The Pull

Kai:

She slipped out of her dorm like a wraith—silent, self-contained, arms wrapped around her textbooks like armor. Isadora Gravelle moved like someone carrying a secret too heavy for her spine. Every footstep whispered along the corridor’s cold stone floor, unaware she had an audience hidden just beyond the fractured light.

I remained half-shrouded behind the columns of the cloistered hallway, where ivy curled through old cracks in the stone and magic hung thick in the air. The shadows licked around me, pliant and curious. Watching her wasn’t about strategy—it was pleasure. A puzzle begging to be undone.

She didn’t just nearly kiss me. She cracked.

And cracks were where the light bled in.

Or the dark.

“She’s still rattled,” I murmured to no one but the night.

“Stalking now?” came a voice behind me, low and lined with razors. “Didn’t peg you for the obsessive type.”

Lucien always arrived like an unwanted storm—cold, commanding, inevitable. He moved with predatory ease, all angles and control, his coat trailing behind him like something alive. He didn’t need to slink through shadows. He was one.

I didn’t turn. Just smirked.

“I’m curious.”

“Dangerous thing, curiosity,” he drawled, stepping beside me. “You’d think you’d know better by now.”

“She’s fascinating,” I said, as if that explained everything. Maybe it did.

Lucien crossed his arms, glancing toward the stairwell where she vanished seconds ago. “She’s trouble. The good kind and the bad. I’ve been doing this a hundred years—I know it when I see it. And she reeks of it.”

There was no venom in his tone. In fact, there was a glint of appreciation—muted, but unmistakable. His jaw ticked, just once, like he’d bitten into something he wasn’t sure he liked or loved.

“I’m aware.”

“You know what I see when I look at her?” he mused, his voice dipping to something more primal. “A lit match in a room full of dry kindling. And you—you want to strike it.”

“She’s already burning,” I murmured, eyes still fixed on the space she left behind. “I just want to shape the fire.”

Lucien scoffed. “You want to play. Like always.”

“You want to control,” I countered. “Like always.”

He smiled, sharp and slow. “Because someone has to.”

His eyes flicked to me—blue like glaciers and twice as unforgiving. I held his gaze without flinching. We’d done this dance before, on battlefields of blood and broken treaties. The only thing more dangerous than Lucien’s power was his certainty. And the only thing more dangerous than my charm was my patience.

“Do you think she’s one of them?” I asked.

Lucien hesitated. “Not yet.”

“But?”

“But something’s waking in her. Something old.”

That sent a pleasant chill across my skin. “Delicious.”

“You’re predictable when you’re intrigued,” Lucien said. “The smile, the teasing, the touching—”

“Don’t forget the dagger,” I whispered.

Lucien laughed once—humorless. “Oh, I haven’t. I’ve watched you gut enemies while smiling like a saint.”

I offered a mock bow. “I am charming, after all.”

His gaze darkened. “Charm isn’t going to protect you if she turns out to be what I think she is.”

“Which is?”

“A herald,” he said simply.

I went still. “You think she’s a harbinger?”

“Not by choice. But yes.” He stepped closer, voice low. “The shadows around her aren’t just aesthetic. They bend. Whisper. Follow.”

“You’re just jealous they like her better,” I quipped.

Lucien didn’t laugh this time. “I’m not here to be clever. I’m here to make sure you don’t do something stupid.”

“I’m always stupid,” I said, smiling wider. “That’s what makes it so fun.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I’m serious, Kai. Don’t sink your claws into her just to see what she bleeds.”

I looked down at my hands, flexed them slowly.

“She doesn’t bleed,” I said. “She burns. And I want to know what color the fire is.”

Lucien cursed under his breath and turned away, only to pause after a few steps. “You know what the real problem is?” he asked without looking at me.

“Enlighten me.”

“She’s going to unravel everything,” he said, voice like a prophecy. “Every carefully constructed thread of this place. Of us. Of you.”

“She already is,” I replied, softer. “And you’re still watching her walk away.”

Lucien’s jaw clenched. “Because someone has to.”

“No,” I said with a grin. “You want to.”

He faced me again, eyes cold. “You think I’m not already fighting the pull? You think I don’t see it?”

I tilted my head, almost admiringly. “You see everything, Lucien. But you feel nothing.”

He moved so fast I barely registered it. One blink and he was chest to chest with me, his hand gripping the front of my collar.

“I feel plenty,” he growled.

I didn’t flinch. I smiled. “There it is.”

We stayed like that—locked, breath mingling, shadows clawing up the walls around us. Two monsters in pretty skin, speaking a language no one else dared learn.

“You’re going to fall for her,” Lucien said, voice soft but deadly. “And when you do, you’ll wish I’d gutted you now.”

I leaned in, voice like a promise. “Let me fall first, Lucien. Then you can decide whether to catch me—or burn with me.”

A heartbeat passed.

Then he released me.

We stood apart again. But the air between us was heavy—thick with things unspoken and unwanted.

Lucien turned on his heel, disappearing into the corridor’s other end like a knife sliding back into its sheath. The dark swallowed him. But his presence lingered like frost.

I exhaled slowly and turned toward the window.

Outside, Isadora was crossing the courtyard. The shadows slicked over her like spilled mercury. She didn’t look back. She didn’t need to.

Because this story wasn’t going to wait for her permission to begin.

And neither was I.