The storm only worsened as morning dawned. Thunder rumbled off in the distance and dark clouds loomed overhead, cloaking the outside in eerie darkness. No sunlight penetrated through the curtains of the spare bedroom as Castor watched the raindrops race down the glass. Lucien had fallen asleep, leaving Castor alone with his thoughts.

Earlier, he had asked Lucien about Darcy's comment regarding Charlotte revealing everything, but Lucien had merely shrugged and feigned ignorance. Despite Castor having a good sense of the abuse that went on behind closed doors, he now fretted over what Lucien might be hiding from him.

Castor moved away from the window, quietly passing Lucien as he dozed in bed snuggled with the covers. He figured he might as well hear it from Darcy herself, and wandered down the hallway to knock on her bedroom door. When nobody answered, he tried the living room next, only to find Grayson perched in the recliner near the fireplace with a newspaper in one hand and a black caldron-shaped mug in the other.

Grayson flipped the page of his paper where Caverott's Courier was embellished in bold letters across the front. Dark Magic Sparks Panic followed as the next headline, but Castor wasn't close enough to read the rest of the fine print. "Darcy's out on the porch."

"How did you know-"

"Heard you knocking on her door." Grayson took a leisurely sip from his mug.

Vampires with their super-hearing abilities. "Ah, gotcha. Thanks." Castor slid his boots on before he stepped out onto the porch, the creaking door alerting Darcy right away from where she sat on the rocker.

It had been a long time since he'd been alone with a woman vampire before, and things had ended pretty badly for him last time. Darcy was nothing like that other vampire, but he still tread toward her with caution as he plopped down in the rocker beside her.

"What do you want?" Darcy asked.

Castor folded his arms across his chest as a strong gust of wind swept over the farmland. "What did you mean when you said Charlotte told you everything?"

"Lucien's never said anything?"

"No." Castor shook his head with a sigh. "I always suspected there was abuse going on when we were kids since he'd show up covered in bruises sometimes, but he always claimed they were from magic training. You know more though, don't you?"

"The basement was probably the worst thing they endured." Darcy clenched the arms of her chair with a grimace. "Especially when she locked them down there in the middle of the winter. Your wizard bodies aren't meant for those extreme temperatures. They'd keep them locked down there for days and were lucky if their mother even brought them supper."

"Gods, that's horrible." Castor had always imagined the Cromwells' were wicked enough to chain their kids to their beds to keep them in line or lock them down in some underground dungeon, but he never realized how close to the truth he was.

"Did Lucien ever mention who their parents had arranged for them to marry?" Darcy asked.

Castor frowned. "Most wizard families don't bother with arranged marriages anymore."

"Apparently, the Cromwells were desperate for heirs." Darcy shrugged. "Charlotte told me she'd rather make a deal with the devil than marry a man like Rishon Hawthorn."

"I remember his brother Damien because he graduated with us. Rishon's like two years older, I think. Never really saw the guy much. I believe most of their family works among the Supernatural Council too."

"That's right. Rishon is also a Silverblood Hunter." Darcy bared her fangs and Castor shrunk back in his seat, as if expecting her to lash out at him, but she swiftly retracted them. "Their parents were making them work together, probably hoping it would bring them closer or something. Charlotte told me he was a creep, and I offered to get rid of him, but she feared the repercussions."

"Get rid of?"

"An adult male wizard would roughly be twelve pints of blood for us," Darcy explained, which certainly answered Castor's question. "And if you're curious about Lucien's supposed-to-be bride, it's Nora. That's why Grayson lounged in the living room all night long, as if expecting him to sneak off into their room. His last lover left him at the altar for a wolf walker, so it worries him."

"He's got nothing to worry about there," Castor scoffed. Lucien would be more into Grayson and his fangs than he ever would Nora. It reminded him of his passionate biting with Sebastian and he did his best to mask the hurt inside. Lucien was free to be with whoever he desired, even if it was a vampire, but he couldn't shake the jealousy that coiled around him like a venomous snake.

Raindrops pitter-pattered against the farmhouse, and the air hummed with an unusual tinge of magic. Darcy sat up, her pointy ears perked as she reached for her crossbow leaned against the wall behind her.

A whirling vortex of darkness emerged like a gaping hole in the vivid greens of the fields. Its edges shimmered with black embers and continued stretching as if hungry to devour their land. Eerie lights flickered from within the portal that cast ominous shadows across the barn and fields, and Castor jumped to his feet in fear of what was about to enter.

"Were you expecting someone this morning?" Castor asked, hoping it was just another vampire roomie returning to the farm after a long night. The way Darcy gripped her bow and arrow had him doubting it was a welcomed visitor.

"No. Go wake Nora and Lucien up. Get them to meet us out here. Now!"

Tendrils of smoke poured out from the portal as Castor hurried to prop open the door. Grayson was already hurrying out there and they almost crashed into each other as he brushed past Castor.

Castor dashed back into the farmhouse and all but flung himself inside the room he'd shared with Lucien. Seeing him snuggled up and sound asleep made it hard to disturb him, but with how the vampires reacted to that creepy portal opening, he knew there was no time to waste. "Lucien?" He gently nudged his shoulder, and when that didn't work, he poked at his cheek until he muttered something like five more minutes under his breath. "Something's going on with an eerie portal out there and the vampires need us. You can sleep more later."

Something beat on the glass as he struggled to wake Lucien up. He'd sleep through the damn apocalypse if he'd let him. When that pounding came again, he neared the window and pressed his back tightly against the wall as he snatched his wand out. With his free hand, he shifted the curtain open, preparing to hex anything that dared to break inside.

The creature outside the window was missing a noticeable chunk of his head. Brain matter and viscous dark blood oozed from the gaping hole in its cranium, but the thing paid no attention to that and kept pounding on the glass like it expected Castor to invite it in for hot chocolate.

Its skin drooped and peeled off in rough patches, reminding him of rotten bananas. Choked gurgling sounds emitted from its crooked mouth as it snarled at him and it smeared blood across the glass from its bruised hands. The creature took a step back, and lurched on unsteady rotten legs, before crashing its head into the glass, but luckily, it did not break.

The impact knocked its left eyeball loose like a morbid party popper. It dangled down to his nose, blood seeping down its putrid skin. Castor froze, and a yelp caught in the back of his throat as he reeled back, clenching his wand tightly at his side.

That was enough to finally rouse Lucien from his slumber, and he crept behind Castor like he was his personal shield as he drew his wand and shrieked, "What the hell is that?"

Looking past the grotesque skin and swinging eyeball, the creature's boyish features and tattered robes gave Castor a pretty good clue as to what it was. It was once a young man like them, perhaps one who'd wandered out into the woods only for him to meet his maker. Then, some necromancer decided to pluck him right out of his grave and enchant him to find fresh food.

"Rotters." Castor cringed at the undead wizard as it continued bashing its brains all over the windowpane. "Someone sent them through that damn portal. Come on, we gotta get Nora before they break their way in here."

By the time they reached the living room, Nora had already beat them there. She gripped a dagger in her hand and it pulsed with dark blue embers. "Good, you're awake. Stay close behind me, okay? Grayson and Darcy are trying to reach the portal to close it so they stop spilling in, but there's too many for them to keep back." As they moved toward the door leading outside, Nora halted with her fingers secured around the doorknob. "Rotter bites are nasty, so keep your shield up at all times. It's not like the horror stories where you'll turn into those monsters if bitten, but it can kill you if the wound's left untreated and gets infected."

"How did they even get in?" Lucien asked. "I thought your portal couldn't be accessed by anyone else."

"That's what Charlotte told us." Nora yanked the door open with more force than necessary, trudging across the rain-sodden porch as she tugged her black hood over her head. "But It's not hard to recreate a portal once you've entered it. Even the two of you could reopen it now that you've crossed through."

Four grotesque figures staggered toward them, with one's jaw flapping in the wind and the others snarling garbled words at them. Wisps of silvery azure mist curled around Nora's pointy toed boots as she summoned her magic and the clouds above darkened in response to her call. A low rumble of thunder shook the ground beneath them as droplets on the ground stirred up with the fallen leaves.

She wove the rain into the shape of a viscous sea creature, each droplet pulsing with her magic as she made it strike. The impact sent the zombies flat on their backs, heads rolling off from the clean slice of her magic's force. Dark black blood seeped from their necks and pooled on the ground in a slimy texture that had Castor reeling away from it.

"Always decapitate them." Nora kicked one of the stray heads that landed near her feet.

"You've fought these before?" Lucien asked in disbelief as he summoned a shimmery dark green shield around him and Castor.

"Charlotte warned us about this." Nora clenched her dagger handle tightly. "That's why we practiced our defenses. Someone from the council was bound to find us, but I'm not going down without a fight."

"The council? They wouldn't send a horde of rotters through," Lucien said.

"They will if it means killing two of the Hunter's most wanted vampires." Nora sprung forward as another rotter came staggering their way and sliced it right through its throat. Magic embers of blue pulsed from the blade as she yanked it out and the blood in its neck burst like an erupting volcano.

Further onto the property, Darcy held her guard out near the fence. Many headless rotters scattered around across the lawn before them, but some slipped through and while Nora had most of them covered, Castor struck a few down with his flames as they stumbled across some shrubs. Those that tried to escape his potent fire were tangled up in Lucien's vines and dismembered.

While Darcy had pushed ahead, Grayson had fallen back to keep the horde away from the farmhouse. Then Grayson raised the tailend of his shirt to reveal a detailed tattoo of a silver fox that he conjured to life with a mere touch.

The fox swept across the lawn in graceful bounds with silent steps that didn't so much as rustle the grass. Its presence lured the undead, and it slowed for them to catch up only to roll away from lunges and duck under outstretched arms. When the rotters surrounded it, it leapt to the safety of a tree, and they were left to scratch at the trunk in futility.

More of the rotters emerged from the forest, and Castor took a brazen step toward the gurgling undead as he unleashed the phoenix on his arm. It unfurled its majestic wings, each feather glowing with fiery hues of crimson and orange. With a simple command, the phoenix beat its wings and charged toward the approaching zombies like a vibrant beam of fire.

Flames fell from the sky to roast more of the rotters like barbeque and Lucien tangled their crisp corpses in his thick, impenetrable vines when they kept moving. The silver fox pounced on the final one it had trapped, ruthlessly tearing into its neck like a rotten piece of steak.

Darcy stood over the portal that had shrunk to a small opening no rotter could even dare step through and severed the heads of the last two that had stumbled through. Charred and bloody remains scattered all across the farmhouse. It reeked of sulfur, burnt flesh, and rot.

All of the rotters wore standard wizardry attire, yet none of them bore the crests of their ancestors. Briarwood wizards no longer buried their dead with blood within them, so it was either magically manipulated to keep them moving or someone had dragged them out of an ancient burial ground.

Castor crouched down beside one of the corpses and peeled its robe up, cringing at the rotten skin that clung to the fabric. Amid the grotesque flesh, a tiny mark of a skull with thorns wrapped around it was imprinted on his flesh. All summoners had their trademark brand when they desired to control the dead, but he didn't recognize that one. Bringing them back was one thing, but controlling them with magic required a lot more strength and energy. Who would be powerful enough to do such a thing?