LOGINI had been stuck here for almost a week, and every passing hour made the walls feel like they were closing in. Staying indoors was a dreadful, suffocating experience. I had essentially barricaded myself in the guestroom to avoid Lucien, and thankfully, he seemed to have taken the hint. He left me alone, though the silence of the estate felt more like a predatory wait than a peace offering.
The staff moved like ghosts, their footsteps muffled by carpets that cost more than my entireMy father was executed... by his? “Look, I know you may hate me for what my father did,” Lucien started to speak, his voice desperate to bridge the widening gap between us. “But that doesn't—” “Get out.” I cut him off before he could finish another word. The air in the room felt like it had been sucked out, replaced by a cold, suffocating vacuum. He looked hurt—genuinely wounded that I would dismiss him so easily—but I didn't have any sympathy left to give. “Seraphina, I know—” he tried again, taking a step toward me. “You don’t know anything, Lucien!” I screamed at him. The sound ripped from my throat. “You can’t even begin to fathom what I feel right now!” I could feel the agitation vibrating in my limbs, the power in my blood reacting to the sheer chaos of my heart. “My entire birth family is dead, and it’s thanks to your father,” I said, my voice wobbling on the final word. “So don’t you da
Seraphina’s POV “Seraphina, we need to talk.” Those were the first words Lucien uttered to me, his voice low and vibrating with a tension that matched the storm inside my chest. What did we need to talk about? How he sent people to try to kill me? Or how he had gone to make arrangements with his people for my demise? I stared at him, my grip on the door handle so tight my knuckles were white. I felt like I was looking at a stranger wearing the face of the man I had started to trust. “We have nothing to talk about,” I said coldly. I looked directly into his eyes, checking to see if he would fluster or turn away, but he held my gaze with a haunting intensity. He looked... exhausted. “Yes, we do, Seraphina,” he said, letting out a long, heavy sigh. “Can I come in?” He asked quietly, looking down at me. Up close, he looked like a man who had carried the weight of the entire world on his back for fa
I stared at Madame Vivienne in total shock, as if she had suddenly grown two separate pairs of heads, making it three. The words coming out of her mouth were so absurd they felt like a fever dream. “What do you mean, Seraphina and I are the reincarnations of Alaric and this ‘Serene’ woman?” I asked, my voice thick with disbelief. I couldn't fathom how such a thing was even possible. My mind was racing, trying to find a logical explanation for the madness. “It is a hypothesis, Lucien. I am going on the facts provided by what Seraphina experienced,” she explained calmly. “What she saw… or more like what that woman ‘wanted’ her to know,” I countered. I wasn't ready to accept that my soul was tied to a man who had committed such atrocities. “What she wanted her to see to manipulate her against me.” “What makes you think so?” she asked, feeling another wave of bone-deep tiredness wash over me. The
“I said, stand down.” Lucien’s voice sounded like a booming crack of thunder, ceasing all movement in the yard. Instantly, all the men who had come to capture me dropped to their knees, bowing down to him. The fight drained out of them in that second. Of course they would yield. He was their King. “Speak. Who sent you?” he asked, his voice deadly calm. Why was he putting on this show for me? It was obvious they were his goons. They wouldn’t be here if he hadn’t sent them. He was the one sitting on the throne; nothing happened without his permission. “What are you doing in my house?” he asked again, his eyes narrowing as he stepped closer to the kneeling men. “Your Highness, we were sent by the Council to bring in the hybrid for punishment,” the leader answered, keeping his head firmly bowed to the grass. I saw Lucien visibly tense up at those words. His broad shoulders went completel
Hybrid?Me? The word echoed in my head, mocking me. It had to be some sick, twisted joke. I wasn't anything of the sort. I was just a normal human. A girl who baked on her free time. I belonged in a kitchen with the smell of flour and sugar, not standing on a porch facing down a hit squad. “But you were adopted,”Serene’s voice rang out,reminding me of my unknown origin. It was true. I was adopted. My breath hitched in my throat as the realization settled in like lead. What if my birth parents were… part something? Oh God, no. If I wasn't fully human, the laws of would… “They would kill you. Just like they killed me,” Serene finished for me, her voice dripping with reserved sadness. ‘Lucien would do to you what Alaric did to me.’ I felt physically sick at the thought. I wanted to scream, to deny it, but the doubt was already a poison in my veins. What if Lucien hadn't authorized this? He wouldn't do this to me.
I still couldn’t shake the thoughts racing through my mind. I remembered being a teenager and reading a book that, at the time, had brought me so much joy. But looking back at it now, I felt more than a bit skeptical. The story was about two lovers who were unfortunately separated due to a series of unnatural events, only to be reconnected in another timeline far from the one where they had died. It was a classic "soulmate" trope, but Alaric and Serene looked so much like me and Lucien that it felt like more than a coincidence. What if history wasn't just repeating itself? What if it was circling back to finish what it started? “Seraphina, are you busy?” A knock followed by Madame Vivienne’s voice snapped me out of my spiraling thoughts. I wasted no time going to answer the door. It had to be important for her to come looking for me so soon after her sprint out of the study. “No,
Lucien’s Pov I reached the castle gates just after midnight. The guards greeted me with deep bows of total submission, but I was focused on only two things: getting inside and securing the safety of the figure in my arms.Seraphina.Seraphina was bruised, beaten, and unrecognizable from being left
I poured all my nervous energy into the fruit tarts. After the emotional exhaustion of the call with Eliza, the kitchen was the only place I felt peace. I focused on the rhythm of the work. Crème pâtissière. Raspberries. Glaze. I was arranging t
I woke up to sunlight streaming through the window, but the heaviness in my chest remained. My eyes drifted to the floor. The shattered remains of my phone were gone. The carpet had been cleaned. It was as if Tyler’s call—and Lucien’s terrifying display of strength—
The kitchen was my sanctuary, and the rolling pin was my weapon. I worked with a manic intensity, channeling all the fear, confusion, and adrenaline from the village into the dough. Fold. Roll. Chill. Repeat. I knew what they were now. Or at least, I suspected. The glowing eyes in the diner, the







