The Enemy I Didn't Expect

Chapter Three

Lior's POV

I should've known he wasn't just some bold mortal with a pretty face and a sharp tongue.

But I'd been too distracted. Too drawn in. Too... curious.

That was mistake number one.

Mistake number two?

Following him outside when he walked away.

Riven didn't look back. Just slipped through the bodies like he was born for it. I followed, silent as a shadow. Not because I cared—because I needed to know what he was. No human could look a vampire like me in the eye and smile.

He stopped in the alley behind the club. Lit only by a flickering streetlamp and the pale blue haze of the moon.

"I know you're there," he said without turning around.

"So you do feel me," I muttered.

He spun fast—too fast—and slammed me back against the wall with surprising strength. His hand pressed against my chest, fingers splayed right over where my heart used to beat.

"You talk too much," he growled.

I didn't flinch. Didn't fight.

But my eyes burned into his. "And you hide too much."

That's when I saw it.

A faint blue glow beneath his skin.

A mark on his wrist—ancient, etched in language older than vampire clans.

Witchblood.

Not just that.

Hunter blood.

"You're one of them," I whispered. "The bloodbound."

He didn't deny it. He just stepped back slowly, eyes never leaving mine.

"You've slaughtered people like me," he said. "My people. My kind. You wear your sins like silk."

"And you're no innocent, Riven."

He smirked. "I never claimed to be."

The air between us pulsed. Tense. Dangerous.

I should've lunged. Should've ended this now before it became more.

But I didn't.

Instead, I whispered, "You're the one the curse warned me about."

His face shifted—just for a second. Confused. Intrigued.

Maybe even afraid.

Then he stepped closer again. So close I could smell the salt of his skin and the steel of his magic.

"Good," he said. "Let it warn you."

And then—he was gone. Disappeared into the night like a ghost.

I stood there alone. Breathing hard. Cursed heart aching in a way it hadn't in decades.

Enemies.

Bound.

And something in me knew...

This was only the beginning.