Intro. Before heaven burned and before hell earned its name, he existed.
Azrael Veyne — not a servant of darkness, not a prince of it — but the thing darkness was born from. Demons feared him. Angels erased his name from their scriptures. He did not tempt. He did not bargain.
He claimed.
For millennia, he devoured kingdoms, shattered saints, and turned prayers into screams. Mortals were fragile things — brief sparks he crushed beneath immortal indifference.
Until her.
Seraphina Vale was painfully human.
Twenty years old. A heartbeat that fluttered too fast when she ran. Skin that bruised. Eyes that held impossible defiance. She should have been insignificant.
But she looked at him — truly looked at him — and did not tremble.
He came to her as shadow first. A whisper in the corner of her room. A chill beneath her sheets. He intended to corrupt her slowly, to coil around her soul until she begged for ruin.
Instead, she fascinated him.
She spoke to the darkness as if it were an equal. Challenged