KISS THE DARK

CHAPTER 4

The sky shifted.

Selene lifted her head from the stream where her reflection still glared back at her with crimson eyes and bloodstained lips. A strange glow warmed the edges of the forest, pale threads weaving through the trees. The hour she should not have reached was here—dawn.

Riven had gone very still.

He stood a few paces away, black cloak wrapped around him, his expression sharper than it had been all night. His gaze was fixed not on her, but on the rising light seeping through the canopy.

“Step back,” he said quietly, his tone flat, almost cold.

Selene turned, chest heaving though her body no longer needed air. “Why?”

His crimson eyes met hers, and for the first time since he had appeared, she caught a flicker of something she hadn’t expected—unease. “Because the sun will end you.”

The words should have struck her with terror. But nothing about her felt ordinary anymore. Hunger still coiled low in her belly, fury still burned brighter than fear, and the warmth spilling between the branches drew her in instead of driving her back.

Selene stepped forward.

“Foolish girl,” Riven muttered, and moved as though to stop her. But she was faster. Her feet carried her out from beneath the shadow of the trees, into the clearing where the first light of dawn fell across her.

Heat kissed her skin. Sharp, stinging, like needles pressing against flesh. She winced, flinching against the burn—waiting for smoke, for blistering, for death.

None came.

The sting ebbed. The heat sank deeper, as though her skin were drinking it in, pulling the sunlight into her veins. She closed her eyes, letting the rays touch her face, and for a moment she could almost believe she was still human, waking to another day instead of rising from her grave.

Behind her, Riven hissed, a sound not quite human.

Impossible. That was what his silence said as he stared at her, the sun gilding her hair, her pale skin alive with a glow no vampire should endure.

Selene opened her eyes and turned to him, lips curling into something between a smile and a snarl. “I’m not burning.”

“No,” he whispered, almost to himself. His hands clenched into fists at his sides. “You are not.”

Her heart no longer beat, yet in that moment she felt alive—strangely, dangerously alive.

And with that realization came another, sharper than hunger, heavier than grief.

If she could walk in the sun, she could walk anywhere. Nowhere was safe for Lyra. Not day, not night.

Selene’s vow deepened. She will bleed. She will beg. And I will not stop until she feels what I have felt.

But she did not yet see the shadow flicker across Riven’s face, the weight of ancient recognition in his eyes. Because what she carried was not a gift. It was a curse.Riven moved like a shadow torn from the trees, his presence a blade cutting into her fragile awe. His crimson gaze locked on her, sharper now, colder, no trace of indifference left.

“You should not stand there,” he said, voice clipped. “You should not exist there.”

Selene tilted her chin defiantly, refusing to step back into the shade. “And yet I do.”

Her words cracked something in him. A ripple of emotion she couldn’t name flickered across his face—disbelief, perhaps fear. He looked at her as though she were an affront to the very laws he had lived by for centuries.

“This is not life,” he said slowly. “This is a curse even darker than mine.”

Her lips curved, though her hands trembled at her sides. “If it lets me take back what she stole, then I will carry it gladly.”

“You think vengeance is simple?” His voice hardened. “That you can walk to her door, tear her throat, and be satisfied? You are a fledgling, raw and unbound. You cannot even hold back your thirst.”

Selene remembered the hare, limp and bloodless in her hands, the thrill that had shot through her when its heart stopped beating. Her stomach tightened with shame—and hunger.

“I don’t care,” she spat, though the quiver in her voice betrayed her.

“You will.”

His cloak swept as he turned, but she caught the tension in his movements, the way his body seemed carved with restraint.

Selene followed, steps unsteady. “Why did you do it?” she demanded. “Why save me? Why give me this?”

Riven paused mid-step. The silence stretched, broken only by the distant birdsong beginning to stir in the dawn. Finally, he turned his head, and in that gaze she saw an abyss deeper than the one that had swallowed her only hours ago.

“I do not save,” he said. “I test.”

A chill rolled down her spine. “So I passed?”

“Or you will burn in another way.”

His words dropped like stones, their meaning unfinished, and he walked on.

Selene stood frozen, fists clenched at her sides. She wanted to strike him, to scream, to demand answers. But the sun pressed warm against her shoulders, and the hunger gnawed again, reminding her of what she was now.

She was no longer Selene Veyra, a girl with soft dreams of loyalty and love. She was something else. Something Riven clearly feared—and that gave her power.

She caught up to him, forcing her steps to match his silent, predatory pace. “Then teach me,” she said, her voice sharp with defiance. “If you think I’ll fail, prove it. But don’t you dare tell me I can’t reach her.”

Riven stopped again, his head turning slowly, as though he hadn’t expected those words from her lips.

The faintest curl touched his mouth—not warmth, not kindness, but interest. Dangerous interest.

“Very well,” he murmured. “But understand this, fledgling: if you wish to survive long enough to taste her blood, you will obey me.”

Selene’s jaw tightened. She hated the word—obey. It tasted like chains. But in her chest, fury coiled with hunger, and the image of Lyra’s smile drove her forward.

“Then show me,” she said.

Riven led her deeper into the forest, their steps weaving through tangled roots and thick shadows. The morning was alive now, the sky split with streaks of gold, and still Selene walked beneath it unharmed. She caught the way his eyes lingered on her whenever sunlight brushed her skin—equal parts calculation and unease.

“You will need control,” he said, his tone measured, as though speaking to himself as much as to her. “Without it, your thirst will unmake you before your vengeance ever has the chance.”

Selene forced her voice steady. “Then teach me control.”

Riven stopped at a clearing, the ground littered with pine needles and the hushed whisper of wind. He turned to her fully this time, cloak settling around him like liquid night.

“Close your eyes.”

Selene hesitated, but his gaze was iron, and so she obeyed. The forest sounds rushed in—birds, leaves, her own heartbeat thundering like a drum. And beneath it, subtle yet sharp, the pulse of something alive.

“Listen,” Riven said softly. “Not with your ears, but with the hunger inside you.”

She inhaled, and her veins lit with heat. The air shifted, carrying the scent of fur, the delicate thrum of a rabbit in the undergrowth. Her fangs ached, her chest tightened.

The instinct to move, to pounce, was overwhelming.

“Stop,” Riven commanded.

Her eyes snapped open. He stood inches from her now, one pale hand gripping her wrist, his strength coiled and unyielding. The hunger clawed at her throat, but his presence forced it down, caging it.

“You see?” His voice was low, almost a growl. “It will rule you if you let it. You will become nothing more than a beast chasing throats in the dark.”

Selene jerked her wrist free, anger boiling up. “Better a beast than a coward who hides in the shadows while monsters like her destroy everything!”

Her voice cracked the air, echoing through the clearing.

For a heartbeat, silence.

Then—

A laugh.

It floated on the breeze, sweet as poison, soft as silk, yet drenched in venom. Selene froze, blood turning to ice. She knew that sound—every mocking lilt of it.

Lyra.

Riven’s head snapped toward the trees, every muscle tense, his hand falling to the hilt of the blade hidden beneath his cloak.

Selene’s nails dug into her palms, her breath ragged. She searched the treeline, but there was nothing—only shifting leaves, the ripple of shadows.

But the laughter lingered, curling around her like a ghost, until it dissolved into silence once more.

Riven’s eyes burned crimson, scanning the horizon. “She should not be here,” he muttered, more to himself than to Selene.

Selene’s chest heaved, fury flooding her veins. The taste of vengeance sharpened on her tongue.

Lyra knew. Lyra was watching.

And Selene swore, as her fangs slid down and her hands trembled with rage, that nothing—nothing—would stop her from tearing that laughter out of Lyra’s throat.