blood Offering

The next time she saw him, he wasn’t alone.

He waited for her in the ruins of an old church—its roof caved in, vines clawing the stone walls.

And before him knelt a vampire, bound and gagged, his eyes wild with fear.

“He killed a family outside Clearwater,” Lucien said, voice flat. “I thought you’d want justice.”

Serena stared at the vampire, then at him.

“Why help me?”

Lucien looked at her—not like a predator.

But like a man on the edge of a cliff.

“Because when I watch you kill monsters,” he said softly, “I remember what it felt like to have something to protect.”

She hesitated.

Then she drove the blade into the vampire’s heart.

Lucien didn’t flinch.

And for a single, unbearable second, Serena felt safe standing beside him.

That terrified her more than the blood on her hands.

--- The Kiss of the Enemy

The ruined sanctuary was soaked in shadow. Ivy strangled the pillars, moonlight piercing through holes in the stone roof.

Serena stood over the body of the dead vampire—blood pooling, heart still impaled.

Lucien said nothing as he stepped beside her, watching the way she wiped her blade with deliberate calm.

“You wear vengeance like silk,” he said. “It suits you.”

She stiffened.

“Why are you always watching me?” she asked.

“I watch what I crave,” he replied, voice dangerously low.

Her heart kicked in her chest. She stepped back, but he followed—slow, quiet, like mist slipping under a door.

“Stay away,” she warned, blade half-drawn.

“I can’t.”

His hand reached for hers—not to harm, not to restrain, but to hold. Serena flinched, but didn’t stop him.

Then he kissed her.

Slow. Soft. A whisper of something old and unspeakably tender.

Her breath caught in her throat. Her mind screamed to push him away.

But her body betrayed her—leaning closer, trembling.

She pulled back suddenly, eyes burning.

“This can’t happen,” she whispered.

Lucien didn’t argue. He just stepped back into the shadows, the hunger in his eyes saying what his lips did not.

It already had.

---

– The Taste of Regret

Serena returned to her Order’s cathedral, but the stone walls no longer felt safe.

Not after the kiss.

Not after how she’d responded.

She stripped off her gear, scrubbed her skin raw, tried to erase the feel of him.

But his scent clung to her memory—ancient, dark, and warm like the night itself.

She trained harder. Drilled longer. Refused rest. Refused thought.

Yet every night, in the silence, her mind wandered.

To the way he looked at her—not like prey.

But like salvation.

And that terrified her more than any fang.

---A Moonlit Trap

When the Order reported a nest outside Iron Vale, Serena volunteered before anyone else could.

She wasn’t running from Lucien.

She was chasing something to drown him out.

The den was hidden beneath an old cathedral. Vampires waited below—feral, starved, twisted.

She fought with precision, fury, fire.

But when it was over—bodies strewn around her, blood dripping from her blade—he was there again.

Lucien stood in the wreckage, untouched.

“You came,” he said.

She whirled, blade ready. “How long have you been following me?”

“Since the night you didn’t kill me.”

“That was a mistake.”

He stepped forward slowly, eyes glinting. “Then why did it feel like fate?”

Her blade trembled in her hand.

Because it did.

---

The Chains Begin

to be continued

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