Flames.
That was the last thing she remembered the roar of fire devouring her bones, the stench of
burning flesh, and the twisted satisfaction on their faces as they chanted her sentence: Witch. Abomination. Death. Her screams had pierced the heavens.
And then… nothing. A void of silence and shadows.
Until now.
Saraphina gasped as life slammed back into her body. Her lungs convulsed like she was drowning in air. Her heart pounded, foreign and furious. Everything was wrong the scent of fresh roses instead of smoke, the crisp silk sheets under her palms instead of rough wood, the smoothness of her skin instead of scorched flesh. She blinked against the harsh morning light seeping through towering windows. The bedroom was massive , too pristine, too perfect. Cream walls. Gilded frames. Velvet drapes that looked expensive enough to feed a village. She sat up slowly, every movement stiff, unsure, Then she saw her reflection and froze.
A tall mirror stood at the foot of the bed, elegant and unyielding. The woman staring back was a stranger. Wide, frightened eyes. Delicate features. Raven-black hair tumbling over narrow shoulders. Fragile. Young. Weak.
Not her.
No , this isn't my face.
She swung her legs off the bed, heart racing. Images that weren't hers fluttered through her mind a name, a life, a world she didn't know.
Celeste Everhart.
Heiress to the Everhart fortune. Raised under the iron fist of her tyrant father. Shy, Obedient, Powerless, And just yesterday married off to a man she barely knew.
Seraphina stood, wobbling slightly. Beneath the silk nightgown, her body was lithe and soft. untouched by fire, but not by fear.
And yet , Beneath the borrowed skin, she could feel it , a slow, steady burn rising in her blood. The remnants of ancient power. Her magic, dormant for a century, now stirring.
She wasn't just alive.
She was reborn.
A knock shattered the silence, firm and deliberate.
Before she could answer, the door swung open.
He stepped in like a shadow , tall, sharply dressed in a black suit tailored to sin, his presence swallowing the room. Cold eyes raked over her like a calculation, not a greeting. He didn't smile.
Lucien Vale.
Her husband.
Her enemy.
The last living descendant of the hunters who'd tied her to the stake.
He said nothing at first, his gaze assessing her as if she were a document to be signed and filed away. Then: "You're awake."
His voice was deep, crisp. Void of affection. Just as Celeste remembered.
Seraphina tilted her head, slowly slipping her bare feet into the soft rug beneath. She straightened, met his eyes, and for the first time in a hundred years, smiled.
It was not a smile of warmth.
It was the smile of a woman who had once burned and returned to rewrite the ending.
"Good morning… husband."
Lucien's eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of something unreadable crossing his face.
She would be what Celeste never was. Bold,Ruthless,Unapologetic.
And she would make him pay for what his bloodline did to her.
But first… she had to survive his world.
LUCIEN VALE
Lucien Vale did not believe in magic. He believed in leverage, In contracts, In silence used like a scalpel. And in the iron rule of power; control or be controlled.
So when he married Celeste Everhart , the spineless, trembling daughter of a man he despised , it was not for love. It was for her last name, her bloodline, and the access it granted to the Everhart legacy.
The girl had been perfect for his plans: obedient, isolated, afraid of her own shadow.
Until today.
He stood in the doorway of the master bedroom, watching the woman who should've been his pawn rise from bed like a queen waking from war. She looked the same, same dark hair, same pale skin but something about her had shifted.
Gone was the timidity, the hesitant movements.
This woman moved like a blade drawn in silence.
Her eyes caught his, and a strange heat threaded down his spine. Violet,Glowing, almost not in light, but in presence. A depth that didn't belong to someone so young. Something older, sharper.
Lucien didn't move, but every instinct stirred. He had learned long ago to listen to instincts. They had kept him alive. Built him an empire from ashes.
"You're awake," he said, voice neutral.
She smiled.
And that, too, was wrong.
Celeste Everhart had never smiled at him like that. No, that was not the smile of a frightened girl. That was the smile of someone who knew things. Who held cards and was waiting for the first fool to ask what game they were playing.
"Good morning… husband."
Lucien's jaw tightened.
Something had changed. The girl he'd married was gone.
Or worse something else had taken her place.
He didn't believe in magic. But for the first time in his life he wondered if he should.