In the rain-soaked night split by neon lights, he stood on the windowsill, his red eyes reflecting the city’s darkest alleys.
“Hannah, come down,” his voice coiled around her neck like a silken noose. “You promised… you wouldn’t run.”
She crouched in the corner of the bed, her school uniform skirt crumpled, fingers clawing at the mattress. Outside was him—three stories up, the slick drainpipe, and those blood-colored eyes that never missed their mark.
“If you don’t… I’ll…” she choked, but before she could finish, the wind flung the window open.
He climbed in, water dripping from his black suit that clung to his muscular frame, each step leaving a wet imprint as he advanced.
No warning. No mercy. He gripped the back of her neck, and his kiss fell like a branding iron searing into her soul. She fought, biting through his lip—yet in the instant blood filled the air, both shuddered.
From then on, daylight became a performance.
He taught Shakespearean tragedies at the front of the class, his gaze behind gold-rimmed glasses flicking over her desk; she kept her head down, copying notes while her pen tore through paper. No one knew they had kissed in an abandoned church the night before, candles burned to ash, or that a spiral-shaped mark had begun to rise on her collarbone, climbing like ivy.
On prom night, he appeared in a tailored tuxedo, taking her hand and leading her into the first dance before the entire school.
“Does it hurt?” he whispered against her ear.
She smiled. “Don’t you love it when I stay silent?”
Before the steamed bathroom mirror, she undressed. The tattoo now crept to her heart.
He wrapped his arms around her from behind, tracing the pattern with his fingertips. “This is both covenant and curse—you’ve belonged to me all along.”
“I don’t remember signing,” she said, eyes closed.
“Every place you’ve bled, I’ve kissed,” he murmured with a low laugh. “That was our vow.”
Then one day, in an ancient tome from the library archives, she found an illustration: an 18th-century noble girl in a sacrificial ritual, the spiral on her chest symbolizing “eternal servitude.”
And the face in the painting—it was hers, exactly.
So this was never love.
It was a hunt spanning centuries. He, the hunter. She, the destined offering, bound to fall again and again.
And every heartbeat only awakened the sleeping fate once more.
*Scarlet Seduction* launching soon—
When love becomes a chain, will you still come when called?
Sabrina enters a new academy and immediately clashes with Valentin, the ruthless boy who rules it like a king. Their war of wills soon turns into dangerous attraction—until dark and mysterious secrets throw her into a deadly battle where love and power are the sharpest weapons.
