Chapter 4 — The Hunter and the Flame

Flashback – Before the Veil

Dante

She was light and rebellion, golden hair catching the afternoon sun like flame. Her laughter had no business existing in a world like mine. And yet it reached me, across courtyards, through iron gates, past windows thick with dust and centuries.

The first time I saw her, she was arguing with a street vendor over books. Old, secondhand things—leather-bound and brittle. She smiled as she won. Not because she got the price down. But because she loved to fight.

She didn’t see me that day. She never did.

Not when I stood at the corner of the old café for hours, memorizing how she twirled her pen when deep in thought. Not when I followed her into the library, watching her fingertips brush the spines like a lover’s caress. Not even when I slipped one of my own books onto the table she always chose—just to see if she’d notice.

She did. She read it. Every word.

And I knew then—

She was mine. Even if she didn’t know it yet.

I learned everything.

Where she went when she was sad. Who she trusted. Who she pretended to trust. How she lied to protect others, how she hid the burn behind the brightness.

She had no idea someone was already in her shadows.

Waiting.

Watching.

Starving.

...****************...

Seraphina

I dreamt of fire.

Crimson and gold, licking up the walls of the manor like it wanted to consume me. Shadows danced in the corners. A figure stood in the smoke—eyes like obsidian, breathless with hunger.

When I woke, my skin was damp with sweat, my pulse a sharp stab in my throat.

I wasn’t safe here.

Not in this house. Not with him.

But escape no longer felt like an option—it felt like a lie I kept repeating to myself, hoping it would grow legs and run.

I dressed quickly, pulling my coat over my nightdress. The corridors were silent, moonlight pouring in thin slices through stained glass.

I didn’t know where I was going.

Only that I needed air.

Dante

I felt her before I heard her. Her heartbeat—rushed and uncertain—echoed like a bell inside my head. She was walking the eastern hall now, just above the crypt.

I moved in silence, like I always had, the veil of the manor parting for me like it knew whose will held its bones together.

She reached the balcony. Stood against the stone edge, trembling in the chill.

I stepped beside her.

She didn’t startle.

“I should push you,” she said, staring into the fog below. “Just to see if you bleed like the rest of us.”

“Try,” I said softly. “And I’ll make you regret failing.”

She turned toward me, her expression unreadable. “What do you want from me, Dante?”

“Everything.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“It’s the only one that matters.”

Seraphina

His face was close now, moonlight painting his cheekbones like marble. There was something ancient in his gaze, something not human.

I forced myself to hold it. “You knew me before I came here, didn’t you?”

His silence was thunderous.

“You watched me.”

“Yes.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough to know what you look like when you pretend to be fine,” he murmured. “Long enough to know your kindness is a shield. Long enough to memorize how your voice cracks when you lie to yourself.”

I stepped back, dizzy. “That’s not love. That’s obsession.”

“I never claimed to be good,” he said. “Only yours.”

My breath hitched. “You had no right—”

“I took it anyway,” he said, stepping toward me. “I took every moment, every breath. I studied your life the way a starving man studies flame. You were the first thing in years that made me feel alive, Seraphina.”

“And what do you want now?”

His voice was velvet and steel.

“To make you mine.”

Dante

I expected her to run.

Instead, she stood her ground.

A spark flared in her eyes—defiance, curiosity, fear, and something dangerously close to need.

Good.

I didn’t want her weak.

I wanted her fighting.

Because only then would she understand the beauty of surrender.

And when she broke, it wouldn’t be from fear.