Chapter 4
929 Words
Seraphina
Like lycans, vampires had rules. A hierarchy. Power stacked neatly on power until it all funneled to one monster at the top.
Unlike lycans, they didn’t live openly. They hunted in packs but hid in the city’s underbelly—back alleys, forgotten bars, places no one entered alone unless they had a death wish.
If something illegal happened in this city—drugs, vice, murder, or all three combined—chances were it passed through vampire hands at some point. And every thread led back to one name.
The Earl.
Even I knew enough to fear him.
People avoided the Vampire Earl the way humans once avoided the plague. Tall, blond, beautiful in a way that made your skin crawl once you knew better. Zane looked like salvation and felt like damnation. Ruthless. Vicious. Unstable.
I’d heard the rumors—everyone had. That he was some cursed half‑breed, born of a vampire and a valkyrie. I didn’t know if that was true, but I knew this much: whatever he was, pain followed him like a shadow.
Which was why the moment I realized Alex was dealing with him, dread curled in my stomach like a living thing.
And yet… there I was.
The clearing glowed silver under the moon when the lycans dragged a hooded figure forward. I stayed frozen at the edge, heart hammering, my instincts screaming that I didn’t belong here—that I shouldn’t even be able to find this place.
The hood came off.
And my world cracked.
“Davie…”
My breath left me in a sob.
He winced at the moonlight, hissed softly, but all I could see was my little brother’s face. Older, sharper—but unmistakably him. Alive.
I didn’t remember moving. One second I was standing there, the next I was running downhill, lungs burning, fear and hope tangling until I couldn’t tell them apart.
“Davie! Oh my god—Davie, you’re alive!”
I slammed into him, wrapping my arms around him like I could fuse us together, like if I held tight enough the world couldn’t take him from me again.
His arms came up around me.
“Eva…”
Alex’s voice cut through the moment like a blade.
“Eva. Step away from him.”
I turned, still holding my brother, anger flaring hot and sudden.
“It’s Davie,” I snapped. “It’s him.”
But Alex didn’t look relieved. He looked furious. Terrified. His wolf was right there, I could feel it pressing against my skin, snarling at the vampire inches from me.
“He’s not what you think,” Alex said, reaching out to me. “Please. Come here.”
Davie tightened his grip on me, trembling.
“Please don’t let them hurt me, Eva.”
I felt Alex’s snarl like a physical thing, vibrating the air. I knew—knew—vampires could lie. I knew they could manipulate. But this was my brother. The boy I’d protected, laughed with, loved.
“No,” I said, lifting my chin. “I won’t let you hurt him.”
The gasps around us rolled like thunder.
Alex stepped forward.
The growl that left him was nothing like human sound. It sank into my bones, into places I didn’t know existed. My knees threatened to buckle, fear clawing up my spine, but I refused to move.
I would not abandon Davie again.
“Back down, Eva,” Alex warned. His eyes burned gold. “Before this gets serious.”
It already was serious.
The pressure hit me like a wave—his dominance slamming into my chest, crushing, overwhelming. My body betrayed me. I gasped, shaking, every instinct screaming submission.
Still, it took everything I had to step away.
The moment I did, they took Davie.
I screamed his name as they dragged him kicking and crying into the darkness.
Alex didn’t look at me.
“Ten lashes,” he ordered coldly. “Left until sunrise.”
And then he walked away.
Something inside me broke.
They restrained me before I could follow him. I begged. I apologized. I told them I was wrong, that I’d crossed a line. No one listened.
Frank held the whip.
When it cracked across my back, the pain was so sharp it stole my breath. Fire tore through me, white‑hot, and I screamed. Again and again it fell, each strike stripping away another piece of me until I couldn’t tell where my body ended and the pain began.
Voices blurred. Faces twisted. Someone screamed for more.
I laughed hysterically somewhere between the blows, the sound breaking apart in my throat. If this was their world, I wanted no part of it. Wolf or not, power or not—it wasn’t worth this.
Darkness finally took me.
When I woke, I was alone.
My back felt raw, flayed, every breath agony. I curled against the rock, sobbing quietly, the clearing empty and cold. Alex had left me. The pack had punished me. Davie was gone.
I had nothing.
I must have drifted in and out because the next thing I knew, a hand was under my chin, lifting my face.
Alex.
I slapped weakly at him.
“Get away from me.”
He didn’t.
The moon lit him in silver, heartbreak written into every line of his face. That almost hurt worse than the whip.
“You should have let me die,” I whispered.
And then I closed my eyes, because loving him in that moment hurt more than anything else ever could.
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