The rain fell in sheets, hammering the empty streets of Graybridge like a thousand iron nails. Streetlamps flickered under the assault, their dying light casting broken shadows across the pavement.
Caelan Draven ran.
His boots pounded the slick concrete, every breath a ragged fire in his lungs. He didn't dare look back. He could hear them — silent footsteps that moved too fast, too graceful to be human. Shadows that slipped between the pools of light without disturbing them. Predators, hunting him through the veins of the city.
This isn't real, he thought, heart slamming against his ribs. This has to be some nightmare.
Only it wasn't. The blood on his hands — sticky, warm, and undeniably real — proved otherwise.
The alley ahead yawned open like a throat. Caelan darted into it, skidding around a dumpster slick with filth. His fingers scraped the brick wall as he turned, almost slipping. Somewhere behind him, a soft laugh echoed — low and cruel, like the purr of a satisfied cat.
"Don't run, little prince," a voice crooned through the darkness. "We only want a taste…"
Panic clawed at him, urging him faster, but his body was reaching its limit. He staggered forward, his legs barely obeying.
Then — without warning — a figure dropped from the rooftop above, landing soundlessly in front of him.
Caelan froze. His vision blurred with rain and fear. The figure straightened slowly, unnaturally tall, wrapped in a black cloak that seemed to drink the light. Pale eyes gleamed beneath the hood — ancient, merciless.
"Found you," the creature whispered.
Before Caelan could react, pain exploded across his chest. The figure moved — too fast to follow — and Caelan crashed into the wall behind him, the air knocked from his lungs.
He slumped to the ground, vision swimming. His hands scrabbled at the wet concrete. A warm, metallic taste filled his mouth.
I'm going to die, he thought numbly. Right here. Alone.
The figure stalked closer, slow now, savoring the moment.
And then — something inside Caelan shifted.
A low, deep pulse stirred in his veins. Hot and ancient. It wasn't fear. It wasn't pain.
It was rage.
The air around him seemed to hum. The rain slowed, each droplet hanging in the air like frozen diamonds. The world twisted.
The figure reached for him — but Caelan was already moving.
He moved without thought, without plan. His hand shot out, grabbing the figure's wrist in an iron grip. A strangled gasp escaped the hooded attacker. Caelan's strength — impossible strength — flared through his muscles.
He yanked the figure forward and drove his fist into its chest. Bone crunched. The attacker was hurled backward as if struck by a battering ram, slamming into the opposite wall and crumpling like a puppet with its strings cut.
Caelan stared at his hands. They trembled — not from fear, but from something else.
Something awakening.
The rain resumed its fall. The distant sirens of Graybridge City wailed somewhere beyond the alley's mouth.
Above him, another figure stepped into view.
But this one did not attack. She moved with measured grace, her long coat whipping around her ankles in the wind. Her hair, black as midnight, clung to her face. Her eyes — a burning, unnatural silver — locked onto his.
"At last," she murmured. "The Nightborn blood awakens."
Caelan staggered back, heart hammering.
"Who... who are you?"
The woman smiled — a sharp, knowing smile — and bowed low, like a courtier greeting a king.
"I am Veyla," she said. "Your servant. Your protector. And if you wish to survive the night, Your Highness, you must come with me."
Thunder rumbled overhead.
Caelan had no idea who this woman was. No idea why strange monsters were hunting him, or why his body felt like it was full of molten fire. But somehow, deep inside, he knew two things:
First, nothing would ever be normal again.
And second — the blood in his veins wasn't human.
It never had been.