The storm broke just before dawn.
Lightning cleaved the sky above the Armand estate, and thunder rolled across the Scottish hills like war drums. Juliette stood at the tall window of her bedroom, watching the wind claw at the bare trees. The mausoleum still burned in her mind. Her name carved into stone. A date waiting to be filled.
It was like her future had already been written and someone was just waiting to finish the last sentence.
But the worst part wasn't the fear.
It was the certainty.
Somewhere deep down, beneath every rational voice, Juliette knew this curse was real. And it had been hunting her long before she ever returned to this house.
She turned away from the window, still dressed in the same rain-soaked clothes from the night before. Her fingers trembled as she reached for her drawer, where she had once found her mother's lavender perfume, a drawing, and…
Nothing.
The journal.
It had vanished.
Again.
Or maybe, moved.
Her heart quickened. Something about the music she played yesterday... the melody had stirred something in the walls. In the mirror. What if it wasn't just symbolic? What if it was a key?
She sprinted to the music room, flipping on the dim chandelier light. The piano sat silent, waiting. She sat down and played the same haunting notes from memory, La Lune Sanglante, slower this time, listening to the house around her.
The third note into the second stanza, a faint click.
Her hands stopped.
She looked up.
One of the wooden panels on the far wall had cracked open.
Juliette rose and crossed the room, pushing it gently. It creaked open to reveal a hidden alcove, narrow and dusty. At the center was a small wooden box, sealed with wax and engraved with a familiar crest: the crescent moon and dagger.
She pried it open.
Inside, wrapped in crimson silk, was a leather-bound book.
Evelyn Armand's diary.
She read it in front of the fireplace, curled in a heavy velvet chair with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
The handwriting was elegant, slanted, and soaked in pain.
March 18, 1901
The moon rose red again last night. I dreamed of fire and bone, and of him, Dorian Blackthorne. He says he loves me. But love doesn't explain the mark on my wrist, or the shadows I see in the mirror. My mother said our blood was once sacred. Now it is hunted.
April 1, 1901
I fear I am pregnant. And with it… the bond is sealed. The curse is no longer dormant. The Armand and Blackthorne bloodlines are now one. And it will consume us.
Juliette's fingers tightened around the pages.
A Blackthorne.
Lucien.
The connection wasn't just historical, it was literal.
She flipped forward, each page more frantic than the last. Evelyn's descent into fear. Her attempts to reverse the bond. Her plea to future Armand women.
If you are reading this, you carry the same blood. The same curse. Do not love a Blackthorne. The bond strengthens the curse. But hatred… may break it.
A shiver ran down Juliette's spine.
She looked up and froze.
The mirror across from her chair was fogged over again.
And this time, there was no reflection.
Only a message, written in red condensation.
GET OUT.
She leapt to her feet, backing away. The room felt suddenly smaller, like the shadows were closing in. She ran to the hallway, and crashed into Lucien.
He steadied her, his hand firm around her wrist.
"What happened?" he demanded.
"Someone's in the house."
He stilled. "Where?"
"The mirror, it spoke. It wrote something."
He moved past her quickly and into the room. The message had already vanished, the mirror pristine.
Juliette pointed. "I swear it was there."
"I believe you," Lucien said without hesitation. "They're watching you now."
"Who?"
He hesitated, then said, "The Keepers of the Moon."
Juliette blinked. "That sounds like a bad fantasy novel."
"They were real long before fiction ever named them. A secret order born from the curse. Their job was to protect the Armand line. But some say they turned… became corrupted. Now they serve only the moon and its blood price."
Juliette's chest rose and fell rapidly. "You're saying there are people hunting me?"
Lucien nodded grimly. "They believe your death will end the curse. Permanently."
The estate was locked down that night. Lucien moved through the halls like a sentinel, armed, alert. For the first time, Juliette saw him not as a polished aristocrat but as a man used to danger. Trained for it.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked him later, as he checked the locks on her bedroom windows.
He turned to her. "Because it's always been my fate to protect you."
"That's not an answer."
"No," he said quietly. "It's a promise."
He stepped closer, his presence overwhelming. The firelight danced in his eyes, and she could see the scar above his brow, a small, faded mark shaped like a crescent.
Her fingers lifted before she could stop them.
She touched the scar.
He didn't flinch.
"What is this?" she whispered.
"Proof," he said. "That I bled for you before you ever knew me."
Juliette's voice caught. "You said love seals the curse. But hatred… breaks it."
He nodded once.
"Then maybe we should hate each other."
His eyes darkened. "Try."
But she couldn't.
Even as she told herself this was reckless. Even as every ancestor in her blood whispered warnings from their graves… she couldn't hate him.
Because something in her heart had already started to betray her.
They barely slept.
Juliette sat in the library reading Evelyn's journal by candlelight, every creak of the old estate making her flinch. Sometime after 3 a.m., the storm outside paused and the house went silent.
Too silent.
She rose from the chair and moved toward the hallway.
That's when she saw it.
A figure in white.
Not Evelyn. Not her reflection.
This was someone else.
Female. Barefoot. Pale.
Walking slowly toward the west wing.
Juliette followed.
Her feet moved on instinct, careful not to make a sound. The woman in white drifted like fog, silent and cold. She stopped at the mirror at the end of the hall and touched the surface.
Then she turned.
Her face was hollow. Mouth sewn shut. Eyes black as ink.
Juliette gasped and the woman opened her mouth in a silent scream, threads tearing loose, blood oozing.
Suddenly, hands grabbed Juliette from behind, pulling her back into a room.
Lucien.
"Don't look at her," he hissed. "That's not a ghost. That's a herald."
"A what?"
He locked the door and turned to face her, breath ragged.
"They appear before a blood ritual. They don't kill. They invite. They tempt."
"Tempt who?"
"You. To accept your death."
Juliette's knees buckled. She sat on the edge of a chaise, shaking.
"I can't do this," she whispered. "I'm not strong enough."
Lucien crouched in front of her, his hands gripping hers.
"Yes, you are. You carry centuries of survivors in your blood. Evelyn didn't finish this fight. But you can."
"How?"
He looked her dead in the eye.
"We break the bond."
She stared. "You said that requires blood. Or love."
"I'll give you both."
She shook her head. "You'll die."
He smiled, softly.
"So will you."