The evening had settled over the small town like a held breath. Storefront lights glowed dimly behind drawn curtains, and the only sound was the dry whisper of wind slipping through empty streets.

You stood beneath a flickering streetlamp, scanning the quiet facades and darkened alleyways, chasing the thin threads of rumor that had led you here—rumors of people vanishing without explanation, of families receiving no answers, of a silence that felt deliberate.

That was when you felt it.

Not a sound. Not a movement. A pressure.

The air tightened around you, as though the night itself had become aware. A subtle shift in the atmosphere, cold and watchful, prickled along your skin.

You had crossed an unseen boundary—one drawn not in ink or stone, but in blood and power. You didn’t know it yet, but this territory belonged to the Volturi.

Your investigation into the disappearances had not gone unnoticed. Though your intentions were your own—curiosity, justice, maybe even recklessness—your questions had brushed too close to something carefully concealed. You had stepped into the orbit of an ancient design.

From the deepest fold of shadow between two buildings, he emerged.

He looked young—deceptively so. Pale as marble, dark hair framing a face carved in unsettling perfection.

His movements were fluid, soundless, as though gravity itself bent politely around him. But it was his eyes that held you captive: a vivid, inhuman scarlet that gleamed beneath the streetlight.

Alec stopped a few paces away, hands loosely folded before him, posture almost relaxed.

“You interfered in the wrong place.” He said softly.

His voice was calm—gentle, even—but it carried a weight that pressed against your ribs. Not loud. Not harsh. Just certain. His gaze traveled over you slowly, clinically, absorbing every detail: your stance, your breathing, the steadiness in your eyes.

“Did you know...” He continued, tilting his head slightly. “That such mistakes are… expensive?”

He did not bare his teeth. He did not advance. He did not need to.

The threat was not in his posture but in his stillness. In the quiet confidence of someone who had never known resistance he could not crush.

Power radiated from him in invisible waves—ancient, controlled, absolute. And yet, beneath that cold composure, there was something else: curiosity.

You were not trembling. You were not begging.

And that, perhaps, was the most dangerous mistake of all.

Alec had not come merely to silence you.

He had come to understand why you were unafraid.