Prologue
**Prologue: The Last Breath**
Lana felt the rumble of thunder echo through her chest as she gripped the steering wheel, her headlights piercing through the thick rain in streaks of silver. The storm had come out of nowhere, fierce and relentless, making the road a slick, winding river beneath her tires. She leaned forward, trying to make out the shapes on the road ahead, but her mind was drifting, her thoughts drawn to the one question she’d never quite been able to escape.
What does it feel like to die?
It wasn’t a morbid curiosity, she told herself—it was just that the mystery of it had always tugged at her, the shadowed edge of everything, the thing that every heartbeat ran toward. She’d felt a strange pull toward it, an odd fascination with the unknown, like there was something waiting for her in that darkness that she couldn’t yet understand.
But tonight, the question didn’t stay on the edge of her thoughts—it felt like it was waiting just around the corner.
She rounded the bend, and in an instant, everything lurched. The car slid, skidding across the slick pavement, tires shrieking as she fought to regain control. Her heart thundered, time stretching out as the world spun around her. She caught a glimpse of the road rushing up toward her, the harsh glare of headlights swallowed by the storm, and then—
Nothing.
Silence enveloped her as the world faded away, everything slowing into darkness. The rain, the sound of her heartbeat, the thundering panic—it all quieted, slipping from her as if drawn out by some unseen hand.
It was the end. She knew it, felt it settling over her, that strange, final hush. But instead of terror, she felt... calm. As if this was always where she was supposed to be.
Yet, in that stillness, just as she was about to let go, a shadow moved—a figure, tall and dark, emerging from the edges of her vision. He seemed to walk through the night itself, his form wrapped in shadows that clung to him, concealing all but his eyes. They were intense and piercing, like embers in the dark, and for a moment, they locked onto her with an ancient hunger.
“Lana,” he whispered, her name like smoke on his lips.
Her fading heartbeat gave a last, desperate flutter as he reached for her, his touch impossibly cold yet filled with a strange warmth that made her shiver. She felt the press of his mouth at her neck, and then a sharp, searing pain that pierced the darkness, a fire that blazed through her, making her skin ignite with a power she didn’t recognize.
His blood—rich and ancient—poured into her, flooding her veins, filling the empty spaces within her with a darkness that pulsed and shifted, like the night itself. Her vision dimmed, her old life slipping away in wisps, and as her last breath left her, she felt herself coming alive in a way she never had before.
She didn’t know who he was, or why he had saved her from that oblivion—but as the last pieces of her human life faded into shadow, one thing became clear.
She would never be the same.
And somewhere beyond her senses, in the dark that bound them, he smiled.
