There was something in the way Alessia looked at Liam that held both tenderness and storms—
and behind her eyes lived a decision already made.
"I'll need a few days to move… a family inheritance,"
she said softly, choosing each word as though it carried the weight of centuries.
Liam paused.
A faint unease flickered across his face.
A family inheritance? She's never mentioned any relatives… why now?
The question pressed at him, but he didn't want to wound the moment.
"Inheritance? I don't think you ever told me about your parents."
Alessia lowered her gaze—not dramatically, but with a quiet ache,
as if touching a memory covered in dust.
"There's no one left. Just… the things they left behind."
He nodded gently, unaware he had just brushed the edge of an abyss.
There were no parents.
No legal inheritance.
What Alessia was about to move were relics of centuries spent in the shadows—
artifacts gathered through blood-pacts, broken alliances,
and promises sealed under moons the world had forgotten.
…
Days later, they walked the city together looking for a place with history… a place with a soul.
They found it.
An abandoned bookstore tucked between silent alleyways in the old district.
High ceilings, stained-glass windows dulled by time,
brick walls holding secrets like old wounds,
dust floating like memory in the filtered light.
The carved wooden sign hanging over the entrance bore gold lettering—faded but stubborn.
The moment they stepped inside, Alessia felt something stir inside her,
like echoes recognizing their keeper.
Liam, meanwhile, felt like he was stepping into a dream finally made solid beneath his feet.
They didn't hesitate.
They signed the lease that same afternoon.
And with the key in hand, they began building not just a store—
but a sanctuary. A pact.
…
That night, alone in her apartment, Alessia slid a bookshelf aside—
not with effort, but with practiced precision.
Behind it, a steel vault waited.
When she opened it, golden light spilled out like a memory.
Gold bars stacked in neat lines.
Ancient coins.
Banknotes from eras long buried.
Necklaces with garnets dark as dried blood.
Rings inscribed in languages the world no longer spoke.
The air itself smelled of time.
Over the next few days, she carried envelopes to banks… discreetly.
Transfers were arranged quietly, with no questions asked.
To Liam, it was investment from a "family trust."
To her, it was the harvest of centuries spent surviving the wars of clans.
…
They began restoring the shop:
Iron-framed glass display cases.
Velvet-lined shelves.
Chandeliers resembling old gaslight designs.
Dark, warm walls.
Stained-glass restored to let the sun in—softly, never harshly.
Alessia contacted suppliers—
the kind whose letters arrived written in black ink on parchment, sealed in wax,
addresses penned in hand so old it felt like whispering.
One sender in particular—M. Drovak—
lived in a manor deep in the forests of British Columbia.
His crates arrived stamped with runes scorched into the wood.
Instructions came in Latin mixed with old Slavic sigils.
Liam noticed that some objects seemed… alive.
A pendulum clock from the 1800s that kept time though nothing powered it.
A marble figurine that shifted position overnight—just slightly.
A closed book that whispered when he walked past.
Once, he swore something breathed inside a locked glass case.
He didn't ask questions.
Part of him didn't want the answers.
…
They traveled through Alberta, through Quebec, through hidden towns outside Vancouver.
Every acquisition had a past.
Some had scars.
Liam drove the trailer like it was a carriage of wonders.
Alessia escorted it like one protects a sacred relic.
Their days became ritual:
Brushing dust from old spines.
Restoring wood.
Cataloguing secrets.
Eating dinner on the floor among crates.
Kissing between shelves.
One afternoon, while opening an old leather-bound book,
Liam found a letter dated 1872, describing a dream of a fallen angel stirring war among humans and myth-born.
Ébano, the Angora cat, slept atop medieval tomes as though presiding over his kingdom.
And one day, broom in hand, wood shavings underfoot, Liam said:
"I don't miss the office anymore… This is mine.
This is ours."
Alessia looked at him.
Something inside her—something ancient, tired, armored—
softened.
For the first time in centuries… eternity had direction.
…
They opened the store with its chosen name:
Ink & Blood Relics
The neighborhood whispered about it.
Readers, artists, eccentrics—drawn like moths to candlelight.
Some swore the place had a pulse.
A woman claimed she dreamed of a small silver mirror she saw there.
In the dream, her reflection smiled though she did not.
When she returned to the shop the next day,
the mirror was angled toward the door—as if waiting.
…
Every morning, they opened the shop like opening a new chapter.
Every evening, they closed it with a shared breath.
Love lived in the corners.
In the dust motes.
In the candlelight.
In the laughter and the silence.
But peace is always a prologue.
That night, as they were closing,
Alessia walked toward the back door…
and froze.
A pale figure stood outside.
Skin like frost.
Eyes—red.
The eyes of a newborn.
Not starved.
Not lost.
Sent.
His gaze locked onto hers.
Unblinking.
Unashamed.
Then he slipped into the alley and vanished.
Alessia's breath left her body in a cold rush.
They know where I am.
And they know who I love.
The storm had found her.
At last.