As Raymond held Valentina close, mories he hadn’t allowed himself to revisit in centuries began to surface like rising mist over a forgotten field. His heart grew heavy with thoughts of a ti long buried of the people who had endured with him, and those he had lost along the way.
Among them was Rebecca, he hadn’t seen her in what felt like ages, not just years — but lifetis.
She had disappeared a long ti ago, quietly, without a word. And though he had searched...
He hadn’t found her.
Raymond knew, deep in his immortal core, that Rebecca was still out there — alive.
He could feel it,
He often wondered why she never returned, never reached out to any of them, but whatever her reasons were, he respected them.
Still, the absence stung.
Rebecca had been one of the four survivors.
The last of a clan that had once danced beneath the stars and told stories by firelight.
They had survived the illness that wiped out their entire people, a plague that turned thriving villages into ghost towns, that left fields empty and rivers silent.
Four of them. That was all who remained, and among those four, Raymond had risen.
Not because he sought power, not because he was the oldest, but because he was the strongest, the one who had endured the longest without breaking.
He had taken the pain and carved resolve out of it.
And so, he beca their pillar the head of the family, Even though they weren’t bound by blood, they had sworn loyalty to one another.
Their bond was forged through suffering, through survival, through the knowledge that no one else in the world would ever understand them the way they understood each other.
Benjamin and Cecilia, though not related, had ford their own bond too.
They could have loved each other by all tradition, it would not have been forbidden but instead, they chose to be family, they chose to grow together, not as lovers, but as kin.
And that decision had made them unshakable.
It gave them the discipline, the clarity, to grow into the extraordinary beings they were today, together, the three of them had built empires.
However he know Benjamin has sothing for Cecilia, but still he doesn’t know what is separating both of them.
Things that seed impossible to ordinary humans, they accomplished with precision.
Influence, wealth, power.
There wasn’t a major decision made in this country that didn’t sohow, quietly, trace back to them.
But through all that through all the darkness and recovery, through the centuries of rising to power one mont remained fixed in Raymond’s mory.
One mont that had shifted everything, the mont he t her.
Valentina.
Their story, the first one, wasn’t built on power or destiny it was built on sothing purer.
Friendship.
Raymond and Valentina had been nothing more than friends at first, eting in the strangest of ways, during a ti when the world was slow and quiet. When nights were darker, and hearts held closer to their pain. They found laughter in silence, warmth in shared glances, and slowly without either of them realizing it grew into sothing deeper. Sothing impossible to stop.
They fell in love, madly, wildly, it was the kind of love that consud, that made the world seem less cruel, that made even monsters believe they could be human again.
Then Raymond had never known what he was, not truly. He was just beginning to notice the strange signs his strength, his senses, the quiet hunger that kept scratching at the back of his mind. But back then, he didn’t question it too much. All that mattered was her. Valentina.
She made everything else feel distant.
But then, it happened, One night, everything changed.
He had been injured badly. He still rembered the searing pain, the blood pooling beneath him, the panic in her voice as she tried to keep him conscious, to stop the bleeding.
And in that haze, that pain, he lost control, he couldn’t fight the hunger anymore, and in a mont of weakness... of desperation...
He bit her, her hand small, trembling, trying to hold him together.
And he bit her, It wasn’t ant to happen. It wasn’t a choice.
But it did, and the consequences were irreversible.
He rembered her eyes, wide with fear and confusion, he rembered her collapsing in his arms, he rembered the way her heartbeat slowed... and then stopped.
He had turned her, but she never woke up.
She died, that was how he lost Valentina the first ti.
Before he even understood what he was, before he had learned control.
Before he had the power to protect.
He had taken the person he loved most... and destroyed her.
From that mont on, the guilt beca a part of him. A shadow that followed him through every century, every rise to power, every lonely night.
He never knew if he’d see her again.
But deep down, so part of him always hoped.
Always prayed that maybe... maybe fate wasn’t done with them yet.
However, to Raymond’s surprise, fifty long years after he had lost her fifty years of silence, loneliness, and learning to live with what he had beco sothing extraordinary happened.
He saw her again, at first, he didn’t believe it. He thought maybe his mind had finally given in to grief and guilt.
But it was real, there she was... Valentina.
But this ti, she was no longer the woman he had once held in his arms, she was a child. A little girl. Innocent. Bright-eyed. Full of laughter and life.
Raymond had watched her from afar, frozen in disbelief as ti turned back on itself, It was her soul he felt it. That sa light, that sa spark that had once quieted the darkest parts of him.
Valentina had returned, but not for him.
Not yet, he knew the world would never understand him standing near a child, watching over her like a silent shadow.
So, he distanced himself.
He waited, Eighteen years.
Eighteen long years of patience, of watching her grow from a girl to a woman, waiting for the right mont waiting until she could make choices of her own.
He trained himself even more.
Mastered his thirst.
Tad the beast within, he vowed that this ti, he would not ruin it.
This ti, he would do things right.
And when that mont finally ca... when she looked at him, really looked at him, and smiled
It all began again, they fell in love, madly and completely, like a fla reignited after decades of being snuffed out.
It was as if the universe gave them another chance,For one year, they lived beautifully, Laughed deeply,
Loved endlessly.
It was bliss, until the tragedy struck again.
This ti, he didn’t bite her.
He never even touched her when she was vulnerable.
Valentina simply... fell ill, It began slowly, a cough here, a weakness there. But it worsened, and no healer, no dicine he knew could explain it.
Raymond felt it happening all over again, she was dying, and he was helpless.
Then desperation overtook him. The thought of losing her again was unbearable.
So, he broke his promise to himself and did the only thing he could think of—he bit her again, hoping the blood that cursed him could save her.
But it didn’t, she died in his arms, Just like before.
Ever since that second loss the one that shattered him even deeper than the first Raymond had co to realize sothing terrifying:
Valentina kept coming back, she wasn’t just a lost love or a passing soul.
She was reincarnating over and over again.
Returning in different forms, different tis, sa faces.
And each ti, he found her.
Each ti, his heart recognized her.
Each ti, that sa warmth returned to his chest only to be ripped away, over and over again.
It was like a curse, a cruel punishnt placed on him by the universe itself.
She would return...He would love her...And then he would lose her.
Sotis to illness, sotis to accidents, sotis to circumstances so cruel, so random, that he couldn’t even find soone to bla.
Raymond had buried her more tis than he could count.
Watched the light in her eyes flicker and die, no matter how tightly he held onto her.
And no matter how much power he gained, no matter what he learned immortality, strength, influence none of it ever saved her.
He never got there in ti, the pain hardened him, It changed him.
It taught him that love wasn’t always enough not when the world kept tearing her away from him.
And so, when she didn’t co back after the last ti when the world stayed silent for one hundred years Raymond thought maybe... maybe she was gone for good.
Maybe her soul had finally decided to rest, Maybe she was tired of coming back to pain.
But then...She returned, and when he saw her again standing in her father’s house, her eyes filled with the sa spark he’d fallen in love with lifetis ago sothing in Raymond shifted.
He couldn’t do this again, Not the pain, not the loss.
Not the helplessness.
So this ti... he made a promise, he wasn’t going to lose her.
he would protect her at all costs.
he would hold onto her, no matter how many enemies stood in the way, and if anyone dared try to harm her to even think of taking her from him again
He would destroy them, every last one.
Even if it ant staining his hands with blood.
Even if it ant crossing every line he once vowed never to cross.
Because this was it, this was their last chance, and Raymond was ready to burn the world down to keep her alive.
That’s why he decided to take this action.
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