He was bleeding.
Not badly, not visibly but the kind that mattered.
Mana. Threadbare and leaking through his skin like water through torn fabric. The kind of bleeding only someone like Valen could sense, across miles. Across memories.
Elias stumbled again, this time catching himself against a twisted yew tree. His chest heaved, throat raw. Night clung to him, heavy and wild. The forest no longer whispered.
It watched.
He could feel it. The hush. The unnatural stillness that falls before a storm breaks.
Or before a predator arrives.
He closed his eyes. Just for a moment.
Not to rest, he wouldn't dare.
But to remember.
The feel of Valen's fingers on his face, that night in the drawing room. Not rough. Not yet. Just… curious. Hungry.
And the fire in Valen's voice when he said "Oh, Elias. That's exactly how it begins."
He had believed it then, not the words, but the moment.
He wanted to believe it had meant something. That even if he wasn't the real Elias, even if he had worn someone else's face, what he gave was real.
He had given everything.
Even if he'd stolen the mask.
A branch cracked behind him.
Elias's eyes flew open. He turned slowly, breath freezing.
Nothing. Not yet.
But the silence was louder now. Tighter.
He reached into his coat and pulled the warding glyph old, smudged, faintly pulsing from his own touch and pressed it to his chest. The magic flared. Not strong enough to block Valen, but enough to delay him.
Enough to say goodbye.
Because he wasn't running now just to survive.
He was running so Valen wouldn't have to kill him.
A bitter smile curved his lips.
That was the cruelty of it, wasn't it?
He hadn't come to destroy Valen. He hadn't come to trap or trick or seduce him.
He'd come because he'd grown up hearing stories whispered in candlelight about the vampire who had once defied kings, broken gods, and vanished into his manor like a ghost with a throne.
He'd come because the myth had been more real than the life he lived in shadows.
He'd come… because he had fallen in love with the idea of being known by a creature who remembered what it meant to forget who you once were.
He had given Valen six nights.
And in those six nights, he had learned how it felt to be touched like a truth, not a lie.
Even if it had all been built on one.
Elias turned deeper into the forest. His boots slipped in moss, his breath white now in the colder air.
Keep moving. Keep moving. If you stop, he'll see you.
If he sees you, he'll ask why.
And Elias… Elias wouldn't survive giving that answer.
He crested a ridge, the stone jagged underfoot, and saw lights in the valley below. A village. Maybe. Safe? No. Nothing was safe now.
But somewhere to rest.
Somewhere to fall if he had to.
He took one step.
And that's when the wind shifted.
His name, carried on it.
Not spoken. Not shouted.
Just felt.
Like someone saying it inside his chest, not his ear.
''Elias."
His knees buckled.
Not from magic.
From grief.
Because Valen's voice wasn't angry.
It was pleading.
The wind curled around him, a whisper and a wound.
He staggered forward, then paused.
Somewhere in the trees behind him, a flame ignited. Small. Controlled. But steady.
Valen was here.
He had arrived.
Elias had minutes. Maybe less.
And still, he couldn't make himself run again.
Because what if… what if Valen wasn't coming to kill?
What if he just wanted to know?
What if, after everything…
He would still choose him?
The air was thick with the scent of old pine and magic. Night had pressed itself hard against the world, cloaking the forest in a kind of breathless hush. The stars above flickered cold, distant.
But Valen was not indifferent.
He moved like a storm through the underbrush, velvet coat whipping behind him, boots crushing wet leaves. His aura crackled not the seductive charm he wore like perfume, but something older. Raw. Coiled. Almost feral.
And in the center of the ruined glade, beneath the arch of an abandoned stone shrine, Elias stood.
Not the real Elias.
His Elias.
The lie Valen had kissed open and let into his veins.
He was waiting.
"I wondered how long it would take" Elias said softly, not flinching as Valen emerged from the treeline like the night itself had birthed him.
Valen didn't speak. Not yet.
He circled, slow and deliberate, boots grinding stone. The space between them hissed with unsaid things.
"You wore another man's name" Valen finally murmured, voice low and sharp. "You sat in my home. In my bed."
Elias didn't defend himself.
He didn't apologize either.
"I did" he said. "And every word, every touch… every night was real."
Valen stopped in front of him. Too close.
"Real" he echoed. His hands trembled at his sides, fists clenched. "You manipulated me into wanting you."
"I didn't need to" Elias said, voice steady. "You already wanted me. I just gave you a reason."
Valen's eyes darkened. He reached forward to grasp Elias by the collar, dragging him forward until they were chest to chest, breath to breath.
"You think I don't hate you for what you did?" Valen whispered. "For how you looked at me like you knew me?"
"I do know you" Elias said, unflinching. "Better than anyone in centuries."
Valen's grip tightened. "And that gives you the right to lie to me?"
"No" Elias said. "But it gave me the courage to get close. To see if what I'd studied… feared… loved was true."
The word loved slid between them like a brand.
Valen inhaled sharply. "You don't love what you've deceived."
"I love what I found" Elias said. "And I didn't expect to be seen. I didn't expect you to look back at me like you felt it too."
Valen growled, the sound low and intimate. "You don't get to speak about feelings when you were never real to begin with."
"But I am real" Elias snapped, fire rising now. "This, me, this is who I am. The name was borrowed. But the man you touched? The man who challenged you? That was never a lie."
Valen's jaw tightened. He released Elias's collar only to grab his face, fingers cradling his jaw with the same ferocity he'd once held his waist.
"I should never have let you in" he whispered. "You turned me into something soft."
"Then hate me" Elias said, his voice breathless now, lips inches away. "Hate me for making you feel. But don't pretend it wasn't what you needed."
Valen closed the distance like gravity was pulling them together. Their mouths collided, not gentle, devouring. Teeth. Tongue. Hands knotting in hair and cloth.
He pushed Elias back against the stone altar, lips bruising with want, hands roaming as though he could memorize the truth beneath the lie.
Elias gasped between kisses, fingers gripping Valen's shoulders like he was anchoring himself.
"This doesn't fix it" Valen hissed against his throat.
"I don't want to fix it" Elias growled. "I want you to feel it."
And he did.
Every shattered wall. Every lie that had tasted too much like truth. Every kiss that should've meant nothing but had carved itself deep instead.
Valen didn't forgive.
But he touched like a man who might.
And Elias didn't run.
Not this time.