Juliette didn't remember falling asleep.
One moment she was sitting in Lucien's arms by the fire, the next she was waking alone in her bed, the soft glow of dawn barely touching the windows. Her body was stiff. Her thoughts jumbled.
Was it all a dream?
The herald. The blood-written message. Evelyn's diary.
No. She could still feel the weight of the leather-bound book tucked under her pillow.
Her fingers reached for it. Cold. Real.
And her window was open.
She sat up sharply.
The air was still. Too still. The kind of silence that makes the skin prickle. She rose, heart thudding, and walked to the window. A silver object lay on the windowsill.
A coin.
On one side: the crescent moon.
On the other: a blood drop.
A token.
A warning.
She turned away from the windowand screamed.
A hooded figure stood in her room.
Not a ghost.
A man.
Human.
Alive.
But his face was hidden in shadow, and his gloved hand held a dagger that gleamed like ice in the morning light.
"Juliette Armand," he said calmly. "Daughter of the bloodline. You are summoned."
She backed away. "By who?"
"The Keepers."
"I didn't ask to be summoned."
"You don't get to choose. The blood moon calls you."
A sharp whistle pierced the air, and suddenly Lucien was there, bursting through the door with a blade of his own. The two men clashed. Metal rang against metal. Juliette screamed and ducked as the hooded man leapt back, slicing at Lucien's arm.
Lucien didn't even flinch.
With a hard shove, he disarmed the intruder, sending the dagger skittering across the floor. The hooded man stumbled, then vanished, literally. Like a shadow swallowed by the wall.
Gone.
Juliette fell against the bedpost, gasping.
Lucien turned to her, blood staining his sleeve.
"Are you hurt?"
"No, I, what the hell was that?"
"A Keeper. Not one of the council, but a courier. A summoner. They've breached the estate."
"You said the house was protected."
"It was. Until you opened the mirror passage."
Juliette's stomach turned. "You mean the one in the music room?"
He nodded grimly. "Every locked part of this estate keeps the curse contained. You play the melody, you break a seal. Evelyn didn't hide the truth, she imprisoned it."
"And I let it out."
His eyes softened. "You didn't know."
She pressed a hand to her forehead. "They want me for a ritual."
"Yes. They believe your blood can complete what Evelyn began and end the curse."
"At the cost of my life."
"Yes."
By noon, the house was surrounded.
Lucien led her to the upper observatory, a narrow stone tower with a glass dome that looked out over the cliffside forest. Black-cloaked figures stood just beyond the boundary of the Armand land. Not advancing. Not retreating.
Waiting.
"Why don't they come in?" she asked.
"Because the last seal still holds," Lucien said. "Your grandmother made a pact with the land itself. Only you can break it."
Juliette stared. "And what if I want to?"
He turned slowly. "Why would you?"
"Because maybe the curse ends with me. Maybe if I die, no one else does. Evelyn. My mother. All those women in the mausoleum, they didn't choose. Maybe I should."
Lucien stepped forward. "No."
"You don't get to decide that."
"Actually," he said quietly, "I do."
Juliette frowned. "Why?"
He took her hand and pressed something into it.
A second token.
But this one was burned.
Twisted.
"Because I once tried to offer myself in your place," he said. "Seven years ago. When I found the truth. I made a blood vow on your name. The curse rejected it."
"Rejected it?"
He nodded. "It doesn't want just any death. It wants yours. Or…" He hesitated.
"Or what?"
"Or your soul."
Juliette felt the heat drain from her skin.
"What does that mean?"
"It means if they can't kill you, they'll bind you."
Her voice trembled. "To what?"
"To him."
Lucien's eyes were like thunderclouds now.
"The first Blackthorne."
That night, Lucien prepared a counter-ritual.
They descended into the heart of the house, the original foundation, long buried beneath the west wing. The walls were lined with stone and old torches. In the center stood a circle made of salt, iron, and Armand blood.
Juliette knelt in the center.
"This won't stop the curse," Lucien said. "But it can weaken its hold. Long enough for us to find the final seal."
She looked up at him. "What's the price?"
Lucien's jaw tightened. "Pain."
"For who?"
"Me."
He stepped inside the circle with her and pulled up his sleeve. The wound from earlier had stopped bleeding, but he reopened it with a silver knife and let a few drops fall into the center of the salt ring.
He gritted his teeth as the circle pulsed red.
Juliette watched, breathless, as the room dimmed and a low hum filled the space, like the house itself was chanting.
Then Lucien looked at her.
And the rest of the world fell away.
"You have to repeat after me," he said. "Word for word. No fear."
She nodded.
He took her hand.
Together, they said: "By blood and breath, by fire and stone, I bind the curse, I break the bone. What once was mine, I give in part. Let not the moon consume my heart."
A wind howled through the chamber.
The salt ignited in a ring of red flame.
Juliette cried out but Lucien held her steady.
The air shimmered with voices. Screaming. Whispering. Begging.
Then,
Silence.
The flames vanished.
They were both on the floor, panting, their hands still joined.
"It worked," Lucien said hoarsely.
Juliette turned to him and saw the blood on his chest.
Not from a wound.
From a mark.
A crescent moon etched over his heart.
"What is that?"
Lucien looked down.
Then at her.
And whispered, "The final bond has begun."
Later, as they lay side by side in the drawing room, the fire crackling low, Juliette stared at the ceiling.
"I'm scared," she admitted.
Lucien turned to face her.
"So am I."
"Why do you care so much?" she asked quietly. "You said you're the descendant of the man who betrayed Evelyn. Don't you hate us?"
Lucien's eyes were soft now. "I used to. Until I met you."
She tried to laugh, but it came out as a whisper. "You make it very hard to hate you, Lucien Blackthorne."
He moved closer.
"I need you to hate me," he said. "Because if you fall for me… the curse wins."
Their faces were inches apart now.
"But if I already have?" she asked.
He didn't answer with words.
He kissed her.
Slowly.
Desperately.
Like a man trying to rewrite fate with the press of his lips.
The room tilted.
The fire roared.
And deep within the house, something ancient stirred.