Our Crimson Covenant: The Sovereign’s Temptation

Chapter Two

AERIS LARKIN

I stared through the glass wall of the strange, dusty living room, trying to make sense of the unfamiliar landscape outside. Towering trees crowded the house, their thick branches cutting through the blue twilight rays of the evening sky. Everything about this place screamed that I was in a dilapidated retreat house, hidden deep within some forgotten pocket of the Scottish countryside.

The view was oddly sublime—calm, quiet, and beautiful. Unfortunately, my mind was the exact opposite. The scenic tranquility almost made me forget the glaring, infuriating problem at hand: I had absolutely no idea why I was standing here.

With the very last thread of my patience fraying, I marched out of the living room and into the kitchen. I found my aunt standing by the table, completely frozen. She was staring blankly at the kettle, entirely oblivious to the fact that it was already screeching and rattling with boiling water.

“Don’t you think it’s about time you tell me what’s really going on?” I asked, my voice snapping her out of her trance. She jumped slightly as I stepped up to the kitchen counter.

No response. Typical.

I grabbed the kettle myself and poured the steaming water into the two mugs she had set out with coffee grounds. “I deserve to know, Helen,” I pressed, stirring the teaspoon a little harder than necessary.

Out of nowhere, Helen had practically forced me to pack my bags and come with her, refusing to drop a single hint about our destination. We had argued the entire way here. Just wait until we arrive, she kept saying. I had trusted her because she was my aunt—the only family, the only person, I had left in this world. But now, we were stranded in the middle of nowhere, and I still didn't have a clue why we were suddenly acting like fugitives running for our lives.

“Do you remember the stories I used to tell you when you were a kid?” she finally spoke, her voice quiet.

My brows furrowed as I handed her a mug. What an incredibly bizarre question to ask right now. “How could I forget? You repeated them so many times my ears practically bled.”

As a little girl, I had been obsessed with the idea of hidden magical worlds—mostly thanks to all the Barbie movies I watched. Seeing my interest, Aunt Helen had started telling me a very specific story. She claimed another realm existed, a place no one in our world knew about but her. It was a world populated by creatures that humans only read about in debunked folklore: vampires, werewolves, elves, and things we couldn't even fathom.

In her story, there was a keeper who guarded the portal between these two worlds. One day, the keeper found the portal opening on its own, revealing a baby wrapped in a blood-stained cloth. The keeper tried to send the baby back, but a powerful spell prevented it. The magic decreed that the child could only return when the time was right—and only when the child herself chose to go back.

Whenever I asked what happened next, my aunt would look at me solemnly and say the keeper took the baby in, raising her as her own while waiting for the right moment. Back then, it wasn't the sparkling, colorful fairytale I wanted, so I usually just shut my eyes and pretended to be asleep whenever she started reciting it.

Looking at her now, I saw a familiar, heavy hesitance in her eyes. “Aeris... it's true.”

“True what?” I shot back, my tone sharpening with annoyance.

“The story. I am the keeper of the portal. You were that baby. And it’s time for you to go back.”

I choked, nearly spitting my coffee right back into the mug. “What the f**k, Helen?” I snapped, whatever patience I had left completely evaporating. “Do you honestly think I put my research on hold and flew all the way from New York to a sketchy cottage in the Scottish highlands just to play along with a shitty joke?”

“Aeris, I wouldn't have dragged you all the way out here if I wasn't seriou—”

“You need rest,” I cut her off, turning on my heel and walking out of the kitchen. “We’re having a normal, rational conversation tomorrow, or I’m booking the first flight back to New York.”

“Aeris, this is a rational conversation!” Helen called out, but I was too exhausted and overwhelmed to listen.

“No, it isn't. You've officially lost your wits, and tomorrow you'll realize it.” I reached the stairs, hearing her hurried footsteps behind me. “Aeris—“

“Good night, Helen.” I shut the bedroom door firmly behind me, cutting off her plea. Let out a massive, ragged sigh, I threw myself face-first onto the bed.

A few hours passed, and sleep refused to come.

My mind kepts spinning. Helen had always had habits that made absolutely zero sense to me—mostly because she never bothered to explain them. Every four years, like clockwork, we had to pack up and move to a new city, a new country, a new life. Eventually, I just stopped asking why. Her excuses were always laughably absurd: the weather is too cold, my heart is broken, I suddenly want to live near Italians. I just got tired of fighting it. She was the only parent I had, and outside of the forced nomad lifestyle, she treated me incredibly well.

But it had been so hard. Hard to make long-term friends, hard to finish my degrees on time. And just when I finally managed to land a dream job at a prestigious plant research center—a place where I could actually study botany and flora capabilities like I'd always wanted—she pulled the plug again. Only this time, it felt frantic. Panicked. How long was I supposed to put up with this? At this rate, I’d live in every country on Earth before I turned forty.

Frustrated, I kicked off the blankets and walked over to the window to get some crisp night air. As I slid the glass up, a flickering, warm light caught my eye down below.

I leaned out slightly, squinting into the darkness. A figure wass moving through the yard. The faint glow of a lantern illuminated her side profile—it was Helen. She was dressed in a heavy coat, stepping purposefully into the dense woods. Where on earth was she going at this hour?

Suspicion and worry overrode my anger. I quickly grabbed my coat, slipped my shoes on, and crept out of the house.

Following her wasn't entirely impossible; the damp earth left clear imprints of her boots, and I used the low beam of my phone flashlight to track her path. I expected to find her checking on a property boundary or maybe collecting night-blooming specimens. Instead, the trees suddenly parted, revealing a massive, colossal tree whose roots looked like ancient, gnarled walls. And right across from it sat a small, stone cottage, its windows glowing with warm, flickering candlelight.

Suddenly, the air pressure dropped so violently my ears popped. The ground trembled beneath my sneakers. A sound like tearing fabric echoed through the clearing, followed by a blinding, aggressive burst of golden light that fractured the darkness. The wind whipped up out of nowhere, carrying the scent of ozone, old metal, and burning electronics.

I crouched behind a thick thicket, my heart hammering against my ribs. Okay, great, I thought, panic rising. The cottage generator just blew up and now the woods are on fire.

But as the blinding light began to fade, a figure stepped out from the smoke.

My jaw practically dropped.

He was tall—intimidatingly so—with a commanding, rigid posture that made him look like he had just stepped off a movie set. He wore elaborate, high-collared velvet and dark leather, complete with a heavy cape that brushed against the damp grass. His hair was dark as midnight, framing a face that was admittedly, ridiculously handsome—all sharp angles, high cheekbones, and pale, flawless skin.

But it was his eyes that caught the light. They were a piercing, unyielding shade of crimson.

I blinked, my initial shock quickly giving way to profound, utter confusion.

Is... is this guy cosplaying? In the middle of the Scottish highlands? At midnight?

I mean, the production value was incredible, credit where credit was due. But logically speaking, there was absolutely no reason for a runway-model-type guy to be standing in the freezing mud, wearing a cape, looking like he was auditioning for a dark fantasy villain.

Instead of looking lost, a slow, deliberate, and chilling smile crept onto his face. It was a look of pure, arrogant satisfaction.

As if sensing my presence, his sharp gaze suddenly snapped directly toward the shadows where I was hiding. The sheer intensity of his eyes felt like a physical weight, locking onto mine. For a split second, a weird, magnetic jolt flared deep in my chest—a bizarre sensation I couldn't explain—but the utter, radiating arrogance off him quickly doused it.

He stepped forward, the shadows of the forest seemingly bending around his boots. He didn't look at my aunt. His terrifying, beautiful eyes remained pinned entirely on me.

"I am here to claim my mate," he announced. His voice was a low, smooth baritone that echoed with absolute, unquestionable finality.

I stood there behind the bushes, deadpan. Mate? Mate what?

I immediately glanced over my shoulder, squinting into the pitch-black woods behind me. There was nothing there but a couple of pine trees and a very confused-looking owl. I looked back at the cape-wearing stranger, then down at my aunt, then back to him.

Is he doing a monologue?

I braced myself, fully expecting a film crew to pop out from behind the sequoia tree. I looked around the clearing, waiting for a director with a megaphone to step into the light, yell "Cut!", and thank everyone for participating in the film.

But the silence stretched on, heavy and dead. No cameras appeared. No director walked out. Just a drop-dead gorgeous guy in a high-end vampire costume standing in the freezing mud, staring intensely into the void while my aunt trembled on the porch.

The pieces of the puzzle weren't clicking into a grand magical revelation; they were clicking into an incredibly bizarre reality. My aunt had officially lost her mind at the dinner table, and now, this trespassing cosplayer had just walked out of a freak electrical storm to announce he was looking for his lost pet.

I slowly stood up from behind the bushes, dusting the dirt off my coat. My eyes narrowed as I stared back at him, completely unbothered by his dramatic, brooding aura. He might have looked like a lethal, aristocratic prince, but if he thought he could just crash an empty set in the middle of the night and yell weirdly intense lines, he had another thing coming.

“Aeris, come forward,” Helen’s voice suddenly sliced through the dark.