Page 13 of A Touch of Darkness (Chronicles of the Cursed #1)

The bedroom in my parents’ manor feels like a tomb, the air sizzling with an unspoken finality as Seraphina gently stirs beside me. Her body, warm and soft against mine, is both a balm and a blade, a comfort I no longer deserve. The early morning sun filters through the billowing brocade curtains, splintering into fractured beams that paint her skin in shades of gold. Her long, loose curls fan out on the pillow, her nightcap long gone after our time together in the middle of the night. She is a vision of serenity—an illusion I long to preserve. My eyes trace the faint constellation of freckles dotting her neck, and I cannot resist brushing my fingers over them, as if mapping the starts of a world I can never return to.

An odd stillness brews in the air as she stirs, a weight that lingers between us like the quiet before a storm. I should have known that nothing good would come from this, and yet, she is temptation incarnate—a force that has unraveled me, thread by delicate thread.

Her hand rests lightly on my chest, the quiet rise and fall of her breath soothing, but my thoughts churn with a restless violence.

“I’m carrying your child, Lucian.” The words from our night together come back to me. She told me directly after we came together.

A child. Our child. It feels surreal, like a dream I can’t wake from.

One that will surely cast us into an inevitable nightmare.

Everything has changed so quickly. All I’ve learned—what we’ve created—bears down on me with the crushing force of inevitability. This—this life, this love—will surely destroy us both.

Pregnant.

As much as I want to hold onto that fragile spark of life, something inside me tells me that this is the end.

It must be.

She’s everything I’ve desired, everything I’ve needed but denied myself. For years, I convinced myself she was beyond my reach—a forbidden fruit, too sweet, too perfect for a man like me. She was the light that pierced the shadow of my existence. And now I have destroyed her. I have ruined us. She’s the one who’s always been there, the one who healed my wounds—both the ones on my body and the ones in my soul. Over the years of her working for my family, we’ve grown closer, slowly but surely, each touch, each stolen glance building into something I can’t contain anymore.

But now, it’s clear: we’ve gone too far.

I was raised to understand duty—my duty to my family, to my name, to my future. The crown of this house, the title, the wealth, the power—it all comes with conditions. I have never been allowed to stray from those expectations, not once. And the moment I allow myself to indulge in something like this, it all falls apart.

Her family have been the healers of ours for longer than I can remember. My father has warned me, when seeing me stare a little too long, that I must never mix pleasantries with the “help.” I just couldn’t stay away from her. I know I have to end it. I know I have to deny her because if I don’t, she will be ruined by my father—and I will, too.

She will be better off without me.

I have no choice.

As if the universe itself has decided to test me, the door creaks open. My father. He stands in the doorway, imposing, his silhouette dark and angular, like a sword poised to strike. His eyes narrow as he takes in the sight of us—me, tangled in the sheets with Seraphina, my arm protectively around her. The disgust on his face is palpable, and I already know what’s coming.

“Lucian,” he growls, his voice like a knife cutting through the still air. “What in God’s name is this?”

I freeze as Seraphina jolts awake, covering herself with the sheet and gasping. The words I’ve been dreading, the ones I knew would come sooner or later, are here now, in full force. My heart races in my chest, not just from fear, but from something deeper—something raw, primal. My father looks at me, then at Seraphina, his lip curling in contempt.

“You disgrace yourself,” he says, his voice deep, cold as ice. “I warned you, boy. I warned you that this”—he gestures toward Seraphina with an almost sickened expression—“would ruin you.” The cadence of his words, his tone, it sends a feverish chill through my body.

I try to speak, but the words get stuck in my throat. What can I say? What can I possibly say to justify this? There’s no way to explain the way I feel when she’s near, the way my heart beats faster just thinking about her. But the truth is—there’s nothing I can do. Nothing I can say that will make this go away.

“Seraphina is pregnant,” I manage to say, my voice hollow. I don’t want to say it, don’t want to let the words escape, but they slip out anyway. The truth, fresh and brutal, stings in the air between us.

My father sneers. “A bastard child?” He snorts out a disgusted chuckle. “Is that what you want to create for our family? A legacy of witch filth?”

His words cut into me, each one like a gaping wound. I want to fight back, to stand up for her, to say she’s more than this, more than just the help. But I can’t. Not with him here, not when he holds everything over my head.

My future.

My birthright.

All that I have.

“You’ll be banished from this family,” my father continues, his tone dark and final. “If you persist with this foolishness, I’ll strip you of your title. I’ll cast you out into the streets. The legacy of this family is too important. You think this—this witch—can be a part of that? You’ll destroy us all.”

I feel the cold pressure of his words closing in on me, suffocating me. I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t move. The life I’ve been born into, the future I’m supposed to claim, hangs in the balance. I have to end it. There is no choice. Plus, I know what will become of Seraphina if I disgrace my father and choose her. He will have her killed, have the baby killed, have her entire family who have worked for us for generations…killed. All of them. I’d rather lose out on her love, on my child, than see her die by my father’s blade.

I swallow, trying to steady my breath, but when I speak, my voice comes out as a croak. “It’s over, Seraphina.” My hands shake under the blanket as I rise to sit, turning away from her, waiting for her to leave so she doesn’t have to see the pain and suffering—and guilt—on my face.

Her eyes widen, and for a moment, it feels like everything shatters. “What?” she asks, her voice a hoarse whisper, almost in disbelief, as she looks up at me with her beautiful dark eyes. “Lucian… No. You can’t mean it. You can’t just… reject me. After everything… after all this.”

But I do. I mean it. I must.

There is no other way out of this.

Seraphina shifts next to me, and I can feel the change in the air as she flings the blanket from her body and slowly rises to her feet, her expression unreadable as she stands naked in front of both of us, her rosy nipples pulled tight as she straightens her spine. I look at her like she’s gone mad, and she shakes her head at me, like she’s in a trance. I go to reach for her, but she shrugs away. There’s a moment where the world seems to freeze—her gaze locks with mine, the hurt, the confusion, the pain—all of it is written on her face. But there’s something else there, too. Something darker. Something dangerous.

I look away, unable to meet her gaze. “It’s for the best. You don’t understand, but you’ll see. I can’t—I can’t be with you. Not now. Not ever. I have a duty to this family and to your safety.”

Her face hardens, and in that moment, I see something I’ve never seen before—a dark, swirling rage in her eyes that frightens me. It’s as if her gaze has shifted from the warm one I’ve always known, they appear almost…soulless. Empty.

She steps back, her hands trembling, and I can feel the air around us begin to shift. It’s subtle at first, but then the temperature drops, every ounce of warmth in the space sucked dry. The room begins to hum with an unnatural energy, the walls creaking as if they’re under pressure.

“Tal'vethra nos kai yevra, sol'dara kai votharen, aeyr'tha en deth'arha,” she screams at the top of her lungs, spittle flying from her lips. “You think this is over?” she quiets now, her words a mere whisper but it comes out as a low hiss, her voice cold, venomous. “You think you can throw me aside, and everything will be fine?” She shakes her head again, placing her palms up as if she’s pushing a ghost away from her body. “Draedon tal'or, thyash solka teyr os'vryn alshae. Esh'tharan eyn aethaer, vael'ra nos dai'eran."

I shake my head, my pulse quickening. “Please, Seraphina. You don’t understand.”

But she does. She understands perfectly.

I am choosing my family over her.

Over the child we’ve created.

She repeats the words over and over again, and the ground beneath me trembles. It starts off slow, like a low rumble, but it quickly picks up, amplifies, turning into a vast force that shakes the walls. My heart pounds in my chest, and my breath comes in short, shallow gasps. She raises her hands, and the air around us grows with unease, the energy building with each passing second.

“You’ve broken me,” she says, her voice growing louder now, more powerful, deep. “You’ve betrayed me, Lucian. You’ve betrayed your own blood. Your child. How could you?”

She holds her hands before her, and I can feel the magic swarming around her like a storm on the horizon. It crackles in the air, a power so infinite, so ancient, that I feel it deep in my bones.

“I curse you,” she says, her voice reverberating with the force of the magic she’s calling. “I curse you, Lucian Draedon. You will never know peace. You will never know love. You will never find happiness, not now, not in the next life. You will walk this earth, cursed and alone, for eternity.”

The room shakes violently, the walls cracking as though the very house is coming apart at the seams. The temperature drops even further, and I feel ice in my veins. The power she wields is beyond anything I’ve ever known.

“You don’t want to do this, Sera,” I tell her, my voice betraying me as I’ve betrayed her, trembling like a scared child as I stand, begging her to see.

She’s powerful. Magic flowing through her veins like a second skin. Her family are the first descendants of the original witches. She’s too young to control her powers, we’ve spoken about this before, she’s still learning to control it.

“You will never escape this, Lucian. You will never escape me,” she hisses. “And neither will your family. You’ve destroyed them too. You’ve damned us all.”

The force of her words hits me like a physical blow, a shock that rattles me to my core. I stagger back, barely able to stand as the world spins around me.

The power in her eyes is unlike anything I’ve ever seen. She’s no longer the woman I thought I knew. She is something ancient, something terrible.

“You will never forget this day,” she whispers, her voice low and deadly.

And then, just as quickly as the storm began, it stops. The air goes still. The temperature returns to normal, but the horror of her curse lingers in the air.

And just like that, she’s gone, an eerie feeling left in her wake as she disappears like she was never here at all.

I am left alone, broken and cursed, with nothing but the consequences of my betrayal.

The room is silent. The world outside is still.

But inside me, everything has shifted.

And I know, deep down, that this is just the beginning.