CHAPTER THREE
The moon hung heavy above the city like a silent witness, casting silver over concrete and secrets. Xavier walked the empty streets, his coat drawn tight, the echo of Seraphina's voice threading through his mind like smoke he couldn't escape.
"You were made for me..."
The words shouldn't have meant anything. He was a hunter. She was a vampire. The oldest script in the war between darkness and light. And yet, when she touched him, something ancient inside him stirred something older than hate, older than war.
He hadn't told anyone about the dreams.
Every night for the last three months, he had seen her those crimson eyes, her voice like winter wind, her skin lit by fire and sorrow. At first, he thought it was trauma. Another echo of the many monsters he'd buried.
But Seraphina was different.
She didn't haunt him. She called to him.
Back in his apartment, he poured whiskey into a chipped glass and sat on the edge of his bed. He didn't sleep much anymore. The night was safer awake.
He pulled open the drawer of his desk. Beneath old case files and silver bullets lay a weathered journal his father's. The leather was cracked, the pages brittle with time and blood. He hadn't opened it in years.
Tonight, he did.
Flipping through notes on dark creatures, rituals, and cursed bloodlines, he found what he wasn't sure he had been looking for: The Blood Oath of Elarion. Scrawled beneath it, in his father's hand:
"The union of the cursed and the divine shall bring ruin or redemption. Beware the one with red eyes and a broken soul."
Xavier's breath caught.
His father had hunted for thirty years before vanishing without a trace. Some said vampires took him. Others believed he went mad chasing prophecies. But Xavier remembered how he used to whisper warnings in the dark.
"Not all monsters wear fangs, son. Some wear the face of love."
He closed the journal. His mind was racing.
Who was Seraphina really?
And who was he?
~~~~~~~~
Meanwhile…
Seraphina stood alone on the rooftop of her sanctuary, staring out at the restless city. Her heels clicked softly on the stone, the breeze pulling at her black silk robe.
She could still feel him in her bones, her blood, her memories.
Something had awakened.
She hadn't told him everything. Couldn't. Not yet.
Centuries ago, she had loved once. A man who bore the mark of the divine, gifted with the ability to silence her hunger. They were destined, the seers said. But destiny is cruel, and love is fragile. He died before the union could be sealed. Murdered by those who feared what their bond would bring.
Seraphina had wandered through time since then, haunted by visions, punished by hunger, waiting.
Until Xavier.
He looked like the first.
But more than that he felt like him.
Not reincarnated. Not reborn. But... linked. By blood. By magic. By something deeper than time.
A door opened behind her.
"I told you never to come up here without permission," she said without turning.
A voice, sharp and accented, replied, "You've changed."
She turned.
Lucien.
Her lieutenant. A vampire of ancient blood, loyal sometimes too loyal.
"He's dangerous," Lucien said. "You're distracted."
Seraphina walked past him, calm and commanding. "He's necessary."
"For what? Your downfall?" he hissed. "I saw the way you looked at him."
She stopped. Her voice turned cold.
"You forget yourself."
Lucien bowed his head, but the resentment crackled between them.
"I only warn you because I care," he muttered.
"No," Seraphina said. "You warn me because you're afraid of what I'll become with him."
He didn't respond.
"Find out everything about Xavier Blackthorne. Tonight."
"Yes, my queen."
When he left, Seraphina sat on the edge of the roof, the city stretching endlessly before her.
She was tired.
Of eternity. Of hunger. Of being feared instead of loved.
If Xavier was truly her fate, then she would embrace it.
Even if it ended in fire.