The Deadly Kiss

At thirteen, Seraphine's first kiss stopped a heart. They called it a curse. A mercy. A judgment. The names changed, but the rule did not: anyone she kissed died, quiet and clean, as if her mouth were an exit door no one else could see. Her town learned to knock on that door when suffering went on too long. Seraphine learned to live untouched. Death should have been the end of every story she entered. Instead, the souls she kissed began to talk. Whispers followed her through hospital corridors and midnight alleys, in chapel corners and club bathrooms, saying the same impossible thing in different mouths: something down below was keeping count, and his numbers were wrong. A crack in the dark. A hand reaching through it. Eyes that had been waiting for her far longer than she had been alive. To fix what she broke, Seraphine will have to hunt monsters wearing human skin, bargain with things older than sin, and decide which is worse: the curse that keeps everyone safe from her touch, or the god who swears it was never a curse at all. Whose side to take when the truth finally comes to light.