The once-prestigious Coven of Shadows became my playground of destruction. I dismantled it with maniacal precision, brick bycursed brick, erasing its doctrines, silencing its disciples, and gutting the heart from its halls.
Nothing remained but an eerie graveyard of ash and memory, a wasteland where ambition had once thrived. The grounds were choked in silence, the students scattered like dust or dead. Most never saw the blade coming.
I had reduced his world to ruin.
But there was still one piece left.
One final act to complete the tragedy.
Alina.
His precious, protected Alina.
Valentina—one of the few surviving darknesses from the Coven—had accompanied me across time. We arrived in 1540 Florence under the pretense of a romantic escape, though we both knew the truth was far from tender. She draped herself over me, eager to reclaim whatever hold she thought she still had.
The mission had been simple—locate Alina Tocino, a girl marked by bloodlines, time, and the moonstone and ruby necklace once worn by her mother.
It should’ve been swift. Clean.
But then I saw her.
In the village marketplace, sunlight catching in her copper hair, her skin kissed by dusk, her presence quiet yet piercing. A dark-haired fool hovered near her protectively, unaware of the danger he stood beside. The necklace I had described gleamed at Alina’s throat, but it wasn’t the jewel that caught me—it was how she wore it, as if it belonged to her soul, not her skin.
That was when everything changed.
I had meant to kill her.
And instead, Iwatchedher.
Valentina noticed. She always did. Her jealousy was a blade she wielded effortlessly, even when hidden behind a smile.
She wanted credit. Recognition. A reward.
She claimed it had beenshewho led me to Alina, that without her, none of this would have been possible. She hinted at things she thought she was owed—devotion, exclusivity, love.
I offered none.
But I pretended.
I brought her to Lord Costa’s masquerade. Let her dress in silk and suspicion. Let her think she was still relevant, still desired, even as my mind burned with Alina.
She watched me. Always watching.
When she saw Alina slip away into the barn, hand-in-hand with the man she’d brought to the party, Valentina didn’t wait long to whisper her discovery.
I said little in return—just a single, quiet order.
Kill him.
It had never been about loyalty.
Not mercy. Not strategy.
It was jealousy—irrational and overwhelming. The mere thought of Alina in another man’s arms had ignited something feral in me.
Valentina, ever eager to please, obeyed without hesitation. Her eyes gleamed with triumph as she returned, unhurried and graceful in the way only the cruelest predators were. Bloodlust clung to her like perfume as she leaned in, her voice smug.
“It is done.”
