KAELEN'S POV
The insect was still talking.
I'd been imprisoned in darkness and agony for six hundred years, and the first thing I encountered upon freedom was a pathetic human male babbling about capturing me.
Amusing.
I extended one hand, and shadows erupted from my palm like living serpents. They wrapped around the armed men before they could blink, lifting them off their feet and slamming them into walls hard enough to crack stone.
Screams filled the chamber. Music to my ears.
"Wait—stop!" The insect—Marcus, she'd called him—stumbled backward, his device clattering to the floor. "You can't—I have authority from the Institute—"
I caught him by the throat with one hand, lifting him until his feet dangled above the ground. He weighed nothing. Fragile. Breakable.
"Authority?" I let my voice drop to a deadly whisper. "You think your pathetic human institutions mean anything to me?"
Through the soul bond, I felt her fear spike. The girl. Elara. Selene's soul wearing a new face.
I glanced back at her. She pressed against the wall, silver eyes wide with terror, staring at me like I was a monster.
Good. She should be afraid.
But something twisted in my chest when I saw that fear. Something I didn't like.
Focus, I told myself. She's just a tool. A means to break the curse.
Marcus gurgled, clawing at my hand. I tightened my grip just enough to make him panic.
"Listen carefully, insect," I said. "That woman behind me? She's mine now. Soul-tethered and shadow-claimed. Come near her again—" I leaned close, letting him see the predator behind my eyes. "—and I'll demonstrate what six centuries of torture taught me about breaking men slowly."
I threw him across the chamber. He crashed into his scattered guards with a satisfying crunch.
"Run," I commanded softly.
They ran.
Marcus scrambled after them, limping and terrified. But before he disappeared through the door, he looked back at Elara with such hatred it made my shadows hiss.
"This isn't over!" he screamed. "You're a criminal now, Elara! They'll execute you for this!"
Then he was gone, and we were alone.
I turned to face the girl who'd summoned me.
She hadn't moved. Still pressed against that wall, trembling, one hand covering the mark on her chest. Her power—newly awakened—crackled around her like barely contained lightning. She had no idea how to control it.
Perfect. Weak and untrained meant easy to manipulate.
"We need to leave," I said. "Now. Those insects will return with reinforcements."
"I—I can't just—" Her voice shook. "I have a job here, I can't abandon—"
"Your job?" I laughed, and it came out colder than I intended. "Little forsaken one, the moment you completed that ritual, your old life ended. You're a criminal now. A summoner. They'll hunt you. Execute you. Use you as bait to capture me."
Fear and something else—defiance—flashed in those silver eyes. "Then break the bond. Let me go."
"I can't." The words tasted bitter. "The soul tether can't be broken. Not until one of us dies."
"Then you're stuck with me." She straightened, trying to look brave even though I could feel her terror through the bond. "I didn't ask for this. I didn't know it would actually work."
"But you did it anyway." I moved closer, watching her fight the urge to run. "You cut your palm. Spoke your soul name. Bled into a summoning circle during an eclipse. What did you think would happen?"
"I thought—" She stopped, looked away. "I wanted to prove my research was real. That I wasn't just some forgettable nobody Marcus could use and discard."
Ah. There it was. The wound driving her.
Betrayal. Abandonment. The desperate need to be seen as worthy.
I knew that wound intimately.
"So you summoned a Shadow King for revenge," I said, circling her slowly. She tracked me with those new shadow-touched eyes, instinct telling her I was dangerous even if she didn't fully understand why yet. "How delightfully reckless."
"I didn't mean to summon you specifically," she snapped. "The ritual was supposed to summon a shadow-kin. Any shadow-kin. Just to prove the magic worked."
"Yet you got me. The most powerful. The most hunted." I stopped in front of her, close enough to see her pulse jumping in her throat. "Do you know why?"
She shook her head.
"Because you're not just any mage, little forsaken one. You're shadow-bonded. Born with magic specifically designed to call to beings like me." I touched the mark on my chest, felt the echo of pain from the curse eating me from inside. "And more than that—you carry Selene's soul. The universe itself chose us to be bound."
"I don't understand any of this," she whispered. "Who was Selene? Why does her soul matter?"
The curse chose that moment to flare. Pain lanced through my chest, sharp and vicious. I staggered, catching myself against the wall beside her head.
Through the bond, she felt it. Gasped as my agony bled into her.
"You're hurt," she said, and I hated the concern in her voice. "The curse—what is it doing to you?"
"Killing me." I forced the words out through gritted teeth. "Slowly. For six hundred years, it's been draining my power, my life force. Every year I remain separated from my tethered soul, I die a little more."
Understanding dawned in her eyes. "And I'm supposed to be that soul. The cure."
"Yes."
"How? What do I have to do?"
I straightened, studying her carefully. This moment was crucial. I needed her compliant, willing to do whatever it took to complete the bond. Fear would work, but cooperation worked better.
"A ritual," I said. "More complex than the summoning. It will fully bind our souls together—permanently, irrevocably. Once completed, the curse breaks and my power returns."
"And what happens to me?"
"You become shadow-bonded in truth. Powerful beyond anything your pathetic Institute could imagine. Strong enough to destroy everyone who wronged you."
Temptation flickered across her face. She wanted that. The power. The revenge.
Just like I'd calculated.
"But there's a cost," I continued. "The bonding ritual requires complete trust. Total vulnerability. We'd be fused at the soul level. My memories become yours. Yours become mine. We'd be... connected. Forever."
She stepped back, shaking her head. "No. I don't even know you. I'm not binding my soul to a stranger for eternity—"
"Then we both die." I said it flatly. "The Seraphim are already hunting us. Your precious Marcus will tell them everything. Without the completed bond, I'm too weak to protect us both. We'll be captured within days. They'll execute you and lock me back in that void prison where I'll spend another six centuries being tortured."
Her face went pale.
"So here's your choice, little forsaken one." I leaned close, letting her feel the weight of my words. "Complete the bond with me and live. Refuse, and we both suffer fates worse than death."
She opened her mouth to respond.
The cathedral windows exploded inward with a blast of blinding white light.
A woman descended through the shattered glass, landing with impossible grace. Beautiful and terrifying, wrapped in armor that gleamed like captured starlight. Massive white wings spread behind her. In her hand, a sword that burned with holy fire.
An archangel. A Seraphim warrior.
And not just any Seraphim.
"Aurelia," I breathed, and six hundred years of hatred flooded my veins.
She smiled at me with cold triumph.
"Hello, Kaelen. Did you miss me?" Her eyes shifted to Elara. "And you must be the foolish little summoner. How kind of you to make my job so easy."
She raised her burning sword, pointing it directly at Elara's heart.
"The
penalty for summoning shadow-kin is death. Prepare to die, criminal."