Chapter 1 The Hunt

The rain fell like shards of glass through the trees, slicing into the mud, soaking everything with a relentless, cold fury.

The man ran for his life, half-naked, bleeding, his torn shirt flapping like a dying flag in the wind. Mud clung to his legs, making every step a struggle. His lungs burned, each ragged breath echoing through the dark forest. Something hunted him. Something faster. Something that did not stumble.

Branches snapped underfoot, but the rhythm of the chase belonged to another entirely silent, measured, inhuman.

He glanced back. Shadows moved with a grace impossible to track, slipping between the trunks and mist like liquid night. A flicker of blue caught his eye. It burned.

The man tripped, face-first into the mud. He scrambled to his knees, shaking violently, breath mingling with rain. And then he saw him tall, impossibly still, a presence that made the rain itself hesitate.

Darion Varex.

His face was almost human, yet entirely not. Features blurred like smoke, shifting subtly in the darkness. His eyes glowed a cold, hypnotic blue, flickering toward red in a warning no one could survive. Fangs lengthened, bones tensing beneath pale, perfect skin, giving him an elegance that terrified. Even in the storm, he was beautiful, deadly, and he was unrecognizable.

The man’s voice cracked, almost drowned by thunder.

“Please… please, don’t…”

Darion tilted his head, hearing every heart pulse, every whisper of fear.

“Pathetic,” he murmured, voice like silk over steel.

He did not move closer. He did not need to. The air itself bent to his will. The man’s neck snapped with a sickening crack, bones shattering without touch. Eyes wide in disbelief, mouth still forming a word of prayer.

Darion crouched beside him, brushing rain from his face almost tenderly. Then, fangs sinking into the warm pulse, he drank. Blood hot, sweet, alive. When the last heartbeat faded, he straightened, red glinting on his lips. Satisfaction hummed through him like electricity.

A shift in the air made him pause. A heartbeat. A flicker of movement behind him.

A gunshot cracked.

Time slowed.

Darion’s head turned lazily, blue eyes sharpening, red flaring as hyper mode awakened. A double-barrel whistled death through the rain and before it could strike, a blur of silver appeared.

Aria.

She moved like lightning in human form, catching the bullet mid-flight, smoke curling from her palm. Without hesitation, the man behind the gun went flying, his neck snapped clean before he hit the ground, silent, except for the rain pattering on his corpse.

Her glowing eyes met Darion’s, sharp and disapproving.

“Do you ever think before you feed?” she asked. Voice cold, but threaded with worry and a hint of slight disappointment.

Darion licked the blood from his lips, smirk faint but predatory.

“Oh, sister,” he said, mockingly. “You always know how to ruin my dinner.”

“This isn’t dinner,” she snapped. “They’re humans. The ones we"re to protect. Do you even care what Mother would say?”

He chuckled, a low, velvet rumble that shook the air.

“Care? Perhaps. But hunger… hunger has rules that Mother never wrote down you see.”

“You are too reckless,” she said, stepping closer. “Control it, Darion. Before it controls you.”

He studied her for a long moment, eyes gleaming, fangs flashing. Then, with deliberate grace, he stepped toward her and in a blink the monstrous flash overtook him. His features blurred like smoke, eyes glowing red and blue, fangs elongating, bones sharpening, yet his elegance remained untouched. The forest seemed to inhale animals freezing in fear.

Aria didn’t flinch. She raised an eyebrow.

“You’re enjoying this,” she said.

“I am,” he admitted, voice like honeyed steel. “Hungry… powerful… alive. And yet…” He tilted his head.…you still lecture me.”

“Because someone has to,” she said, exhaling. “Mother can’t be everywhere, Darion. Not all of us can... be this reckless.”

Amusement crossed his face. “You do love to control me, little sister. Always the moral compass, aren’t you?”

“And you love to test it,” she shot back, lips twitching in a ghost of a smile. “Do you even remember the first human you spared because I stopped you?”

He hesitated briefly, almost imperceptible then shrugged, smirk returning. “I remember the fear. I remember the taste of rebellion.”

“I remember the adrenaline too, quite addictive”

Aria shook her head, rain running down her hair, eyes still flashing blue.

“Next time, you do it quietly. You feed… but you don’t leave a trail of corpses for the city to whisper about.”

He grinned, a predator satisfied, yet she knew better than to think he’d promise.

“Fine,” he said softly. “Next time, somewhere less noisy.”

"Thank you" she said with a mock bow.

From the distance, a chill seeped through the air.

A deadly type of chill you couldn't ignore.

Selene Varex, seated in the high tower of the Varex mansion, felt it, the disturbance, the pulse of violence, the scent of blood on the wind. Her fingers twitched, invisible currents of power coiling through her veins. A whisper, a snap of thought, reached her lips.

Darion… stop.

The siblings moved through the mud-slick forest toward home, steps silent, rain washing their footprints away. Behind them, the storm carried the echoes of death. The forest would remember the hunt. The city would not. But they Darion and Elara would, forever.

A flash of lightning illuminated the hunter’s trail, the rain glittering off their coats, and for one heartbeat, Darion’s eyes were blue again. Calm. Controlled. Almost human.

Almost normal.

And as they vanished into the mist, the rain whispered promises of mor

e hunts, more danger, and the blood-soaked legacy of the Varex dynasty yet to unfold.