CHAPTER 2
386 Words
Chapter Two: The Night King Returns
The forest had never been silent.
Even in winter, the crows gossiped like old women and the trees creaked from holding too many secrets.
But tonight, it was deathly still.
Even the wind held its breath.
I stood at the edge of the woods, my letter gone, my soul trembling with the knowing that only comes when something ancient awakens inside you.
I wasn’t supposed to feel it.
I wasn’t supposed to want him again.
But fate doesn't care for rules, and the mark he left on me — just beneath my collarbone — still burns when he draws near.
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A branch snapped.
My heart lurched. I turned.
And there he was.
Valerian.
The Night King.
The vampire cursed to walk forever between hunger and memory.
He looked the same.
No — worse.
He looked like the version of him that haunted my dreams.
Hair darker than the night.
Eyes that held centuries of silence.
And lips that once touched mine before betrayal cut through everything.
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"Selene."
His voice.
It was a blade wrapped in velvet.
I should have run.
Screamed.
Thrown the book at him — the one that once held the letter.
But I just stood there, trembling like a leaf that didn’t know which season to fall into.
"You came back," I whispered.
"I never left," he said, stepping forward. "They made me forget. But your letter… it brought everything back."
My throat closed.
"They?" I asked.
He didn’t answer. Just reached into his coat and pulled out the letter. My letter. Torn at the edges but still breathing.
"You wrote this the night the moon bled."
"You read it?"
"I bled with it."
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My heart stuttered.
The way he looked at me — like I was a sin he wanted to commit again — made every inch of me remember.
Remember what it felt like to belong to someone, if only for a heartbeat.
Remember the way his hands once held my face like I was breakable, but never broken.
“I came to warn you,” he said.
“About what?”
He looked toward the mountains — where shadows moved like living smoke.
“They know you’re mine,” he said softly. “And they’re coming for you.”
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💛
- Writer
