The club pulsed with low bass, thick with smoke and secrets. Shadows danced across crimson-lit walls, and the scent of perfume mingled with something darker—blood, maybe, or lust. Melissa sat at the edge of the VIP section, half-drunk on bourbon, fully cloaked in silence. Her silver hair, long and wild, spilled over the shoulders of her dark coat like moonlight on midnight waves.
She wasn't here to play. She never was. Just watch. Observe. Feed if necessary.
Then she walked in—Sylla.
Red hair like wildfire, lips painted like temptation, eyes wide and curious. Melissa felt it the moment their eyes locked: that sharp tug in her gut, the jolt of recognition that didn't make sense. Not yet.
Sylla smiled. Just a tilt of her lips, but it lit something inside Melissa she hadn't felt in decades—centuries, maybe. Desire, yes. But also something more dangerous. Familiarity.
Their paths should never have crossed. Not in this city. Not in this life.
But destiny doesn't knock politely. It crashes in like thunder.
Sylla slid onto the seat beside her without asking. "You don't look like you belong here," she said, voice low, smooth as melted chocolate.
Melissa smirked, sipping her drink. "Neither do you."
A beat passed. Then a laugh—light, almost too pure for this place. And just like that, the mask Melissa wore began to crack.
That night ended the way forbidden things usually do. In a hotel room. Clothes tangled. Hearts racing. Mouths tasting secrets better left buried.
Melissa hadn't planned to stay. She never did.
But she couldn't leave.
Because when Sylla slept, she whispered a name that hadn't been spoken in over a hundred years.
And it was Melissa's.
Melissa froze.
Her hand hovered midair, fingers brushing the cigarette she never lit. Her eyes flicked to the sleeping woman tangled in the sheets beside her. Sylla's brow twitched, lips parted as if caught in the middle of a dream—or a memory.
That name. Spoken in a voice too soft, too familiar.
Melisandre.
No one had called her that in lifetimes.
Melissa stood, her heart pounding despite how cold her body had grown over the years. Her vampire senses kicked in, scanning for a logical explanation. Had Sylla overheard someone? Was this a trick? Another witch's curse to drag her into a war she thought she'd escaped?
But looking at Sylla… she didn't seem like a witch. Didn't seem like anything other than heartbreakingly human. Fragile. Mortal.
And yet, her presence pulled at Melissa's soul like a thread being unwound.
Melissa took a step closer, her boots silent on the hotel's marble floor. She leaned down, brushing a strand of fiery red hair from Sylla's cheek. The woman murmured again in her sleep, softer this time.
"Don't leave me…"
Melissa's throat tightened. She'd heard those same words once, lifetimes ago, spoken under the burning sky of a doomed kingdom. A memory. A curse.
She backed away.
No. This couldn't be happening.
Hours Later
Dawn crept in through the curtains, painting golden streaks across Sylla's bare back. Melissa was dressed, standing at the door, fingers wrapped around the handle. One turn. One pull. She could disappear—do what she did best. Forget. Run.
But the ghost of Sylla's touch burned her skin.
The way her lips had trembled under Melissa's, the way her fingers had clutched her like a woman trying not to drown. It had been too real.
Too familiar.
She let go of the handle.
"Who are you?" she whispered to the sleeping figure. "And why the hell do you feel like home?"
Sylla's POV
Awakenings
There was warmth when she reached for it.
A hand. Skin. Presence.
Gone.
Sylla's eyes fluttered open. For a second, she thought it had all been a dream—the silver-haired stranger, the intoxicating pull, the way time had melted and warped around them like wax under flame. But the sheets told a different story: twisted, tangled, heavy with the scent of sex, sweat, and something darker.
Melissa.
The name echoed in her skull. But it wasn't the name she remembered whispering in her sleep.
Melisandre.
Where had that come from?
She sat up slowly, her body aching in delicious ways, but her mind reeling. She'd never done something like that before. A one-night stand? Not her style. Especially not with someone who radiated danger with every controlled breath.
Melissa had felt... ancient. Powerful. Like something that shouldn't be walking around in a nightclub, let alone looking at her like she was the only thing worth tasting in the world.
Sylla rubbed her forehead, frustration prickling at the edge of her thoughts. Why did this feel bigger than it should be?
Why did she feel like she knew that woman?
She got up, dragging the sheet around her like armor. On the nightstand sat a business card. No name. No number. Just a blood-red symbol burned into thick paper: a crescent moon intertwined with a flame.
It pulsed.
Her fingers brushed it—and a flash of pain stabbed behind her eyes. A memory not her own slammed into her like lightning.
A battlefield. Screams. Fire.
And a woman with silver hair, blood on her lips, calling out to her with a voice cracked from heartbreak.
"Run, Sylla—"
She stumbled back, gasping, the card dropping to the floor like a fallen omen.
What the hell was that?
**********************************"
She stared at the card for a long second, pulse thudding in her ears.
Then she shook her head, hard.
"Nope," she muttered. "Not today, Satan."
She scooped up the card, shoved it in the hotel drawer like it was cursed, and moved on autopilot—shower, clothes, red lipstick, confidence. She slid back into her usual armor: tight jeans, a black crop top, and the signature leather jacket that made her feel like she could outrun whatever the hell last night was.
The mirror caught her reflection as she passed.
Eyes tired.
Lips still tingling.
A ghost of Melissa's touch still lingered along her jaw. She rubbed it away like a smudge.
"This meant nothing," she told herself, aloud this time. "Just a night."
Her voice didn't sound like her own. Too hollow. Too careful.
She grabbed her phone and keys, walked out of the hotel room, and didn't look back.
Later That Day
The city was loud again. Busy. Oblivious. Just how she liked it.
Sylla walked through the streets like everything was normal, like her entire world hadn't cracked a little in the shape of a woman with silver hair and eyes full of sorrow. She told herself she wouldn't think about her. Wouldn't wonder why her name felt like a prayer.
But when she walked past a mirror inside a café window, something made her stop.
Just a flicker.
A shape in the reflection that wasn't hers.
Silver.
She turned fast.
No one was there.
Just shadows.
But her chest was tight now. And she couldn't help the whisper that slipped from her lips.
"…Melisandre."
(Sylla's POV)
She shook it off and kept walking. Fast. Determined.
The city felt colder now, even with the sun out. Every step echoed louder than it should. Her instincts were screaming, but she didn't know what they were trying to tell her.
A voice at the back of her mind—soft, seductive, ancient—whispered:
You've been seen.
She turned again. Nothing. Just strangers on the sidewalk, cars, a barking dog in the distance. But the feeling didn't leave.
Someone was watching her.
Not in the way creeps watch pretty girls.
No—this gaze burned. It knew her.
And it wasn't human.
Across the street, tucked in the shadows of an alley, stood a figure in a dark coat. Too still. Too quiet.
Their face hidden.
But their attention? Locked on Sylla like a predator to prey.
The card flashed in her mind—the crescent moon, the flame.
Sylla took a step back.
The figure tilted its head.
She blinked—and they were gone.
______________________________________
Threads Unraveling
Melissa's POV
She hadn't fed.
Not really.
Not since the night before.
But hunger wasn't what twisted in Melissa's gut as she sat alone, high up in an abandoned cathedral overlooking the city. Her coat clung to her frame like armor, silver hair wind-tossed, eyes locked on the street below.
She hadn't followed Sylla.
Not exactly.
She just… couldn't stay away.
There was something wrong. Off. Not with Sylla—but around her. Melissa felt it like a storm brewing under her skin. That magnetic pull between them was one thing, but this? This was darker. Old magic. A curse perhaps, or worse—an unfinished war awakening in the bones of the world.
And someone else knew.
Someone else had seen Sylla.
Melissa could feel the watcher, lingering in the shadows beyond her own reach. But she couldn't intervene yet—not without risking exposure. Not without warning.
Don't get too close, she told herself.
But she already had.
Sylla's POV
Sylla kept telling herself she was fine.
She wasn't.
All day, the world felt out of sync. She could still taste Melissa's kiss. Still feel her name haunting her tongue. She'd gone back to her apartment, showered twice, changed her bedsheets like it could somehow cleanse the way Melissa had embedded herself into her bones.
She stared at her phone now, screen blank.
No messages.
No name.
But her fingers hovered as if expecting it to ring.
A knock at her door made her jump.
She stood. Heart thudding. Steps slow.
When she opened it—no one was there.
Just a red rose on the welcome mat.
A note tucked beneath it, scrawled in sharp ink:
"You were never meant to wake up."
Her breath caught.
"What the f—"
A shadow moved down the hall, fast.
She slammed the door shut and locked it.
The Observer's POV
She looked just like her.
Even after all this time.
Even after death had tried to rewrite her.
The figure watched from the rooftop across Sylla's building, eyes glowing faintly beneath a black hood. Hands gloved. Breath slow. Unseen by the humans below.
Rebirth was dangerous.
Especially when the one who broke the pact had returned.
If Sylla remembered who she truly was... it would all begin again.
The war.
The curse.
The prophecy.
And this time, they couldn't allow her to choose love over blood.
Not again.