The night had grown still. Unnaturally so.
Not even the wind dared touch the high towers where Lucian stood, cloaked in the hush of impending bloodshed. Below, the ancient city, once veiled in calm reverence, now stirred like a serpent shedding its skin—ready to bite.
Behind him, the soft rustle of fabric. He didn't need to turn to know it was Kyrell. He could feel him now—like gravity, like breath. The bond had become something else entirely. Not a whisper. A call.
"I heard them chant in the lower halls," Kyrell said, voice edged with quiet fury. "They're awakening something. Something older than the Council."
Lucian didn't respond immediately. His eyes were fixed on the night sky. There were no stars.
Only a dark, pulsating void.
"I saw it too," he murmured. "In a vision… or a memory that wasn't mine. A gate. Sealed with names carved in blood. Mine was one of them."
Kyrell stepped beside him, close enough for their shoulders to touch.
"Lucian, you're not just tied to the prophecy," he said. "You are the rupture. The end and the beginning."
Lucian finally looked at him—eyes like dying embers in the dark. "And what are you?"
Kyrell's mouth curved faintly. "Your storm. Your sword. Your lover."
The word lodged itself like a dagger in Lucian's ribs, but he didn't flinch. Instead, he stepped forward until his back hit the stone pillar and pulled Kyrell into him—rough, breathless, demanding.
Their mouths collided.
No restraint this time. No fear of fate or prophecy. Just hunger.
Kyrell's hands gripped Lucian's waist, fingertips bruising, needing to remember the shape of him again and again. Lucian growled low, his fangs grazing Kyrell's throat, but not biting—not yet. Kyrell tilted his head back anyway, baring his neck as though offering a holy thing to be desecrated.
"Say it," Lucian whispered against his skin.
Kyrell's breath shuddered. "I'm yours."
Lucian's control broke.
He sank his fangs into the soft, waiting flesh—and the world trembled.
A flood of heat surged between them, raw and sacred. Kyrell gasped, his knees buckling, and Lucian held him up, drinking slowly, reverently. This was no mere feeding. It was a claim. A vow written in blood.
When Lucian pulled back, lips slick and eyes gleaming red, Kyrell reached up and wiped the corner of his mouth with his thumb, then kissed him again—tasting himself on Lucian's tongue.
"I would burn the world if they touched you again," Kyrell said.
Lucian's voice was quiet because he was madly in love with this creature.
---
Below, deep within the Council sanctum, Damien stood at the edge of the blackened pool where the old gods once wept.
He was no longer trembling. His eyes glowed silver, inhuman.
"They marked him heir again," the voice behind him said—Renak, perhaps, or someone cloaked in magic. "Even after all we did to bury that line."
"Then we bury it deeper," Damien whispered.
From the shadows, something stirred. Something not of this world.
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