Page 33 of A Touch of Darkness (Chronicles of the Cursed #1)

It’s been two days since we escaped the Solstice Society’s clutches.

Two days since I’ve heard from Lara, and I’m starting to worry. I’ve called out to her, begged for some kind of response, but nothing comes. Part of me clings to the hope that maybe she needs rest. Maybe she’s healing, wherever she is.

Another part of me worries that I’ve pissed them off enough to hurt her for real this time. To take her out of that state of suspension and?—

I can’t allow myself to go there.

Two days.

Two days of sleep—if you could even call it that. I’ve drifted in and out of consciousness, my mind trapped in an endless storm of memories and feelings I can’t control. I haven’t seen much of Lucian, only the staff he’s sent to check on me, including a doctor. He’s clearly giving me space to rest and recuperate, but the silence has been deafening. He won’t allow me to go back to the dorm, not that I want to anyways, but he says he has wards up to protect his home and I’m the safest here out of anywhere else.

And I believe him.

The bedroom he’s offered me is impossibly vast, like everything else in this castle-like house. The high ceiling looms over me, threatening to swallow me whole. The bed beneath me, too large and too soft, feels more like a cage than a sanctuary. Shadows flicker along the walls, cast by the fire crackling in the hearth. I pull my knees to my chest, hugging them tightly, trying to ground myself. But the memories won’t let me rest.

Lara’s voice in my mind. The dark chamber beneath the Solstice Society’s clutches. Isabel’s cryptic warnings.

And Lucian.

Always Lucian.

From the moment I saw him.

Our last kiss plays on a loop inside my head. I can’t make sense of it. Of him. Of us. I was trying to ignore those feelings swirling inside of me—feelings for him, both good and bad—but after our kiss in the classroom and then the desperate need to save him the other night…it shows me how much I care. How I can’t run from him.

How I don’t want to.

A soft knock startles me, jolts me from my thoughts, sharp and sudden. Before I can answer, the door creaks open, and he steps inside.

Lucian.

He’s barefoot, his dress slacks hanging low on his hips, his chest bare. It brings me back to the night I walked in on him fucking that vampire woman.

My mind betrays me. My cheeks burn at the memory, my traitorous body stirring despite the slice of resentment still simmering beneath my skin.

His dark hair falls loose, framing his face in the soft glow of the firelight. For a moment, I can’t breathe. He really is a beautiful man. If it weren’t for him being a vampire, I’d swear him to be an angel.

He doesn’t say anything at first, just leans against the doorframe like he’s unsure if he’s welcome. His usual confidence is absent, replaced by something quieter, almost hesitant.

“Can’t sleep?” His voice is low, careful.

I shake my head, and he steps further into the room, closing the door behind him. He doesn’t ask if he can sit beside me; he just does. It’s very on brand for the Lucian I’ve come to know. He takes what he wants, and right now, he wants my time. The mattress dips under his weight. He’s too close, his presence overwhelming, like the room has suddenly shrunk.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” he says after a moment, his eyes fixed on the fire. I’ve wanted you to rest, to give you time to recuperate. To heal. Still, I feel as though if I don’t say this now, I’ll never say it at all.”

“What is it?” My voice comes out sharper than I intend, but I can’t help it. The tension between us is suffocating.

“It’s about you. About who you are. Who we are.”

The way he says it makes my heart lurch. I don’t respond, waiting for him to continue, but he seems to be struggling with the words. Finally, he sighs, dragging a hand through his hair. For a man so powerful, he looks almost…afraid.

And I can’t help but feel deeply unsettled.

“You deserve to know the truth, Sylvie. No more half-answers. No more avoiding it. After all that happened at the hands of the Solstice Society, what could have happened down in that chamber, I can’t keep it from you any longer.”

I want to interrupt, to demand answers. Why has he been keeping secrets from me? Something in his expression stops me. He looks... haunted. Like whatever these secrets are hurt him as much as they might hurt me.

“You and Seraphina. You’ve been intrigued by her. You’ve seen visions. The two of you—you are one and the same,” he says, his voice growing quiet.

The name hits me like a physical blow. It’s not just the sound of it—though the way he says it, soft and reverent, sends a shiver down my spine. It’s the weight of it. The way it settles over me, heavy and inescapable.

“I don’t—what are you talking about?” My voice is thin, trembling.

“You are reincarnated,” he says. “I know this is hard to believe. And you’ve had so much thrown at you in such a little amount of time, but you aren’t just Sylvie Rosenthal. You were Seraphina Everdawn. You were a witch more powerful than anyone I’d ever known. And we... we were in love.”

The room tilts, my world spinning on its axis. I clutch the blanket beneath me, trying to ground myself, but his words keep whirling in my head.

“We? We were in… love ?” I echo, my voice barely above a whisper. “In another life. As Seraphina…”

That could explain this intense pull I feel toward him.

Lucian nods, his beautiful, dark gaze finally meeting mine. “Deeply. Madly, one could argue. We were connected in ways I can’t fully explain. Bound. Tied across lifetimes, across centuries, written in the stars. But I failed you, Sylvie. I betrayed you.”

“Betrayed me?” My chest tightens, my voice cracking on the words. Another explanation for the odd sensation I felt walking up to Blackthorne when I first saw him. How I’ve felt this pull yet this strange sense of…something being not quite right.

He nods again, and the pain in his eyes is almost unbearable. “You were pregnant. We were going to have a child, and I thought... I thought I could keep you safe. But my father—he would’ve destroyed us both. I turned my back on you to protect you, to give you a chance to live, to survive without me. I thought I was doing the right thing, but I—” His rushed words slow, his voice breaks, and he looks away, unable to finish.

Pregnant. Betrayed. Protected. He told me this before, but it was about Seraphina. I didn’t have such a dire connection to the words he was saying about the curse, about the man who hurt her…but now. I am Seraphina. Yes, I’m Sylvie, but I was once her, too.

His words blur together, and my breathing quickens. I press my palms against my temples, willing the pieces to fit, but it’s too much.

“You left me ,” I whisper, my voice trembling. “You abandoned me.” Flashes of my life as Seraphina come back to me. Tangled in the sheets with Lucian. Making love to him in front of a fireplace. My hand settling over my belly and feeling life inside of me.

Healing him with my palms when he was hurt, curing him.

And then cursing him.

“Oh, my God,” I say, my hand cupping my mouth. The visions come back. Seraphina—me, the cracked mirror in my dorm.

“I thought it was the only way,” he says, his voice rough. “But you didn’t see it that way. You were furious. Devastated. And in your grief, your rage, you cursed me. You created the curse that made vampires what they are. That made me what I am.”

The fire crackles, the only sound in the room as his words sink in.

“I cursed you,” I say, the memory of it almost too much to bear. “Me.” The immensity of what he’s saying hits me full-force, like a car crash. “ I did this to you. I didn’t mean to, but I did.”

“Yes. Like I’ve told you, you didn’t mean to curse anyone else, but your magic was... uncontrollable. You were an original witch. You were used to healing, that is what you knew. But when I hurt you, your magic was uncontrollable. So unbelievably powerful, and you didn’t know how to control those powers. You were still so young. You didn’t believe you’d hurt anyone else, but the curse spread. It created all of this.” He gestures vaguely, his expression raw. “You as Seraphina created the vampire curse, and it started with me and continued growing from there. When I was first turned, that same night when you saw us in the clearing, under the light of the moon, I was feral. I went absolutely mad, and I didn’t know what was happening. In the early years of me being a vampire, I was on a tirade, a rampage, and no one was safe.”

He pauses and takes in a deep, shuddering breath. The look in his eyes seems distant, like he’s back in the years he speaks of.

“I turned many unwilling humans into vampires without even knowing what I was doing. Many survived, many did not, simply because I did not even know what I’d become or the rules involved. It wasn’t until a group of powerful witches took me in and figured out what had happened that we started to piece things together. All signs—my thirst for blood, my rage, among other things—pointed toward Seraphina creating this substantial curse that was unintentional, but a curse all the same. The group of witches who helped me were the ones to name us as vampires and help me realize what had happened and how to live with it. Most of this life, since turning, has been trial and error.”

I shake my head, trying to absorb this new information.

“The vampire curse tied us, you and me, together, forever bound. Across lifetimes. We found each other in this lifetime, and I am certain we will find each other in the next. Simply put, it’s fate.”

“Fate?” His words hit me like a tidal wave, and suddenly everything makes a terrible kind of sense—the pull I feel toward him, the strange flashes of memories I don’t understand.

These are the answers I’ve been both trying to find and running from.

“But this is my life,” I say, my voice rising as heat blooms in my chest. “I didn’t ask for this! I didn’t ask for any of it…” Tears spill down my cheeks as heaviness surrounds me.

“I know,” he says softly, his shoulders slumping. “And I’ll spend the rest of my existence trying to make up for what I did to you—to us. But you need to understand—you’re still in danger, Sylvie. I believe the Solstice Society wholly underestimated you, and they know that now. We all do.” He shrugs, as if he has nothing left to give me. “I needed you to know, no matter what you do with the knowledge. It’s for your own good.”

The air is blatantly suffocating. I want to scream, to cry, to run away, but there’s nowhere to go.

“I can’t do this,” I whisper, tears welling in my eyes.

Lucian shifts closer, his hand brushing against mine. “Sylvie, please.”

The sincerity in his voice cracks something inside me. I look at him, really look at him, and for the first time, I see the depth of his guilt, his regret, and something else—a beautiful, unforgiving hope. I can’t stay away from this man. Not after everything. Not now. Not even if we hurt each other in another lifetime.

Before I can stop myself, I lean in, and so does he. Our lips meet, and the world fully collapses around us. His touch is both fire and ice, searing yet soothing, and I’m lost in his frenzy. Anger and longing clash within me, but I can’t pull away. I don’t want to.

When we finally do pull apart, I’m breathless, my heart racing.

“I don’t know if I can forgive you yet,” I say softly. “And how could you ever forgive me?” A cry rips from my throat, and he pulls me into his chest.

“You aren’t Seraphina anymore, Sylvie. You are an entirely different person. You lived and died as Seraphina, and you’ve started anew. And while I may be the same man, I’m different in many ways as well. I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust in this lifetime,” he says. “But as for me, you’re forgiven Sylvie. You’ve always been. You couldn’t have possibly known.”

The fire crackles softly, the sound between us as the maelstrom of revelations settles into a somehow easy calm. For the first time, I truly see him—not as Lucian, the vampire, but as the man who loved and lost me lifetimes ago.