The name Selorantei still echoed in Kael's skull like a gunshot underwater.
He didn't speak.
Didn't blink.
Just stared at Selira as the music around them twisted, slowed, and warped under the weight of something… ancient.
"Who told you?" he asked, voice low and cold.
Selira tilted her head, eyes gleaming with secrets. "You really think you're the only one with ghosts, Kael?"
He stepped forward. "Answer me."
But her smile only deepened. "I already have."
Then she was gone—vanished into the writhing crowd with a shimmer of glamor and the scent of burnt sage in her wake. Typical witchcraft. Typical Selira.
Kael turned toward the exit, heart pounding in a rhythm older than time.
He didn't make it to the door.
A blade—thin as moonlight—slashed past his face, close enough to draw blood.
He froze.
From the shadows stepped a figure in black tactical gear, face half-covered, but eyes glowing blue. Not supernatural… synthetic. Enhanced.
"You're a hard man to find," the stranger said. "Too bad you're not worth the effort."
Kael licked the blood from his lip, calm despite the adrenaline spike.
A hunter.
They still remembered him.
He moved before the second strike came—dodging left, grabbing a steel bar from the barstool behind him. The clubgoers screamed, scattering like panicked birds.
The hunter was fast. Government-trained? Freelance executioner? No matter.
Kael snapped the bar toward his ribs, but the hunter twisted, shoved a syringe toward Kael's neck. Silver.
Vampire-killing silver.
Kael hissed and vanished in a burst of shadows, reappearing behind the hunter with a growl.
"You don't know who you're hunting."
The hunter turned just enough to let Kael see her full face.
Female. Beautiful. Scarred. Familiar.
She whispered one word that made Kael's world tilt:
"Evelyn."
Then stabbed him straight in the heart.
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💔 End of Chapter Two