Elara should have died that night.
The forest had gone silent too suddenly—the kind of silence that pressed against the ears and warned predators to hide. Even the wind had stopped breathing.
She felt it then.
Not footsteps.
Not sound.
Attention.
Her skin prickled as if something unseen had reached inside her chest and wrapped fingers around her heart.
"Don't turn around," a voice whispered in her mind.
She turned anyway.
He stood between the trees like he had always belonged there—tall, unmoving, carved from shadow and fire. The darkness bent around his body, refusing to touch him. His eyes burned faintly red, not glowing, not threatening—judging.
Elara couldn't breathe.
This was not a man.
This was a calamity given form.
"You can see me," he said.
His voice was low, calm, almost bored. That frightened her more than anger ever could.
Her legs trembled. "I—I don't know who you are."
A lie.
Every instinct in her body screamed the truth: run or kneel.
Neither option felt survivable.
Kael Draven tilted his head slightly, studying her the way one studied a blade before deciding how to use it.
"You're not human," he said at last.
Fear flooded her veins. "I am."
His gaze dropped to her throat. Slowly, deliberately, he stepped closer.
The ground cracked beneath his boots.
"Humans don't make Hell recoil," he murmured.
The air thickened. Heat coiled around them like a living thing. Elara felt something stirring inside her—old, buried, furious. Her pulse thundered in her ears.
"Stay back," she whispered.
Amusement flickered across his face.
He reached out.
The instant his fingers brushed her wrist—
Pain exploded.
Not hers.
His.
Kael inhaled sharply as blood welled up beneath his skin, searing red lines burning across his hand as if branded from the inside out. He stared at it in stunned silence.
Devils did not bleed from touch.
Elara screamed and stumbled backward, clutching her arm. Power surged through her veins, wild and violent, clawing for release.
"I didn't— I don't know what I did—"
Kael looked up.
Something had changed.
The restraint was gone.
The world seemed to shrink beneath his gaze.
"Blood Witch," he said softly.
The words carried death.
Elara felt it—felt the truth slam into her bones, unlock something that had been sleeping for generations. Magic roared awake, hungry and untrained.
"Please," she said, tears burning her eyes. "I don't want this."
Kael stepped closer anyway.
"You don't get to choose," he replied. "Not anymore."
Far away, horns sounded—deep, infernal, summoning hunters.
Kael turned toward the sound, then back to her.
"They will come for you," he said calmly. "They will tear you apart to see how you work."
He leaned down until his lips brushed her ear.
"And I," he whispered, voice dark with something dangerously close to desire, "will decide whether to stop them… or watch."
The ground shook.
The forest began to burn.
And Elara understood, with absolute certainty—
Meeting him had sealed her fate.
Not as a victim.
But as something far worse.