The street reeked of rain, alcohol, and decay. The man slumped against the curb, too drunk to stand straight, his eyelids half-closed, muttering to himself. He was careless, oblivious—an easy target.
The killer moved like shadow made flesh, silent and deliberate. Each step measured, each breath controlled. He crouched near the man, watching the subtle sway of his body, noting the moment when the world's weight had finally dulled the man's senses enough to make him vulnerable.
And then he struck.
It was quick, precise—a flash of movement. The man's head jerked back, a strangled gurgle breaking the night. Red blossomed, dark and vivid, painting his pale skin and soaking the wet fabric of his coat. The killer's hands moved with practiced care, making sure the work was complete. The world was still except for the faint drip of blood onto the pavement, hissing as it met the rain.
A drop had splashed onto the killer's face—a streak of deep red across the sharp line of his jaw. He paused, tilted his head slightly, and lifted his sleeve. He wiped it away with the calm detachment of someone brushing dust off a table, flicking the crimson residue into the rain-soaked gutter. Not a shiver, not a gasp. Only precision.
He glanced once at the motionless body, the wet street reflecting the dim neon, and then melted back into the shadows. The rain washed over him, over the blood, over the scene, but it could not erase the meticulous order of what had been done. The city swallowed him again, and for a moment, nothing existed but the echo of that stillness, that careful, lethal beauty.
She could barely breathe as he approached, silent, fluid, a predator whose elegance made her chest constrict. Her wings twitched instinctively, a shiver running along the spine of her feathers, but she remained still. She had to see this, had to understand the darkness she felt pulling at her, drawing her closer than she had ever allowed herself to go.
The strike was sudden. Swift. Efficient. The drunken man's head jerked back, a choked gurgle slicing the night air. Red bloomed instantly—deep, vivid, alive—spattering across the wet pavement, soaking the fabric of his coat and dripping in heavy droplets that hissed as they hit the asphalt.
Seraphina's breath caught. Her hand rose instinctively to her mouth, but she did not look away. She could not.
A streak of blood had spattered across his sharp jawline, and she saw him lift the sleeve of his coat, wipe it away with calm precision. The motion was almost casual, almost beautiful in its cold perfection. Her chest ached with an unfamiliar combination of revulsion and fascination, the pull inside her growing heavier, more insistent.
She felt her wings shiver, tremble—not from the rain, not from the chill, but from the thrill of watching him, the magnetic danger of a human who could kill with such ruthless grace. And yet, beneath the horror, beneath the red and the rain, a dark, forbidden curiosity bloomed inside her.
How could someone so mortal, so fleeting, command this kind of power?
Her eyes followed him as he stepped back into the shadows, disappearing almost as quickly as he had arrived. The rain washed over the street, mingling with the blood, but it could not erase the impression of him, the mark he had left on her soul.
Seraphina's chest ached with longing she did not understand. Every instinct of her angelic self-whispered that she should leave, that she should never descend again, that fascination with a killer was a corruption of everything she had been made to be.
And yet, she found herself leaning closer, straining to see where he went next. Her wings trembled, her heart—imagined, impossible, human—raced, and she realized, with a clarity that terrified her: she wanted to follow him.
She wanted to understand him.
She wanted him.
Even though she knew she never should.