CHAPTER ONE:
The scent of blood clung to the velvet air like an expensive perfume in the Midnight Orchid, a club hidden beneath the crumbling bones of a forgotten cathedral. Red lights pulsed in time with the slow, predatory thrum of bass, washing the room in a seductive glow. It was a place where secrets bled and shadows touched skin with tongues of fire. For most, it was temptation. For Seraphina Vex, it was survival.
She sat alone in the VIP alcove, half in shadow, half in scarlet glow, an obsidian goblet in hand, filled with something too thick to be wine. Her crimson eyes flicked over the crowd like a slow caress. Beautiful mortals danced, kissed, bled into the air with heat and vitality. She inhaled deeply. The ache inside her stirred like a coiled serpent.
Tonight was different. It wasn't just the hunger. She was waiting.
For him.
The one the prophecy spoke of. The one who could either sever the eternal hunger clawing at her soul or damn her to centuries more of beautiful, ravenous agony.
His blood, they said, would burn through her veins like wildfire. His touch, the curse-breaker. His heart, the blade.
She didn't know if she was meant to love him… or kill him.
And then, he arrived.
Xavier Blackthorne.
He stepped through the doors with midnight at his back, tall and sharp like a blade forged in storm. His coat hung from his frame like a shadow, boots striking the floor with the confidence of someone who had danced with death and won. He didn't glance around. He didn't need to.
Seraphina felt it, the pull.
Her fingers tightened around the goblet. The music faded beneath the sound of her pulse roaring like distant thunder.
Then his eyes cold, silver, impossibly calm met hers.
The entire club seemed to exhale. The room blurred, and the red lights turned to flame.
She saw, in that moment, everything.
The blood on his hands. The loss buried in his chest like a rusted dagger. The darkness, so similar to hers, stitched into his soul with threads of vengeance. He was no ordinary hunter.
He was hers.
Or her end.
Xavier moved toward her without hesitation. Each step brought with it the weight of unraveling fate. Seraphina's mind flickered with memories visions of flames licking at a castle long lost, a child's cry, an oath whispered in a dying tongue. Was this destiny? Or a trap?
He stopped before her, gaze steady.
"Seraphina Vex," he said, voice low and deliberate.
She tilted her head, intrigued. "You know me."
"I've hunted you," he replied.
A slow smile touched her lips. "Then you're late."
Silence swelled between them, electric, dangerous. She could feel his blood from here. Thick. Ancient. Touched by something other.
"Why now?" she asked, eyes narrowing.
He glanced at the goblet. "You already know the answer."
Her smile faded.
She had waited centuries. Played gods and monsters against each other. Loved and killed kings. Built empires of ash. And now the end or the beginning stood before her, with silver eyes and a hunter's heart.
"You're the one," she whispered.
Xavier didn't respond. His silence was his truth.
She rose slowly, every movement graceful, deliberate. The music shifted into something low and erotic, like a heartbeat beneath silk.
"If I kiss you," she murmured, standing inches from him, "will it save me? Or destroy us both?"
His jaw tightened. "There's only one way to find out."
The club spun around them, a blur of mortal sin and immortal longing. But for Seraphina, nothing existed now except the man before her.
Her hunger growled beneath her skin. Her fangs pressed against her lips.
She wanted to taste him.
She wanted to run.
She wanted… everything.
And that terrified her more than any curse.