LOGINIt was 7 in the morning when I woke up to train with Lucien, the sun was already up. The light was hitting the windows of the manor, bright and unforgiving. He gave his reason as the early morning is the best time to train, so here I was in leggings and a t-shirt running laps around the garden and sweating through my clothes about to pass out from exhaustion. My lungs felt like they were on fire, and every step I took on the gravel path sent a jolt of pain up my legs. I am currently second guessing this decision of mine, Lucien was an evil person I forgot that minor fact. He didn't look tired at all. He stood under a tree, scrolling through his phone. He looked perfectly calm in the shade while I was out in the heat feeling like my heart was going to burst out of my chest. Anything I wanted to stop, he would notice I was quiet, he would glare at me to continue or stop typing on his phone. He didn't even have to say anything; that look was enough to make me keep my leg
Seraphina’s POV I had made up my mind on what I wanted to do, I was tired of seeking the help, of being weak, I wanted to prepare myself not to be weak. The feeling of being a victim was starting to eat at me more than the entity itself. Every time Lucien moved me to a new house or told me to stay put, it felt like I was losing a piece of who I was. For that, I needed to get stronger. I couldn't just sit around and wait for the king to come for my head or for the monster in my mind to decide it was time to wake up. I needed to train myself to be able to rise above it. To be able to control her. I knew she was in there, waiting for a moment of fear or exhaustion to take the lead again. If I didn't learn how to fight, how to stand my own ground, then I was just a passenger in my own body. I didn't want to be a burden anymore. I didn't want to be the reason Lucien was losing his sleep and his sanity. I reached Lucien's office to
Lucien’s POV I watched Seraphina storm off to her room. I was pissed off at her attitude towards Madame Vivienne and Talia. I stood in the hallway for a moment, listening to the heavy thud of her door closing upstairs. It felt like another barrier being slammed between us, just one more wall in a house already full of them. I didn't understand why she was attacking the only people who could actually help her. 'What's her problem?' I thought. I felt the heat of irritation rising in my chest, a sharp contrast to the cold morning air of the chateau. 'You are gonna ask that question, Lucien?' Kael said in a sarcastic tone. His voice was a low rumble in the back of my mind, dripping with a judgment I didn't have the patience for right now. I ignored him, she was acting up again, pushing me away. Just when I thought everything was going smoothly between us. I thought the drive to Calais had brought us closer, that the shared danger would make h
Seraphina’s POV I was exploring the home, and I saw pictures of different people. They were lined up along the dark wood of the hallway, their eyes following me as I moved. A lot of them look paler than normal. Probably people who lived here long ago. The air in this part of the house felt heavy, like the walls were holding onto the breath of everyone who had ever been tucked away here. The frames were heavy gold and silver, but the faces inside them looked like ghosts waiting for something to happen. I ran my fingers along the dusty edges, feeling the coldness of the stone floor through my thin socks. "What a pretty little cage he brought you too," she whispered. Her voice was like a cold breeze in my ear, mocking me. "It would be so much easy to kill him and everyone here now that we were alone." I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block her out. I could feel her pacing in my mind, her hunger for blood vibrating through my own skin. She liked the isola
Hannah’s POV "So this is it, huh?" Hannah said to the person. She was sitted in front of her, her eyes locked on the file in her hand as she flipped through it. The paper felt crisp under her fingers, filled with the kind of secrets that could burn a kingdom down. She looked at the photos, the medical reports, and the history that Seraphina had tried so hard to keep buried. "Yes, it is. Everything you need is in there," Tyler said with a sly grin. He was leaning back in his chair, his hands rubbing together in anticipation. He looked like a man who had finally found the winning lottery ticket and was just waiting to cash it in. The room was dim, the only light coming from a flickering lamp on the desk, making the shadows on his face look even more twisted. "Now, how would we deal with them?" Thomas said. He was pacing the small room, his footsteps heavy on the floorboards. He looked nervous, but the hunger for revenge was clear in his eye
Seraphina’s POV The drive north was gruesome, a relentless stretch of asphalt that seemed to drag on for a lifetime. Lucien had insisted that we travel by car, his voice leaving no room for argument. He claimed it was the only way to avoid suspicion, to stay beneath the radar. A part of me felt like he was hiding something—another secret tucked away in the dark corners of his mind—but I tried to push the suspicion down. He was doing this for my own good. He had to be, right? Still, the atmosphere in the cramped SUV was suffocating. For hours, the only sound was the low hum of the engine and the occasional, mutterings from the driver’s seat. Lucien was a man possessed, his knuckles white against the steering wheel as he whispered obscenities to himself in French. His phone was a permanent fixture in his hand, and every few miles, he would hiss into the receiver, his tone clipped and lethal as he coordinated with Alec or someone else in his network.
The air in the ballroom felt like it was thickening, turning into a physical weight that pressed against my chest. I smoothed the silk of my gown, forcing my features into the expression of a devoted lover as I approached Lucien again. He was standing near the center of the gilded hall, his prese
The ride into the heart of the city was unlike anything I had experienced back home. Lucien was transformed. The brooding, silent man at the Estate had vanished, replaced by a man who seemed revitalized by the very air of France. He spoke incessantly, filling the cabin of the car with
Our lips moved in sync, a frantic rhythm that made my head spin. It felt so right, yet so fundamentally wrong at the same time. I felt him press his heavy frame onto me, his muscles hard as stone, trying to mold my smaller body into his. It was like he wanted to merge our skin together so I could n
I was scrolling through social media, trying to numb my brain, when I heard voices on the other side of the door. I didn't pay it any mind; I assumed it was just the maids coming to drop off my dinner. My mind was elsewhere, mostly on the huge gamble I had taken earlier. I had managed to slip a r







