Becoming Master of the territory was never meant to be survived.
Every vampire who has held the title before Victor is gone. Dead, missing, or driven mad by a curse no one has ever broken. By the time the truth comes to light, it is already his.
At first, the changes are small. Easy to dismiss. But they build, pressing at the edges of his control. Instinct turns sharper. Less predictable. Not always his.
Echo refuses to stand back and watch it take him.
Gray refuses to let him face it alone.
Together, they are building something steady in the middle of it. Something chosen. Something honest. Even as the pressure around them grows.
But the curse does not stop at its host.
It reaches for those closest to him, testing the limits of what they can endure. As buried histories surface and hunters close in, every attempt to break it raises the cost.
Because the fall of a Master has never been a solitary thing.
And this time, he will not be the only one it takes.