Chapter 1— Seraphina POV
My eyes flew open at once. Breath coming out heavily, I clutched my chest in an attempt to calm myself when voices started to murmur.
"Happy birthday."
"Happy birthday."
Panic gripped me as I instantly got up from bed, ignoring my friends who'd entered the hall. I closed the distance to the mirror, slowly pushing my hair aside. My eyes widened at the sight of blood on my neck. When I wiped the blood away, I gasped. Suddenly, I started to rub the bite mark, hoping it would leave. Hoping this was another hallucination, and I would wake up soon. But the more I rubbed, the more pain I felt. And it wasn't just pain. A shiver pebbled my skin with goosebumps. It felt like I could feel him. I could feel his presence.
I took a step away from the mirror and lost my balance. Just before I could fall, hands gripped me. I exhaled sharply at the sight of my friends, Kaden and Lyra. They were alive and well. I took a deep breath as tears started to pour from my eyes.
"Sera?" Lyra spoke.
I turned to her and hugged her tight. I thought she was dead. I'd seen their corpses before me. But if they're alive and well, why then do I have the mark on my neck? The wedding to the vampire king felt so real, like it had happened hours ago.
"What happened? Why are you crying?" she asked.
When I didn't respond, she continued. "Another hallucination?"
I slowly nodded, not wanting to think about it. Hiding the mark with my hair, I forced a tight smile. I turned to Kaden, and when he lifted a transparent bag of opium, my mood lifted. I slowly forgot about the nightmare. I forgot about the mark. My focus shifted to the bag of opium.
With light footsteps, we sneaked away from the hall.
…..
Moments later, we were lying on the roof of the house, high on opium. A sense of peace slowly enveloped me, filling me with relief from stress. It felt like my body was swimming through the smoke that unfurled from my mouth and nostrils.
"...And when he kissed me, it felt like a part of me that was dead awakened..."
"He kissed you?" Kaden asked. He was the dumb one. Not that he was really dumb, but he acted dumb in front of the orderlies. When he played dumb, the orderlies viewed him as a fool. They weren't serious about him. Sometimes they even discussed important information in front of him. But Kaden could hear and speak well. His act of being deaf and dumb allowed him access to places most of us couldn't reach. Like the opium storage. When some of us began hallucinating and screaming, they gave us a little dose of opium. Just a little. And that little dose of opium made me high. It made the voices in my head distant, like I could realize none of it was real.
When Kaden became friends with me and Lyra, he stole large amounts of opium for us, and the orderlies didn't notice. Even if they did, Kaden wasn't suspected. To them, he was nothing but a fool.
"He did." I could still feel the coldness of his lips on mine. "I felt alive. I didn't want any of it to end. But when I heard screams, I turned. They were dead."
"Who?" Lyra asked.
"You, Lyra. My family. All of you were dead." Tears burned my eyes. I couldn't tell if the tears were from the nightmare or the effects of opium.
Dragging a mouthful of smoke, I squinted my eyes, counting the stars in the sky. I know you must be wondering why I am the way I am.
My life before the Rogue Asylum. My parents were the Alpha and Luna of Crescent City. I always loved the piano. I remembered playing piano during important ceremonies. I remembered the approval of my parents. They were proud of me.
But everything changed on my twelfth birthday. During the full moon, I shifted into my wolf. I remembered being excited, but when I looked at my parents, the look on their faces was different. And it was because I was a rogue. I carried the madness of the moon. From that day on, I found myself in the rogue asylum.
My first day was torture. They chained me down and shoved wolfsbane down my throat. The burn of wolfsbane suppressed my rogue wolf, but there were side effects. It caused hallucinations, making us paranoid. When this happened, the orderlies gave us a bit of opium. The moment I had a taste of opium, it was like paradise. I wanted more. And more I got. Every night when the orderlies were asleep, Kaden helped us sneak to the rooftop where we smoked opium until we were high.
I felt a cold shiver on my neck. Pressing my hand against the skin, I shivered. It felt like he was here. Watching me. I quickly pulled myself into a sitting position, scanning the surroundings. There were nothing but endless trees.
"Did you hear that?" Lyra asked.
The angry voice of the Warden drifted toward us. Eyes widening, we stood up, scurrying away.
When Lyra and Kaden returned to their halls, I hurried to mine. But the moment I stepped in, I froze at the sight of the male standing before me. He was tall, muscular, with long brown hair. He wasn't a man who showed kindness. He rarely smiled, and when he did, everyone was afraid of him. We called him Scar because of the frightening scar on his face.
"Planning on escaping?" He angled his head.
"I... I..." I racked my brain for words to say.
When Scar got mad at you, you are doomed.
"No."
"Then, care to explain why you're not in your bed at this time of the night?"
I opened my mouth to speak, but he beat me to it.
"And do not dare say that you were at the toilet because that isn't the path there."
My heart thudded uncomfortably fast. With every moment of silence, a slow dread seeped into my bones.
One moment he was standing at a distance; the next moment, he'd moved so fast with his werewolf speed. Scar tilted his head, awaiting my answer as if I might actually say something that might satisfy him.
"I don't know how I left my bed," I whispered in a childlike voice.
"You don't sleepwalk, Sera," he said. "So I don't see how you left your bed without your knowledge. Unless you're actually planning to escape."
All around me, the voices of rogues echoed across the hall. Some were chained to their beds, shouting to be set free, while others were mindlessly asleep.
"I'm not... I..." Oh, moon goddess, help me. I was fucking dead.
An orderly appeared in the hall. Scar glanced at her, glaring at me as he suddenly grabbed my throat.
"You'll be punished for this tomorrow." And with that, he walked away. A heavy sigh escaped my lips. But that relief was quickly replaced by pressure against my chest as I realized that I was only free for the night.
Running my fingers through my hair, I ignored the voices of the people around the hall. The hall was enormous and able to accommodate hundreds of rogues.
I felt the presence of the vampire king. His presence awakened something inside me. Staring through the window, my eyes fell on the tall, dark figure standing at the entrance of the forest. His eyes immediately connected to mine. My heart started to race.
There was something about him that made me want to press my face against the window, hoping I was going to see him. Hoping I would see the face of my nightmare.
"Seraphina." I heard a deep voice inside my mind. My eyes widened with terror, and when I blinked, he disappeared.