burned the muscles in her thighs. Stepping around the throne, she smiled as the sound of happy panting touched her ears. She turned her head to find Syn sitting at the bottom of the stairs, his big, pink tongue hanging out the side of his mouth.

“Congratulations,” Stefan said as he plucked a large bone from the side of his chair then tossed it down to Syn. “You’ve successfully completed the third part of your testing.”

She arched a brow. Mostly because of what he’d said, but partly because of the way Syn’s bushy tail swished back and forth as he chewed on what was probably someone’s thigh at one point.

She focused her complete attention back on Stefan’s hollows. “I’m being tested?”

He nodded. “There are four parts. Part one was you realizing in order to progress, you had to regress, and in turn release the vice withholding your success. Part two was your acceptance and understanding of why your physical body needed to reflect the new life you’ve embraced. Part three,” the corners of his mouth raised a bit, “was becoming one with your true self, and learning the beast is not a separate entity, but a reflection of baser truths and desires.”

Logan sighed. She couldn’t argue with anything he’d said, but she wasn’t exactly pleased to learn she was jumping through invisible hoops.

At least he told you. That creature doesn’t owe you any explanations. She stiffened at hearing the new voice in her mind. No longer twisted and angry, the voice sounded more like hers, but with a slightly sharper edge.

Stefan’s faint smile lengthened. “When the beast is calm, always carefully consider the words she chooses to speak. Even when she’s enraged, take comfort in knowing she still speaks a version of the truth.”

Logan smiled at him. Although Stefan was more than a little scary, especially because of his lack of eyes, there was something about the calm delivery of his words that made it hard not to listen…and something even more compelling about the wisdom behind them.

She considered him for a moment, her smile still in place. “So, what’s part four?”

He gave a warm but equally as unsettling chuckle. “Enlightenment.”

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

“No. However, I will tell you that your mother was nearly correct. Diamond strands cocoon every being in this world, including a creature such as myself. Yet the question is not, where do the threads lead you? The question is, who do your strings lead back to?”

Logan shivered as a chill slid over her and goose bumps rose through her skin. “Let’s not go there. I’m still reeling from learning how duped the humans are. How many unwitting CEO’s are in the pockets of vampires, and just how many politicians are backing plays they think are their own, but aren’t.”

He actually laughed a rather loud and hearty sound. “Perhaps in time you’ll be more prepared to discuss such topics.” He turned his head away from her a little as his jaw hardened back to that line of unforgiving stone. “No!”

She followed his line of view to the left edge of the expansive platform the throne sat on, just in time to see Syn, who stood next to a black pedestal with a large chessboard sitting atop it, lowering his hiked back leg.

Stefan extended a large, metal covered arm and pointed at the doors. “Go outside.”

She tried to stave it off when Syn snorted in their direction then trotted off towards the huge black doors, but she couldn’t. “Of all the problems for someone like you to have,” she laughed. “Who’d have thought house training would be one of them?”

“It’s not funny,” his deep grumble reverberated in her chest. “Odin, and that damn wolf, will be the death of me.”

It took a good two minutes for Logan to stop laughing. She wiped the tears from her eyes and cast a glance back over to the chessboard. Now that she wasn’t distracted by the sight of Syn preparing to defile it, she noted one spot on the board cast a subtle red glow.

She started down the steps, but stopped and turned back towards Stefan. “Can I go look?” When he nodded his permission, she continued down the stairs and made her way to the side of the board.

It wasn’t until she stood right next to the pedestal that she realized the pieces were intricately carved to look like different people. Most were fashioned from obsidian glass or ivory, but the two with the scarlet light shimmering around them were unbelievably lifelike in color.

A tall, platinum blond woman wearing a red cat suit stood on a squared base made of ivory, and a shorter woman with dark hair and Spanish features stood in jeans and t-shirt on a circular obsidian base.

Unlike all of the other pieces on the board, the blond and brunette shared the same black marble space.

Logan shifted her gaze back to Stefan. “Why are there two in the same square?”

“They are in play, competing for the space.”

She arched a brow at him as the goblin in her belly curled into a warm little ball, and if she wasn’t mistaken, let out what felt like a strangely contented purr.

Stefan descended the staircase and in a few powerful strides moved to stand at her side. “Are you familiar with chess?”

She nodded. She’d spent time on sunny days at different parks in New York watching people play on the worn, washed out boards. Some of the homeless were known for being Master chess players, but she wasn’t one of them. “I know the basics.”

“The rules are very similar to the game of strategy you were familiar with as a human. However,” he plucked the Spanish woman from the board and handed her to Logan, “my pawns have far more to lose than a space.”

Logan stared down at the piece in her hand. “You play with people?”

“I present supernatural creatures with obstacles,” he corrected. “My opponent and I arrange the circumstances, but in the end, the pawns choose their own path. Their decisions and the consequences of their actions determine the amount of time they grace the board.” He motioned to the ivory likeness of a man dressed in robes. “Lucien, my gentle yet misguided brethren, has stood proud on this board for thousands of years.”

She swallowed the dry knot forming in her throat. She remembered Vouclade telling her how old vampires manipulated young vampires, but she couldn’t imagine someone who’d been on the board for ‘thousands of years’ being considered a young vampire.

But then again, Vouclade was twice as old as Kerestyan, and Stefan was probably a lot older than Vouclade.

She stared between the Spanish woman and the other people on the board. “Do they know? I mean, I’m sure they all know about manipulation…but do they know you actually have them on a board, like a real game?”

“Some do. However, she,” he removed the Spanish woman resting in Logan’s palm and placed her back in the shared space, “does not. She is but a Fledgling, and far too young to know the Nelek name.” A proud smile crossed his face. “But I have great faith in her, much as I do in you. She’s faced adversity, but where you chose to embrace the darkness inside you, she clings to her humanity, wielding her refusal to accept the beast as a weapon to regain all she’s lost.”

Logan gave the board a long, hard look before she focused back on him. “Do my strings lead back to you like theirs do?”

“No.” He turned and made his way back to his chair, stopping only to retrieve Syn’s forgotten bone before he climbed the stairs and sat down. “I stopped manipulating the circumstances of humans long ago. To mimic Odin’s very modern and crude manner of speech, it’s just not fair.” His face hardened again as a chorus of laughter drifted into the stone chamber. With a sharp swipe of his mailed hand, the chessboard and pedestal vanished. “Drake, what brings you to my home this evening?”

Logan wheeled around as the laughter lightened. Trinity, looking a little worse for wear, Odin, whose eyes weren’t glassy anymore, and a large, mountain of a man with long dark hair and golden skin, walked across the floor and stopped at the foot of Stefan’s stairs.