The night in Blackmoor was not silent—it breathed.
Winds slithered through the trees like ghosts, brushing cold fingers against stone and steel. The moon above was blood-red again, a sure sign that something ancient stirred beneath the surface. Lucien Mason stood at the edge of the grave-choked hills just outside the city walls, his eyes glowing faintly—silver irises ringed in scarlet, pulsing with each heartbeat like dying stars.
Behind him, Elira stepped closer, her black heels crunching over brittle bone fragments half-buried in the dirt. She wore a dark velvet cloak over near-translucent silks that clung to her curves like liquid shadow, her every movement effortless, lethal, and teasing. The way she moved was predatory grace personified—a dance of seduction and death that made even the dead seem to stir in their graves.
"You feel it too, don't you?" she whispered, her voice carrying on the wind like a lover's promise. "The pull."
