The velvet blindfold wrapped around Elvira's eyes like a noose soaked in perfume—soft, sweet, and suffocating. It smelled like crushed violets and forbidden intentions. Every slow step Elijah guided her through was a lullaby meant to make her forget the truth. But she never forgot.
She wouldn't.
The soles of her boots kissed the polished floors with reluctant grace. He had asked her to trust him for "just one surprise." She hadn't answered. But she'd let him tie the ribbon anyway. Let him lead her down the echoing halls of the Rowegan palace—his den of glittering secrets and elegant threats.
Because to deny him outright would cost her a chance. And she wasn't here for games.
Elijah, however, was a man of games. Of illusions, velvet gloves, and that cursed crooked smile.
"Almost there," he sang softly, as if they were lovers walking to a garden wedding. "No peeking."
She didn't reply. He liked that.
They stepped onto stone. The air shifted. Warmer. Laced with pollen and perfume. A wind stirred her hair. Birdsong danced around them—too sweet, too perfectly placed. She tensed.
Elijah stopped.
With careful fingers, he untied the knot at the back of her head and slowly removed the blindfold. "Now," he whispered near her ear, "open those storm-colored eyes."
The world unveiled itself in impossible beauty.
Elvira stood in a garden suspended in another time. A circular courtyard paved with pearlescent stone shimmered under a honey-gold sky. Blossoming trees twisted above them in spirals of lilac and gold. The air smelled like midsummer dreams—honeysuckle, orange blossom, and moon-laced lavender. Waterfalls trickled nearby, feeding into a pond where white koi swam beneath lily pads shaped like crescent moons.
In the center of the courtyard stood a white-marble gazebo, tall and spiraling like a wedding cake sculpted by angels. Ivy climbed its columns like green veins pulsing with magic.
And in front of her, like an over-adoring villain from a twisted ballet, stood Elijah. Holding a bouquet.
A lavish, unruly thing. Thorns still clung to the stems. Nightshade. Blood-roses. Poison lilies. Each petal looked freshly kissed by rain. His grin stretched wide, like he'd stolen this scene from a fairytale written only for himself.
But Elvira didn't blink.
Her jaw clenched. Her gaze didn't touch the flowers. It cut straight through him.
And her words came like the snap of winter branches:
"Elijah, don't play games with me."
The birds silenced.
Elijah tilted his head. "Now, now—"
"You know I stay in this only for my father." Her voice trembled, not with fear, but with the exhaustion of restraint. "When are you going to release him to me?"
The bouquet wilted in his hand—metaphorically. He held it like a child scolded for a gift misunderstood.
"Elvira," he began with theatrical softness, "do you think I'd bring you here just for seduction?"
"Yes." Her answer was immediate. Cutting.
The flowers hit the floor between them with a soft, pitiful flutter. She stepped over them.
"I don't care how many false heavens you build. I don't want petals. I want proof. That my father is alive. That you're not just using me to parade around in some stitched-up fantasy of yours."
Elijah inhaled through his nose, eyes closing. Then exhaled, slowly. "Your lack of gratitude wounds me," he murmured, every syllable drawn out like honey clinging to poisoned fruit.
"This isn't gratitude," she said. "This is survival."
He smirked at that. "Survival looks divine on you."
She moved closer, stopping only inches away. "You think I care how I look? I would walk through ash barefoot if it meant getting to him."
Elijah's hand twitched, as though tempted to touch her cheek—but he didn't dare. Not now. Not with fire behind her stare.
Instead, he turned and began walking ahead, slow, his long black coat trailing like a fallen bishop's robe. "Did you know," he said, voice drifting, "that the Rowegan clan is now officially united with the House of Elverishire?"
Her blood froze.
He went on. "It happened last night. Signed in the violet hour. A blood-seal, sacred and ancient. The noble houses toasted under a blood-moon, all while the world slept unaware."
She followed, heart pounding. "You forged that treaty."
"I facilitated it," he corrected, flashing a sharp-toothed smile. "Details, darling."
"You used me," she snapped.
"I honored you," he said. "You are now the unspoken thread that binds the houses. Your name, your beauty, your legacy—it weaves through both bloodlines. And soon, perhaps your heart as well?"
He turned and walked backward in front of her, his expression flushed with self-congratulatory madness. "Can you imagine it, Elvira? When our people no longer war in shadows? When your crown rests beside mine, under a union forged in violet flame and ancient vows—"
She stopped listening.
Her mind spun—not with his madness, but with purpose.
If the treaty was done, the pressure on her would intensify. They wouldn't keep her father forever—unless they had no reason not to.
She needed to know where they kept him. What wing. What door. Which guard whispered about "the royal prisoner." She needed leverage.
And Elijah's ego… oh, it was endless.
As he spun, arms spread beneath the gazebo's ivy veil, declaring "peace among purebloods!" she let her eyes wander—not to him—but to the details.
How many cameras tracked this courtyard?
How many guards lurked behind floral hedges?
Where did the stone path behind the koi pond lead?
She memorized every exit, every tree tall enough to climb. She smiled thinly when he looked her way.
"You're quiet," he said, suspicious now. "Does it finally enchant you?"
"I was just thinking," she said softly, walking toward him. "What an odd choice of flowers."
He blinked. "Excuse me?"
"Nightshade and blood-roses," she said. "Not exactly a lover's bouquet."
His grin twitched. "Maybe I like a little danger."
"So do I." Her voice went quiet. "But only when I'm in control of it."
He didn't like that.
His smile thinned. "Elvira," he warned, stepping closer again, lowering his voice, "if you're planning something foolish—"
"I'm planning nothing," she lied. "Just enjoying your generous hospitality."
He studied her. For the first time, his expression wavered. He wasn't sure if he was winning anymore.
And she—goddess bless her—wasn't sure how much longer she could keep the dagger in her soul from showing through her eyes.
She just needed more time.
More pieces.
And one open door.
---
End of Part I
Let me know when you're ready and I'll send Part II: Avegar's fury, brothers, and the castle in flames.
Avegar's pov
---
Avegar hadn't spoken in three days.
Not because he didn't have words. But because words were too small for what roared in his chest.
He stood alone in the long hall of cracked columns beneath the Rowegan stronghold. Rain clattered faintly against stained glass above, each droplet a beat in the silence. Outside, the sky had the color of split metal—storm-bruised, threatening to bleed.
When the doors opened, it wasn't dramatic. It was necessary.
Leon entered first—hair pulled back, armored, impatient.
Then Silas, with blood on his boots from whatever mess he'd cleaned up before this.
Cassian strolled in last, lazily tossing a silver coin and catching it without looking.
Then came Evan, Theron, and Markus. Together now. Always together, when things began to burn.
Avegar didn't turn to face them at first.
He pressed one palm against the war table, its surface marked with carved sigils and aged paper maps, yellowed and curling at the corners.
They waited.
Finally, Avegar spoke. His voice was deeper than the room expected. Rougher. Like something that hadn't been used in years.
"They have her."
No one asked who.
They knew.
Silas broke the silence, cracking a knuckle. "Are you sure it wasn't her choice?"
Avegar's hand curled into a fist.
Leon folded his arms. "You did say to stay away. Maybe she—"
— SLAM.
Avegar's palm hit the table, loud enough to rattle a nearby candleholder. His eyes were not the storm. They were the center of it.
"I saw her. And I saw him. Do not ask me again."
Cassian raised a brow. "So what's the plan? Or are we just punching walls?"
Avegar looked at them. Each brother. Their strengths. Their doubts.
Then he stepped back, arms rigid, jaw tight.
"No more plans. Just orders."
His voice cracked—not in weakness, but pressure. Like a dam bursting.
"You're to go after the princess. Every path. Every whisper. I don't care if it's blood-tracked or spell-tied—find her."
Evan hesitated. "But Avegar, the Hunters—"
"Are already at our gates." His voice was fire under ice. "Is it not enough we're under attack from them too?"
Theron tilted his head. "Then why chase a girl who might already be lost?"
Avegar took one step forward.
"Because she's not. And because if we don't get to her—he will keep her. Break her. And she will never come back."
Silence.
No one dared speak.
Avegar's face was cold marble, but his chest burned.
"Go."
They left.
And he stood alone again, in the quiet storm.
---
Meanwhile…
The wind pulled at Elvira's cloak like a child trying to stop her.
The closer she came to Elverishire, her home, the more wrong it felt.
First came the smell. Smoke. Not the kind that lingered from kitchen fires. This was thick. Oily. Black.
She ran.
Boots hitting stone, then dirt, then ash.
When she came over the last hill and saw the silhouette of the castle she'd grown up in—
Her knees nearly buckled.
It was burning.
The east wing was half-gone. Flames curled up its spires like skeletal fingers dragging the structure into the sky's waiting mouth. The gardens had been scorched, roses now twisted cinders.
Her breath caught in her throat as screams reached her ears—human and not.
And then she saw them.
Dozens—maybe hundreds—of figures in gray and white. Robes drawn tight against the heat. Symbols scrawled in red across their chests: crosses with solar flares, swords wrapped in scripture, halos with thorns. Hunters.
One held a torch. Another held a stake.
Another pointed at the horizon. "She returns! The blood witch returns!"
"Seize her!"
But Elvira didn't run.
She walked forward. Slowly. Eyes wide. Dazed.
She was home. This was her home. And it was dying.
She could smell the tapestries burning. The ones her mother had stitched by hand. She could almost see her father in the tower, reading by candlelight. Except—no. He wasn't here.
He was still with them.
And these people…these fanatics, were erasing him. Erasing everything.
Someone lunged. She ducked.
Another screamed, "For the sun-born! For the holy flame!"
Elvira turned and sprinted back into the forest, cloak catching on thorns, lungs burning. Behind her, the castle groaned, a sound of stone breaking under holy fire.
She didn't look back.
She couldn't.
---
Later That Night
The rain started too late to matter.
Elvira crouched under a willow tree deep in the woods, shaking. Not from fear—but fury. Her cheeks were stained black with smoke. Her braid had come undone. And her hands…
Her hands wouldn't stop trembling.
"They called me blood witch."
She whispered it aloud. No one heard.
"They knew who I was. Before they even saw my face."
This wasn't Elijah's doing. This wasn't Rowegan strategy.
This was something older. Crueler. A hatred passed down like a relic.
She felt the ghosts of her ancestors behind her. All the princesses and queens of Elverishire who'd been hunted for healing with forbidden herbs, for speaking to spirits, for loving things not born in temples.
She dug her nails into the dirt.
"If Avegar doesn't come soon…" she whispered.
But she didn't finish the thought.
Because if he didn't come, she would go to war without him. And she didn't even want him anymore. What a foolish thing to say that…
—----
ANNA
Anna sat cross-legged at her desk, hunched over the soft glow of her laptop, chewing the inside of her cheek as she typed. The rest of the room was dark, except for the blue light of the screen and a string of dusty fairy lights that hadn't worked in months.
Click. Click. Click.
She didn't even know what she was saying anymore.
She was making up something for her blog again—some lie about vampire royalty or secret blood cults operating in plain sight. She didn't even care if it made sense. She just wanted to finish it. Hit publish. Feel like she'd done something with her night.
She added one last line:
"The worst part about vampires isn't the thirst. It's the performance."
Her lips curled a little at that one.
That would get comments.
She leaned back in her chair and rubbed at her neck, stretching. Her muscles were tight, like she'd been holding her breath for hours.
And then—
She heard something.
A soft thump. Muffled. But not from outside.
She stilled.
It sounded like it came from inside the room.
Her eyes flicked toward the corner, and her stomach tightened.
Her closet door was open.
Only slightly—maybe four inches—but still. She always closed it. Always. It was a habit. A rule. Something she didn't even think about anymore.
She stared at the crack in the door for a moment, half-expecting something to move inside. Nothing did.
She stood up slowly and crossed the room.
When she reached the closet, she pushed the door open. Nothing jumped out. No shadow. No sound.
Just clothes. A pile of old shoes. Hangers. And that one jacket she hated but hadn't thrown out yet.
She reached in and pushed the clothes aside, fingers brushing past cool fabrics.
"Okay," she whispered to herself. "See? Nothing."
She closed the door again and turned back toward her desk.
But something didn't feel right.
She sat back down and looked at the screen. Her blog post was still up, cursor blinking in the empty space after the last sentence.
Click. Click. Click.
She typed a few more words, but her hands felt shaky now. Each sound of the keyboard made her flinch a little.
She couldn't shake the feeling that someone was behind her.
She didn't move. Didn't turn.
The air in the room felt heavier now, warmer, but not in a comforting way. More like someone else was breathing it.
Her hands hovered above the keyboard.
Just finish the post, she told herself. It's nothing.
But then—
She felt it.
A cold, light touch on the side of her neck.
Her whole body went rigid.
It felt like fingers. Barely touching her skin. Brushing her hair back.
She didn't want to believe it. Didn't want to react.
But it pressed harder.
Right at the base of her neck. Firm. Slow. Not hurting her, just… letting her know it was real.
Her eyes welled with tears, not from pain—but from how wrong it felt.
She turned her head slightly, heart pounding.
She looked back at the closet.
It was open again.
Wider this time.
The clothes inside swayed ever so slightly, like someone had just brushed past them.
She swallowed hard and reached up to touch her neck where the hand had been. Her skin was warm. Still tingling.
Her laptop flickered.
And then the screen went dark.
The entire room went black with it.
Just the hum of silence. And the sound of her breathing.
Then, a dark touch, again, like it tried to strangle her.
---