Chapter 92: The Omen Beneath My Skin

Chapter 92: The Omen Beneath My Skin
Scarlett
I didn’t sleep that night.

The note still sat on the table beside my bed, its parchment curled slightly at the edges like it had withered just from being near me. One will die. One will doom us all. It looped through my mind on repeat, like a curse I hadn’t meant to summon.

I held my stomach tightly as I lay in the dark, feeling the small rhythmic flutters beneath my palm. My baby—the child Kael and I had made in blood, fire, and the kind of love that never asks for permission. A child already hunted. Already feared.

And now, possibly... fated.

The wind outside howled through the trees like it carried warnings only I could hear. This place, this temporary home, had become a fortress of isolation. Even Lucien—ever sardonic, ever watchful—had grown unusually quiet since the message arrived. He hadn’t asked about it. He hadn’t needed to. The air between us buzzed with unspoken dread.

I rose before the sun, drawn by a restless energy building in my chest like a pressure valve ready to blow. I moved through the small wooden cabin I’d claimed as my own, careful not to wake the others. Lucien was likely perched somewhere in the shadows anyway, pretending not to be watching me.

I grabbed the obsidian dagger Kael had once left behind—the one he never explained, but always made me feel safer holding. Its handle still held the warmth of his hand, even after all these weeks. And I needed that warmth now, more than I wanted to admit.

Outside, mist curled around the ground like smoke. The forest had changed since the last full moon. The trees leaned closer, the shadows darker than they should be. As if something old had been awakened. I didn’t feel alone anymore—not even when I wanted to.

I walked to the edge of the tree line, pausing when I reached the border Lucien had marked with salt and ash. He said it kept out low-tier blood magic. That “low-tier” didn’t scare me. What did was the silence pressing in on me from the other side—like the forest itself was holding its breath.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Maybe just a sign that I was strong enough. Or mad enough. Or ready.

“Scarlett.”

His voice sliced through the silence, low and smooth, like velvet laced with broken glass.

Lucien emerged from the trees like he’d been waiting for me. Always watching. Always ten steps ahead. His shirt hung open at the collar, revealing a single black tattoo scrawled across his collarbone in a language I didn’t understand.

He nodded to the dagger in my hand. “Going somewhere, little queen?”

“Nowhere safe,” I said quietly. “That’s the point.”

He stepped closer. “Is this about the note?”

I didn’t answer.

Lucien sighed, rubbing a hand through his ink-black hair. “Scarlett, prophecies are vague on purpose. They’re written to incite fear, to nudge people into making the very choices they fear most.”

“Someone slipped it into my house,” I hissed. “That’s not vague. That’s personal.”

He tilted his head, eyes glowing faintly in the half-light. “Then take it personally. But don’t spiral. Fear is a useful thing—until it starts puppeteering your choices.”

I wanted to tell him to leave me alone. I wanted to tell him I didn’t need his unsolicited philosophy at dawn. But instead... I asked, “Do you think it’s true?”

Lucien studied me. “I think the child inside you is stronger than anything this world has ever seen. And I think too many people fear that strength. Kael included.”

I stiffened.

Lucien smirked faintly. “Yes. Even him. The great Prince of Blood, undone by the girl he once kept in chains. He’d rather protect you than trust you, Scarlett. That’s his flaw.”

“You don’t know him,” I snapped.

“No,” he agreed, “but I know what guilt does to men. I’ve seen enough of it to recognize the weight in his eyes.”

I wanted to argue, but the baby moved again—this time sharper, more insistent. Almost like he knew we were talking about him. My knees nearly buckled with the force of it. My breath caught.

“Scarlett?” Lucien’s hand darted out, steadying me. “What is it?”

“It’s—” I gasped, then froze.

The skin over my stomach shimmered faintly. Not light, not blood, but energy. It pulsed beneath the surface like liquid moonlight—spreading out in delicate patterns like a blooming sigil.

Lucien’s eyes went wide. “He’s marking you.”

“What?”

“Your child,” he whispered. “He’s... branding you. Or protecting you. Maybe both.”

I looked down, shaking. The glow faded as quickly as it had come, but it left behind a heat in my bones I couldn’t explain. A thrumming sense of otherness.

“What does it mean?” I asked.

Lucien was silent for a long moment. “It means he’s growing faster than we thought. And whatever power sleeps in him... it’s waking.”

We spent the rest of the day decoding ancient scrolls that Lucien kept locked in a box beneath his floorboards. I hadn’t known vampires could hoard like dragons, but Lucien’s collection of forgotten prophecies and forbidden knowledge suggested otherwise.

One passage caught my attention—a fragment written in dried blood on brittle parchment. It was half-burned, but the words that remained chilled me:

When the child of night and flame stirs the blood of two worlds, the veil shall thin... and the Hollowed One shall come forth.

Lucien looked grim when I read it aloud.

“What’s the Hollowed One?” I asked.

He hesitated. “A creature older than vampires. A being that feeds on potential. On destinies. If it thinks your child will change the world... it might come to devour him before he can.”

Something cold and sharp wrapped around my spine.

“And how do we stop it?”

Lucien’s lips thinned. “We don’t. We hide. We protect. We run, if we have to.”

I nodded slowly, placing a hand over my belly again. “Then we don’t wait.”

That night, I packed a bag.

I told Lucien we were leaving by dawn. I didn’t know where yet—but anywhere that wasn’t here. Anywhere that gave my child a chance.

I was zipping the pack closed when something pricked at the back of my mind. A pulse. A call.

I turned slowly... and saw him.

Kael.

He stood in the doorway, soaked with rain, his eyes wide and wild like he’d run through a storm just to get to me.

“Scarlett,” he breathed.

My heart stopped.

Then he said, voice shaking, “You have to come with me. Now.”

I stepped back. “Kael, what—?”

“They’re already here.”

Behind him, the sky cracked open with thunder—and a scream echoed from the woods, not human, not vampire. Something worse.

Something Hollow.