Chapter 2 STRANGE FLAMES

Seraphina didn't sleep that night.

She paced her tiny apartment, every creaking floorboard sounding like a warning. Her mind replayed the alley encounter on a loop: the fire-eyed stranger, the words he said, the way the shadows had warped around him like they belonged.

"Daughter of two worlds."

It had to be a dream. A hallucination.

Except the scorch mark on the alley wall - the one shaped like a crescent flame - was still there when she returned to check.

She didn't imagine him. He was real.

And that terrified her more than anything.

By morning, her heartbeat still hadn't slowed.

She dragged herself to the bookstore, where the smell of old paper and strong coffee usually brought comfort. But not today.

Not when she could still feel heat crawling under her skin.

"Late night?" said Dani, the girl behind the register. She wore her usual oversized hoodie and sarcastic smile.

"You have no idea," Seraphina muttered.

Dani looked like she was going to press, but the bell over the door chimed. A new customer walked in.

Seraphina froze.

It wasn't him - not exactly. But the man had the same energy. A quiet tension that made the lights flicker and the air taste like burnt sugar. He looked human. Blond, sharp-featured, with icy blue eyes. But Seraphina knew better now.

He wasn't.

And he was staring right at her.

Later that afternoon, as she shelved a stack of books in the occult section - usually her favorite - she found one that hadn't been there before.

It wasn't listed in their catalog. The cover was cracked leather, sealed with a wax emblem she didn't recognize: half sun, half crown, dripping black flames.

Curious, she opened it.

The text inside was written in two languages. One looked like Latin. The other... she somehow understood without knowing why.

Her hand trembled as she flipped to a passage with her name etched faintly into the corner.

"Seraphina Carys, born under an eclipse. The Angel's touch. The Demon's flame. Her heart will choose the end of both."

The book burst into flames in her hands.

She dropped it with a gasp - but it didn't burn her. The fire shimmered with silver light before fading into ash, and all that remained was the wax emblem.

She picked it up slowly.

And this time, a voice didn't whisper - it roared inside her skull.

"Come."

That night, Seraphina didn't run from the shadows. She chased them.

Back to the alley where it all began.

He was waiting for her.

This time, she wasn't afraid. Not fully.

"What do you want from me?" she asked.

The man stepped forward, his fire eyes dimmer now, softer.

"I want nothing you won't choose," he said. "But the time has come to unbind what you are."

She swallowed. "And what am I?"

He studied her for a long, heavy moment.

"Half-angel," he said. "From your mother's line. She was cast down for loving the wrong soul."

Seraphina's breath caught.

"And the other half?" she whispered.

A flicker of grief crossed his expression - barely noticeable.

"Me."

To be continued...