Seraphina's POV
Lucien's hand on my face was ice-cold, but everywhere he touched burned.
His silver eyes searched mine, looking for something—proof I was a trick, a spell, anything that would explain why I wore a dead woman's face.
"Same eyes," he whispered, his thumb tracing under my eye. "Same exact shade of gold-brown. Same little flecks of green near the center."
Through the blood bond, I felt his emotions crashing over me. Grief so deep it had no bottom. Longing that ached like an open wound. And underneath it all—want. Raw, desperate want that he was fighting with everything he had.
"Same hair." His other hand lifted, fingers sliding through my red waves. "She wore it exactly like this. Long. Loose. It caught fire in the sunset."
"Lucien—" My voice shook.
"Don't." His grip tightened slightly in my hair. Not painful, but possessive. "Don't say my name like that. Like you know me. Like you have any right—"
"I don't know you," I interrupted, anger flaring through my fear. "You've avoided me for three days. You won't look at me, won't speak to me. You make me sit through dinners where everyone whispers about how much I look like your dead girlfriend while you don't even bother to show up!"
His eyes flashed brighter. "You want me to look at you?"
"I want you to see me! Not her. Not some ghost. Me."
"That's impossible." But his hand was still cupping my face, his thumb now tracing my cheekbone. "Every time I look at you, I see her dying in my arms. I see her blood on my hands. I see everything I destroyed."
The pain in his voice cracked something in my chest.
"I'm not her," I said more gently. "I don't know why I look like her. But I'm not Arianne. I'm Seraphina. And I'm here, alive, standing in front of you."
"For how long?" The question was barely a whisper.
I froze.
His silver eyes narrowed. "Dr. Theron told me your blood smells like death. That you collapsed from something more than exhaustion. Tell me the truth."
Here it was. The moment I'd been avoiding.
"Three weeks," I said. "Maybe less now. I have a brain tumor. It's killing me."
Lucien's hands dropped from my face like I'd burned him. He stepped back, shaking his head.
"No. No, that's—"
"I was given thirty days to live before I came here," I continued, the words spilling out now. "I wrote a bucket list. Things to do before I died. Fall in love. Experience passion. Feel alive instead of just waiting to die."
"Stop talking."
"That's why I accepted the black rose. I was dying anyway. I thought maybe, just maybe, I'd get to feel something real before the end." A bitter laugh escaped me. "Instead, I'm bound to a vampire prince who can't stand the sight of me because I remind him of everything he lost."
"Stop." Lucien's voice was sharp.
"Why? Does the truth hurt? I'm dying, Lucien. Three weeks, and then this tumor kills me. You don't have to avoid me much longer. Death will do it for you."
Something broke in his expression.
In a flash, he was in front of me again—vampire speed closing the distance. His hands gripped my shoulders, not gentle this time.
"You don't understand," he said, his voice raw. "You can't be dying. Not with her face. Not looking at me like—"
"Like what?"
"Like you see me." His silver eyes burned into mine. "Not the king. Not the monster. Not the vampire who killed his own family. You look at me like I'm just... a man."
My heart hammered against my ribs. This close, I could see the pain etched into every perfect line of his face. The loneliness that had carved him hollow.
He'd lived five hundred years but forgot how to actually live.
And I had three weeks but was more alive than he'd been in centuries.
"You are just a man," I whispered. "A man who's been grieving so long he forgot how to do anything else."
Lucien's grip on my shoulders tightened. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't I? Elena told me everything. How you loved Arianne. How she died. How you've spent two hundred years punishing yourself for it." I reached up, surprising myself by touching his face. His skin was cold as marble but smooth. "She told me Arianne's last words were for you to live and love again."
He flinched like I'd struck him.
"Don't," he said, but his voice lacked conviction. "Don't make me—"
"Make you what? Feel something? Want something?" My hand was still on his face and he wasn't pulling away. "I'm going to die soon, Lucien. Maybe in this palace. Maybe before the month is even up. And I don't want to die being ignored by the one person I'm bound to."
"What do you want from me?" The question sounded torn from somewhere deep inside him.
"I want you to see me. I want you to talk to me. I want—" I hesitated, then said it. "I want to feel alive before I die. Even if it's just for a moment."
Lucien stared at me, his breathing coming faster. Through the blood bond, I felt his walls crumbling. Felt the want surging up, overwhelming his resistance.
"You're asking me to care about someone who's dying," he said hoarsely. "To feel something for a woman wearing the face of the love I lost. To risk my heart again when I know exactly how this ends."
"I'm not asking you to risk anything," I said. "I'm asking you to live. For three weeks. That's all the time I have."
His hand came up, covering mine on his face. His eyes closed.
"You terrify me," he whispered.
"Why?"
When he opened his eyes, the look in them stole my breath. It wasn't hatred anymore. It was something far more dangerous.
"Because when I look at you," he said, his voice barely audible, "I want to forget she ever existed. And that makes me the worst kind of monster."
The confession hung between us like something sacred and broken.
Then his gaze dropped to my lips.
"Don't look at me like that," I breathed.
"Like what?"
"Like you want to kiss me."
Lucien's thumb traced my lower lip, sending shivers down my spine. "What if I do?"
My heart stopped. "You hate me."
"I wish I did." His other hand slid into my hair again, tilting my head back. "It would be so much easier if I hated you."
He was so close now I could feel the cold radiating from his body, could see the silver of his eyes brighten with hunger.
"Lucien—"
"Tell me to stop," he whispered, his lips hovering just above mine. "Tell me you don't want this and I'll walk away. I'll leave you alone for the rest of your three weeks."
But I couldn't say it. Because I'd come to Valthoria with a bucket list, and kissing someone who made me forget my name was at the top.
And Lucien Nightshade was making me forget everything.
"Don't stop," I whispered.
Something snapped in him.
He kissed me.
It wasn't gentle. It wasn't sweet. It was two hundred years of grief and three weeks of dying crashing together. Desperate and hungry and devastating.
His lips were cold but his kiss burned. One hand tangled in my hair, the other gripped my waist, pulling me against him. I gasped and he deepened the kiss, tasting me like I was the last thing he'd ever taste.
The blood bond exploded between us.
I felt everything—his desperate need, his aching loneliness, his terror of wanting me, his fury at himself for giving in. It all poured into me through that kiss, overwhelming and intense and more real than anything I'd ever felt.
When we finally broke apart, both of us were shaking.
Lucien pressed his forehead against mine, his breathing ragged. "This is a mistake."
"Probably."
"You're dying."
"I know."
"I can't—" His voice broke. "I can't lose someone again."
"Then don't love me," I said, even though the words hurt. "Just... be with me. For however long I have left."
Lucien pulled back enough to look at me. His silver eyes were wild, tortured.
"You don't know what you're asking."
"I'm asking for three weeks of not being alone," I said. "Three weeks of feeling alive. That's all."
He stared at me for a long moment. Then his hand cupped my face again, so gentle it made my chest ache.
"I'll give you those three weeks," he said quietly. "But Seraphina?"
"Yes?"
His eyes held mine, burning with intensity.
"When you die, you're taking whatever's left of my heart with you."