The Demon Prince’s Bodyguard

Rain fell like shards of glass over the cobblestone streets of Marseille, sharp, cold, and relentless. The kind of rain that made the whole city stink of gasoline and iron, as if the gutters themselves bled. I was bleeding too. My arm throbbed where the bullet had torn through the meat just below the shoulder, warm blood soaking into my suit jacket until it clung heavy and useless against my body. I pressed my palm hard over the wound, forcing myself to keep running, my shoes splashing through puddles, lungs burning with every breath. If I slowed,if I stumbled even once,they’d find me, and they’d put me in the ground tonight. The Serrano dogs. Their boots thundered after me, echoing down the narrow alleys, shouts cutting through the storm. I could hear French, Italian, and even Spanish curses,the Serrano family always did love their imported killers. There had to be two dozen of them, maybe more. My father always told me Serrano loyalty was thinner than piss, that they’d smile at your table one week and slit your throat the next. I hadn’t expected them to move this fast. My chest ached as I cut down another alley, one hand brushing the slick stone wall for balance. Every shadow looked like a muzzle flash, every puddle a grave. I still had my knife tucked at my hip, but my pistol was useless,emptied minutes ago. I’d pulled the trigger and gotten nothing but that dry click of finality, nearly costing me my head. I’d learnt the hard way that courage only gets you so far without bullets. “Spread out!” A voice snarled behind me, too close, too eager. “He’s bleeding,he can’t have gone far!” I gritted my teeth, tried to force air into my lungs, and tried not to think of the fact that my father’s empire,my inheritance,was already crumbling beneath me. Someone had finally decided to carve us out of Marseille like a tumour, and tonight, I was the message. My corpse would look good on Serrano’s table. Not if I took a few of them with me. The alley narrowed, my feet splashing through ankle-deep water, and I pressed myself against the wall, dragging the knife into my hand. The steel was slick but familiar, the kind of tool that had solved plenty of late-night problems in this city. My father always said, 'Survive the night.' Kill them in the morning. The first man came around the corner, broad-shouldered, his rifle raised like a lover. I didn’t think. I lunged. The blade slid up under his jaw, hot blood spraying across my hand. He gurgled, rifle clattering against the wall, and I slammed him hard into the bricks to muffle the sound as he died in my grip. His body hit the ground in silence, crimson swirling into the rainwater. But silence doesn’t last long. The splash of blood gave me away. “There! In the alley!” The night erupted in gunfire. Bullets shredded the bricks above my head, sparks and shards raining down. One sliced across my cheek and burnt like fire. I ducked, bolting deeper into the labyrinth, breath ragged, my wound leaking hot and steady. My legs carried me on instinct and rage alone. Then the alley dead-ended. A high stone wall rose before me, slick with rain, too tall to climb even if I wasn’t half-dead. “Fuck.” Boots pounded closer. I turned, knife raised, ready to carve as many as I could before they tore me down. If this was where I fell, I’d fall with teeth bared, not crawling. But the Serrano men never reached me. The air thickened, like the storm itself was bending inwards. The shadows behind me stirred, stretched, and then peeled free of the wall. A man stepped forward. Tall. Broad-shouldered. A black shirt clinging to his chest, soaked through with rain. His hair hung dark across his forehead, and his eyes,his eyes glowed faintly, ember-hot, unnatural. My grip tightened on the knife. He tilted his head, and even in the storm, I caught the curl of a smile. “You fight like a cornered wolf, heir of Moreau. But wolves die when the hounds circle.” The Serrano soldiers reached the mouth of the alley, rifles raised. Then they stopped. Something shifted in their stance. The bravado bled out of them. These were Serrano’s butchers, men who’d cut throats for pocket change, and yet… they froze, like boys glimpsing the devil in the flesh. The stranger didn’t move quickly. He didn’t have to. He stepped forward once, and the storm seemed to shudder. One man panicked and fired. The bullets screamed through the rain,then slowed, shredding apart midair, sparks falling harmlessly into puddles. The stranger’s smile widened. Panic rippled through Serrano’s men. They fired anyway, a storm of gunfire in the narrow space. The man blurred. One moment he was there; the next he was inside their line. His hand closed around a throat, and I heard the snap of vertebrae even over the rain. A rifle cracked like kindling. Blood sprayed the wall in a hot arc. It was slaughter. But it wasn’t human slaughter. Too fast. Too brutal. Too deliberate. I should have run. I should have thrown myself at the wall, bloody hands clawing for purchase, and left this nightmare behind. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I watched Spellbound. Bodies fell like rag dolls. Screams choked off into wet gurgles. Weapons bent and broke. The alley filled with red rainwater, carrying it in rivers toward the street. Seconds later, silence. The man crouched among the corpses, one hand slick with blood, the other casually wiping rain from his jaw. His shirt clung red down the front. His dark hair stuck damp across his brow. And still, his eyes burnt,like fire caged inside a skull. He looked at me. “Put that toy away,” he said softly, nodding at the knife clenched in my fist. “If I meant to kill you, you’d already be a memory.” My throat worked. I didn’t lower the blade. “Who the f**k are you?” He rose, unhurried, and stepped closer. I could smell him now,iron, smoke, and beneath it, something hot and dangerous, like embers smouldering in ash. “My name doesn’t matter tonight. What matters is this: your enemies are no longer Serrano alone. They’ve whispered to things far older. If you want to live long enough to bury your father’s enemies, you’ll need me.” I barked a laugh, sharp and bitter. “You expect me to trust a stranger who butchers men like livestock?” “Trust?” He leaned close, rain dripping from his jaw onto my collar. His hand moved,too fast,and suddenly he gripped my chin, his thumb pressing against the blood still wet at my lip. He lifted it between us, studied the crimson against his skin, then tasted it. Fire flared in his eyes. “Don’t trust me, Dante Moreau. Fear me. Desire me. Hate me. Anything but ignore me.” My pulse roared. The knife trembled against his chest. He pressed closer until the blade dimpled the fabric but drew no blood. “Answer me,” I hissed. “Why me? Why help me?” His mouth curved, dangerous, hungry. “Because you’re mine.” The words dropped like chains. I shoved him back, breaking his grip, breath ragged. My pulse thundered with something too tangled to name,rage, terror, and the edge of arousal I refused to admit. Sirens wailed in the distance. The city wasn’t blind to gunfire, even in the storm. The stranger straightened, smoothing his shirt as though the c*****e around us was spilt wine. “Decide quickly, Moreau. Walk back into your family’s lies alone… Or walk with me, and learn truths your father never dared whisper.” My arm ached. The storm howled. His eyes still glowed, two coals burning hotter with every second. I should have run. Instead, I heard myself ask, “What are you?” The stranger smiled like sin itself. “Your bodyguard.” Before I could breathe, his hand closed on my shoulder, dragging me back into the storm.