Ella Maren tightened the strap on her blade as she crept through the mist-cloaked ruins.

  The fog curled around her like fingers — cold, damp, whispering secrets only the dead should know. Her boots slipped silently over the moss-slick stone, each step purposeful, precise.

  Her senses thrummed.

  Not quite fear.

  Not quite thrill.

  Something worse.

  Anticipation.

  She hadn’t stopped thinking about him.

  The boy in the cathedral.

  The one who pressed his lips to her bleeding palm like a promise — or a curse.

  That moment had etched itself into her memory like a scar. She still felt the phantom heat of his breath on her skin, still heard the velvet lilt of his voice whispering “Careful...”

  Lucien.

  Even the name unsettled her. It was too soft. Too ordinary for what he was.

  Because he wasn’t ordinary.

  If he were just a vampire, she could handle it. She was a Hunter — trained, blood-bound, fearless.

  But Lucien wasn’t like the others.

  There was something twisted beneath his skin. Something broken and beautiful, like a lullaby sung in a crypt. His presence wrapped around her thoughts like thorns — and she hadn’t even realized she was bleeding until it was too late.

  Be ready, she told herself again.

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  The ruins yawned open before her, remnants of some long-dead chapel or fortress, all jagged spires and collapsed walls. The fog thickened here, clinging to the stones like old regrets.

  And there — half-shrouded in mist, leaning against a broken archway — stood Lucien.

  Alive. Whole. Smiling that same too-innocent smile.

  He straightened when he saw her, waving a little, almost sheepish.

  “Hey,” he said, voice soft as dusk. “We keep running into each other, huh?”

  Ella’s hand stayed loose near the hilt of her blade, hidden beneath her cloak. Her expression gave nothing away, but every instinct she had screamed to strike first and ask questions later.

  She didn’t.

  Not yet.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, nodding toward the blood soaking his sleeve.

  Lucien followed her gaze, then frowned, almost comically. “Oh. That? Got caught on some thorns, I guess.”

  Lie.

  His voice was too casual, too fast. That smile stretched too wide.

  Ella didn’t challenge him. Instead, she stepped closer, slow and measured, until they were only a breath apart.

  His pupils shimmered silver — unmistakably inhuman.

  His stillness — that uncanny calm — made her want to break it just to see what lay beneath.

  Vampire. Definitely.

  But… what kind?

  And why did her body react like this?

  The Spark surged again between them — not a flicker, but a flare — violent, electric, magnetic.

  It danced along her skin like fire and lightning.

  It throbbed in her bones.

  It knew him.

  For one stupid, dangerous second, she imagined touching him again. Not in fear. Not in combat. Just… to feel it.

  No.

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  She stepped back, clearing the haze from her mind.

  “So,” she said coolly, “what brings you here? Sightseeing?”

  Lucien tilted his head, easy and loose-limbed. “Looking for something,” he said. Then added, “Or someone.”

  The words slid down her spine like a blade.

  Still, she smiled — sharp and sweet. “Hope you find what you’re looking for,” she murmured. “Before it finds you.”

  Lucien’s chuckle was low and warm. And wrong. So very wrong.

  She turned to leave.

  And that’s when the world shattered.

  The ground split beneath her feet.

  A roar, guttural and inhuman, tore through the ruins. The fog scattered as something surged up from the cracked earth.

  Vampires.

  But not like Lucien.

  Ferals.

  Blood-drunk. Mindless. Their flesh mottled and cracked, eyes glowing red with hunger. They poured from the chasm in snarling, twitching packs — more beast than man.

  Ella spun, blade flashing in one practiced motion.

  But before she could strike, a blur of movement tore past her.

  Lucien.

  No sheepish smile now.

  No awkward charm.

  Only predator.

  He slammed into the first feral with a snarl, moving faster than any human eye could follow. Bone cracked. Blood sprayed. He twisted, elegant and terrifying, and ripped through the next one like paper.

  Ella stood frozen, blade half-raised, breath caught in her throat.

  Because Lucien wasn’t fighting like a vampire.

  He was fighting like something older.

  He turned back toward her, face streaked with crimson, chest rising and falling in slow, measured breaths. Blood dripped from his fingers. His mouth.

  And his eyes — gods — they burned.

  Not red. Not silver.

  Both.

  Like a storm at war with itself.

  Their gazes locked.

  And Ella — hunter, killer, Endbringer — felt it:

  The Spark exploded.

  No longer a whisper.

  No longer a suggestion.

  Fire.

  It raced through her, a call to something ancient, something buried in her blood.

  She felt it in the marrow of her bones.

  This wasn’t a chance encounter.

  It was fate.

  It was warning.

  It was beginning.

  And This Time

  Neither of them looked away.