The rain had turned to mist by the time I reached the edge of the forest again. Dawn crouched somewhere below the horizon, a bruise-colored promise I didn't trust. Every step toward her room felt like treason against the vow I'd carved into my own coffin lid.
I told myself I only needed to see her—to make sure the bond hadn't poisoned her veins. But the truth pulsed beneath that lie. I wanted to hear her heart again.
The village was smaller than I remembered mortals building them. Narrow streets, houses pressed close together, their chimneys bleeding smoke. The air reeked of rain, rust, and life.
I slipped through it like a shadow that had forgotten who owned it. Dogs didn't bark. Candles didn't flicker. The world seemed to hold its breath until I found her window.
She was there, tangled in the thin sheets of sleep, her skin pale beneath the lantern glow. Her lips moved soundlessly, forming fragments of my name.
For a moment, I just watched.
It was a cruel thing, that moment—the peace of her breath against the violence I carried. The predator in me ached to taste what I had already claimed by accident. The man I once was wanted only to keep her untouched.
A familiar voice crawled from the back of my mind. You were born to destroy what you love.
I hated how right it sounded.
I reached out, letting my fingers hover just above the glass. The pane trembled, fog blooming beneath my touch. On the other side, her lashes fluttered; her heartbeat stumbled.
She saw me. I knew it even before her eyes opened.
Not fully awake—caught between dream and waking—but enough.
Her gaze met mine through the veil of rain and glass. No scream. No fear. Only recognition, as if she'd been expecting me.
"Lucien," she breathed, voice muffled by the window.
The whisper of it struck harder than any stake.
My name—spoken like a prayer by someone who didn't understand the god she was summoning.
The glass cracked under my hand. Not broken, just a thin spiderweb spreading from the place our reflections met.
"Sleep," I whispered back. "Forget me."
She blinked, confusion crossing her features. But the bond obeyed. Her eyes drifted shut again, the rhythm of her heart evening into the slow cadence of dreams.
I lingered a moment longer, watching the rise and fall of her chest. The hunger quieted, replaced by something worse: longing.
When I turned away, the world exhaled. The first hint of dawn crawled up the eastern sky, bleeding light between the roofs. It burned faintly along my skin—warning, not yet pain.
I had to retreat before the sun remembered me.
Back to the forest. Back to the ruins. Back to the ghosts that had learned my name long before she ever did.
But as I ran, the whisper followed—soft, relentless, threaded through the wind.
Lucien… come back…By the time I reached the ruins, my chest was tight, lungs burning with air that felt suddenly too thin. Every instinct screamed to bury myself in darkness, to blot out the memory of her heartbeat. Yet the whisper persisted, curling through my mind like smoke.
I sank to the cold stone floor, hands pressed against the rough surface. Rain dripped from my hair, soaking my shoulders, running down the curves of my back. Each drop felt like a tether pulling me back to her.
I thought of her warmth—the way her hand had brushed my arm, the ghost of her skin still seared into mine.
The bond was alive. Stronger than I had anticipated. Dangerous.
A voice slithered through my thoughts.
You're not meant to love, Lucien.
I laughed then. A sound hollow, brittle, like bones snapping under centuries of dust.
No, I thought. Not meant to love, yes. But to need? That was different. And I already needed her.
The forest beyond the ruins shivered. Shadows moved with the breeze, and I knew—I had been watched. Not by mortals, not entirely. Something older, something patient. The Revenants. The bloodlines I thought long dead were stirring, drawn to the pulse she carried and the bond they could smell from leagues away.
I had made a mistake.
And yet, I couldn't undo it.
The whisper came again, faint, almost a memory:
Lucien…
I closed my eyes and let it wash over me. For a heartbeat, I allowed myself to imagine her in my arms—not as a mortal to be consumed, but as someone I could protect. A fleeting warmth bloomed in my chest, fragile and dangerous.
The first light of dawn crept across the ruins. Shadows lengthened, trembling under the red-streaked sky. I would disappear now, retreat into the forgotten corridors of the night where humans and gods alike could not follow. But I would return.
Always.
Because the whisper beneath my name was no longer just a call. It was a summons.
And I had no intention of ignoring it.
I rose, hands shaking, fangs grazing the tip of my tongue. The storm behind me had ended, leaving the world quiet and drenched in blood-light. I moved toward the dark, toward memory, toward the inevitable reckoning that awaited both of us.
Her heartbeat would find me again. And when it did… I would answer.
The hunger had returned with the sunrise. Not just the gnawing of blood in my veins, but something deeper, older—a craving that went beyond flesh and bone. It was tied to her now. To the pulse that threaded through me, the whisper beneath my name that refused to be silenced.
I lingered at the edge of the village as night gave way to pale morning. Mortals stirred, oblivious to the predator in their midst. I could have feasted, taken what the law of my kind demanded. But my eyes sought only hers.
Evelyn.
Her name rolled across my tongue like a curse I didn't want to lift. I knew her morning routines, though I'd only glimpsed her once in waking light. She walked the same paths, touched the same objects, breathed the same air. The bond made me intimate with her life in ways that should have been impossible.
And then I saw her.
She stepped into the square, hair damp from the drizzle, lantern abandoned at her doorstep. Her eyes caught mine—or perhaps it was the bond drawing me, making me perceive what she had yet to realize. Those eyes… they weren't just human. They were fire beneath porcelain, defiance wrapped in fragility. They called to me, even without a whisper.
I ached.
Every fiber of me screamed to step closer, to inhale her scent, to feel her warmth press against my cold skin. Hunger, yes—but not the kind I had known before. This was a hunger for her soul, her essence, for the life she embodied.
The world had narrowed to her gaze. Everything else—the ancient ruins, the revenants stirring in shadow, the centuries of betrayal—I could ignore it all. Just this one moment, suspended, tethered by a bond I hadn't meant to form.
And then she spoke, softly, not fully conscious of the danger she faced:
"You're here again," she whispered.
No accusation. No fear. Just recognition, quiet and strange.
I stepped from the shadow of an alley, careful to let the light fall away from me. My reflection in a puddle was monstrous, yet her gaze lingered.
"You shouldn't be walking alone," I said, voice low, rough with centuries of disuse.
"I'm not afraid," she replied.
Foolish mortal. Brave mortal. My hunger twisted with admiration and desire, coiling tight in my chest. I wanted to protect her. I wanted to consume her. I wanted to disappear with her into the night and never return.
But I couldn't.
I had made a mistake—the first of many—and the world was already watching. The Revenants would come. Shadows would lengthen, and the fragile thread connecting us would be tested.
I could see it in her eyes. The spark of curiosity, the pulse of life that had drawn me here. She didn't understand the danger. She couldn't. She only knew that something about me called to her, something magnetic and terrifying, like a moth to flame.
I took another step closer. The hunger, the bond, the past—all of it—throbbed in unison.
"You shouldn't see me like this," I murmured.
Her gaze didn't falter. "Then why are you here?"
Because the truth was simpler than any lie I could tell. I needed her. And I had already crossed the line where need became obsession.
I wanted her in a way that made the world crumble beneath my feet.
And I knew, with the certainty of centuries, that she felt it too.
The first tendrils of a storm curled around us, unseen but inevitable. My hunger would not be sated until I touched her, until I claimed what was already mine by the bond that pulsed through our veins.
And as her eyes met mine again, bright with the curiosity and courage that had drawn me out of the tomb, I understood one immutable truth:
Desire had found me, and it would not be denied.