LENA
I should never have taken that turn.
Not because I was lost—though, truthfully, I was. And not because the night was dangerous—though it often was. I should've known better because something deep inside me whispered not this way. That gut-deep warning that you learn to ignore when the rest of the world teaches you that intuition is weakness.
But tonight, it had teeth.
One second I was navigating the pulse of downtown nightlife, weaving past clusters of laughing strangers and dodging spilled drinks on cracked pavement. The next, the beat of the city fell away, replaced by silence that pressed against my ears. The sidewalk turned to cobblestone beneath my boots—too smooth, too old, too deliberate. I stopped, frowning.
The alley wasn't one I remembered. It was tucked between two towering buildings like a secret, cloaked in shadow, lined with stone so polished it caught the faint glow of city lights. The air shifted too—crisp, clean, almost perfumed. A far cry from the beer-stale sweat and hot metal of the street I'd left behind.
At the alley's end, an iron gate stood open, elegant and inviting. Beyond it, golden light spilled like honey onto marble steps. It didn't feel like the city anymore.
It didn't feel like Earth.
Curiosity tugged hard at my ribcage. A pull, subtle but undeniable, like gravity had redirected its attention. I hesitated—but I stepped forward anyway. I always stepped forward, especially when I shouldn't.
The courtyard beyond was something out of a dream. No, a memory. The kind that doesn't belong to you but feels like it could have. Ivy spilled down stone walls like green silk. Trellises arched overhead, heavy with white blossoms and crystal chandeliers that sparkled even though there was no visible power source. And the people—God, the people. They looked like they'd walked off the set of a historical drama, each one dressed in immaculate formal wear, radiating wealth and old-world elegance.
I should've turned back then. I should've known.
But I didn't.
Instead, I stared.
At him.
He stood at the center of the gathering like the axis of a spinning world—tall, impossibly still, suited in black and white like it had been sewn onto his bones. The curve of his jaw was sharp enough to slice, his eyes a pale, searing blue that I somehow felt even before they turned on me.
And then… they did.
Our eyes met.
The moment hit like a fault line snapping open. My breath hitched, caught somewhere between my chest and throat as something raw and magnetic surged through me. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. It was like something ancient had cracked open beneath my skin.
My body knew him.
That terrified me more than anything.
He moved before I could blink. One second, he was yards away. Next, his hand was wrapped around my wrist, firm, electric, right in all the ways that still made my stomach twist.
His touch was heat, thunder, and something darker, something I didn't want to name.
"Who are you?" His voice was velvet soaked in gunpowder, low and dangerous, with just a hint of restrained panic. Like my presence had shattered something he couldn't afford to let break.
I bristled instinctively. "My name is none of your business."
He didn't flinch. His grip tightened. "Your name."
It wasn't just a question. It was a demand—a command.
And it rolled through me like a wave I couldn't outrun.
"Lena." The word tumbled from my lips, unbidden and sharp as betrayal, before I could stop it.
His eyes darkened. His hand faltered—just for a heartbeat—before he pulled me closer, like hearing my name had sealed something neither of us understood.
"I was just—"
"She saw too much," a voice cut through the gathering hum around us. It was a shock to realize everyone else was still there, too. A new figure approached, broad-shouldered and cold-eyed, looking at me like I was a problem he already knew how to solve. "You know the rules, Dominic."
Dominic.
The name slid through me, attaching itself to the man before me like it had always belonged to him. It tasted dangerous.
"She's human," another voice said. "We can't risk—"
"She's mine."
The words landed like a blow, sharp and irrevocable. They were truth and lie all at once.
I recoiled, fury and fear rising to replace the confusion. "I'm no one's anything," I snapped, yanking at my wrist, grateful my voice held steady. "Now let me go."
Dominic's eyes narrowed. "You don't understand."
"Oh, I understand just fine. This is kidnapping."
"You trespassed," he said, too calm in contrast to my rising panic. "And now, you belong to me."
I saw red.
Before I could think better of it, I drove my knee toward his gut, but he caught me. Moved like a predator, fast and fluid. In the blink of an eye, he had me turned, one arm locked across my ribs, the other clamped over my mouth.
"Enough," he whispered in my ear, and the word was a thread of heat down my spine.
It shouldn't have worked, but it did.
The sound of his voice pulled the fight from my limbs, something unnatural coiling in my chest like a drug I didn't ask for. I tried to scream, to thrash, but my body obeyed.
Terror bloomed fast and merciless in my throat.
"Take her to the estate," he said over my head, and the world began to dim at the edges. In my ear, so low it was almost just a breath, he murmured, "Sleep, Lena. You're safe, I've got you."
"No," I tried to say. But it was no use.
His thumb brushed along my lip, and everything went black.
The dreams came in pieces after that. Heat and shadows, fingers on my skin, voices I couldn't name. Something inside me burned and wanted and screamed. A name—Dominic—echoed like thunder in my chest. And then, nothing.
I woke with a gasp.
My body jolted upright, soaked in sweat, lungs dragging in air like I'd just escaped drowning. The bed beneath me was impossibly soft. The room was huge, warm, and old, with stone walls, dark wood, and a fireplace still crackling with low flames. The scent in the air was a mix of pine, spice, and something far more intoxicating. It soothed some of the panic briefly before memories slammed into me like a second fall—the alley, the courtyard, Dominic.
I twisted furiously searching, and found myself nose to nose with him.
He was seated beside the bed, like he hadn't moved since they brought me here. Watching me with that same unreadable intensity. His eyes caught the firelight, gleaming like something feral lived just beneath his skin.
I shuddered.
And at that moment, I knew with bone-deep certainty that my life had just been split into before and after.
And there was no going back.