Liv's family villa stood on a hill outside the city, a dark, spectral silhouette against the night sky. The wrought-iron gates were rusty, the garden a wild tangle of briars and moss-covered statues. For Liv, it was a sanctuary. A place where time had stopped, where the world's expectations could not reach her.
She pushed the massive oak front door, which groaned open with a long, mournful sound. The air inside was still and cold, smelling of ancient dust and old wood. Moonlight filtered through the tall, grimy windows, casting silvery patterns on the checkered marble floor. Everything was covered in white sheets, transforming the furniture into sleeping ghosts.
Liv finally felt free to breathe. She kicked off her heels, the sound echoing in the vast, empty hall, and leaned against a cold column, closing her eyes. The silence was a blessing.
But it didn't last long.
A sound. Faint, almost imperceptible. A small, insistent cry.
Liv's eyes snapped open. Her vampire senses, sharp and precise, honed in on the source of the noise. It was coming from outside. From the doorstep. She moved silently, a patch of shadow within the shadow, and opened the heavy front door again, this time just a crack.
There, on the stone steps, was a basket. Identical to the one Paul had found in another part of the city.
With a mixture of disbelief and suspicion, Liv approached it. She pulled back the blanket, and her immortal heart, which beat only a few times a minute, skipped a beat.
Inside was a baby girl. Tiny, with fair skin and a fuzz of nearly white blonde hair. But even in her, there was something profoundly strange. Her features were delicate, but her ears... they were rounded. Like a human's, but without the characteristic pointed tip of an elf. It was like looking at an imitation, an unfinished work of art.
The child waved her tiny hands, and her eyes opened. They were a blue so light they looked almost transparent. Liv felt drawn to that gaze, a wave of protective emotion she hadn't felt in centuries.
She noticed a piece of fabric, a silk ribbon, tied to the blanket. A name was embroidered on it in elegant cursive letters: "Eve."
Liv picked up the basket. The gesture came naturally, instinctively. She carried the child inside, closing the world out. As she held her in her arms, gently rocking her, her mind swirled. Who was she? Where did she come from? An elf without pointed ears? It was a biological enigma, a contradiction in terms.
Her escape from George, her anger, her loneliness... it all dissolved in the face of this small, inexplicable miracle. She found herself with a secret, a mystery wrapped in swaddling clothes. In that dark, silent villa, Liv, the cynical and disillusioned vampire, was no longer alone. And she understood, with a wonderful and chilling certainty, that her life had just changed forever.