Chapter Two
Lucas
The taste of shifter blood still lingered on my tongue, bitter and metallic, as I held Annika against me. Her heart thundered beneath her fragile ribs, a melody I had memorized but never ceased to crave. My hands curled around her shoulders. My fingers brushed her hair, her warmth grounding me in a way I detested needing.
I tightened my grip, daring the universe to try and steal her from me again.
Then I smelled him.
The air shifted, carrying the sharp tang of iron and a faint, smoky musk. My gaze snapped up. My eyes narrowed as a man stepped from the shadows. He was bloody, but I wondered whose blood it was. His presence was unnervingly calm. He was tall, lean, his face carved with an arrogant confidence I already hated.
“Beautiful night for bloodshed,” he said in a voice smooth as velvet. I wondered if that was, as always, false civility.
Annika tensed in my arms, and I moved instinctively, positioning myself between her and this stranger. My fangs ached to extend, to rip into him and erase the threat before it could take form.
“Who are you?” My voice was low, a growl simmering beneath my words.
He smirked, the kind of smile that spoke of both truths and lies. “My name won’t mean anything to you, but I will share it. I am Kael. What might mean something to you would be the fact that I have been watching you… both.”
Not the answer I wanted. My muscles coiled, ready to lunge.
“Wait,” Annika’s voice, soft but firm, stopped me cold. She stepped to my side, her hand on my arm, the touch both a plea and a command. “Lucas, let’s hear him out.”
“Hear him out?” I hissed, incredulous. “He’s been watching us, Annika. That doesn’t exactly inspire trust.”
“I know,” she said, her gaze flicking to Kael, studying him with the kind of openness that made me want to lock her away, safe from the world’s treachery. “But if he meant us harm, wouldn’t he have attacked already?”
Logic. Damn her logic.
I exhaled, a sharp, irritated sound, and turned back to Kael. “If you so much as look at her wrong—”
“I’d expect nothing less,” Kael interrupted, his tone maddeningly casual. “Shall we move this conversation somewhere less... exposed?” His eyes flicked to the forest, where the remains of shifters lay in grotesque stillness.
Annika squeezed my arm, and though every instinct screamed to leave this man in the dirt, I relented.
For her. Always for her.
“Follow me,” I bit out, stalking toward the cottage with Annika close behind. Kael’s footsteps were too light, too measured, a predator’s grace that set my nerves on edge.
When we reached the cottage, the door creaked open, the familiar scent of pine and aged wood greeting us. Inside, I gestured for Kael to sit, but remained standing, my stance purposefully threatening.
“Nice place you got here,” he said, looking around.
I didn’t need to look around to know that.
The cottage was small but sturdy, a place built to endure. Like us. The walls were dark, made of rough-hewn logs that still smelled faintly of pine. Shadows clung to the corners, thick and heavy, but Annika had softened them.
Her touch was everywhere. Worn blankets draped over the arm of the sofa. Candles scattered across every surface, their wax melted down in uneven rivers. Flowers, half-wilted but stubbornly clinging to life, sat in jars on the windowsills. She said they made the place feel less like a tomb. I didn’t argue.
My presence was harder. Weapons lined the walls—blades polished to a sharp gleam, stakes carved from ash, and a crossbow I never let out of reach. The scent of leather and smoke lingered near the shelves, where my books rested in uneven stacks. Dark histories. Ancient wars. Blood and ruin bound between cracked spines. Annika teased me about them, but I caught her reading when she thought I wasn’t looking.
The bed in the corner was ours. The sheets were soft, and in the last year or so, I could truly say that we actually slept. Finally.
Her sweater hung over the chair, frayed at the edges where she worried it with her fingers. Beside it, my jacket, stained with blood that wouldn’t come out.
It wasn’t a home, not in the way Annika deserved. But it was ours. Built with clawed hands and guarded with teeth bared. A sanctuary carved out of darkness.
“I like how it is still hidden from the world of humans,” he continued, pulling me back to the present moment. “Are you using magic still to keep the entry closed?”
I had no intention of answering that question.
The truth was that yes, we could all come and go as we pleased. We could. The townspeople. But we kept our existence still hidden from almost everyone: humans, shifters, other vampires. We still didn’t know how far the enemies web stretched. We had to be cautious. And that was why I couldn’t trust this stranger who appeared out of nowhere.
Annika sat on the edge of the worn sofa, her hands clasped in her lap, her curiosity a palpable force. “Who are you really?” she asked, her voice steady.
Kael’s gaze flicked between us, lingering on me as though testing the limits of my patience. “I’m here because the shifters are just the beginning,” he said finally. “What’s coming next makes them look like gnats.”
My eyes narrowed. “And you know this... how?”
Kael leaned back in the chair, too casual for my liking. The fire crackled in the hearth, throwing jagged shadows across the walls. His gaze flicked to Annika, then back to me. I didn’t like the way he looked at either of us.
“You’re stalling,” I said, arms crossed. The words came out sharp, edged with the threat I didn’t bother hiding. “Start talking, or I’ll bleed the truth out of you.”
Kael’s lips twitched. Almost a smile. “You don’t scare me, Lucas.”
So, he knew my name. Everyone here did. Only, he wasn’t from our town.
I was across the room before Annika could stop me. My fist hit the wall beside his head, splinters raining down. He didn’t flinch, but the flicker in his eyes told me he wasn’t as fearless as he pretended.
“Try me,” I said, voice low.
“Lucas,” Annika’s voice broke through, calm but firm. She rested a hand on my arm. It was soft, grounding. I hated how easily she calmed the storm in me.
Kael exhaled slowly. “Fine,” he said, brushing dust from his sleeve. “You want answers? Here they are.”
I stepped back but didn’t drop my guard. Annika sat at the edge of the sofa, leaning in, her curiosity sharp as ever.
Kael’s expression darkened. “The shifters? They’re pawns. Just muscle for something bigger. Something older.”
“Older?” Annika echoed, her voice soft.
Kael nodded. “An ancient vampire. One that’s been buried so long, most of our kind think it’s just a myth. But it’s real.”
My gut twisted. “Who?”
He hesitated, his gaze flicking to Annika before answering. “Aurelius.”
The name tasted like ash. It echoed in my memory, pulled from stories whispered in shadowed corners.
“That’s impossible,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if I believed it.
Kael shook his head. “It’s not. The shifters and the rogue vamps? They’re working together. Preparing. If they wake him...” He trailed off, but the silence was worse than words.
Annika’s fingers curled into the blanket draped across her lap. “What happens if they wake him?”
Kael’s eyes darkened. “Then we lose.”
I didn’t move. Didn’t blink. The fire crackled, but the air felt cold.
“You’re lying,” I said. But the words lacked conviction.
Kael leaned forward. “You think I’d risk coming here if I was?” His voice dropped, steady but tense. “I didn’t send those shifters to kill you. I came to help because I knew where they were headed.” He looked down at his clothes. “Whose blood do you think this is?”
I hated him. Hated the calm certainty in his voice. Hated that it made sense.
Annika looked at me, her eyes wide but steady. “Lucas,” she said softly, “if this is true—”
“We don’t know it is,” I snapped.
“They need her blood,” Kael said, words that hung in the air like smoke, thick and choking.
Annika flinched, just barely, but I felt it. The faint tremor where her arm brushed mine. I wanted to pull her closer, shield her from the weight of those words. Instead, I stepped between her and Kael, my voice sharp enough to cut.
“Explain.”
We tried our best to keep her magic hidden, but something like that was close to impossible. Still, we tried.
Kael’s expression didn’t change. Calm, but not careless. He knew he was playing with fire. “Aurelius isn’t just buried,” he said. “He’s bound. By blood magic.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. The words twisted in my chest like a knife.
They called him The Blood King.
Aurelius was the first of us—or so the story went. Born from shadow, shaped by hunger. Older than the stars and twice as cruel.
As children, we whispered his name in the dark, daring the shadows to answer. Parents warned us to behave, or Aurelius would rise from his grave and drink us dry. But the truth was worse than the stories.
Aurelius wasn’t a monster lurking in the dark. He was the dark.
He ruled over vampires and mortals alike, his hunger endless, his power unmatched. It was said that he could command armies with a glance, make the skies weep blood, and shatter minds with a word. But it wasn’t enough.
Power never was.
Aurelius wanted dominion—not just over bodies, but over souls. He sought a magic older than even himself. Blood magic. Forbidden. Corrupt.
He fed on witches, draining them until he learned their secrets. Then he broke their covenants, tore through their sacred circles, and twisted their spells to his will. With every ritual, his strength grew—and so did his madness.
He bound mortals to him, stealing their will, bending them into shadows of themselves. It’s said that entire villages vanished in a single night, swallowed by his hunger.
But power always comes with a price.
The witches fought back, forging a pact with the vampires who dared to rebel against him. Together, they turned his magic against him, weaving a spell of blood and shadow so strong it bound even Aurelius.
They dragged him to the depths of the earth, buried him in stone, and sealed him with blood—blood from the witch who cast the final spell. Her bloodline became the key to his prison.
Before they sealed the tomb, Aurelius swore vengeance.
“I will rise,” he said. “Your blood will call to me. And when it does, I will drink the world dry.”
Even bound, his whispers lingered. His name carried weight. Fear.
No one dared disturb his grave.
Until now.
Kael’s voice interrupted my trip down memory lane.
“The spell requires a descendant of the one who bound him to break it,” he explained. “Annika’s bloodline. Her blood.”
“No.” The word snapped out of me before I could stop it. “You’re wrong.”
Kael’s eyes didn’t waver. “You think I’d come here without proof?”
Kael reached into his coat, pulling out something wrapped in dark, weathered cloth. He set it carefully on the table between us, as if it might shatter. Or bite.
I didn’t like the reverence in his movements. Or the weight of whatever lay beneath the fabric.
“Proof,” Kael said, his voice quieter now. Almost careful.
I didn’t move. Neither did Annika. The fire crackled, but the room felt even colder now.
Kael unwrapped the cloth. Slowly.
The object beneath was a dagger—old, but sharp enough to draw blood just by looking at it. Its hilt was silver, tarnished and etched with strange, twisting symbols. But the blade—dark and gleaming like obsidian—was what held my attention. It pulsed faintly, like something alive.
Annika shifted beside me. “What is that?”
Kael didn’t look up. “The blade used in the ritual that bound Aurelius.” He turned it so we could see the base of the hilt. There, set into the silver, was a red stone. No—not a stone.
A drop of blood. Preserved.