The attack was so fast the air didn't have time to react. Lysander lunged at the first men as if gravity were a rule he could ignore. There were no warnings, no initial sound—only a blur of muscle and shadow. Gunshots exploded through the space, tearing sparks from the balcony's metal, but he moved too fast, too precisely, as if violence were a choreography he had mastered before he was even born. An arm lifted, claws barely emerged—a silver flash—and one of my cousins dropped to his knees, his throat open before he could even scream.
The second one instinctively stumbled back, firing blindly. Bullets ripped through the air just centimeters from my face. I pressed myself against the wall, my heart pounding so violently it felt like my body wanted to flee even though my feet wouldn't move. The smell of gunpowder mixed with freshly spilled blood—a hot, metallic scent that churned my stomach and reminded me why I had never wanted to return to Rome. Violence always found a way to recognize me, like a sick old friend.
Lysander turned toward the third man. His body was no longer human in that instant: every muscle tightened into an impossible symmetry, bones seemed ready to tear through his own skin, and yet there was something glorious in his monstrosity. The last of my cousins hesitated, raised his weapon—and made the mistake of looking him straight in the eyes. In that instant, everything was decided. A blink. A strangled roar. A leap. Then the dull impact of a body hitting the marble floor of the balcony.
Silence.
A living silence, almost damp, like the air after a lightning storm. My hands trembled, though I tried to hide it beneath my coat. Lysander remained still, breathing hard, his chest rising and falling as if he were holding back a creature desperate to complete the transformation. The club's bluish light traced the silver lines still glowing beneath his skin, shadows carved impossible angles into his hands, and for a moment I thought he would never be human again.
He lifted his head and looked at me.
I felt something strip me bare from the inside—not with desire, not with violence, but with a recognition that made no sense. As if he knew who I was even before I had decided to be.
"Are you hurt?" he asked, and his voice was human again… but not entirely.
I shook my head, though the word caught in my throat.
"No… no. I don't think so."
He stepped closer, slowly, measuring every distance, as if each movement might frighten me. There was blood on his jaw, on his hands, even clinging to his lashes. But it wasn't his. And that certainty—that visceral awareness—slid over my skin like ice.
"I'm sorry," he said, and I was surprised by how sincere it sounded, how impossible it was that a creature like him would apologize. "I didn't mean for you to see it like that."
"Like what?" I asked, even though the answer was right in front of me. Him. All of him. What was human and what was not.
"The part I can't control when they put you in danger."
His words pierced me with a truth I didn't deserve. I studied his face, searching for any sign of manipulation, any lie. But his eyes were clear—dark and luminous at once—as if they held constellations that didn't belong to this world.
"I don't understand," I whispered. "Why… why are you doing this for me?"
He took a deep breath. The sound vibrated in my chest.
"Because they're coming for you," he replied with deadly calm. "And because I don't allow anyone to claim what fate placed in my path."
The word claim clawed at me from the inside.
"I'm not an object," I said firmly, though my voice trembled.
"I know," he admitted. "That's why you're alive."
A crash echoed from downstairs—doors slamming, more footsteps, more voices. My uncles had sent reinforcements. Of course they had. They never sent only three men when the prey was valuable.
Lysander tensed. I saw it. Saw his jaw tighten, the muscles beneath his shirt ready to tear through the fabric. He hadn't finished transforming. He hadn't finished holding himself back.
"More are coming," I said, though he already knew.
"I know. We don't have time."
"For what?"
His eyes flared again—but not with rage. With resolve.
"To run," he said. "But I won't take you anywhere you don't choose."
I froze. He waited for my answer as if it truly mattered. As if my choice held any power over what he was—or what he could do.
"Lysander…" I began. "I don't know you."
"And yet," he said, stepping close enough for me to feel the impossible heat radiating from his body, "your enemies have just declared themselves mine. I can't undo that. I don't want to undo it."
The noise below grew louder. Guns being loaded. Shouted orders.
The entire club seemed to tilt toward war.
He extended his hand to me. Human this time.
"Come with me," he said. "Or stay and let them decide for you."
My heart slammed so hard I thought my skin might split open.
I took a deep breath. I didn't know if the decision was truly mine—or if it had been written the moment I held his gaze for the first time.
I took his hand.
"Let's go."
And the world decided to change.
The movement was so fast I barely registered that we were no longer on the balcony. Lysander pulled me with a strength that wasn't brutal, but precise—calculated not to break me. We descended the club's internal staircases, the ones only the owners knew about, steeped in the smell of old wood, expensive perfume, and burned electricity. Each step echoed as if the building were breathing with us, stretched between chaos and escape.
The music had stopped completely. In its place, a dull murmur rose from below, as if all the club's sins had paused to watch us pass. My hands barely managed to grip the railing; my legs threatened to give out, but fear has that strange power of sharpening everything, making it painfully real. The air tasted of adrenaline and something else… something wild radiating from him, soaking into my skin like a second pulse.
"Where are we going?" I whispered, more to keep myself conscious than because I expected an answer.
"The back exit. They won't be able to surround us that fast. And your family doesn't know these corridors."
My family.
The words dropped inside me like a stone. I didn't know what hurt more—that they were hunting me, or that Lysander said it with such calm certainty, as if he knew exactly who I was even before I did.
We reached the bottom of the stairs. The security door was sealed with two electronic locks. A normal man would have taken minutes. Lysander took one second. He slid his fingers into the metal frame and pulled with a low growl; the metal screeched, warped, and the door gave way as if it were wet paper instead of tempered steel.
The noise drew the inevitable.
Voices behind us. Footsteps. Shouts.
My name.
The echo cut through the corridor like a knife.
Lysander turned to face me, his amber gaze glowing faintly beneath the red emergency lights. There was something in that glow that wasn't human—but it wasn't monstrous either.
It was… inevitable.
"They're going to try to separate us," he said tensely, each word loaded with an animal impulse fighting to break free. "Don't let go. No matter what you hear. No matter what they say."
"I know what they're capable of saying," I whispered, though the tremor in my hands betrayed me.
"No," he corrected. "You don't. Not yet."
He pushed the door open and we stepped outside. The night air hit us with the smell of old rain, wet gasoline, and that rusted metal scent that always announces violence in Rome. In the dark alley, only the distant hum of traffic and my ragged breathing could be heard.
We moved fast. Very fast. Him in front, me behind, my hand trapped between his hot, almost feverish fingers, as if his body were burning from the inside. Halfway down the alley, Lysander stopped abruptly.
"What is it?" I asked, unable to see what he saw.
"One of them is here."
My skin prickled.
A silhouette emerged at the far end of the alley. Tall, broad, armed. But it wasn't the gun that froze my blood.
It was the voice.
It was my uncle Adriano.
"Little girl…" he said, in that soft tone he used before ordering an execution. "What are you doing?"
Lysander stepped forward—just one step, but enough for my uncle to raise his weapon with clear intent to fire.
"Back away," Lysander ordered, without shouting, with a firmness that belonged neither to men nor beasts. "This is not your path."
My uncle let out a short, bitter laugh, like breaking glass.
"And you don't get to decide that, animal."
The word animal reshaped the air. I felt it. I breathed it. The world seemed to sway between two dangerous heartbeats.
Lysander didn't roar. He didn't attack. He didn't answer with fury. He simply took another step forward. I watched his back widen, the line of his neck tremble, the metallic scent of change begin to seep into the air.
But he held it back.
For me.
Whether by choice or instinct, I didn't know.
"She's not going with you," my uncle said, raising his gun.
"She's coming with me," Lysander replied, "because she chose to live."
The word live landed like a preemptive gunshot.
My uncle aimed straight at Lysander's chest. I screamed his name.
He didn't move.
He didn't retreat.
He didn't even blink.
The silence compressed until it hurt.
Then another voice rose behind us. Another presence. Another danger.
"Lower your weapons."
I turned, and my legs nearly gave out. Three more men dressed in black—handguns and rifles, badges without insignia. They weren't from my family. They weren't from any family.
They were mercenaries.
Professionals.
Ghosts bought with millions.
My uncle showed no surprise.
That told me everything.
"We've been preparing for this for a long time," Adriano said, never lowering his weapon. "You don't understand what he is. You don't understand what you are to him."
Lysander growled low, a vibration that climbed my ribs and made me feel like the world was about to split in two.
"Zara," he whispered—my name on his tongue sounding like both a warning and a plea. "When I tell you to run, you run."
But I no longer knew if I wanted to run.
I no longer knew if I could.
And then the mercenaries opened fire.