I couldn't sleep after Lilith left.
Her voice haunted every corner of my mind, curling into the spaces Kael used to fill. She hadn't lied, not entirely. I'd seen her in dreams before. Her silhouette behind fire, her voice whispering from shadows I never dared walk toward.
Now I know why.
My blood wasn't Kael's. Not fully.
It belonged to something older.
Something far more dangerous.
Kael avoided my questions the next night.
He fed me wine laced with pleasure. He touched me like I was still his. He kissed me as if he could erase everything she'd said. But his eyes never stopped watching the door.
She'll come again,I said.
"I'll kill her before she gets close."
You can't protect me from what's already inside me.
He went still, the weight of my words sinking between us like stone.
"She's manipulating you," he said quietly.
"Then tell me the truth. About her. About me."
Kael sat on the edge of the bed, his hand tightening into a fist. "Lilith was once revered. A queen among vampires, the mother of blood. But her ambition poisoned her. She tried to create a line of immortals stronger than vampires. Something with the hunger of darkness, and the power of the divine.
And I'm one of them?
You're the last of them, he said. "The only one who survived."
The silence was sharp.
I stood, wrapping a robe around me even though I didn't feel cold anymore. "You knew this when you met me?"
He didn't deny it.
I wanted to stop her. I thought if I turned you, bonded you to me, I could contain you."
A flicker of betrayal cut through my chest.
So I was just a weapon to you.
No, Kael said, rising to meet me. "You were hope. And then you became everything."
Tears pricked the corners of my eyes. I don't know what to believe anymore.
Believe this, he whispered, stepping close. "Whatever Lilith wants, whatever blood runs in your veins, you're still the girl I fell in love with. Even if that love damns us both.
But love wasn't going to stop what was coming.
The bond between me and Kael began to fray. I felt Lilith's presence more each day, her voice rising louder in my dreams. She showed me things that I could become. Not a queen.
A goddess.
One that didn't need Kael to survive.
The night it all changed, the sky bled crimson.
Kael stood on the rooftop, watching the city burn below. Lilith had begun her awakening calling her followers to rise from the crypts. The blood wars had begun.
And I had to choose.
Him or her.
I won't let you go to her,Kael said, voice shaking.
She's part of me.
She'll destroy everything that makes you human.
Maybe I was never meant to be human.
He stepped toward me, hands cupping my face. If you go to her, I will follow. And if I have to kill her, I will.
His lips met mine desperate, trembling. Not a kiss of dominance, but of mourning. Of goodbye.
Then kiss me like you already lost me, I whispered.
So
And he did.
That night, I walked into the fire.
Lilith welcomed me with open arms. And as her blood burned through me, as my final mortal tether snapped, I looked back one last time.
Kael was there.
On his knees.
Bleeding.
Begging.
Eyes filled with tears he would never let fall.
And I turned away.
Because love wasn't enough anymore.
The first night without Kael was the hardest.
The bond didn't break immediately; it frayed, resisted, then unraveled in pieces. I could still feel him in the corners of my heart, a phantom ache pulsing with every breath I took. But it was growing quieter. Dimmer.
Lilith watched from her throne of obsidian, lips painted like spilled wine.
You still ache for him, she said, amused. How adorable.
I loved him,I whispered.
She rose, her presence suffocating. Love is a leash. What you feel is the echo of a weaker self.
I don't want to forget him.
You will, she said. Or it will destroy you.
She took me to the old chapel at midnight. The walls dripped with old blood, and candles burned with unnatural flame.
Drink, she said, offering a silver chalice filled with her own blood. And be reborn.
I hesitated and Kael's voice echoed in my mind: She'll make you hers.
But he had made me his first.
And now I belonged to no one.
I drank.
Fire tore through my veins hotter than Kael's bite, deeper than any pleasure I'd known. My scream shattered the glass windows. The power that had slept inside me for so long erupted, unchained and wild.
I felt everything.
The hunger.
The rage.
The sorrow.
And underneath it all Kael.
Still alive.
Still watching.
Still breaking.
When I opened my eyes, the world was red.
Lilith smiled. Welcome, daughter.
I didn't smile back.
Because even though she gave me power… she couldn't give me peace.
That night, I dreamt of him.
Kael, kneeling in the rain, blood running from his chest where I had kissed him last. His eyes closed, his voice a whisper in my head:
I would've let the world burn for you. And you lit the match.
I woke up crying.
But I didn't stop.
Because I couldn't go back.
Not anymore.
I watched Kael disappear into the smoke, his silhouette swallowed by the night. Every step away from him felt like tearing skin from bone but I didn't stop.
Lilith waited with her hand extended, her smile sharp as a blade. You're beginning to understand," she said.
No, I whispered, tears drying on my cheeks. "I'm beginning to forget."
Inside the temple, the flames burned black. She offered her blood, and I drank. It tasted like fire, like lust, like every lie Kael ever told me stripped bare.
My veins turned molten. My screams echoed off the stone walls. I saw visions of what I was before Kael, of what I would become without him.
When it ended, I stood stronger. Colder. My heart felt hollow.
Lilith kissed my forehead. You were never meant to be his.
I nodded, but the truth scraped inside me like broken glass.
That night, I dreamed of Kael kneeling in ash, whispering my name like a prayer.
And when I woke up, I didn't cry.
But my pillow was soaked in blood.
Why is this happening now I regretted why I went to that creepy house, if I didn't go there all this couldn't have been happening but I think this my fate