Lies in her lips

2

“You're the last customers here, so please get out while we're still asking nicely," Denise added, her tone razor-sharp.

I peeked around the corner. Denise and Alexandra were confronting five men standing frozen in front of the register.

‘They can handle it’ i whispered to myself.

"Do you think they need backup?" Aurora asked, stepping out of the restroom wiping her hands.

"Alexandra yells at everyone," I said. "I think they can handle it."

"I agree, but... look at them," Aurora said, her voice dropping. "There's something off about those five."

I frowned, studying the five men before shifting my gaze back to Alexandra and Denise. The tension in the air wasn't normal.

Closing the distance, I stepped in front of Denise and drew my pocket knife, flicking it toward the intruders. "What's going on here?"

The man in the black V-neck locked eyes with me.

His lips were unnaturally pale, and his eyes glowed a deep, piercing green. A heavy, suffocating aura radiated from him-the distinct, crushing authority of a leader.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"This is our territory now," the blue-eyed man beside him sneered.

“We're in the middle of a hunt, and it looks like we just cornered some very interesting prey."

"Vampires," I hissed.

My hand instinctively went to my hairpin, slipping it out to hold as a secondary weapon. This made no sense. We had built a ward around the restaurant-a barrier specifically designed to keep out every species except humans.

"Wondering about your little barrier?" the green-eyed leader smirked, reading my expression.

"Just so you know, we have millions of vampires, werewolves, and demons waiting fifty kilometers from here. All waiting for our signal to tear this place apart."

"We need to get out of here," Denise whispered beside me.

"Agreed," Aurora murmured, stepping up.

"We're completely outnumbered. I can already feel their presence closing in."

Aside from being the owners of Moonlight Restaurant, the four of us are the last descendants of our clan. We all belong to the Goddess Clan; however, because other races—such as werewolves, vampires, demons, and fairies—believed that consuming a pure-blooded goddess would make them stronger, they hunted us until only the four of us remained.

"Any plan, guys?" I ask, glancing around.

"Alexandra, Glaznia, handle the teleportation,"

Aurora whispers under her breath.

Denise rolled her eyes at Aurora before casting the protective barrier Alexandra and I were going to need.

"No need to whisper, we can hear you," the blue-eyed man taunted. "In case you forgot, you're dealing with vampires."

I strike at him with my enchanted hairpin, but he sidesteps the attack effortlessly. I Ducks inside Denise's barrier,

I joined Alexandra and began chanting the teleportation spell while she desperately carves out the teleportation runes.

The Mermaid Clan took us in, shielding us from the world until last year. But the moment the Vampire King learned they were sheltering us, his forces slaughtered the entire clan and laid waste to their home.

And now, here we were again-running for our lives.

"Get ready! The outer barrier just broke!" Aurora yelled over her shoulder, straining as she poured her energy into reinforcing Denise's forward shields.

(Third person point of view)

The entire Moonlight Restaurant was surrounded by Marcus's minions-the recognized King of the High Council.

The High Council had originally comprised eight elders: a witch, a vampire, a werewolf, a mermaid, a fairy, a demon, an angel, and a goddess. But following the war launched by Marcus, only six remained and All of them were eager to taste blood from a pure-blooded goddess.

"All we need is Glaznia, the Goddess of Light," the blue-eyed vampire sneered. "Her blood alone will sustain the six elders for a hundred years."

His companions laughed and slowly approached the four women.

Before they could take another step, Denise slashed her hands through the air, manifesting two massive blades of shadow magic.

She launched them directly at them, forcing the vampires to scatter backward.

"They're here! Get ready!" Aurora warned, her tone deadly serious.

A wall of vampires lined the restaurant perimeter, their eyes glinting with a predatory hunger as they waited for the signal to strike.

"So, what’s it going to be?" the lead vampire drawled. "Hand over Glaznia, or I’ll be forced to break the rest of you—even if Marcus didn't explicitly order it."

"Ew. Over my dead body," Glaznia shot back, tossing her hair. "I’m not interested in becoming the main course at your little feast."

Dominick, the blue-eyed vampire serving as Marcus’s right hand, narrowed his eyes into lethal slits.

Alexandra groaned, scratching the back of her neck. "Did you seriously just provoke him?"

"What else was I supposed to say? The guy's acting like I'm some prize to be claimed," Glaznia muttered.

The three shook their heads at her. Dominick snapped his fingers, signaling his men to rush the defense barrier.

But before they could even touch it, they turned into ash, which made some of them fall back.

Alexandra threw Dominick a sweet smile and a mock wave as the vampire hissed a curse under his breath.

"My bad," Alexandra drawled, her eyes glinting. "Forgot to mention—I'm the Goddess of Mist."

As the Goddess of Mist, Alexandra commanded a dangerous, deceptive power. Her mist could hijack an enemy’s mind, distort reality with flawless illusions, or choke the life out of a foe with a single lethal drift. But her true lethality lay in her precision—she was an expert runesmith, capable of carving the complex, high-tier runes required to anchor the most devastating magic spells.

"We're well aware of what each of you can do," Dominick sneered.

With a flick of his wrist, he uncoiled a whip laced with dark magic, its woven fibers unmistakably harvested from the Auria tree.

"Where did you get that?" Glaznia gasped, horror draining the color from her face.

"None of your business," he replied coldly.

Dominick lashed the whip against Aurora’s barrier. The collision cracked the magic wide open like shattered glass, sending shockwaves through the perimeter.

Denise swore viciously under her breath. The Auria tree was the Tree of Life for all goddesses—the very place of their birth. Worse, its wood possessed a unique property: it was completely immune to goddess magic.

"And now we're doomed," Aurora said, her voice hollow as the last remnants of her barrier dissolved into thin air.