Eva's breath came in ragged gasps.
Lucien's words had shattered something inside her—a memory, a truth too vast to grasp all at once. Her body was shaking, but it wasn't just fear.
It was recognition.
"This isn't real," she whispered. But it was.
Lucien watched her with predatory stillness. His body remained partially shifted—half-man, half-something else. His fingers, still clawed, flexed at his sides, as though holding back the urge to touch her, claim her, keep her.
"Do you feel it yet?" he murmured.
Eva clenched her fists. "Feel what?"
Lucien exhaled, stepping closer.
The moment he did, her body reacted—pain lanced through her chest, a sharp, unnatural pull, like something deep inside her was being yanked forward.
Her skin burned.
Her bones ached.
And then—her reflection in the window shifted.
Her breath caught.
Because it wasn't just her own face looking back at her.
It was another version of herself. A woman with hollowed eyes, her skin streaked with something dark, her hands curled like claws. A version of Eva that had already changed.
Eva stumbled backward, but the pain didn't stop.
Lucien tilted his head, watching. Waiting.
"Your body remembers," he said softly. "It's waking up."
Eva squeezed her eyes shut. No. No, this wasn't happening.
Her pulse pounded. Her vision blurred.
And then—
The room fractured.
She was falling. Not physically, but through something deeper. Through time. Through all the lives she had lived before.
Through all the times she had died.
---
Another Life. Another Death.
Eva stood in a frozen clearing. Snow beneath her bare feet. Blood dripping from her hands.
Lucien stood in front of her, his monstrous form fully revealed. His body was shifting, caught between his human shape and the thing beneath—tall, predatory, with elongated limbs and eyes that burned like dying suns.
"You were never meant to leave me," he said.
Eva's heart was breaking. "Lucien—"
He reached for her. "You are mine."
And then—his claws pierced her chest.
---
Eva came back screaming.
Her hands clutched her chest, expecting to find blood, expecting to find the wound.
But she was whole.
Lucien was still standing there.
Still waiting.
"It's not a curse, Eva," he whispered.
"It's what you are."
And with that final, horrifying truth, Eva felt her body begin to shift.