After the hallway incident, people started lowering their voices around Lucien.

Not obviously.

No one announced it.

No one treated him differently in ways polite enough to name.

But Seraphina noticed the pauses.

The tiny hesitations when he entered command rooms.

The way sanctuary medics instinctively checked civilian positions before allowing wounded humans near him.

Even the children looked at him differently now.

Not fear exactly.

Awareness.

Like everyone suddenly remembered the First Vampire was still, technically, a vampire.

The realization hollowed Seraphina out slowly.

Because Lucien noticed too.

And somehow he kept pretending not to.

Three days passed after the attack.

Three exhausting, smoke-filled, war-soaked days where Eastern Europe continued collapsing one city at a time beneath infected outbreaks and Church purges.

The rebel alliance expanded anyway.

Human resistance groups openly coordinated with vampire sanctuaries now.

Blackthorn divisions fractured internally.

Aldric’s broadcasts became increasingly unstable and apocalyptic.

Meanwhile Lucien quietly disappeared from rooms more often.

That frightened Seraphina most.

He stopped attending communal meals entirely.

Skipped strategy briefings unless absolutely necessary.

Started volunteering for patrol shifts nobody else wanted.

Always alone.

Always at night.

Like distance itself became another form of protection.

Or punishment.

Seraphina found him eventually in the lower greenhouse beneath the monastery ruins.

The geothermal system still kept the old botanical rooms partially alive despite winter burying everything outside.

Dim emergency lights glowed softly above rows of half-dead herbs and abandoned medicinal plants while warm mist collected faintly against cracked glass ceilings overhead.

Lucien sat alone near the far irrigation pipes with his sleeves rolled halfway up and blood-soaked bandages spread across the floor beside him.

God.

Seraphina stopped breathing for a second.

The corruption had reached his shoulder now.

Black veins twisted visibly beneath pale skin like rot blooming through marble.

No.

Lucien looked up immediately after sensing her there.

Then just as quickly started pulling his sleeve back down.

Seraphina crossed the greenhouse before he finished.

“Don’t.”

The word came out sharper than intended.

Lucien paused anyway.

Their eyes met briefly across the dim greenhouse light.

Then quietly:

“You should be sleeping.”

“That’s becoming your answer for everything.”

“It’s usually correct.”

Seraphina crouched carefully beside him on the stone floor.

The air smelled faintly like damp soil and blood.

Lucien reached automatically for the discarded bandages before she could fully see them.

Too late.

Black blood stained nearly every strip.

Way too much.

Fear curled coldly through her stomach.

“How long has it been spreading this fast?”

Lucien looked toward the greenhouse windows instead of her.

“Since Prague.”

That answer hit harder than expected.

Because Prague felt simultaneously like yesterday and another lifetime entirely.

The ruined city.

The violin.

The first time he laughed openly.

God.

Seraphina hated how grief kept infecting happy memories retroactively now.

She reached carefully toward his arm.

Lucien let her touch the corruption this time without protest.

The skin beneath her fingertips felt frighteningly cold.

Not dead.

Dying.

“What does it feel like?” she whispered.

Lucien considered the question seriously.

“Like my body remembers mortality incorrectly.”

The answer sounded so specifically Lucien it nearly broke her heart.

She swallowed hard.

“Still making poetry out of medical disasters, I see.”

A faint breath of something almost amused escaped him.

Then vanished immediately afterward beneath exhaustion.

The silence stretched quietly between them while geothermal pipes hummed softly beneath the greenhouse floors.

Finally Seraphina asked the question sitting heavily inside her chest for days now.

“Why are you avoiding everyone?”

Lucien’s jaw tightened slightly.

“I’m not.”

Lie.

Tiny one.

Still a lie.

Seraphina looked at him carefully.

“You stopped eating with us.”

“I’m busy.”

“You disappear for hours without telling anyone where you’re going.”

“I’m handling patrol routes.”

“You haven’t touched me voluntarily since the hallway.”

That one landed.

Lucien went completely still afterward.

Not angry.

Cornered.

God.

Seraphina hated this.

Hated feeling fear creeping slowly between them after everything they survived already.

“I almost killed someone,” Lucien said quietly.

“You stopped yourself.”

“Barely.”

The word echoed softly through the greenhouse.

Seraphina leaned back slightly against the stone wall behind them.

“You think I’m scared of you now?”

Lucien didn’t answer.

Which was answer enough.

No.

God no.

Seraphina grabbed his face immediately before he could retreat emotionally again.

His skin felt freezing beneath her hands.

Lucien closed his eyes briefly at the contact.

Not leaning away.

Never leaning away from her.

“You listen to me,” she whispered fiercely. “I watched you choose humanity over instinct while corruption was literally eating through your nervous system. Do you understand how insane that level of self-control is?”

Lucien opened his eyes slowly.

Pain lived there now permanently.

Not physical pain.

Fear.

“You didn’t see what I wanted to do.”

Seraphina’s chest tightened sharply.

“No,” she said softly. “I saw what you chose not to do.”

Silence again.

Heavy silence.

The kind where both people stood at the edge of something dangerous emotionally.

Lucien reached carefully for her wrist afterward.

Not moving her hands away.

Just holding them there against his face.

“You keep believing I’m still the man you met in Prague.”

The sentence frightened her instantly.

“What does that mean?”

Lucien looked exhausted suddenly.

Ancient.

Like the weight of centuries pressed visibly through him tonight.

“The corruption changes more than the body.”

Seraphina frowned slightly.

“How?”

Another hesitation.

Another thing he clearly didn’t want saying aloud.

“It amplifies instinct.” His voice lowered. “Hunger. Violence.” He swallowed once. “Possession.”

The last word settled wrong between them.

Not romantic.

Predatory.

Seraphina understood immediately why he avoided touching her lately.

God.

“Lucien—”

“I hear your heartbeat from three floors away now,” he admitted quietly. “Every injury. Every cut.” His grip tightened fractionally around her wrists. “And some nights I can’t tell whether I want to protect you or consume you.”

The honesty shattered her.

Because he sounded horrified by himself.

Like every monstrous impulse arriving inside him felt personal somehow.

Seraphina pressed her forehead gently against his despite the fear clawing steadily through her chest.

“You would never hurt me.”

Lucien’s eyes closed hard.

And for one terrible second—

she realized he wasn’t certain anymore.

No.

The realization hollowed her out instantly.

Lucien released her wrists slowly afterward before standing abruptly and crossing toward the far greenhouse sink.

Distance again.

Always distance now.

Seraphina watched him brace both hands against the metal basin like simply remaining upright required concentration lately.

“You need help,” she whispered.

Lucien stared down into the sink.

“I need time.”

Another lie.

Not fully.

But enough.

Seraphina stood slowly.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Lucien went still.

The silence afterward stretched too long.

Way too long.

Then finally he turned toward her again with that same careful expression he used whenever preparing truth surgically.

Only this time—

he didn’t tell the truth.

“The corruption isn’t worsening as quickly as it looks,” he said quietly. “I still have control.”

Seraphina stared at him.

Something inside her immediately recoiled.

Not because the sentence sounded convincing.

Because it didn’t.

God.

Lucien never reassured people falsely.

Never softened reality just to comfort her.

Until now.

And suddenly she realized with cold certainty:

This was the first real lie he’d ever told her.