Ashes of the covenant

The year was 1792, and the woods of Vorthrane whispered secrets older than the empires that had crumbled before them. Beneath blood-hued moonlight, a storm of silence settled like a velvet noose over the cursed land. Somewhere within those ancient, snarling trees, something breathed—a hunger cloaked in flesh and lust.

Tae stood on the steps of the abandoned monastery, his cloak soaked through with the rain of centuries. His eyes, molten silver in the moon’s reflection, betrayed nothing of the massacre he’d orchestrated just hours ago. Blood still stained his gloves. The village below would wake to screams and ash.

But Tae was not waiting for screams. He was waiting for him.

Thunder cracked as Kook emerged from the shadows, as silent as the death that followed him. Drenched and barefoot, his shirt torn open and chest painted with the claw marks of another conquest. He looked like sin molded into man—part wild, part ghost.

“You’re late,” Tae murmured, voice silked in venom.

Kook tilted his head, revealing the jagged bite on his throat that was still healing. “You’ve slaughtered your way through a chapel just to remind me how little time means to you?”

Tae smiled. It was the kind of smile that didn’t touch the eyes. “I had to prepare the altar.”

Kook’s nose twitched—he could smell the blood. Priests, nuns, acolytes. All drained. All arranged in a grotesque circle inside the church.

Tae turned and walked inside, not checking if Kook followed. Of course he would. That was the nature of their curse—drawn to each other like blades to flesh.

Inside, candlelight flickered, illuminating the horror of Tae’s work. The bodies were not strewn; they were art. Limbs arranged like petals, faces locked in silent screams. And in the center, the altar draped in black silk. An offering plate lay empty.

“You’ve outdone yourself,” Kook muttered, stepping past the threshold. “Even for a vampire.”

Tae sat upon the altar, one leg crossed over the other, watching the werewolf with a gaze heavy enough to pin a man. “You said you’d offer me a heart.”

Kook chuckled darkly. “Didn’t say it’d be mine.”

Lightning sliced the sky. In the silence that followed, tension crackled, electric and furious.

They had met a hundred years ago on the battlefield of Vienne—Tae, the vampire prince with an empire of shadows; Kook, the bastard-born alpha of a dying bloodline. The war between their kinds had never truly ended. They’d burned cities together, hunted kings, and destroyed each other again and again.

But it was this—these meetings under cursed moons, this dance of destruction and desire—that neither could abandon.

“You smell like her,” Tae said suddenly, standing. “The witch.”

Kook’s lips curled. “Jealousy, Tae? Didn’t think your heart beat at all.”

“I ripped it from a cardinal this morning. Wanted to see if it fit.”

Tae moved closer, steps silent, until they stood inches apart. Kook didn’t flinch when the vampire touched his throat, tracing the fading bite mark.

“You’re healing too quickly,” Tae whispered. “She’s feeding you spells.”

“And you’re starving yourself again. Does the blood not satisfy anymore?”

“Only yours.”

Kook grabbed Tae’s wrist, crushing it hard enough to snap bone—but Tae didn’t react. Not physically. His eyes darkened. Pleased.

“You’ll never own me,” Kook snarled, voice low and shaking.

“I already do,” Tae whispered, and kissed him.

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t even human. It was a collision of hunger and fury, of claws scraping against marble hearts. Kook shoved him back against the altar, and for a moment, the chapel filled with something unholy—not quite love, not quite hate. Something far worse.

Tae’s laugh was muffled against Kook’s mouth. “Go ahead, little wolf. Mark me. See what happens.”

Kook’s hands were at Tae’s throat now, claws half-formed, lips still wet with the taste of him. “One day I’ll rip out your spine and feed it to your own fledglings.”

“And I’ll resurrect myself through your blood,” Tae said, tilting his head in offering. “Again. And again.”

Thunder struck once more. Outside, the wind howled like a dying god.

And inside, amidst corpses and candlelight, two monsters writhed in the oldest covenant of all—power, pain, and desire. Neither lover, nor enemy, but something blacker than both.

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