Page 19 of Hunted

The scent vanished as quickly as it came, leaving no trail. No source.

Just certainty.

Her.

My missing intended.

The woman promised to me, then lost long enough to become a myth.

The woman the years have insisted is more than likely my… fated mate.

I have searched for her with resources that could buy small countries. Scoured registries, paid in gold and blood and secrets.

Nothing.

Absence became a constant but I learned to live with it. Until the night the city breathed her blood into my lungs.

I drain the glass and set it aside, jaw tightening.

That scent did not belong to a ghost. It belonged to someone alive, close enough to cut herself in my city and walk away unseen.

That thought has not loosened its grip since.

I turn from the window and cross the rooms in a blur of movement, stopping before the Heartshard Glass set into the far wall of my private suite.

The ancient relic was commissioned when the eldest bloodlines refused to endure eternity without the indulgence of seeing themselves as they truly were. Undiminished. Sovereign. Eternal.

We did not accept invisibility.

We required the world to adjust.

And the world obliged.

The reflection that meets me is immaculate. Tailored black suit, crisp lines, composure restored.

I unbutton my shirt slowly, deliberately, as though ritual alone might erode what coils beneath my skin. Then I peel back the fabric and observe my chest with acute dispassion.

The mark over my heart has darkened.

Again.

What started as a faint rune two years ago, barely visible unless I looked for it, now pulses with my heartbeat, the lines deeper, the edges sharper.

It warms when I’m angry. Burns when I lose control, a thankfully rare occurrence. Gleams a dull silver when I’m balanced.

The Crimson Mother’s curse is patient, indolent even, but it is not kind.

I study the symbol as though it might teach me something new. Initially, I pretended indifference, pretended the urgency was not clawing its way through every carefully constructed thought.

Now that pretence is unavoidable.

The knock at the door is precise, perfectly timed.

‘Enter,’ I say, already re-buttoning my shirt.

My butler steps in, posture flawless and eyes lowered. He has served my house for longer than most mortals live and seen kingdoms rise and fall.

If he sees anything amiss in my expression, he is wise enough not to comment.