A cursed bond. A forgotten truth. A war that never truly ended.
When Selene Vael, last of the Vael bloodline, finds herself hunted by a vampyre she has never met—but whose rage burns for her like wildfire—she turns to the only creature feared more than her pursuer: Lord Thorne of Mor'Cathal, a cruel and ancient vampyre exiled even among his own kind. Her mother's curse birthed a monster, but the truth of that curse has long been buried beneath blood and betrayal.
As old magic stirs and long-dormant powers awaken, Selene and Thorne form a reluctant pact, bound by vengeance, secrets, and something neither of them dares to name. What begins as an uneasy alliance soon threatens to become something far more dangerous—a connection that defies fate, teeters on the edge of obsession, and may cost them both their souls.
Together, they must unravel the tangled past of a curse that should never have been cast, face the monster it created, and confront the truth of what ties them together...and what might tear them apart.
The wind moaned through the trees like a wounded thing, stirring the brittle leaves strewn across the stone floor of the ruined chapel. Moonlight filtered through the high, shattered stained glass, colouring the crumbling altar in hues of blood and amethyst. At its base knelt Selene Vail, hands deep in a circle of runes that shimmered faintly beneath the dust.
Her fingers were slick with oil and old ash, the scent of myrrh thick in the air. She murmured under her breath in a tongue no longer taught, her voice steady despite the tremor in her limbs. Sweat carved paths down her temples, darkening the collar of her cloak. Even with all her power—and gods knew she had power—the spell cracked.
Again...
The protective sigil shattered with a whisper like a dry bone.
Her breath caught...
"He's close," she murmured to the dark.
Not a question.
From the shadows, something shifted. Not a sound, not a scent—just the eerie certainty of eyes unseen. The spellfire in the runes dimmed further, reacting to his nearness.
The cursed one...
Her stalker...
Her ghost in the flesh.
She stood slowly, the hem of her dress dragging through the powdered remnants of ancient protection circles. Her black hair tumbled loose from its braid, her boots silent on the stone. Around her wrist, her mother's charm—an obsidian ring on a velvet chain—burned cold against her pulse.
"He comes for the blood of the one who damned him," her mother's voice echoed in memory."But it was not my hand that cursed him. Remember that, child. Remember that when your spells fall silent..."
And they had.
Every barrier, every watcher spirit, every tethering ward she had placed in the past moons had unravelled. It wasn't just his doing—it was... old magic, deep magic, the kind that answered to blood and betrayal.
Selene was powerful, yes.
But she was alone...
And so, she had come here—to Viremont, the forgotten chapel in the woods where even crows did not linger. It was said he had last walked here, a century ago, when the earth still bled from the wards between witches and the vampiric houses.
Lord Thorne...
His name was legend and warning, spoken in reverent disgust among mortals and witches alike.
A predator of predators.
He had bathed cities in blood during the War of Red Ash. He had disappeared after a duel with another of his kind—the one now hunting her—and returned only briefly, mad with fury, then silent again.
He was not an ally...
But, he had survived the cursed one. That made him an option.
The door crashed open behind her, not by hand but by will.
Cold air pressed through the doorway like a living thing.
She didn't turn...
"You've come, then..."
No reply.
Just the brush of something ancient against the edge of her aura—a weight that made her knees want to buckle.
"Lord Thorne," she said, forcing steel into her tone. "I need your help..."
The silence that followed was not empty.
It was measured...
Then, a voice. Not loud, not soft.
Just... inevitable.
"You carry her scent..."
She turned.
He stood just inside the doorway, half-shadowed, the moonlight at his back. No glamour softened his features. His eyes were like old coals, nearly dead but still hot. His hair hung like tarnished silver, his frame lean but coiled with something feral.
"And yet," he murmured, stepping forward, "you are not her..."
"No," she said. "I am what's left."
Thorne tilted his head, and something cruel flickered behind his gaze—then vanished.
"And what would the last Vael have of me?"
Her jaw tensed. "A pact."
He laughed.
Not kindly.
"You witches never learn. What will you offer, girl, in return for my wrath?"
She lifted her chin, pulse thundering behind her calm. "A truth you've hunted for longer than I've been alive."
That made him pause.
The wind died. The chapel held its breath.
Thorne stepped into the circle of ruined runes. The ashes curled up toward him like lovers.
"Then speak carefully, witch," he said. "for I do not kill lightly..."
He moved like smoke—slow, deliberate, without weight or hesitation. Selene's breath caught as Thorne stepped fully into the moonlight, and the full presence of him struck her like the hush before a storm.
He was tall, yes—but more than that, still...
Still in the way the dead were. Still in the way a predator watches before the pounce.
The old tales had not lied...
His face was cruelly beautiful, all sharp edges and shadowed grace. A mouth carved for wicked things. Eyes like winter—cold, endless, and strangely tired. His clothing was rich but weather-worn, as if pulled from some forgotten century. Dried blood stained the hem of one sleeve.
Not his...
He didn't blink.
"You do not fear me," he said, not quite a question. His voice wrapped around her like velvet soaked in wine and venom.
She held his gaze.
"Should I?"
He smiled. Not warm. Not sane. "Everyone does."
She did, but not in the way others might. Not in the way that made her want to run.
It was a different kind of fear. The kind that makes you hold your breath, lean in closer, wonder what it would feel like to burn.
"Fear is cheap," she said. "I've bartered with worse."
Thorne stepped forward, closer than comfort allowed. The ruined runes beneath their feet pulsed dimly, sensing the tension—the standoff dressed as dialogue.
"You reek of defiance," he murmured. "Like your mother."
She stiffened. "You knew her?"
"I tasted her magic," he said, and something unspoken flickered in his gaze—something haunted, almost reverent, then gone. "Once."
She swallowed hard. "Then you know I didn't cast the curse."
He tilted his head. "Does that matter to the one who hunts you?"
Silence stretched long and brittle.
Her hands, until then clenched at her sides, opened. Slowly, she reached into her cloak and withdrew a folded piece of aged parchment, stained with wax and something darker. She handed it to him.
He took it without breaking eye contact, brushing her fingers with his own—cool and dry, but not corpse-like.
Too alive for death. Too dead for life...
The contact sparked a shiver down her spine.
Thorne unfolded the parchment. A symbol was scrawled in crimson ink: a glyph etched into the walls of her childhood home after the wards failed.
Below it, a single word...
VAEL
He stared at it too long. Then, folding it once more, he tucked it inside his coat.
"I know this mark," he said quietly. "he leaves it when he means to finish what was begun."
"Then you'll help me," she almost asked.
"I didn't say that."
Her patience cracked. "What more do you want, Thorne? Blood? A name? Power?"
He stepped in again. This time, his fingers brushed her jaw.
Not soft.
Testing...
"No," he replied. "I want to know why your magic stinks of regret."
Her breath stilled in her chest.
"You don't know me," she said, but her voice lacked heat.
"I know what haunted power tastes like," he replied. "I've worn it for centuries."
Their faces were inches apart now, close enough to kiss, to kill, to curse. The chapel around them fell away. For one moment, only the throb of magic between them existed, like a third heart, pulsing wild and... wrong.
He leaned in, lips near her ear.
"Do you dream of him?" he whispered.
Her breath hitched...
"Do you dream of what he'll do when he finds you?"
She didn't answer.
Thorne pulled back, watching her with something almost amused. Then, he turned, his coat sweeping the ash-streaked floor behind him.
"I'll help you, witch," he said. "Not because I believe you. But because I want to see the look on his face when you survive."
He paused at the threshold.
"But make no mistake, whatever binds us now..." He glanced over his shoulder, eyes gleaming. "It is not trust. It's teeth."
Then, he vanished into the moonlight, leaving the chapel colder than before.
She stood alone in silence, the weight of a dead man's promise hanging like iron around her throat.
She didn't know if she had just gained an ally, or invited something far worse into her life.
Night lay heavy over the hills of Mor'Cathal, shrouding the manor in a velvet so thick even the stars dared not blink. The old estate croched on a wind-lashed cliff like a beast long asleep, its bones of blackened stone and iron gates rusted to blood. Ivy curled like veins along its crumbling walls. Windows flickered with firelight, dim and dancing, as if the house itself breathed in uneasy slumber.
She stood in the great hall, boots echoing over marble scorched by age and battle. Thorne said nothing as he led her through—he merely glided ahead, a whisper of shadow in motion. Every portrait lining the walls seemed to watch her. Not painted eyes, but memory itself—stitched into the air like smoke.
A tapestry hung above the hearth. It was old, too old for colour to survive, but she saw the shapes: a woman cloaked in stars, her hand raised in blessing or in curse, facing down a figure wreathed in flame.
Her breath caught...
"It was her," she whispered.
Thorne didn't look back. "Many witches look the same in legend."
"I know my mother's face."
A pause...
Then, a soft, mocking hum. "Then you know so little of what she was."
She stepped toward the tapestry, fingers outstretched, but didn't touch.
"She never told me. About the curse. About... him. I found a page in her journal. Torn at the edges, stained in something strange I knew it wasn't ink..." Her voice thinned. "It said, 'he bore the curse willingly. But it twisted him because it was never meant to be his burden."
Thorne turned slowly.
And for the first time, Selne saw it—not power, not menace, but the deep ruin of time. A sorrow that had rotted into something jagged.
"You think your mother cursed him?" he asked. "No, little flame. She begged him not to take it. And when he did... it shattered her."
Her eyes widened. "He loved her."
Thorne nodded once. "And she, him. But love is no balm against power. Not when you steal it."
She moved to a chair and took a seat. The fire crackled like bones behind her.
"Tell me," she said. "Tell me what really happened."
Thorne studied her for a long while, then sat across from her, fingers steepled beneath his chin.
"I knew him when he wore another name," he began, voice low. "We were not friends, but brothers of a kind—born of war, baptised in blood. He was young then, reckless. Too proud to kneel. She came to us in a time of plague, when witches still walked among our kind, healing what mortals could not." He paused. "Your mother was not gentle. She was fire wrapped in silk. But she had a gift for seeing what we hid, even from ourselves."
Selene listened, silent, unmoving.
"She crafted a tether—not to bind a man, but to bind the disease of undeath. She believed she could save one of us. Change what we are. He... volunteered. He volunteered, Selene. Not for her, but to prove death could not own him."
"And it twisted him," she whispered.
"No," Thorne said. "He twisted it. He used the tether to bend the curse, tried to become something more than vampyre. What emerged was neither man nor myth—something... feral. Something the blood itself rejected. When it began to infect others, your mother tried to kill him. Failed. She cast him into shadow instead. Locked him from every path of memory.
Selene looked into the fire. "That's why I couldn't find him. Why my magic—her magic—couldn't trace him."
"He walks beyond memory," he said in a low voice. "And now... he returns for you. To finish what she started. Or to end it. No one truly knows."
She stood, pacing now. "He's not just a vampyre. He's a blight..."
"He is what comes when pride outgrows the soul."
She stopped, facing him. "And you? What were you to her?"
His lips curled. "A mistake."
She stood frowning.
"She chose him," he said plainly. "But she feared me. Loved me, perhaps, in the cruel way witches sometimes do—but never as she loved him. I knew what he would become. I told her. She did not listen."
Silence grew like frost between them.
"I carry her blood," Selene said, her voice soft and questioning, but not frightened. "What does that make me to him?"
Thorne stood and crossed to her, slow and deliberate. When he reached her, he didn't touch. The air between them pulsed again, thick with warning.
"It makes you her echo. Her guilt, her unfinished spell. You are everything he could not possess."
"And to you?"
He looked down at her, gaze dark, unreadable.
"You are a key," he said softly. "To vengeance, perhaps. Or to something far worse."
His hand lifted then, not to strike or caress, but to tuck a loose strand of her hair behind her ear. The gesture was gentle, but beneath it, something dangerous coiled.
"You walk into the storm willingly, Selene Vael. Be sure you know what it means to drown."
The moon had passed its zenith when Thorne led her through the oldest part of the manor, where walls narrowed, where the air soured with secrets that never did.
Selene walked in silence behind him, torchlight flickering off stone that pulsed faintly under her feet. The path dipped downward, spiralling toward something ancient. Something buried.
"You never told me what this place was," she said, breaking the silence she had slipped into.
"I didn't," he replied. "Some places are easier entered than explained."
He pushed open a door wrought of petrified wood, veined with veins like roots—and blood. Beyond it, the room opened like a wound.
Circular.
Cold...
Carved into the bedrock beneath Mor'Cathal. No light except what they had brought with them.
The walls were lined with sigils etched in ash and silver. In the centre, a low alter—unadorned, but cracked with use. Beside it, a basin of obsidian.
Empty.
Waiting...
Selene stepped in, her breath misting.
"It was a sanctum once," he murmured. "For rites that shouldn't be remembered. It was sealed when I returned here. But it knows me still."
She turned, folding her arms. "And this is where we perform the binding?"
"In part," he said. "First, you must call him."
Her breath faltered.
"Call... him?"
"To bind shadow, you must tempt it." He moved to the altar and laid out a strip of woven black cloth, embroidered with golden runes. "Your blood. His mark. And one word he remembers."
"I don't know his name," she said.
"You know her memory," he simply replied.
Selene stepped toward the basin and removed the folded parchment from her coat—the glyph, still crusted with crimson. She held it over the basin bowl. Whispered the word beneath it.
'Vael...'
The parchment curled and burned without flame, dissolving into dust that clung to the basin's rim.
The chamber trembled.
Somewhere, a sound echoed—a deep, wet scrape, like bone dragged over stone.
She stumbled back, her heart thrashing against her ribs.
Thorne caught her elbow. His grip was strong, too cold... too... real.
"Too much," she gasped. "Too soon."
"Exactly the right amount," he murmured.
She turned to him. "What if he hears me?"
His expression was unreadable.
"Then run. Or dont."
She pulled away, breath ragged. "You're enjoying this."
He didn't smile. "No. I'm remembering..."
"What?"
He turned to her. "The last time she called him."
A silence fell like snowfall—soft, but absolute.
Selene lowered her gaze. "And when do we begin the binding?"
"When the veil thins. At dusk tomorrow. But the right requires purity of focus. Which, presently... you lack."
She flinched. "Excuse me?"
"You burn too wild, witch. Fear is in you like rot. If you carry it into the blood-bind, it will poison the spell. "
She stepped closer, chest rising. "Then teach me."
He arched a brow. "You'll submit to my methods?"
"I'll endure them."
A pause.
He gestured, and the walls of the chamber shivered. A hidden door cracked open—stone shifting to reveal a narrow passage, cold air rushing through like a sigh.
"Then follow. And do not falter..."
The path led to the cliff's edge. Beyond the manor's shadow, the sea roared below—a black expanse of froth and ink. A ritual circle had been carved into the rock centuries ago, sunken beneath twisted trees. The earth here was charred, as if lightning had kissed it over and over.
He stepped into the centre.
"Your blood carries two things," he said. "Her strength. And her sorrow. To master one, you must confront the other."
He raised a hand. A thin blade of bone appeared between his fingers.
Selene's eyes narrowed. "Yours or mine?"
He smirked. "Both. Eventually."
He drew the blade down his own palm without flinching. Blood darker than wine welled up, shimmering with unnatural weight. It hit the circle, and the symbols ignited, red as fresh flame.
"Step in," he said.
She bit back a few comments that nearly made it from her lips, but she did as she was bade to do.
The moment her feet touched the carved symbols, the wind howled through the grove. Her blood felt like it boiled, but she stayed still.
"Now," he whispered, stepping in behind her, voice brushing the nape of her neck, "call the regret."
Her throat closed. "I c-can't."
"You can."
"I don't know how!"
His hand touched her spine.
Gentle.
Firm.
"Say her name..."
Her lips trembled.
"Ira Vael," she whispered.
The wind stopped.
Then rose, violently, impossibly.
A scream pierced the night—not hers. Not human.
Selene dropped to her knees, gasping. Her magic surged up, wild and erratic, her vision blurring with flame and fog. A memory—not hers—ripped through her mind:
A man, laughing in the dark. A kiss sealed in a grave. A spell broken by love—and twisted by rage.
She saw him.
The vampyre cloaked in shadow, eyes void of colour. Reaching...
"Enough!" Thorne shouted.
The wind stopped. The circle dimmed.
He caught her again, hauling her upright.
She swayed in his grasp, trembling.
"I saw him," she breathed. "I felt him."
"And he felt you," he replied, his voice low.
She looked up at him. "Then we have to bind. Now."
He studied her, something dangerous softening in his gaze. "Tomorrow," he said. "At dusk. Not before. You're too raw. "
She didn't move from his arms, though she knew she should have.
But... neither did he.
Their breath mingled—a mist in the cold. Her heartbeat was loud against his chest. His fingers, still pressed to her spine.
The moment stretched.
"I need you strong," he murmured. "Not broken."
"Im not broken..."
"No," he said, brushing a thumb beneath her eye. "Not yet."
Then he stepped back, letting the space between them chill again.
"Rest," he commanded. "The rite will demand more than blood. It will ask for truth."
She stared out into the night.
And for the first time, she feared what truth might feel like when shared...
It claimed her like a tide of black ink, a slow flood of warmth turned into pressure, then... silence.
She felt her body still, but her mind slid elsewhere—into something too sharp to be sleep, too soft to be death.
She stood on a mirror-flat lake, glassy and black, stretching endlessly beneath a starless sky. Her reflection stared up at her, not matching, not hers, not quite.
The wind carried scent—singeing, ferrous.
Blood.
Ash.
And beneath it, a perfume older than memory. Something cold enough to burn. Something she recognised from the pages her mother never meant for her to find.
A presence stirred behind her.
She turned...
He stood there.
At first, it was like looking into smoke—his shape barely coherent, taller than most, wrapped in folds of dark fabric that moved as if alive. Shadows clung to him, not like clothing, but like loyalty. His hair was black but not black as a colour—black as absence, as if it swallowed all the light near it. Skin pale as snow, smooth as marble, yet cracked at the throat and with fingertips like old porcelain.
His eyes were the worst of all.
One gleamed with the sheen of dying embers—red-gold, furious. The other: a pitch void, a starless hole as if night itself peered out.
His lips parted in a smirk that wasn't joy but memory sharpened to cruelty.
"Ira," he said, his voice like silk unravelling from old bones.
Selene froze.
He stepped forward—and the mirror-lake beneath him ripped like breathing flesh.
The smirk deepened into a slow, wicked grin.
"Ahh," he whispered. "Not Ira. No... something new in you. Stronger. Wilder... What have we here?"
She summoned magic to her palms. It hissed, resisting. The dream-magic fought her. She stood her ground anyway.
"Say her name again," she warned, "and I'll end this dream."
"Dream?" he mused, circling her. "Oh, little witch, this is an invitation... You called. I merely answered."
"You don't belong here."
He leaned in close to her ear, his breath unnervingly cool.
"But I do. You brought me here. With blood and the name you wear like a badge. You are her echo, yes, but you hum with your own pitch. Your own fire..."
She stepped back, glaring at the dark figure. "You were cursed because you defied her."
He smiled—fangs small, elegant, glinting behind his lips. Not bestial... Refined. Like a god who chose monstrosity.
"She offered salvation," he said plainly. "And I wanted more. I took what she feared to hold."
"And now, you come for me?"
"Not yet," he said, tilting his head. "But soon. And when I do, I wonder—will your blood burn like hers? Or will it sing?"
His fingers ghosted through the air near her cheek, not touching—but the space between them pulsed like a drawn bowstring.
She stood still, refusing to flinch.
"Be ready, little Ira," he whispered, a name transformed into a blade. "Because when I come... I will not knock."
He stepped back into the shadows—
And just before he vanished, she heard it:
A voice like thunder in a cathedral.
"Selene—WAKE!"
The dream shattered...
She bolted upright in her bed, her breath ragged and drenched in sweat. The aire was sharp with firmament—and wrong. It smelled of old smoke. Of scorched silk and rust.
And blood...
The curtains flared as the door slammed open.
Thorne...
He stood like a blade drawn in full, eyes glowing dimly with fury, robes loose around his frame. The scent of magic poured off of him—zephar and wine and something darker.
He crossed the room in a breath.
"What did you do?" he demanded, his voice low and shaking.
She swung her legs out of the bed, heartbeat roaring. "I—I didn't mean to. He was there. He came through the dream—he thought I was her."
He gripped her chin, tilting her face to study her eyes. His fingers were cold, but his presence burned.
"He marked you," he said through gritted teeth. "Damn it, Selene—he saw you. Felt you. He's tethered now."
Her voice cracked. "I tried to fight it."
"You summoned him when you called her name. Even the dream was enough."
"I didn't invite him!"
His jaw worked, fury pulsing off of him in waves—but underneath it, something else.
Fear...
Real, quiet, and buried beneath centuries of pride.
His voice softened. Just a little...
"Did he touch you?"
"No. But he was... close. He saw through me. Called me her. Then..." she swallowed. "Then said I was stronger. Prettier."
Thorne's nostrils flared.
He stepped back, shaking his head.
"This changes everything," he muttered. "He won't wait until the right. He knows you're aware now. He'll test you. Pull at the seams."
He looked at her—really looked. Her cheeks flushed, her magic humming unsteadily, her will crystalline despite the shivering tension still gripping her spine.
"Dress," he said. "And bring the dagger."
She crossed to him, stopping only inches away. Their eyes locked.
"He called me Ira," she whispered. "But I'm not her."
His gaze flicked over her face—an unreadable expression breaking briefly through his composure.
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