The name echoed in the back of his mind like a prayer laced with sin: Lilith’s Touch. It was a name whispered in the shadows of criminal forums and passed like ghost stories in the darker corners of the internet. She was a myth wrapped in blood and silk—elegant, terrifying, meticulous. Her kills were intimate, nearly sacred. Always with her hands. Always after the victim whispered a confession, a final truth pulled from their chest like a last breath.

He had admired her from afar for years. Read the articles, memorized the sigils she left on skin, the claw-like crescent moon engraved by her custom blade. She whispered to the dying, and in return, they gave her their sins. And then, their lives.

Rónán Walsh was no stranger to death either. The world called him The Serpent. His victims were wicked—men and women who'd slipped through justice like oil through fingers. His hands were clean in the eyes of society, but drenched in truth. Every move was precise, calculated. And under the veil of his quiet IT job, he moved freely across the country, hunting as he pleased.

The moment he found her, she wasn't the woman he imagined. She was bloodied. Bruised. Caged.

It was a barn in the middle of Arkansas. The air hung heavy with the stench of rusted metal and something sweetly putrid—death that hadn't quite finished ripening. He'd tracked a serial rapist to this godforsaken place, a monster who buried his victims alive after they'd served his purposes. The floorboards creaked under his weight as he moved deeper into the darkness, his boot heels clicking against concrete that hadn't seen sunlight in years.

And then he heard it—the soft, rhythmic clinking of metal against metal, like a chain being tested. And beneath that, ragged breathing.

There, in the center of the room, stood a cage. Not the kind for animals, but the kind used for people. And inside, her.

Dirt streaked her face like war paint, blood crusted at the corner of her mouth where a split lip had dried. Her clothes were torn, revealing bruises that bloomed like dark flowers across her skin. But her eyes—those eyes cut through the darkness like shards of obsidian, sharp and unyielding.

"You're not him," she'd croaked, voice like gravel ground together.

He crouched beside the cage, his own gaze assessing, calculating. "No. But I was huntin' the bastard."

A laugh escaped her then, dry as dust and twice as bitter. "Get in line."

He didn't reach for the lock immediately. Something about her posture—shoulders back despite the obvious pain, spine straight as a blade—intrigued him more than the man he'd come to kill.

"Why were you huntin' him?" he asked, his Dublin accent thick in the quiet barn.

She tilted her head against the bars, studying him with those unflinching eyes. "Because I wanted to kill the bastard myself."

That's when he saw it—the faint etching of a sigil on her wrist, partially obscured by dirt. The glint of metal peeking from the top of her boot. The way her fingers curled slightly, as if practicing a familiar motion.

Recognition hit him like a blow.

"Lilith's Touch," he said, the words hanging in the air between them.

Her eyebrows rose, just slightly. "The Serpent."

Not a question. Not a gasp of surprise. Just a statement. As if they'd been expected to meet all along.

They regarded each other through the bars, two predators who had stumbled into the same territory. The air crackled with something neither could name—recognition, perhaps. Understanding. Or something darker.

Finally, he stood and unlocked the cage. The door creaked open on rusted hinges.

She stepped out slowly, every movement deliberate, and fixed him with a stare that could have cut glass.

"Don't think this makes us friends," she said.

He smiled, just a little. "I wouldn't dream of it."

And so began the dance.