SLEEP WALKER
A door creaked open ahead, slow and deliberate, as if the very air protested against the intrusion.
Beyond it, the chamber yawned like a cavernous maw, swallowing the dim light of the torches that lined the stone walls.
The flames twisted violently, shadows stretching in jagged patterns, distorting reality with every flicker.
The scent of damp earth and iron thickened, coiling around her like unseen hands.
Something shifted in the darkness.
A figure slumped against the far wall, their form barely distinguishable from the gloom. Chains rattled as they stirred, wrists bound, head lolling forward.
Their breathing was shallow, ragged.
Familiar.
Selene's pulse thundered.
Her feet moved of their own accord.
A step closer.
The torches guttered, the flames sputtering in protest.
Another step.
The air turned stifling, pressing against her skin, as if the room itself sought to suffocate her.
Then,
A slow, brittle inhale.
The figure lifted their head, strands of sweat-matted hair falling away from a face she had memorized in another life.
Alina.
Her best friend. Her sister-in-arms.
A thousand memories clashed in her mind; Alina laughing beside a crackling fire, whispering battle plans in the dead of night, gripping her hand before the final charge. Alive. Fierce. Unbreakable.
But the woman before her was none of those things.
Her eyes, once alight with defiance, were hollow now; lifeless except for the burning ember of hatred smoldering within them.
Selene's throat tightened. "Alina…?"
Alina's lips parted, curling upward; but it wasn't a smile. It was something broken, something wrong.
Her voice was a whisper, sharp as a dagger.
"Monster."
The word slammed into Selene's chest, lashing across her soul like a barbed whip.
The air shuddered.
Selene jerked awake with a strangled gasp, her body twisting violently against the silken sheets.
The room was wrong.
Everything was too pristine, too elegant, too silent; a stark contrast to the choking darkness of the memory still clawing at her mind.
But the nightmare didn't release her.
A cold shockwave pulsed through her veins, an invisible force cracking beneath her skin like a storm waiting to break.
Then came the pain.
A raw, unbearable agony, as if something unnatural writhed beneath her flesh.
Selene stumbled from the bed, her breath hitching, her hands clawing at herself; her arms, her chest, her face. This isn't me.
Her nails scraped across her skin.
No. No, no, NO.
A choked sob tore from her lips.
The sensation was wrong. The flesh beneath her fingertips felt foreign, twisted, as if she had been shoved into the husk of someone else.
The monster. The sickness.
The thing they had turned her into.
She had to get it out.
With a ragged inhale, she raked her nails down her forearm; deep, desperate.
A thin line of jet black blood beaded across pale skin, followed by another, and another; but it wasn't enough.
Her breath came in sharp, broken gasps.
She dug deeper.
Deeper.
The pain sharpened, a clarity in the madness. But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
A rush of footsteps.
The door slammed open.
The maids rushed in, their faces twisting in horror at the sight before them.
"My Lady!"
Selene didn't hear them.
Her world was collapsing.
Her hands trembled, stained with the proof of what she was, of what she wasn't.
A maid lunged toward her, arms outstretched to pull her away from the destruction she was wreaking upon herself,
But the moment fingertips brushed her skin,
A violent pulse of energy exploded outward.
The air rippled. The walls trembled.
The maid was thrown back, her body slamming against the wall with a sickening crack before she crumpled to the floor.
The others froze.
Silence.
Then,
"She's going to kill herself—!"
The voice was frantic, laced with terror.
"Get Lord Valcrest! **NOW!**"
One of them bolted from the room, the remaining maids standing there, paralyzed by the storm raging within the fledgling.
It was like nothing they'd seen before,
Selene barely registered any of it.
Her vision swam.
Her bloodied hands trembled.
Lucian's eyes snapped open.
The shift in the air was impossible to ignore; a ripple of something dark, volatile, wrong.
It slithered through the manor like a living thing, carrying the unmistakable scent of blood and power unraveling.
By the time the frantic knock came; sharp, desperate, he was already on his feet.
The door flew open before the maid could finish her breathless gasp.
"My Lord...she's...she's hurting herself!"
Lucian didn't wait to hear more.
A pulse of cold fury surged through him as he moved, his form a blur against the dimly lit corridors.
Selene.
The moment Lucian entered, the scene stole his breath.
The air was thick with the copper tang of blood, her blood.
It clung to the room like a living thing, saturating the overturned sheets, pooling in the deep gashes that marred the walls, seeping into the very foundation of the space.
The room was in shambles. The bedclothes lay in tatters, clawed apart by frantic hands.
Furniture had been overturned, deep gashes marring the walls where something; no, someone had unleashed raw, unchecked power.
The candles flickered erratically, their flames bending toward the center of the storm.
The remnants of a storm still crackled in the air, invisible currents of raw, untamed power lashing out in pulses; wild, destructive, uncontrolled.
And there, at the eye of it all, was Selene.
She was on the floor, half-collapsed, drenched in black. Her hands trembled, slick with her own blood, her nails still digging into the raw, open wounds on her arms.
Lucian moved before thought, crossing the space in a heartbeat.
He seized her wrists, wrenching them away before she could do more damage.
"Selene!" His voice was sharp, a command wrapped in steel. His long dark hair swayed down his back, free from the usual hairtie he used to hold it up.
She screamed; a raw, broken sound that sent ice down his spine.
Her entire body convulsed against his grip, her breath coming in wild, ragged gasps. She fought him with terrifying strength, unnatural, and deadly.
"Selene, look at me."
Her gaze flickered; a moment of recognition, buried beneath madness.
But the nightmare still had its claws in her mind.
Lucian gritted his teeth. He had no choice.
In a single motion, he crushed her against him, his arms locking around her like unbreakable chains. She fought like a caged beast; thrashing, clawing, her nails carving dark trails across his skin.
But he didn't let go.
"Breathe," he murmured, his voice a steady, unwavering anchor in the chaos. "Feel me, Selene. I'm here."
Her breath came in sharp, panicked gasps, her pulse hammering wildly beneath his grip.
She twisted, snarled; feral, lost, and breaking.
Her nails dug deep. He felt the sting, the warmth of fresh blood welling up beneath her touch. He didn't flinch.
Instead, slowly, and deliberately, he lifted her trembling hand to his lips.
A lingering kiss against her bloodied fingers, staining his velvety lips and the smooth pale skin of his chin dark red.
She stilled.
Lucian's lips brushed her knuckles, then the back of her hand, each touch a whispered promise.
"You're safe."
Her entire body shuddered. A soft, broken sound escaped her lips; a hitch of breath caught between disbelief and surrender.
Lucian tilted her chin up, his lips ghosting across her forehead, a silent vow etched into the touch.
The tension in her limbs faltered. Her fists unclenched.The storm once ravaging inside her quieted.
And then, she sagged against him.
Lucian tightened his hold, cradling her as if she was the most fragile thing in the world.