The wind in the Wyrmspire Mountains spoke in whispers.
Varek listened as he moved along the edge of the ravine, boots sinking into melting snow. His bare arms were wrapped in blood-stained bandages, remnants of the werewolf pack he'd decimated less than a day ago. Their screams still echoed in the dark corners of his mind—alongside the whisper of a voice he had never heard but somehow knew.
A woman's voice.
It haunted him like the scent of fire on silk.
Selene.
He didn't know the name yet. Only the feel of it. The heat it stirred in him was more dangerous than any blade.
Below the ravine, the Wyrmspire Pass stretched in winding veins of stone and ash, jagged as cracked bone. Beyond that lay lands ruled by the vampire covens. He hadn't crossed the threshold in over a decade. Not since his mother died bleeding under the crimson moon.
The covens believed him dead.
The packs whispered his name like a curse.
He was the nightmare they both had birthed and abandoned.
But tonight, something pulled at him. Something stronger than vengeance.
Atop a crumbling pillar of granite, Varek crouched.
Eyes closed.
Breathing still.
Then—there.
A flicker of movement to the east. Light footsteps. Controlled breathing. The scent—clove, fur, iron.
Wolf.
But this one was different.
Not wild. Not frenzied.
Disciplined.
He could feel her before he saw her. Not just in the air. In his blood.
The thrum of an invisible tether between them.
When she emerged through the trees, his breath caught—not from surprise. From confirmation.
She moved like a specter carved in muscle and moonlight. Silver-streaked black hair fell down her back, wild and braided in places. Her armor was leather-bound and war-worn, clinging to curves sculpted by years of battle. At her hip—a dual-bladed silver glaive, blood runes etched into its haft.
She was the vision from his dreams.
Selene.
But she wasn't dreaming now.
She was hunting.
Selene Vireux didn't know what she was looking for.
Only that something had shifted. The world beneath her skin felt thinner tonight, more charged. As if the veil that separated prophecy from flesh had thinned.
For months she had felt it.
Felt him.
Not a face. Not a name. Just heat. Blood. Hunger.
And something else—something terrifying in its intimacy.
A knowing.
She stopped at the edge of the cliff, eyes scanning the horizon.
Then she felt it. Behind her.
A heartbeat. Two rhythms in one. Predator and prey entwined.
She turned, glaive half-drawn—
Too late.
He was already there.
Varek landed like a shadow made flesh, inches from her, claws retracted, arms spread slightly in warning.
"Don't," he said.
His voice was rough silk, fire and gravel.
Selene froze—not from fear. From instinct.
Everything in her screamed to strike.
Everything deeper whispered touch him.
"Who are you?" she asked, glaive raised.
Varek's eyes met hers. Crimson. Silver.
Her breath hitched. The dreams were real.
He could see it on her face.
"You already know," he said.
They circled one another slowly, like wolves caught in a storm.
"You're the abomination," Selene hissed. "The half-breed that murdered our scouts."
"They came to kill a child."
"They came to destroy a threat."
Varek's jaw clenched. "Then they failed."
Lightning cracked the sky above them. The storm rolled in fast, hot and electric. Neither flinched.
Their eyes locked again.
Tension rose—not just between blades and bodies, but deeper.
Like a tether pulling taut.
"Why are you following me?" Varek asked.
"I wasn't."
"Yes," he said. "You've been dreaming of me."
Selene's fingers tightened on her glaive. "How do you—?"
"Because I dream of you too."
The storm broke.
Rain fell in sheets.
Selene stood unmoving as water slicked her armor, her lips parted slightly. She was breathing faster.
Varek stepped forward, slow, testing.
Her glaive dipped.
"You're not supposed to exist," she whispered.
"And yet," he said, closing the distance.
They stood face to face now, barely a breath apart.
Her hand lifted before she could stop it, fingertips brushing the edge of his jaw. His skin was warm, unnaturally so for one with vampire blood. She felt the tremor run through both of them.
Then—
She struck.
Steel clashed with claws. Sparks flew. They moved like fire and wind—neither holding back, neither speaking. Just motion and fury and desperate hunger.
Varek caught her blade mid-swing, the edge biting into his palm. Blood poured between his fingers.
Selene gasped.
He didn't flinch.
He pulled her forward, blade still embedded in his hand, and pressed his forehead to hers.
"Why are you afraid of this?" he whispered.
She snarled, but the sound died in her throat.
Because the truth was, she wasn't afraid of him.
She was afraid of how much she wanted him.
The fight collapsed into stillness.
Her glaive clattered to the ground.
His bloody hand rose to her cheek, staining her skin with crimson.
"Kill me," he said softly. "If that's what you came for."
Selene's lip quivered.
"I should."
"Then do it."
She grabbed his face instead. Crushed her mouth to his.
Their kiss was war.
Hot, brutal, starved.
Rain soaked them as claws tore at armor, fingers tangled in hair, fangs grazed lips.
Varek lifted her effortlessly, slamming her back against the cliff wall, his body pressing against hers, teeth gritted with restraint.
Selene moaned into his mouth, clawing at his back, dragging lines down his skin as his hand found the curve of her thigh and pulled it up around his waist.
The world vanished in that moment.
There was no war.
No legacy.
No curses.
Just skin.
And need.
And something deeper neither of them had ever known.
Later, they lay tangled beneath the trees, breath shallow, bodies still trembling.
Selene stared at the stars through the canopy, his arm draped over her.
"We shouldn't have," she murmured.
Varek's eyes opened, faintly glowing in the dark.
"I know."
"We're enemies."
"Are we?" he asked.
A long silence.
"I was sent to find you," she said. "To confirm your existence. To kill you."
He nodded slowly. "Will you?"
She turned her head, met his gaze.
"No."
Varek smiled faintly. "Then everything changes."
Far below, in the ruins of a forgotten castle, a pair of eyes watched through fire and blood.
Alaric Mordane—the vampire lord who had once loved Elira, once condemned her for birthing the hybrid child—felt the shift ripple through the weave of fate.
He rose from his throne of bone and ash.
"It begins," he said.