Chapter 4

The Nights That Follow

The dreams began to change.

At first, she had only stood there, trembling, letting him take from her neck as if she were some holy sacrifice. But now… now he played with her.

Some nights, he would circle her like a wolf, letting his shadow brush over her bare skin without touching. He would speak in that low, unhurried tone, telling her things she could never quite remember when she woke—except for the way her heart would pound and her thighs would ache as if the words themselves had touched her.

Other nights, he would deny her. He would step close enough for her to feel the heat rolling from his body, his talons skimming her hip or the small of her back, and then—he would step away, leaving her starving for him.

But it was always the bite that undid her. The slow lowering of his head, the way his breath made her shiver, the exact moment when teeth broke skin and the rush of molten fire surged into her veins. She tried, once, to push him away mid-bite. He caught her wrists, pinning them behind her, his mouth never breaking contact with her neck until she moaned against his restraint.

“You will always give in,” he whispered into her skin before disappearing into the shadows.

The Pull in the Daylight

It bled into her waking hours.

She would catch herself glancing toward dark corners as if expecting him to be there. In crowds, her ears would tune to low voices that almost—almost—sounded like his. Sometimes, in the middle of lectures or work, her neck would throb, her pulse stuttering as if she could feel phantom teeth pressing against her.

She told herself she should resist—that her father’s blood demanded she fight, that the hunter in her should sharpen her blade, not open her throat. But every time she dreamt, the fight grew shorter, the surrender quicker.

One night, she managed to turn away from him entirely, pressing her back to the altar. He didn’t force her; he just stood there, watching, until her knees buckled under the weight of that gaze. When she looked up again, his mouth was already at her neck, and she didn’t remember crossing the space between them.

“Soon,” he murmured against the wound, voice like the tolling of a dark bell. “Soon, you will beg for more than my bite.”

And in the morning, she hated herself for wondering—aching—what exactly he meant by more.

It began with whispers in the marketplace. Two men in long coats, voices lowered, speaking of “a shadow at the chapel ruins.” She wouldn’t have noticed, except one of them pulled from his pocket a silver blade etched with runes—symbols she knew by blood alone. Her father had carved the same marks on his knives.

Later that night, she found a letter slipped under her door. No name, no seal. Just a single sentence in a hand sharp as claw marks:

“The one who comes to you in dreams must die, or you will follow your mother into the pit.”

Her hands trembled as she read it, the ink bleeding under her sweaty grip. She thought of her mother’s screams, the fire, the hunters’ steel. She thought of her father, torn open by a demon’s claws. Both sides of her blood whispered the same warning—choose, or be destroyed.

But when she slept, he was there again, more vivid than ever. The dream began with the usual bite, but when he lifted his head, blood glistening on his lips, his mouth hovered dangerously close to hers.