Page 1 of Nocturne
PROLOGUE I
HUNTER
Three Years Ago
The sky’s bruised, heavy with grief. A mass of gray covers everything, like even the damn world stopped to mourn. The rain falls light, persistent, soaking the cemetery grass, the hunched shoulders, the pale-ass flowers on top of the white coffin. From here, between the dark trees, hidden under my hood and the silence, I watch. The mourners are lined up like shadows, black umbrellas like raven wings, and the coffin... about to be swallowed by the earth.
Damon Reed is there.
Standing still, surrounded by uncles, aunts, cousins who have no fucking clue what he’s carrying now. His face is lowered. I can’t see his eyes, but still... I see everything.
The priest says something, but the wind fucks it up. The sound mixes with the rain hitting the leaves, the stones, the old-ass coffins scattered across the cemetery. In front of me, a moss-covered statue keeps one hand over its eyes — like it’s crying for every name wiped off the world. The air here is thick, freezing, like every breath tastes like rust and mud. Even time feels wrong: it doesn’t move. It’s stuck between the raindrops, between themuffled sobs of some distant relative, between the flowers already starting to wilt under the water.
I should’ve left. I wasn’t supposed to be here. But something holds me. Something in that broken boy — solid and fragile at the same time — forces me to stay. His pain... you can’t explain that shit. There’s no screaming, no scene, just a silence that swallows everything around. He looks carved by grief itself, no crying, no anger, just that violent emptiness stamped in the way he won’t look at anyone. And even surrounded by people, he’s alone. I see that. I get that.
This is the first time I really see Damon. Not just as another face in the chaos, but as something that grabs me, cuts deep. There’s something in him that burns, even soaked in rain. Something that dares me, fucking dares me to look deeper. To want to know what the hell’s going on behind those eyes no one else seems to notice. And I look. I stay there, like a ghost between trees, staring at the beginning of the end of everything.
It’s weird being here, watching his life unfold, while he hasn’t got the slightest clue who the fuck I am. I’ve never done this for anyone before, but there’s something about this kid that wakes up a part of me I didn’t even know existed — a part that’d do whatever the hell it takes to protect him and keep him all to myself, even if it means someone ends up dead.I tried to keep my distance, but his pain claws at me like wildfire — there’s a thin line between fascination and obsession. And I fucking stumbled right over it without even realizing, not fully knowing what the hell he’s stirring inside me.
“You shouldn’t be here. You know that, right?” The voice cuts through sharp and cold, like a blade. He stops beside me with the calm of someone who fears nothing — not even me. Without once meeting my eyes, he keeps his gaze locked on the funeral a few meters away, like I’m just some irrelevant detail in the scene.
It’s Carter Holloway, the head of the Nocturne Pact — the rival gang to Iron Requiem, the gang I belong to. A knot tightens in my throat, my jaw clenches until it hurts, and my shoulders stiffen without me even realizing. The air feels thicker, heavier, like the silence around us is loaded with tension.
“You really don’t waste time.” I throw a crooked, mocking smile, trying to hide the tightness in my chest.
“While some cry, others make the clock work in their favor.” He breathes out before going on. “I don’t stop, not even with death weighing on me.”
When I finally turn my face, I stare at Carter up close for the first time. He’s standing still beside me, like part of the scenery — or like he owns everything around. The dark coat molds his broad frame, and the heavy fabric seems to swallow the light around us. He doesn’t need to look at me to threaten me. His gloved hand grips the umbrella like it’s a scepter. And that face… marked by time and power, unreadable. Every line seems designed to demand respect—or fear.
My fingers curl into fists inside my coat pocket. I want to feel nothing, but my skin burns just being next to him. He’s everything I hate: arrogance, control, the disgusting certainty that everything belongs to him—evenother people’s death. And he’s not here for mourning. Carter Holloway never steps out of the den without a reason. He’s studying everything, like this funeral is just another opportunity in the mess. And that makes me want to break something.
“Big words for a motherfucker who should be rotting six feet deep.” My voice cuts low, steady, sharp as shattered glass. I don’t wait for an answer. Don’t need one.
I turn my back, letting the weight of that silence drop between us like the final hit in a death sentence. The muffled sound of rain sliding off the leaves shadows my footsteps as I disappear between crooked-ass headstones and rain-soaked trees. Pain pulses in my clenched fists. The bitter burn of rage scratches up my throat, thick and raw.
“Don’t fucking get in the way, kid. He’s already ours.”
His voice comes steady, dripping with calm-ass venom — like a motherfucker who’s already won. There’s mockery on every word, but the threat behind it’s real as hell, no fuckin’ joke.
When Carter’s words hit the air, everything brutally clicks in my head: Damon’s already marked, recruited into the Nocturne Pact — a kid still drowning in grief, thrown headfirst into a world of blood, lies, and destruction.
Real life ain’t made of dreams or some pretty-ass hopes. It’s a punch to the gut, a knife buried deep in your chest, and me? I’ve been carrying that weight for a long-ass time.
While he’s getting lost in that bloody world, myobsession becomes the thread that ties us and I wonder: did our paths cross to save each other, or just drag us deeper into the darkness we both carry?
PROLOGUE II
HUNTER
Three Years Ago
He really shouldn’t have done what he did. The mistake he made was crossing the line — stepping over a boundary that no one, absolutely no one, has the right to cross. Doesn’t matter if he was drunk or if he snorted a line of coke in that filthy-ass nightclub bathroom.
Fuck that.
The worst part wasn’t even him putting his hands on Damon. It was the fucking persistence. The way he kept going even after hearing a no. Like his will mattered more than someone else’s body. Like there were no consequences.
People really think they can do whatever the fuck they want. But I’m here to show them they can’t. That they fucking can’t.
