Burn For Me

Burning Moonlight

The known world is split into three...

The Human Realm, where humans, werewolves, and witches roam free.

The Underworld, where vampires and creatures of shadow fester.

And the Guardian Realm, where the Guardians, creatures of fiery wings, oversee the balance of the world. They are the ultimate lawmakers, and none is above or exempt from them. To be so, would mean one's irreversible demise.

But there is one law, above all other laws, that beings of myth abide by—the forbidden procreation of two races. For centuries, the law remained absolute and unbroken, until, one day...it was.

Human Realm, Midnight



The old cathedral stood like a dying titan.

Gothic arches stretched into the heavens, lost in darkness. Wind howled through broken stained-glass, and the moon glimmered weakly through fractured panes, casting fragments of silver across the altar.

His target—mission, really—Vesna Nightingale knelt in the center of it, hands clasped in a steeple.

She was an anomaly bathed not only in false reverence but blood as well.

Her raven mane spilled forward in soft, heavy waves, brushing her cheeks. The torn sleeves of her dark coat fell back, revealing wrists lined with faint scars and fresh bruises. Her head was bowed, eyes closed, lips barely moving.

Praying.

To what, Zacharel wondered from beyond the veil.

He stood not in her world, but in the one beside it—separated by a thin curtain of reality. His wings burned low, embers flickering through the veil like smoke and light. He did not emerge. Not yet. His silver eyes stayed locked on her from the void, studying her.

Wondering why it was he who'd been sent to her, at present, and not before.

Born from the blasphemous union of two races, she'd been the talk and target of her own kin, the vampires. Creatures who slithered in the dark and hissed at the slightest touch of the burning sun.

The Crown—the highest governing head of their hierarchy—had not ordered her execution. Oddly, the Crown had stayed silent for many passing years. Until now, of course.

The Crown had sent Zacharel the Unkind—the Merciless, the Hand of Fire, he went by many titles—but not for her head.

For her protection.

He grimaced then as he grimaced now, though objection did not slip past his demeanor much less his lips.

What the Crown ordered, Zacharel would oversee.

His silver eyes studied her kneeling form with a new sense of curiosity, pale lashes slightly fusing.

Yet still...

She was not what she should be. She was part predator, part prey. Her blood called to the damned. And yet she kneeled like the innocent.

He watched her like a judge before the execution. Unflinching. Detached. Silent.

And she hadn't the slightest idea...

She was hunted tonight as well. Her kind were not the understanding, merciful type. They understood her existence meant the continues stain and insult to their legacy and reputation.

But she fought them off bravely. Gravelly.

Footsteps suddenly echoed in the cathedral.

Zacharel’s gaze flickered, sharp.

The father—a human priest draped in ceremonial black—approached the altar.

The priest’s breath fogged in the cold air. His expression was unreadable, solemn… but Zacharel saw the tremor in his hand, the twitch in his fingers as he clasped the rosary tighter.

He sensed the shift. Intent. Darkness curling beneath Vesna's skin.

Still, he did not emerge.

Not yet.

His curiosity of her intentions rooted him in place.

And so, he watched, wings burning low behind the veil.

He could make out the faint smile that nearly contorted her blood-red lips. The father halted right before her.

He could almost sense her fangs, smaller than a vampire's, but nonetheless lethal, thrum and peek from under her upper lip. He could almost feel the hunger pulsing from her. She had to be, seeing as the fresh bruises and cuts on her body were reminder enough. Her presence here meant she needed sustenance.

“What sins have brought you here, my child?” father asked.

Her eyes opened, long, dark lashes fluttering.

She lifted her head.

Her fangs fully emerged from under her lip once she finally let the cruel smile form.

“The one I’m about to commit now.”

Damned, indeed.

She propelled to her feet quicker than the father could track, hands latching onto his shoulders and neck as she bared her fangs for an unforgiving feast. Bloodlust surged through her body like wildfire.

She was starving. Desperate. Dangerous.

But still worth saving.

The instant her fangs grazed the priest's neck—Zacharel burned through the veil.

His wings tore it apart like flame through silk.

In a flash of blinding light, he descended—seven feet of wrath and radiance, arms outstretched, wings blazing like a dying star.

“Enough.”

The word thundered across the cathedral. Not shouted, but delivered.

She would be unwise to challenge it.

His arm seized her around her waist and yanked her away from the priest with effortless, brutal strength.

She gasped, sharp and disoriented. "What—!"

Her body arched against his grip, but he did not falter. Her nails scraped against air, his arm, trying to find purchase. Trying to get to the priest, but his hold did not yield.

She screamed her frustration, but his expression remained unaffected.

Finally, she whipped her head around, and silver eyes met hers for the first time.

They were merciless. Holy. Cold. Not filled with hatred, but something far more severe:

Judgment.

She would not soil holy ground. She would be refrained.

He held her inches above the floor, her boots kicking softly at the robes of the priest now slumped to the ground in terror, breathless but alive.

Zacharel didn’t look away from his captive. His hands—those celestial hands, unmarred by war or woman—clutched her like a divine sentence.

“You would feed inside sacred walls?” he asked, voice low, vibrating like a drawn blade. “Is there no line you will not cross, creature?”

The fire of his wings dimmed behind him—still burning, still alive—but no longer tearing through reality.

He had arrived, and now, he touched Vesna.

And something in that touch sparked through him like a living thing, leaving a hot trail up his arm.

His gaze made no show of emotion, but his jaw clenched.

So close to him, the scent of her blood—wild, rare, not fully human and not quite vampire—clung to her skin like sinful perfume.

Like some untamed, wild beast, she bared those pearl-white yet sharp teeth at him, and then gnashed them.

"You dare to interrupt! Dare!"

But when her frantic eyes zeroed in on the dimmed wings behind him, she gasped.

Her dark eyes widened in shock. Awe. Maybe even fear. Definitely fear. Good. She should be afraid.

"You... You have..." her voice softened. Ah, yes, only one creature in the known world's known to bear such a trait—Guardians of the Light.

Soldiers of the Crown that upheld and restored order when needed.

Her brows furrowed, her head tilting in question, one directed at herself rather than him.

"Am I damned? To be executed?"

Then, as though realizing that if he wanted her dead, she would've already been dead, her brows eased. Then arched.

“Rude,” she lowly seethed at him. “You would dare deny a woman her meal?”

"You would dare hurt an innocent?" Zacharel responded in like.

Her dark gaze fell on the petrified priest on the cathedral floor, and her smile returned.

She shrugged, all innocent.

“I only thought it appropriate to kneel for forgiveness before doing what I was about to do. I thought you guys liked that part.”

His grip did not falter, though her body trembled with heat and fury beneath his hands. He watched her closely, gaze impassive as judgment itself. Her dark eyes—the shade of midnight starless skies—reflected his fire, his wings, his purpose.

And yet she sneered.

Zacharel tilted his head slowly, studying her—like one might study a serpent dressed in lace.

“You call this man your meal,” he replied, voice razor-sharp but spoken in a hush. And yet restrained. Always restrained. “He is not yours, creature. He never was.”

Her smile only widened. Smug. Defiant. Pretending at innocence like a fox cloaked in sheep’s skin.

“You can't blame a girl for wanting a snack.”

With the tip of her boot, she taunted by lightly kicking the priest's robe, and he audibly whimpered, cowering from her touch.

Zacharel's expression didn’t shift, but his hold tightened—just slightly. Enough for her body to feel the strength coiled beneath the golden flesh. Enough to remind her what kind of being now restrained her.

“Do not practice insolence. You mock the sacred while hiding behind the illusion of piety."

Vesna stilled, then cast him a glare. "Do not get so holy on me. What do you even know about me, Guardian?"

His voice dropped, and his wings flared softly behind him, not with violence—but with warning.

“I know what you are, Vesna Nightingale.”

Her voice steeled. Her gaze, even more so. "Oh yeah? Pretty? Hot? Sexy? Smart and deadly?"

“I know what hunts you. I know what you carry.”

He brought her just slightly closer, his breath brushing her cheek—pure and bright and almost too clean to bear.

“Do not mistake mercy for weakness. I am not here to play guardian to a feral thing that refuses to leash its thirst.”

His silver eyes narrowed.

“You want change? Forgiveness? Then earn it.”