Zara's POV
The shadow creatures surrounded the motel, their howls making my bones vibrate.
"We can't fight them all," I said, backing away from the window.
"We don't have to." Dante grabbed my hand—the bond sparked, and suddenly I felt his plan forming in his mind. "We just need to get past them. There's one place in this city they can't follow."
"Where?"
"The Royal Library. It's built on consecrated ground. Shadow creatures can't cross the threshold."
"Great plan, except we're wanted criminals. How do we get inside?"
He pulled out a keycard. "I still have my security clearance. They haven't deactivated it yet."
"Yet?"
"They will once they realize I'm not dead." He moved toward the door. "Ready to run?"
I looked at the creatures outside. Hundreds of them now, made of smoke and nightmare, their red eyes glowing with hunger.
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really." Dante squeezed my hand. "On three. One—"
The window shattered.
A shadow creature lunged through, claws extended. Dante shoved me aside and the creature's claws raked across his shoulder instead of my throat.
His pain exploded through the bond, making me scream.
"Go!" Dante shouted, kicking the creature back.
We burst through the door and ran. Behind us, the entire motel erupted as shadow creatures poured inside.
The street was chaos. People screaming. Cars crashing. The creatures were everywhere, hunting only us but terrifying everyone else in the process.
"This way!" Dante pulled me left, then right, navigating through back alleys.
I felt every scratch, every bruise he took protecting me. And through the bond, he felt mine too. We were both gasping, both bleeding, both running on pure adrenaline.
"There!" He pointed at a massive building ahead. The Royal Library. "Almost there!"
A creature landed in front of us, blocking the path. It opened its mouth, showing teeth like broken glass.
"Go around!" I started to pull Dante right, but he didn't move.
"No. Through." His hand tightened on mine. "Trust me."
"What—"
Power suddenly surged through our bond. My power. His power. Combined into something neither of us had alone.
We ran straight at the creature, and the moment we got close, Dante raised our joined hands. Light exploded from the ruby still clutched in his other hand—brilliant red light that made the shadow creature shriek and dissolve into smoke.
"How did you—"
"Later. Run!"
We sprinted the last hundred yards. The library doors loomed ahead. Dante swiped his keycard.
Red light. Access denied.
"No!" He swiped again. Same result. "They deactivated it!"
Shadow creatures closed in from all sides. We were trapped.
"The window!" I spotted a small window near the ground floor. "Can you break it?"
"That's reinforced glass—"
"We're about to die! Try!"
Dante grabbed a trash can and hurled it at the window. The glass cracked but didn't break. He hit it again. Again.
The creatures were twenty feet away. Fifteen. Ten.
The glass finally shattered.
We dove through just as claws raked the air where we'd been standing. Landed hard on marble floor inside the library.
The creatures slammed against an invisible barrier at the window, howling in fury. But they couldn't cross.
"Consecrated ground," Dante gasped, helping me up. "Told you."
I was shaking, bleeding from a dozen cuts. Through the bond, I felt Dante was too. But we were alive.
"Now what?" I asked.
"Now we find answers." He looked around the massive library. Endless shelves of books disappeared into darkness. "The restricted section is downstairs. That's where they keep the ancient texts about curses and magic."
"And how do we get there without triggering more alarms?"
"We pray my override codes still work." He moved toward a hidden door behind the main desk. "Stay close."
The override codes worked—barely. We made it down three flights of stairs into the restricted archives. The air smelled like old paper and older magic.
"Here." Dante pulled an ancient book from the shelf. The title was in a language I didn't recognize, but the image on the cover was clear: a red ruby surrounded by chains.
We sat at a table, and Dante opened the book. Inside were handwritten pages in English, translation notes scribbled in the margins.
"The Blood Moon Ruby," he read aloud. "Created three hundred years ago by Queen Morgana Valdor, first ruler of Valdoria and most powerful witch of her age."
"Wait—Queen? Adrian said it was created by the first queen, but he made it sound different."
"Because the truth was covered up." Dante kept reading. "Morgana created the ruby as a test for her heirs. She believed true rulers needed more than power—they needed the ability to bond with another person completely. To share their heart, their pain, their soul."
I leaned over his shoulder, reading the next passage:
"The ruby chooses pairs who are compatible in soul but opposite in circumstance. It forces them to complete three trials within thirty days:
Trial One: Face your deepest fear together. Only by protecting each other from your darkest memories can you prove your bond is real.
Trial Two: Sacrifice what you value most. True love requires giving up everything you've held onto.
Trial Three: Choose love over survival. When faced with death, only those who would die for each other can break the curse."
My throat went tight. "Die for each other? We barely know each other!"
"That's the point." Dante's voice was quiet. "The curse forces strangers to become... something more. Or die trying."
He turned the page, and both of us froze.
There was a illustration showing two people holding the ruby. Around them, text described the trials in more detail.
"The first trial begins automatically," Dante read. "When both cursed individuals feel safe enough to sleep, the ruby will pull them into a shared dream where they must face their deepest fears and traumas. They will experience each other's worst memories as if they were their own."
I thought about my worst memories. Being locked in the basement. My mother's death. Marcus's betrayal. And Dante would experience all of it.
Through the bond, I felt his dread too. He didn't want me seeing his memories.
"There's more." He pointed at a warning written in red ink:
"WARNING: Most bonded pairs fail the first trial. The trauma of seeing a stranger's deepest pain while reliving your own typically breaks the mind. Only pairs with true compatibility survive."
"So we might go insane before we even get to the other trials," I said flatly.
"Apparently." Dante closed the book and looked at me. Really looked at me. "Zara, I need to tell you something. Before the trial starts and you see everything. You deserve to know the truth."
"What truth?"
"I didn't just fail to protect the ruby that night. I chose not to." His jaw clenched. "I knew you were coming. Adrian warned me. And I let you steal it because... because I wanted the curse to activate. I wanted to be bonded to someone strong enough to help me take down the royal family."
Betrayal burned through me. "You used me."
"Yes." He didn't look away. "I used you. Just like everyone else in your life has used you. And I'm sorry. But Zara, everything changed the moment I felt your heart through this bond. You're not a tool. You're not a means to an end. You're—"
He stopped, shaking his head.
"I'm what?"
"You're the first person in seventeen years who's made me feel anything other than rage." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "And it terrifies me."
Through the bond, I felt his truth. His fear. His... affection? Already?
The curse was working fast.
"We should sleep," I said quietly, not knowing how to respond to his confession. "Get the first trial over with."
"Here? In the library?"
"We're safe here. The creatures can't get in." I moved to a corner and sat down, exhausted. "Besides, putting it off won't make it easier."
Dante hesitated, then sat beside me. Not touching, but close enough that I could feel his warmth.
"Zara? Whatever you see in my memories—whatever I've done, whatever happened to me—don't judge me until you've felt all of it. Please."
"Same goes for you."
We sat in silence, both dreading what came next.
My eyes grew heavy. The exhaustion of the past two days crashed over me like a wave.
"When we wake up," Dante said softly, "everything will be different. We'll know each other's darkest secrets."
"I know."
"And you might hate me."
"I might." I felt sleep pulling me under. "Or you might hate me."
"Never," he whispered.
But I was already falling into darkness.
The last thing I heard was the ruby beginning to hum.
And then I was five years old again, locked in the basement, screaming for my mother who would never come.
But this time, I wasn't alone in the darkness.
Dante was there too, living my nightmare with me.
And I was in his—watching through twelve-year-old eyes as guards dragged his father away to be executed, feeling his helpless rage and grief as if it were my own.
We were drowning in each other's pain.
And somewhere in that shared darkness, a voice whispered:
"The first trial has begun. Face your fears together, or be consumed by them forever. But know this, cursed ones—someone has poisoned the trial. Someone wants you to fail. And they're already inside your minds, twisting your memories into weapons."
The nightmare shifted.
Suddenly I was watching my mother's murder—but the killer's face was Dante's.
And through our bond, I felt Dante watching his father's execution—where I was the one who'd betrayed him.
Lies. The trial was feeding us lies.
But in nightmares, truth and lies feel exactly the same.
And I felt Dante's fury at me building like a wildfire.
Just as mine built toward him.
This wasn't just a trial.
It was a trap designed to make us destroy each other.