The word "Contractor" struck Elara like a physical blow, sending a violent shiver down her spine. She shook her head in disbelief, but the pale silver mark on her fingertip seemed to sense her resistance. It flared with sudden, searing heat, forcing her to hiss in pain.
"I don't know you, and there is no such contract," Elara stammered, her voice trembling. She scrambled backward until her shoulders hit the cold edge of the workbench. There was nowhere left to run. She looked into Samuel's deep crimson eyes, finding no warmth—only a chilling certainty that made her feel like a moth caught in a web.
Samuel's gaze dropped to her reddened fingertip, his eyes darkening to a deeper shade of blood. He didn't approach her again. Instead, he turned his attention to the intruder groveling on the floor. The man in the windbreaker was curled in a fetal position, black, oily blood seeping from the corners of his mouth. When his eyes met Samuel's, his entire body seized with terror.
"Go back and tell Valerius," Samuel said. His voice was flat, yet it carried a suffocating weight that seemed to drain the oxygen from the room. "My Contractor is not for him to touch. If I see his curs here again, they won't live long enough to crawl back."
The intruder didn't need to be told twice. He scrambled through the shattered window, vanishing into the shadows of the London street in an instant. Only the glinting glass shards and a lingering, acrid mist remained to prove he had been there.
Samuel raised a hand and gave a sharp, elegant flick of his wrist. An invisible force swept through the studio. The glass shards vanished, and the broken window was temporarily sealed by a shimmering black barrier, blocking out the biting city wind.
He turned back to Elara. His tone remained frosty, but there was a hint of an explanation in his words. "The Moonlight Covenant is an ancient inheritance of the Blackwood Clan. It binds the Lord to his fated Partner. Once the seal is struck, it is irreversible."
"I never agreed to this!" Elara finally found her voice, though it cracked with emotion. The pain in her hand and the terror in her heart were too much to bear. "That book... it forced this on me, didn't it?"
Samuel did not deny it. He gave a sharp, single nod. "The manuscript is the key, and you are the only one capable of resonating with it. Your blood carries the legacy of a forgotten Script-Mage lineage—a bloodline capable of balancing the powers of the supernatural races. You were the only choice the Covenant would accept."
"Script-Mage?" Elara was stunned. She had grown up in an ordinary orphanage, believing she was a nobody whose only companions were silent books. The idea of a magical heritage felt like a fever dream.
"It is no surprise you are unaware," Samuel said, his gaze lingering on her pale face. "To escape the purges led by the Valerius faction, your ancestors buried their magic and vanished into human society. But blood does not forget. It only waits for the right trigger. This book was that trigger."
Elara looked at the manuscript on the workbench. Its circular seal seemed to mock her. In one afternoon, her quiet, safe life had been incinerated.
"Who is Valerius? Why is he hunting me?" She forced herself to breathe, to think.
"My uncle, and the leader of the Blackwood radicals," a flash of lethal coldness crossed Samuel's eyes. "He views humans as cattle. He intends to dismantle the Supernatural Council and plunge this world into war. Your bloodline is the key he needs to amplify his power and enslave the other races. This book contains the secrets to restraining him—secrets he would kill to possess."
Elara's heart sank. She wasn't just a victim of a magical accident; she was a prize in a war she didn't understand.
"What do I do?" she whispered, feeling small and helpless.
Samuel stepped closer, his shadow falling over her. "Come to Blackwood Castle. My barriers will keep you safe. I will teach you to command your blood and wield the script-magic dormant within you."
"Trust you?" Elara looked up, her eyes flashing with defiance. "Why? You and Valerius share the same name. For all I know, you're two sides of the same coin!"
Samuel didn't flare in anger. Instead, he held up his left hand. The obsidian ring on his finger glowed with a cold, spectral light. As he turned it, a pale silver mark—identical to the one on Elara's hand—manifested on the stone.
"The Covenant binds us," he said, his voice deep and resonant. "Your life is tethered to mine. If you bleed, I feel the sting. If you die, I am broken. I have every reason to keep you alive, Elara."
The walls she had built around herself began to crumble. She could feel it now—the invisible thread pulling at her soul, connecting her to this cold, beautiful monster.
Suddenly, her phone vibrated on the workbench. "Old George" flashed on the screen. Elara lunged for it.
"Elara, run!" George's voice was ragged, punctuated by heavy gasps. "I was jumped at the museum... they wanted the book. They said if you don't hand it over, they'll burn the studio with you inside! Elara, are you—"
The line went dead.
"George? George!" Elara screamed into the phone, her hands shaking uncontrollably. She looked at Samuel, despair clear in her eyes. "They attacked him... he's hurt because of me."
Samuel's crimson eyes flared. "I will dispatch my guards to protect him. But this shop is compromised. You stay, and you die."
Elara looked at the studio she had called home for five years. It was no longer a sanctuary; it was a cage. She looked at Samuel, then at the mark on her hand. She made her choice.
"I'll go," she said, clenching her fists. "But you guarantee George's safety. Not a hair on his head is to be touched."
"Agreed," Samuel replied without hesitation. He waved his hand, and the ancient book snapped shut, flying into his grasp. "We leave now. Time is a luxury we no longer have."
Outside, a sleek, black vintage car waited in the shadows. Samuel opened the door for her. Elara hesitated for only a second before stepping inside, leaving her old life behind.
As the car pulled away, Elara watched her familiar street disappear. The mark on her finger throbbed with a rhythmic warmth. Her journey into a world of blood, ancient scripts, and forbidden contracts had just begun. Beside her, Samuel watched her profile, a shadow of an unreadable emotion in his eyes. He had her safe, but the war for her soul was only beginning.