Kael:
I open my eyes to warmth.
Not the smoldering flames of the red chamber where I once knelt, chained and broken, but the honest warmth of sunlight bleeding through emerald leaves. The air tastes different here. Cleaner. Softer. It's strange how every rebirth gifts you with sharper senses as though the universe itself wants me to savor what I once lost.
The soil under my bare feet is moist. Birds dart overhead, laughing in their shrill songs. A river murmurs somewhere not far, carrying its melody to the wind. This world… it feels alive in ways the last one never did. No stench of ash. No iron chains dragging on stone. No silken laughter of women who saw me as a toy and nothing more.
It should feel like paradise. Yet even now, when the sun grazes my cheek like a lover's palm, I cannot escape the weight of memory.
I laugh quiet, bitter.
"Funny, isn't it?" I whisper to the sky. "Life is so beautiful when you no longer belong to it."
For days since I awoke here, I have wandered this forest. My new body, though young, carries muscle beneath its skin, carved by fate's cruel generosity. My eyes, when I catch them in streams, burn gold not the dull brown of my past life. My hair, darker, longer, kisses my shoulders. A face that could belong to a prince. A body sculpted for sin.
Perhaps that is why they watch me.
The shadows.
I do not speak of men or beasts but something older, colder. They linger at the edge of my sight, whispering like silken threads on the wind. Sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see them: pale hands, claws sharp as desire itself, curling out from the dark. And with them… always… the shape of a woman.
Her name rides the echo of memory: Seraphina.
Bloodline of queens. Daughter of gods. The same blood that once ran through the veins of the princess who broke me. Could it be the same? Or merely another cruel jest the universe weaves at my expense?
I feel her before I see her.
It begins with scent—sweet, like crushed jasmine and smoke. Then, a ripple in the river, though no stone fell. Then, the hush of birds as though they've seen what I cannot. My body stiffens, the way prey does before a predator. Yet beneath the tension, my pulse races with something else. Heat. That same humiliating weakness from before.
Desire.
"Show yourself," I growl.
Leaves rustle, but not from the wind. A silhouette leans against the tree line a woman, her frame hidden beneath a cloak that breathes like mist. I cannot see her face. Only her lips, red as spilled wine, curving at me in a smile both mocking and intimate.
"Kael," she whispers. My name, spoken like a secret only lovers should share.
The forest spins. How does she know me? Who taught her the sound of that name?
I take a step forward, fists clenched. "Who are you?"
Her laughter slithers through the air, low and seductive. "Do you not remember? My blood remembers you."
The words slam against my chest. Blood. Yes Seraphina's bloodline. The chains in my mind rattle violently, the ghosts of hands pinning me down, of lips pressing against mine not with love, but with power. My knees nearly buckle.
She steps closer, the cloak parting. Pale skin shimmers beneath, her figure carved like temptation itself. Not fragile, not gentle this body was built for dominance. Hips that sway with command. Breasts full, high, proud. A throat pale and vulnerable but carried with a queen's arrogance. She is everything her ancestor was… and more.
"Why… are you here?" My voice cracks, though I hate myself for it.
Her eyes finally meet mine. Silver. Piercing. Ancient. They pierce through me the way the princess's once did, on that cursed night when she made me kneel in the red chamber. My breath catches. My body betrays me again. A heat coils low in my belly, shameful, unstoppable.
She sees it. She smirks.
"You carry the scent of chains, Kael," she murmurs. "But this world has none. That means you belong to me now."
Her hand rises, long fingers caressing the air between us. Shadows follow her touch, curling around her palm like serpents, until they lick toward me. I stumble back, but the forest itself feels alive with her will. Roots curl at my feet, keeping me tethered. The sunlight dims, as though even the sun bows to her presence.
And then, she's gone. Just like that. The forest breathes again. The light returns. The birds sing as though nothing happened.
But her voice lingers in my ear: "You will kneel again."
I fall to my knees, trembling—not from fear. Not from weakness. But from the undeniable truth that my body remembers what my soul hates. The humiliation, the lust, the hunger that destroyed me once. It claws its way back into me with her scent.
I bury my face in my hands and laugh. A harsh, broken sound.
"Damn you. Damn me."
The shadows have found me. And with them, the first drop of blood from Seraphina's cursed line.
.....
The forest doesn't stay quiet for long.
That night, when the moon is swollen white above the canopy, I cannot sleep. The river whispers too loudly. My pulse hammers too fast. Every time I close my eyes, I see her those silver irises, those lips that promised ruin and kissed like destiny.
And beneath it all, the mocking sound of chains.
I rise, restless, and pace the glade. My bare chest gleams with sweat under the moonlight. The air is warm, yet my skin shivers. I know I am not alone.
A branch cracks.
"Show yourself," I growl again. My voice is more desperate than commanding.
The mist gathers, rolling between the trees like smoke exhaled from a lover's lips. My breath catches as shadows stretch into shape. First hands. Then arms. Then curves hips, breasts, a throat arched in cruel elegance. The woman emerges again, silver-eyed, cloaked not in fabric but in shadow itself, which clings to her body like a lover's embrace.
This time, she comes closer.
"Kael," she whispers, and the way she shapes my name is both prayer and punishment. "Do you fight me still?"
I stumble back a step, though my body aches forward. "You… you're not her. You're not Seraphina."
Her smile deepens, cruel. "No. I am her blood. And blood remembers what desire does not forget."
The shadows around her pulse, alive. They reach for me, winding around my wrists like invisible chains. My throat goes dry. I fight straining against them, but they only tighten, pulling me toward her. My chest slams against hers, and her breath hot, sharp brushes my lips.
She smells of jasmine and smoke again. Of memory.
My cock stirs, hardening against my will, pressing against the thin layer of shadow that separates us. Shame floods me. My body betrays me, just as it once did.
"Still so weak," she mocks, her hand rising to cup my jaw. Her fingers are cold, yet sparks ignite where she touches. "But your weakness makes you mine."
I grit my teeth, trying to turn away. "I am not yours. Not again."
Her laugh is low, sultry, cruel. The shadows ripple down her body, revealing pale skin in flashes curves of hip, the swell of breast, the line of her throat. My eyes betray me, drinking her in, memory painting her skin with the touch of the one who once owned me.
Chains rattle in my head. The red chamber. Her voice. Kneel, Kael.
I shake violently, but she presses closer. Her lips graze my ear.
"You remember," she whispers. "Your body remembers more than your soul admits."
Her tongue flicks against my lobe, and I nearly collapse. Heat pools in my gut, a humiliating throb that begs for release. I try to shove her away, but the shadows tighten, pinning my arms.
"You will kneel again," she breathes.
Her hand slides down my chest, nails grazing hard muscle, lower, lower until she presses against the hardness straining in my trousers. I gasp, betraying myself with the sound. My cock twitches under her touch, throbbing for her even as my soul screams no.
"You see?" she murmurs, stroking lazily, shadows tightening with each movement. "Your body was built for us. For my bloodline. No rebirth can erase that."
I bite down on a cry, my teeth grinding. My knees buckle, sinking to the earth. She laughs a sound that is half pleasure, half triumph.
"Yes. Just like before."
But something inside me snaps.
"No."
The word tears from my throat like a growl. Rage floods me, warring with lust. My memories burn the humiliation, the pleasure twisted into torment, the endless years of kneeling. My body may tremble under her touch, but my spirit claws for freedom.
I surge forward, smashing my forehead against hers. Her cry splits the night. The shadows loosen just enough for me to wrench one arm free. I grab her wrist before she can retreat, pulling her flush against me.
Now it's her turn to gasp as my lips crash against hers.
The kiss is brutal, devouring. Not love, not surrender—war. Our tongues clash, teeth scraping. Her hand still grips me, stroking, but I turn it into battle, grinding against her palm until she moans, her shadows writhing uncontrollably.
For a moment just a breath power shifts.
But then she pulls back, silver eyes blazing. A cruel smile curves her lips, blood trickling from the cut I gave her. She licks it slowly, deliberately, her tongue curling around the crimson like a serpent.
"You fight," she whispers, trembling with something that is not quite anger, not quite arousal, but both. "Good. It makes the breaking sweeter."
And then like smoke snuffed by wind she vanishes.
I collapse onto the earth, gasping, my cock throbbing painfully, my chest heaving with rage and desire. The scent of her lingers on my skin. My lips burn where hers touched.
I want to scream. I want to tear this body apart for betraying me. But all I can do is laugh a jagged, broken sound that fills the glade.
The shadows of Seraphina's bloodline have claimed me once again.
And deep in the forest, I know she waits. For the next night. For the next kiss. For the next breaking.
.....
I lie broken in the grass, breath coming ragged, my body trembling with the taste of her shadows.
When I lift my hand, the moonlight catches something beneath my wrist. For a heartbeat, I think it's only a vein swollen from strain. But then it shifts. The faint etching of an ancient mark glimmers, glowing faintly silver.
The glumur mark.
My stomach lurches.
It was branded into me lifetimes ago, when Seraphina's hands pressed chains into my flesh and whispered of eternity. Back then, I thought it was only her cruel ornament . a way to remind me of my servitude.
But no.
The mark is older than her. A sigil of recycling flesh through eternity. A promise carved into my very soul.
And as it pulses now, heat licking across my skin, I know the truth.
I will not escape. I will reincarnate. Again. And again. And again. Until the cycle calls me back fully to their world, until I stand reborn as what she once tried to shape me into
A mini-god, bound to her bloodline.
My throat closes. Rage and terror twist inside me. The shadows were not just playing with me. They were preparing me.
"Prepare yourself," her whisper lingers in my ear, though she is long gone.
I clutch my wrist, pressing hard, as if I could smother the mark back into silence. But it only beats harder, like a second heart.
The forest spins. My memories crack open Seraphina's laughter, chains rattling, the taste of blood on her lips, and her voice: "You will always come back to me, Kael."
And then
Darkness.