Night had fallen with a deceptive calm.
A faint shiver ran down Alessia's spine as she stepped into the cold air, a dull pressure blooming in her chest, as if something unseen gripped her from within.
Each step grew heavier than the last, as though the city itself were struggling to breathe, its dark exhale wrapping around her without mercy.
The sky, thick with clouds reflecting the city's orange glow, seemed lower than usual—pressing down on the rooftops, as if the darkness were slowly descending.
The wind was sharp, metallic, carrying a damp chill and the faint scent of rust.
Alessia walked with measured grace, wrapped in a long black coat that swayed with her steps.
Her leather gloves reached past her wrists, hiding the pale transparency of her skin.
Her hair fell freely over her shoulders, glinting under the streetlamps like a cascade of black ink.
Nothing in her appearance suggested fragility—but inside, she was a storm of emotions, thoughts crashing against the fragile dam of her composure.
Before taking the bus to work, she stopped at a corner shop—one of those relics from the nineties, with fogged windows, faded lottery posters, cigarette ads, and a flickering light over the register.
She paid with old bills and picked up a newspaper.
Outside, a gust of wind lifted her hair, and she caught it absently, unaware of the world around her.
She unfolded the paper.
The headline screamed in black letters:
"Vancouver Under Alert — Ritual Killings and Mutilated Bodies Alarm Authorities."
She walked several blocks, eyes fixed on the text, each word an echo of what she already feared.
The article spoke of bodies found in dead-end alleys—completely drained of blood, marked with human bite patterns too precise to be animal.
Symbols carved with surgical accuracy into their palms and chests.
Even the most seasoned investigators were baffled.
Some whispered about cults. Others, serial killers—or even cannibals.
But Alessia knew the truth.
She folded the newspaper slowly, ceremonially, as if closing a forbidden book.
At the edge of a crosswalk, she stopped and shut her eyes.
Traffic roared around her, but she began to fade from it—
first the engines, then footsteps, then voices.
The entire world seemed to fall silent for her.
She focused.
Her gift awoke—a hum beneath her skin that swelled into a voiceless scream.
The noise vanished.
And then came the visions—rapid, violent, agonizing.
Young vampires of the Volkov clan ran through the streets like a feral tide.
Hunger burned in their eyes—hunger and madness.
They stormed into clubs, universities, dark corners of the city.
They didn't care about witnesses.
They didn't care about rules.
The sacred code of secrecy—the one law that had preserved their kind for centuries—was shattered.
They left the bodies where they fell: open, empty, branded like trophies… or warnings.
Walls dripped crimson.
School fences glistened with grief.
The screams of the dying echoed inside Alessia's mind until she could barely breathe.
She felt it all—absorbed it as if it were her own torment.
And then—she saw him.
Ben Volkov.
Tall, imposing, wrapped in shadows that seemed alive.
His long, dark coat moved like something breathing, tight against the posture of a predator at rest.
His gloved hands were clasped behind his back, his head slightly tilted, as if presiding over a doomed world.
Beneath the hood's shadow, his eyes flared red each time another victim fell.
He led from the darkness.
His silhouette barely visible—
his influence everywhere.
A smile like judgment.
A gaze like an abyss.
He stood watching the city as if it already belonged to him.
And then—the future.
Men with rifles clashed against vampires in burning streets.
The city drowned in chaos.
Phones filmed from balconies, from windows.
The footage spread in seconds.
The secret was dead.
Human authorities, once silent accomplices, now fought like wounded beasts.
Fire. Ash. Death.
The ancient Pact of Silence—
forged centuries ago before the Council of Dawn,
when humans still believed in demons but not in monsters with faces—
was shattering.
Social networks became battlefields.
News broadcasts turned into war cries.
And in every frame, Alessia saw her kind vanish… or turn into something worse.
The vision snapped.
She stumbled backward, one hand bracing against a wall.
Her breath came ragged.
Her lips dry.
Her body trembling as if she had crossed a storm.
Her heart beat wildly—not out of life, but anguish.
Immortality, she thought, is its own punishment.
"And I'm supposed to rule through this?"
Miroslava's words echoed in her memory—soft, stern, prophetic:
"It's one thing to play with fire… another to open the door to hell.
And love, Anna Viktorie, has begun more wars than blood ever has."
Her hand drifted to her abdomen.
A reflex.
Nothing there—or maybe everything.
A hope.
A possibility.
¿Y si solo quiero ser madre... amar y desaparecer?
¿Y si todo este poder no significa nada si no puedo proteger lo único que me hace sentir viva?
Subió al autobús, aturdida.
El zumbido del motor se difuminaba en sus pensamientos.
Afuera, la ciudad pasaba entre destellos fragmentados de luz y sombra.
Cada rostro anónimo que veía por la ventana ya parecía condenado.
Pensó en Liam: su sonrisa, sus ojos intrépidos.
No era solo amor lo que sentía por él, era redención.
Él era la oportunidad de un nuevo comienzo,
algo puro en un mundo en decadencia.
Era la prueba de que aún podía elegir la luz sobre la sangre.
Pero también era una tentación.
La hacía dudar de su deber, de su destino, de sí misma.
En él, vio lo que el mundo podría ser si fuera lo suficientemente valiente como para alcanzarlo.
Cómo la tomó de la mano sin saber el precio.
Y entonces, como una cuchilla atravesándole la mente, una nueva visión la golpeó.
Liam, ardiendo.
Sangrando.
Atrapado entre llamas y escombros,
víctima de una guerra que aún no había comenzado.
Su nombre era amor.
Su destino, incertidumbre.
¿Lo estoy conduciendo hacia la vida…o hacia la muerte?
Las lágrimas querían salir, pero no lo hicieron. Los
de su especie no lloraban.
No como los humanos.
Pero algo en ella estaba cambiando.