Page 28 of A Touch of Darkness

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 myheart 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 handsshake 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.

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