Chapter Seven: What He Hides
920 Words
The morning after the encounter was unnervingly quiet.
Elena sat curled on the edge of her bed, fingers tracing the rim of a cold coffee mug. Her phone buzzed nonstop with group messages, voice notes, and blurry photos from the previous night’s birthday bash. But her attention was locked on just one detail—him. The man from the alley. Lucien.
She hadn’t told anyone about the stranger who saved her—or warned her. Not Mia, not even her journal. Some things felt too unreal to be said aloud.
The way he spoke. The way his eyes glowed in the dark like burning coals. The way time seemed to slow when he stepped toward her. Her skin still tingled where he had looked at her. It made no sense, but her body remembered him. And worse, it craved more of that danger.
Her phone buzzed again.
Unknown Number: “You shouldn’t walk alone again.”
Her heart thudded once, hard and heavy. She swallowed, unsure if it was fear or something darker coursing through her. She stared at the message, then typed back before her brain caught up:
Elena: “Who is this?”
The reply came instantly.
Unknown Number: “The one who watched you bleed.”
She dropped the phone.
The words sliced into her like ice. Who even says something like that? But somehow, she knew. It had to be him. Lucien.
Elena skipped her first lecture. Then the second. She couldn’t focus. Her body moved on autopilot, but her thoughts circled him—his voice, his warning, his nearness. And then the unsettling truth: she had liked it.
What the hell was wrong with her
That night, she found herself outside again. She told herself she was just walking off stress. She even wore a hoodie and headphones to pretend she wasn’t hoping he’d show up. But her feet followed the same path she’d taken from the club, past the dim alley where they’d first collided.
She slowed near the shadowed brick wall.
Nothing.
Disappointment, sharp and absurd, swelled in her chest. God, she needed help.
But then—behind her—a whisper of wind. A breath, too close.
"You came back," said a voice, dark and smooth like velvet laced with poison.
She spun around. He stood there—Lucien. Cloaked in black, a shadow himself, yet more solid than anything else in her world at that moment.
“I wasn’t looking for you,” she lied.
His head tilted, just slightly. “Then why are you trembling?”
“I’m not—”
He stepped closer, cutting the air between them. Her breath hitched as he stopped just shy of touching her. “You’re trembling, Elena,” he whispered. “Because you remember.”
She hated the way his voice slid into her bones, the way her body responded before her mind caught up.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing—”
“I don’t play,” he said, sharp and low. “Not anymore.”
His eyes swept over her, and it wasn’t lust in them—it was possession.
"You shouldn't tempt me," he added.
She glared. “I’m not tempting you. I don’t even know you.”
"You know enough to come looking for me," he said. "And I know enough to warn you: this curiosity of yours? It’s going to ruin you.”
“Why do you keep saying that?” she demanded. “What do you know that I don’t?”
Lucien’s eyes flickered. For the first time, she saw it—the war inside him. He looked away, then stepped back, as if putting distance between them would cool whatever fire threatened to devour them both.
He muttered something under his breath. She caught only one word: blood.
Back in her dorm, Elena couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed with her laptop open, hunting online for anything—anything—about him. “Lucien guest of Vance,” she typed.
It took hours, but she found a thread on a dark forum. Hidden. Obscure. It mentioned a “Lucien” connected to elite underground circles, a man rumored to have walked out of an asylum untouched in the 1800s, and a string of deaths over the decades—always sudden, always unexplained.
One post called him The Immortal With Red Eyes.
She sat back, cold dread flooding her chest. This couldn’t be real. And yet, deep down, she knew.
Meanwhile, in an ancient room lit by dying firelight, Lucien sat in silence. The walls were covered in paintings long faded, books coated in dust, and shadows thick enough to breathe.
“You’re slipping,” said a voice from the corner. A tall figure stepped forward—Raphael, a vampire elder and Lucien’s oldest ally.
Lucien didn’t turn.
“She’s nothing,” Lucien said flatly.
Raphael chuckled. “You’ve said that before. And yet, your walls are cracking.”
“She reminds me of…” Lucien stopped. The name lingered in the air unspoken.
Raphael’s eyes glinted. “Your humanity’s showing, Lucien. That girl—she’s danger in silk. You’ll destroy her.”
Lucien stood abruptly, his coat billowing. “Then I’ll destroy anyone who touches her first.”
The next morning, Elena woke to another message.
Unknown Number: “Stay home tonight.”
She should have felt scared. But all she felt was... entangled.
Because somewhere in the shadows, a monster had chosen her—and God help her, she didn’t want to run.
- Writer
