The morning after the alley was quiet.
Too quiet.
Seraphina sat at the edge of her bed, fingers pressed to her neck where Lucien's bite still throbbed—not with pain, but with heat. Her skin was flushed. Her pupils wide. Her senses were... wrong. The chirp of distant birds grated like screeching metal. The dust floating in the light from her window shimmered like gold.
The world had sharpened.
Something inside her had changed.
She looked at her hands. They trembled. Energy pulsed beneath her skin like trapped lightning. She didn't know what Lucien had done to her—what the bite truly meant—but her body was no longer entirely her own.
A knock shattered the silence.
She opened the door.
Lucien stood there, freshly clothed, composed—but barely. He looked at her like a starving man eyeing his final meal. His eyes had dark rings beneath them, and his scent—earth, snow, and iron—was stronger than ever.
"You're feeling it," he said.
Seraphina didn't answer.
"I should've waited," he murmured, stepping inside. "You were right on the edge, and I pushed you over."
"Edge of what?"
He took her hand and placed it over his chest.
"Of the bloodline."
She stared at him. "What do you mean?"
"You weren't entirely human to begin with, Seraphina. You carry dormant blood. Old blood. My bite just... woke it up."
A sick twist of fear rolled in her gut. "You think I'm a vampire?"
"No. Not yet. But you're becoming something. And it's not just the bite. It's who you are."
He held up a small mirror.
Her reflection blurred, shifting like water, before snapping back into place.
"What the hell—?"
"It'll get worse before it gets better," Lucien said. "You'll see memories that aren't yours. You'll hear voices when no one's there. Visions. Rage. Hunger."
Her stomach twisted at that last word. Hunger.
"What happens if I don't fight it?" she asked.
He stepped closer. "You become what you were meant to be."
Their eyes locked.
"And what is that?" she whispered.
His voice was like silk dipped in sin.
"Mine."
That Night
She didn't sleep.
Images flickered behind her eyelids whenever she closed them—blood-covered altars, moon-drenched forests, fangs sinking into flesh. Her own screams echoed inside her head. A woman with her face—but older, wilder—stood at the center of it all, eyes glowing crimson.
She woke panting, drenched in sweat, and the scent of blood thick in the air.
It wasn't hers.
Lucien appeared again—this time without knocking.
"You had your first vision," he said. "Did you see her?"
"Who?" she croaked.
"The woman in your bloodline. The one you come from."
Seraphina nodded slowly. "She looked like me."
"She was you. Or... what you could become."
Lucien came to the edge of her bed, kneeling before her.
"I need to train you, Seraphina. Before others find out what you are. Before they come for you."
"Why would they come for me?"
His voice dropped into a growl. "Because if you fully awaken, you'll be more powerful than any vampire born in the last thousand years. And they'll either want to worship you—or destroy you."
He leaned in. His hand cupped the back of her neck.
"I won't let them take you," he said. "You're bound to me now. Body and blood. And I protect what's mine."
His lips brushed hers, soft at first, then deeper.
The kiss turned feral, their connection erupting into heat. She grabbed his shirt, pulled him onto the bed. Lucien moved over her like a shadow and a flame all at once. Their mouths clashed. Her legs wrapped around him.
His hand slid beneath her nightdress, fingers trailing fire down her thighs.
"You're changing," he murmured into her skin. "I can feel it."
"Then don't stop," she whispered. "Finish what you started."
His fangs grazed her collarbone as he entered her again, slowly, possessively, the act no longer just desire—but something sacred. Something claiming.
As their bodies moved together, Seraphina felt it.
The mark he'd left pulsed between them.
And something ancient inside her pulsed back.