When he bit her, it wasn’t just blood he drank. He took her soul between his teeth.

Talia didn’t know why she let him stay. She told herself it was exhaustion, that she was cornered—that whatever Silas was, he was the only one who seemed to understand what was happening to her. But deep down she knew the truth. It wasn’t logic that kept her from locking the door that night. It was hunger. Not his. Hers.

The flat was silent except for the stove’s soft hiss as it fought to keep the last embers alight. Shadows shivered against the walls. Silas sat in her favorite armchair as though it belonged to him, legs spread, arms draped along the sides. The firelight caught every plane of his body: the taut muscles of his forearms, the defined ridges where ribs should have been flat, the sculpted curve of his neck. He looked more statue than man, and in that moment, Talia wondered if she was dreaming—or if she was colluding with a ghost.

She stood across the room, arms wrapped tightly around herself, staring at the faint red ring on her wrist. It had faded into a mere whisper of a scar—no raised edges, no residual pain—yet it lingered in her mind as if it remembered something she did not.

“How long were you buried?” she asked, voice trembling in the hush.

His gaze didn’t waver. He looked up at her with silver eyes that glinted in the low light. “Long enough to forget mercy.”

A cold wave rolled through her. He was speaking of centuries; she felt it press against her bones.

“But not me,” she added, more softly than she intended.

This time his eyes lifted fully to hers. “Never you.”

He rose and crossed the room in three silent steps, carrying the scent of old incense and damp earth. Each footfall was measured, as though he feared waking something beneath the floorboards. He stopped an arm’s length away. The air between them crackled.

“I remembered your warmth,” he said, voice low and intimate. “Your voice. The way you used to tremble when I kissed your collarbone.”

Her breath caught. A memory flickered at the edge of her mind—his mouth tracing her skin, a ghostly echo she had no right to feel. “I don’t remember that,” she whispered, but her voice betrayed her curiosity.

Silas leaned closer. A breath of air, heavy with promise, brushed her throat. “No. But your blood does.”

His words settled over her, igniting every nerve ending. She reached out, not in defiance but for something tangible to steady herself. Her fingers brushed the cool plane of his chest—solid, unyielding. She could feel the tension in his muscles beneath his robe. Her heartbeat pounded, loud enough to drown out the silence.

“Let me taste you,” he said. The statement was neither plea nor demand but inevitability incarnate.

She should have refused. Should have backed away, slammed the door in his face. But she didn’t. Instead, she tilted her chin up. “Do it.”

Relief—the barest flicker—passed through him. He exhaled as though he’d held his breath since time began. His hands found her waist and drew her forward, not roughly but with an unshakeable certainty. The world tightened to the space between them.

His lips brushed the hollow of her throat, cold then searing. His fangs parted her skin; a single drop of blood bloomed at the puncture. Pain exploded through her veins, not sharp but molten, burning from the inside out. She gasped, the sound lost in the conflagration tearing at her consciousness.

He held her as the bond formed, each heartbeat syncing her to him. Memories flooded her mind—hers and hers alone, yet ancient and jagged as broken glass. She saw herself in another life, fingers tangled in his hair, the taste of iron on her lips. A wedding altar swallowed by flames. Chains coiling around her ankles. His voice, raw with betrayal, calling her name across a sky choked with ash.

A sound slipped from her throat—a soft keening full of wonder and fear. Her knees threatened to buckle; he caught her before she could fall. She clung to his shoulders as if they were the only thing keeping her tethered to any reality.

He drank deeper, and still the memories poured in. She felt his essence inside her, stretching her mind toward something vast and unknowable. The world around them faded—no stove, no shadows, just the two of them bound by blood and fate.

Then he pulled back. His mouth was red, stained like a sunset. His eyes, once predatory, softened as he watched her sag against him, breath coming in ragged whispers. The bite had sealed itself; her skin bore no visible wound, only the echo of flame in her chest.

But the damage was done.

When she looked at him now, he wasn’t human. Not completely. He seemed to glow from within—his eyes shimmered silver-gold, and his skin pulsed with a light that bled through every pore. He looked at her as though seeing her for the first and last time, every line and curve recorded in his memory.

“You’ve fully woken me,” he said, voice husky with awe. “You’ve always been the key.”

She tried to answer but found her throat locked. He closed the distance and captured her lips in a fierce, devouring kiss, as though he intended to mark her more deeply than teeth ever could. She tasted blood and eternity on his tongue. She clung to him, breathless, as time splintered around them.

Then, just as it intensified, he jerked back. His body convulsed, arms flailing toward his chest. He staggered, breath rasping as though he’d inhaled centuries of pain. She stumbled back, hand pressed to her heart.

“Silas?” she murmured, voice tight with horror.

He didn’t reply. He dropped to his knees, head thrown back, mouth opening in a silent cry. From his throat spilled a sound not his own but hers—a voice that echoed her own terrified breath.

“You were never meant to rise alone.”

Then silence.

He collapsed forward, shaking, fists digging into the wooden floor. She sank beside him, hands trembling as she reached to cradle his face.

“Silas,” she whispered, pressing her palm to his cheek. He blinked, the glow in his eyes fading to steel.

“They’ll come for you now,” he said, voice distant.

“Who?” Her heart lurched.

He managed a grim smile, pain and certainty warring on his features. “The ones I buried with me.”

Beyond the window, the wind howled—a chorus rising from the cliffs. Talia pressed her forehead against his and closed her eyes, the taste of fear and blood still warm on her lips. She had bitten into eternity, and now eternity was coming for her.