Aurelian Blackthorn woke with a sense of wrongness he had not felt in decades.
The penthouse was silent, untouched, immaculate yet the space beside him was empty, cold. He sat up slowly, jaw tightening as fragments of the night replayed in his mind. The woman. Her scent. The strange resonance he had felt the moment their skin had touched.
No woman ever left his bed without permission.
And none had ever made him wish they hadn't.
He rose, moving toward the window overlooking the city he ruled from the shadows. To the world, Aurelian was a billionaire CEO—untouchable, admired, ruthless in business. But beneath the polished image lay the truth: he was the head of a mafia dynasty older than most nations, bound not just by blood but by ancient magic.
And magic had stirred last night.
His gaze fell to his palm, where a faint sigil burned briefly before vanishing. His expression hardened. That symbol was forbidden. It belonged to a prophecy his family had spent centuries trying to erase.
The woman from last night was not ordinary.
Somewhere in the city, Seraphina Vale was waking to a strange ache in her chest, unaware that she had just become the most dangerous secret in the underworld.
Aurelian turned from the window, already issuing silent commands. He would find her. He would uncover the truth. And if destiny thought it could challenge him, it had gravely underestimated the man who ruled both money and monsters.
Because nothing that touched Aurelian Blackthorn was ever allowed to leave unclaimed.