The bodies were still warm. Blood clung to the stone like paint, slowly cooling in the heavy silence that followed.
Lucifer stood still, his breathing soft. Wings low. Crimson eyes calm.
Luna hovered near the edge of the carnage, one hand covering her mouth. Her other hand gripped a broken pillar, knuckles white. She didn't say anything, didn't look away. She just stared at him—the man who saved her, the man who tore through twenty trained vampires like they were paper dolls.
Lucifer didn't speak either. Not yet.
A soft pulse echoed in his skull. Not sound. Not thought. It was weight. Familiar. Deep.
And then the voice followed, low and steady, the same one that had been guiding him from the shadows for days now. A voice only he could hear.
["You're standing in the outer district. Sector Nine. The Blood Gate is a forgotten checkpoint—meant to keep exiles out. Funny how they guarded it as if it still mattered."]
