There's a moment, just before the storm hits, where everything goes still.
Like the world is holding its breath.
That was the moment Elara first met him.
She didn't know his name then. Didn't know his story. All she saw was a tall figure cloaked in shadows, standing across the street like he belonged to the darkness. The rain didn't touch him. The cold didn't bother him. And even from a distance, she could feel it — that unsettling heat in the air, like fire breathing beneath her skin.
Her gut told her to run.
But her heart?
Her heart did something stupid.
It whispered, stay.
Zen had watched her long before that night. Hidden in the corners of her world, waiting, planning. He wasn't here for love. He was here for revenge. The kind that burned deep, the kind that destroyed everything in its path. And she — the last of the bloodline that slaughtered his family — was the key.
He was supposed to end her.
But then she looked at him… really looked at him. With those tired, sad eyes that had seen too much for someone her age. And something inside him cracked.
A curse once sealed. A fate once written.
Now rewritten.
Because even hell has rules. And Zen?
Zen just broke them all...