The forest outside Prague looked almost untouched by human history.

Snow buried the roads in pale silver beneath overcast skies while frost clung thickly to pine branches heavy enough to creak softly whenever the wind shifted through them.

Seraphina hated forests in winter.

Too quiet.

Too many places for things to watch you without being seen.

“You’re limping again.”

She glanced sideways at Lucien without slowing her pace through the snow.

“You’re becoming repetitive.”

“The bite reopened.”

“It’s fine.”

Lucien looked unconvinced.

Which, annoyingly, had started affecting her more than it should have.

They’d been tracking the creatures north for nearly six hours after another massacre outside the city limits. A farming village near the Czech border lost eleven people overnight.

No bodies recovered.

Just blood.

Too much blood.

The Church officially blamed wolves.

Lucien laughed for nearly thirty seconds after hearing that report.

Not because it was funny.

Because apparently sometimes exhaustion broke people sideways.

The deeper they moved into the forest, the stranger the atmosphere became.

No birds.

No animal tracks.

Even the wind sounded muted somehow beneath the snow-heavy trees.

Seraphina adjusted the rifle strapped across her back before crouching near a series of claw marks carved into frozen bark.

“These are fresh.”

Lucien stopped several feet behind her.

His attention remained fixed deeper into the woods ahead.

“I know.”

The marks sat too high for ordinary ferals.

Nearly eight feet above ground.

Seraphina pressed gloved fingers lightly against one gouged trunk.

The bark surrounding the cuts looked blackened.

Burned from inside somehow.

“That’s new.”

“Yes.”

She straightened slowly.

“Any theories?”

Lucien’s expression remained distant.

“Too many.”

Neither of them spoke for a while after that.

Snow crunched softly beneath their boots while the forest closed tighter around them.

At some point, Seraphina realized she’d stopped checking whether Lucien walked nearby.

She just knew where he was.

The awareness arrived instinctively now.

The soundless shift of movement behind her.

The exact moment his attention sharpened.

The way the air itself seemed to react when his instincts activated.

It should have unsettled her more.

Instead it had become strangely familiar.

That realization felt dangerous enough on its own.

“You’re staring again,” Lucien said without looking back.

Seraphina rolled her eyes.

“You say that every time I think.”

“No,” he replied calmly. “Only when you look like you’re planning homicide.”

“Comforting distinction.”

A faint trace of amusement crossed his expression before disappearing again.

There.

That.

Those small moments kept happening lately.

Tiny flashes of personality beneath centuries of restraint.

The problem was that Seraphina had started waiting for them.

Which felt catastrophic.

A sudden snapping sound echoed somewhere deeper in the trees.

Both of them stopped instantly.

Lucien’s posture changed first.

Subtle.

But immediate.

Every line of his body sharpened toward the sound.

Seraphina unslung the rifle from her shoulder in the same motion.

The forest went completely silent afterward.

No wind.

No movement.

Nothing.

Then came breathing.

Not theirs.

Something larger.

Close.

Lucien stepped slightly in front of her automatically.

She noticed.

Again.

“You keep doing that.”

“Doing what?”

“Standing between me and danger.”

“You keep walking toward danger.”

“That feels unrelated.”

The breathing stopped.

Then the trees exploded.

Something massive burst through the forest line hard enough to split frozen branches apart like paper.

Seraphina fired immediately.

The silver round struck center mass—

and ricocheted.

“What the hell—”

The creature slammed into Lucien before she finished speaking.

Both disappeared sideways through snow and shattered pine limbs.

Seraphina caught only fragments at first:

blackened skin stretched over distorted muscle;

elongated limbs;

white clouded eyes glowing faintly beneath frozen blood.

Not a feral.

Worse.

Larger.

Engineered.

The thing hit Lucien hard enough to crater ice beneath them near the frozen lake edge.

Lucien recovered instantly, driving the creature backward with enough force to crack surrounding trees.

Seraphina reloaded while moving.

The creature shrieked—a sound so distorted it barely resembled anything living anymore.

Then it looked directly at her.

And smiled.

No.

Not smiled.

Recognized.

Her stomach dropped.

“Lucien!”

Too late.

The creature lunged straight past him toward her with terrifying speed.

Seraphina fired twice.

One round struck its shoulder.

Another tore through its jaw.

Still it kept moving.

She barely managed to duck beneath the claws slashing toward her throat before the creature hit her hard enough to send both of them skidding across the frozen lake surface.

Ice cracked violently beneath the impact.

Lucien reached them almost instantly.

The creature twisted toward him with unnatural aggression, black veins pulsing visibly beneath semi-translucent skin.

“Move,” Lucien snapped.

Seraphina rolled sideways just as Lucien drove the creature downward through the ice.

Frozen water exploded upward around them.

The thing screamed beneath the surface.

Then suddenly—

everything beneath Seraphina’s feet gave way.

The crack spread too fast.

One second solid ice supported her weight.

The next—

she was underwater.

Cold hit like violence.

Not temperature.

Shock.

The frozen lake swallowed her instantly beneath black water and shattered ice while the rifle disappeared from numb fingers.

Seraphina kicked upward hard, disoriented by darkness and freezing pressure crushing against her lungs.

Above her, fractured light blurred through broken ice.

Too far.

Her injured shoulder screamed uselessly beneath the freezing water.

Panic arrived fast after that.

Not graceful fear.

Animal fear.

The kind that clawed straight into your chest.

Then something caught her wrist.

Strong.

Cold.

Lucien.

He dove beneath the surface without hesitation, black coat twisting through dark water as he reached for her fully this time.

One arm around her waist.

Pulling.

The lake ice groaned violently overhead while the creature still thrashed somewhere beneath them in distorted shadows.

Seraphina’s lungs burned.

Lucien dragged her upward hard enough that broken ice tore across his shoulders as they surfaced.

Air hit painfully.

She coughed immediately, barely managing to grip the unstable ice edge before slipping again.

Lucien kept one arm locked around her waist while breaking through the remaining ice with the other.

“Hold on.”

The command sounded sharper than usual.

Closer to fear.

Together they dragged themselves onto solid ice several feet away while freezing water soaked through every layer of clothing almost instantly.

Seraphina collapsed onto her hands coughing violently.

Her entire body shook uncontrollably.

The cold was inside her now.

Deep enough to hurt.

Lucien knelt beside her immediately.

“You swallowed water.”

“I noticed,” she managed hoarsely.

He pushed wet hair back from her face with quick, unthinking movements while checking her breathing.

Too focused.

Too close.

Seraphina looked up at him through freezing breath and melting snow.

Lucien’s composure was gone.

Not entirely.

But enough.

Enough that she could see real panic still lingering beneath it.

And somehow—

that frightened her more than the creature had.

The frozen forest settled into silence around them while snow drifted softly through shattered pine branches.

Lucien kept one hand against the side of her face for half a second too long before realizing it himself.

Then very carefully—

he pulled away.