Celestial_entity_

As humans, animals, and even the Earth itself begin to mutate and gain consciousness, a hidden conspiracy unravels, revealing Aurelia’s true origins and the dark forces manipulating the New Age. Alongside Lucian, a vampire with a mysterious lineage, and a cast of allies and enemies, Aurelia must navigate a world where nothing is as it seems. But as the planet awakens, so do the true villains—those who hide behind masks of virtue, their intentions far more sinister than anyone could imagine.

P.S The cover is not mine :)

The Vampire's Obsession

The moment he touched the shard, agony lanced up his arm—white-hot and razor-sharp—as the darkness slithered beneath his skin like living ink. His vision fractured into a thousand shards of memory, each one sharper than the last:

—Aurelia as a child, no older than six, screaming as shadows poured from her mouth and eyes—

—The Original's skeletal hands carving into her chest, extracting glowing fragments of her very being—

—Centuries of running, always one step ahead, stitching herself back together with stolen power—

—Kael himself, standing over Lucian's lifeless body, his hands dripping black—

—The Original wearing Aurelia's face like a ill-fitting mask—

—The world crumbling to ash beneath his feet—

Kael gasped as the visions vanished, leaving him kneeling in the grass, his fingers still outstretched toward the shard. Except—

His hand looked normal at first glance. But when he turned it over, he saw them—thin black veins tracing his skin from fingertip to wrist, pulsing faintly with the same rhythm as the thing in his chest.

Aurelia stared at his hand, her expression unreadable. The mark on her neck had stopped cracking, leaving her skin webbed with jagged black lines. "You idiot," she whispered, but there was no heat behind it.

Lucian hauled Kael to his feet, his grip bruising. "What did you do?"

Kael opened his mouth to answer when the ground beneath them lurched. The oak tree split apart with a sound like a dying scream, its branches withering to dust in seconds. The unnatural green grass yellowed and crumbled, revealing bare, cracked earth beneath.

Aurelia grabbed both of them, her nails drawing blood. "She's coming."

The wind howled through the clearing, carrying a voice that wasn't a voice—

The word vibrated through Kael's bones, through the black veins in his hand, through the pact-bond in his chest. The shard inside him answered, surging against his ribs like a caged beast.

Aurelia's grip tightened. "Listen carefully. That shard is the last piece she needs." Her black eyes locked onto Kael's. "If she takes it from you, she'll be whole. And we'll all die screaming."

Lucian's sword was in his hand before she finished speaking. "Then we cut it out of him."

Aurelia's laugh was hollow. "If only it were that simple." She pressed a hand to Kael's chest, right over the pact-bond. "The shard's part of him now. Just like the piece of me you've been carrying."

Kael's breath hitched. The thing inside him twisted in response to her touch, yearning toward her in a way that made his stomach clench. "Then what do we do?"

Aurelia's smile was all teeth. "We run. We hide. And when she finds us—" She drew her dagger, the blade glinting wickedly in the fading light. "—we make sure she regrets it."

The wind screamed again, closer this time. The trees at the edge of the clearing bent away as if from some unseen force, their branches snapping like dry bones.

Behind them, the earth split open, darkness pouring forth like blood from a wound. And beneath the thunder of their footsteps, beneath the pounding of his own heart, Kael heard it—

The Original's laughter, echoing in the hollow spaces of his mind.

"Run, little thief. Run."

Chapter 75: The Broken Bond