Chapter 1: The Bite That Marked Me
Ravencourt Estate, Northern Reaches
I shouldn't have been there.
The fence had a rusted warning sign, the kind you're supposed to take seriously. Restricted Area. Government Property. Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. But I wasn't the kind of girl who got scared by old metal signs or creepy legends whispered at high school bonfires. Especially not tonight, when the world felt too heavy to sit still in. So, I climbed over it.
The Ravencourt woods weren't just off-limits they were cursed. That's what they said. That people went missing. That the land was tainted. That something hunted here at night. But none of that stopped me.
My boots hit the forest floor with a dull thud. Leaves crunched underfoot, and the wind cut through the trees like a blade. There was no sound. No animals. No chirping. No howling. Just silence like the woods were waiting for something.
Or someone.
I didn't bring a flashlight. Just my phone, which had 3% battery and no service. Classic Lyra move. But I kept walking, deeper into the dark, hugging my jacket tighter. The deeper I went, the thicker the air felt, like it was pressing against me. Like the forest wanted me to turn back.
I didn't.
Because I needed to forget. And breaking rules always worked better than crying.
Then I saw it.
Up ahead, through a gap in the trees something was there.
I slowed. My breath caught. My instincts screamed to turn around, but I didn't.
A figure. Tall. Bare-chested. Chained to one of the dead trees like a sacrifice. His head hung low, hair messy, dried blood caked around his neck and shoulders. His skin was deathly pale, but he was breathing.
Barely.
I should've been horrified. I should've screamed or run. But instead, I stepped closer.
And then his head snapped up.
His eyes met mine.
Black. Deep. Empty. And yet… hungry. Like I wasn't a person to him - I was prey.
I froze.
"Who are you?" I asked, my voice shaking. My hand tightened around my phone.
He didn't respond. His stare was too steady, too intense. Like he already knew me. Like he'd seen me before, in dreams or lifetimes I'd forgotten.
And I saw something in his eyes I didn't expect.
Pain.
"Are you hurt?" I whispered, taking another step.
His body tensed. Chains rattled. Veins darkened under his skin as if something inside him was waking up.
"You need to go," he growled.
His voice was rough, shredded from lack of use xxor too much screaming.
I didn't move.
"What happened to you? Who did this?"
Again, no answer. Just tension. And that look like he was starving for something I couldn't name.
Then, in one second, everything shattered.
The chains snapped.
He surged forward, but stopped right at the edge of where I stood, breathing hard, fists clenched. His body radiated heat and something darker. Something wrong.
His eyes flashed red.
"You shouldn't be here," he said again, slower this time. Dead serious.
"Yeah," I whispered, "I figured that out."
He was behind me in the next second. I didn't see him move. Just gone and then right there.
His breath hit the back of my neck, and I froze.
"I told you to run."
I turned my head, slowly. "And you didn't listen when I asked what happened."
He stared at me like he was trying to solve me. Break me. Like I was the first real thing he'd seen in ages.
I reached up don't ask me why and touched his cheek. Cold. Like he hadn't been alive in a very long time. But when my fingers brushed him, he flinched like I burned him.
"You're not scared," he said.
I was. But not of him.
"Maybe I should be."
"You should be terrified."
He stepped back a little but not far enough.
"I haven't fed in weeks," he said. "If I lose control "
"You won't."
His jaw clenched.
And then he moved again, so fast I didn't even see it happen.
Fangs. Sharp. Real.
He sank them into my neck.
I gasped. My knees buckled. My whole body arched into his.
Pain, sharp and immediate, shot down my spine—but then heat followed. A wave of something electric, dark, intoxicating. His arms locked around me, one hand gripping the back of my neck like he was anchoring himself. My fingers dug into his chest. I could feel every beat of his hunger, every ounce of his need pouring into me.
It was violent. Intimate. Possessive.
And I didn't want it to stop.
When he finally pulled away, my breath came in shudders. He held me up. His mouth was stained red.
"You didn't scream," he said.
"I didn't want to."
His eyes were no longer red. They were gray now. Stormy. Endless.
"You're not supposed to be real," I whispered, dazed.
"I've been waiting for you, Lyra."
Hearing my name in his voice was like hearing fate crack open.
Then everything went black.
Unknown Time Unknown Place
I woke up on cold stone. My head throbbed. My throat ached. And my wrists chained.
Actual chains.
"What the hell—" I tried to sit up, panic rising fast.
"You're awake."
The voice.
I looked up.
Him.
He stepped into view. No shirt. No blood now. Just eyes that wouldn't stop burning holes into me. He was even more dangerous in the light. Sculpted like a nightmare perfect and terrifying.
"You bit me!" I snapped. "You fed on me and then what, kidnapped me?"
"I saved you."
"That's not what it looked like."
"If I left you there, others would've come. You wouldn't have made it out alive."
"What others?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped closer, gaze dropping to my throat.
"You're marked now. You carry my scent. No one will touch you."
I yanked on the chains. "Let me go."
"No."
"I don't belong to you!"
He tilted his head. "You came to me. You offered your blood."
"I didn't offer you attacked me!"
"You didn't pull away. You clung to me like you needed it too."
I stared at him. Hating how right he sounded.
"You don't get to decide what that meant."
"Neither do you. Because you don't know what you've done."
My breath caught. "What did I do?"
"You woke me."
My chest tightened. "You mean… like out of sleep?"
He shook his head. "Out of death. Out of centuries. Out of a curse."
I stared.
"You don't even realize it yet, do you?" he asked, voice quiet but sharp. "You're not just a girl who got lost in the woods."
"Then what am I?"
He stepped closer, the torchlight casting shadows across his face. "Mine."
My blood ran cold.
"I don't care what prophecy or curse you think I'm tied to," I spat. "I'm not going to be your prisoner. You don't own me."
His expression darkened but it wasn't anger. It was hunger. Obsession. A need so deep, it looked like it would swallow him.
"You're the only thing that's ever felt real," he said, low and raw. "I tasted your blood, Lyra. And I saw everything. Your pain. Your fire. Your rage. You're not like the others."
"I'm still not yours," I whispered.
His lips curled into a slow, lethal smile. "Then why are you still here?"
I yanked at the chains again. "Because you chained me!"
"And you haven't screamed once. Why?"
I didn't answer.
Because I didn't know.
Because part of me… didn't want to leave.
He knelt in front of me. Reached for my face. I turned my head, but not fast enough. His thumb brushed my jaw.
"You're in my world now," he said. "And once something enters it, it never leaves."
A shiver ran through me.
"I'm going to ruin you," I said.
His eyes flared.
"I'm counting on it."
And just like that-
The game began.