4. Selis
Selis
The woods are teeth tonight.
Jagged black trees gnashing at the bruised sky, the cold biting hard enough to crack skin.
Frost slicks over the dead leaves, crunching quiet under my boots.
I move like smoke through the trees, hand resting loose against the hilt at my hip, cloak pulled tight against the chill. Every sense tuned sharp.
Once I cash in this bounty, I’ll buy another mare. A good one this time. The kind that doesn’t spook at shadows or throw a fit when you bleed too close to her. I had to sell my last girl—too many debts. So, I’m left to hunt on foot.
Frost crunches under my boots, but I don’t bother masking the sound.
Let her know I’m coming. I've been tracking her for days, and I'm close. I can feel it.
The scent of iron hits first. Old, dried. Not the clean kind of kill. I follow it off the path, weaving through underbrush until I find the shrine—or what’s left of it.
These things are everywhere out here. Relics from before the clans pulled back behind their silk and blood and distanced themselves from humans. Scattered shrines to Selene, cracked and moss-eaten, left to rot under the trees like forgotten bones.
This one’s no different .
A sunken arch, half-swallowed by earth and rot. No offerings. No flame. Just a corpse propped sloppily against the base stone like an abandoned prayer.
And… oh. I recognize the man.
Bounty hunter. Guild-adjacent. One of the outer-contract types who drink too much and talk louder than they should. What was his name again?
Theo?
No, Tibias?
Too dramatic.
Doesn’t matter.
He wasn’t good enough to remember.
Not terrible either—just the kind that gets by on luck more than precision. Until luck runs out.
I step closer, boots scraping frozen leaves. His throat’s torn in two deep lines. Precise enough to be hungry. Not enough to be controlled.
So she’s got some bite, my little star.
I crouch beside him, brush a gloved finger across the edge of one of the wounds. The blood's already frozen in a thin gloss.
"Messy," I murmur.
I stand and scan the ground. There's a scatter of shallow footprints—edged now with ice and a little moonlight. She doubled back at one point. Hesitated. Then moved on.
Hesitant. Tired.
Still running.
Idiot vampire.
I drop to one knee and drag two fingers slowly through the nearest print.
“Subtle,” I mutter. “Might as well have written ‘come find me’ in the snow.”
The edges of the footprint are thin and uneven, like she’s favoring one side. Limping, maybe. Or just too cold to run properly.
I stand, rolling my shoulders, and grin to myself.
It almost feels like cheating.
Almost.
The footprints lead deeper into the woods again, where the trees grow denser and the frost hangs heavier, turning every branch into a bone-white claw. I follow at an easy pace, boots silent, coat whispering against my legs. No rush.
She’s tired.
She’s scared.
She’ll make a mistake soon.
They always do.
A few paces later, I find something else—faint, but there if you know where to look.
A scrap of cloth, caught on a branch.
White. Thin. Frayed at the edges.
I tug it free and roll it between my fingers, breathing deep. The faintest trace of her clings to it—salt, fear, something sweeter underneath it.
A holy daughter.
A glowing girl.
How delicate she must be, how soft. Like a prize wrapped up in silk and left to rot.
I tuck the cloth into my coat pocket, beside the bounty scroll. A memento. I like keeping pieces of my jobs. It makes the inevitable end more... intimate.
Another mile. Maybe two. The prints turn clumsier, crossing themselves, doubling back like she isn't sure where she’s going.
She's close .
The woods thin just ahead, and the moon cracks through the canopy in ghost-colored spears.
Between the trees, something rises—hunched and broken, a ruin swallowed by frost and moss. Another old shrine.
Half-collapsed walls. A roof sagging like the ribs of some long-dead beast. Forgotten prayers rotting into the stone.
I slow. Every muscle winds tight, breath sinking low in my chest.
And there, inside the crumbling bones of the place, something glows .
Actually glows .
There—tucked inside the crumbling ribcage of the shrine—is a figure on her knees.
Her.
I almost laugh. It shudders up from my throat like smoke.
Subtle, little star. Real subtle.
I move closer, silent as breath, slipping between the trees until I can see her properly.
She’s not sleeping.
She kneels before the cracked altar, hands clutched like she still believes they’re enough to save her.
Her head is bowed low, hair sticking to her cheek, her whole body trembling in slow, shallow waves.
The cloak around her is more thread than fabric now, sagging off her shoulders and pooling into the dirt like it’s trying to bury itself.
And all around her—
The moonlight hits her skin.
Not like reflection.
Not like light.
She glows—soft and silver, like something dusted in star-dust.
Not just her skin—her, all of her, pulsing faintly in the dark like something half-born from the moon and already halfway dying. As if the moon is trying to call her home.
It’s almost eerie.
Unnatural.
Beautiful.
Wrong.
I’ve seen a lot of shit. Magic, blood sorcery, vampires tearing each other apart over politics and prophecy. But I’ve never seen anyone glow like this—not like it’s alive inside them. Not like it’s trying to escape.
She whispers something too soft to catch. A prayer, probably. Maybe to the same dead goddess whose bones she’s kneeling on.
I tilt my head, studying her from the dark.
So that’s the woman they want so badly.
My little glowing bounty.
And she’s already kneeling.
Perfect.
I lean one shoulder against a tree, tapping the flat of my knife lightly against my thigh, and watch.
I should rush in. Quick strike. Blade flashing, silver cuffs around her wrists before she even draws a breath to scream.
Efficient. Clean.
But where’s the satisfaction in that?
No… better to savor it.
Better to watch her voice crack on some dead god’s name.
Better to see the faith drain from her eyes like heat from a corpse the moment she realizes what answered her prayer isn’t salvation.
It’s me .
She bows lower, forehead pressed against the cracked altar stone, her voice trembling harder now—desperate scraps of sound, barely air.
“Selene… please. Hide me.”
So soft it wouldn’t reach even if the gods were listening.
I smile. Slow. Sharp.
Poor thing.
No creature this fragile should be left alone in the woods. It’s not just dangerous. It’s insulting. A waste of something soft and rare and ruinable.
I watch her longer than I mean to.
The silence hangs thick between us, as sweet and cloying as blood left too long on a blade. Her breath fogs faintly. Her body trembles with the kind of stillness that comes after too much fear—bone-deep and hollow.
The glow around her flares and fades again, like a candle guttering in its own wax.
She’s beautiful in the way dying things are beautiful. Fragile. Doomed.
Already mine.
I tell myself I’ll wait until she finishes her little rituals. Let her whisper every useless prayer she can think of. Let her feel like something is listening.
But she just keeps going.
Still kneeling. Still mouthing broken devotions to a goddess that left her here to rot. Still blind to the fact that she’s already been answered—and not anything holy.
My patience frays.
I step through the broken threshold of the shrine, slow and unbothered. No need to stalk. No need to rush.
She doesn’t know it yet—but her prayer’s already over .
And I’m what’s left when the gods don’t show.
"No rescue coming, sweetheart," I say, voice lazy, almost fond. "It’s just you and me now."
Her head snaps up like she’s been struck. One hand still half-raised like she thinks some unseen god will pluck her from the filth and save her.
No one does.
She doesn’t rise. She stays kneeling. Tense as a bow pulled too tight, her shoulders drawn in, fingers twitching in the folds of that threadbare cloak. I can almost feel the war running through her veins—run, fight, pray.
She does none of it.
Doesn’t bolt. Doesn’t turn. Smart. Or maybe just scared stiff.
I take a step closer, slow and deliberate, enjoying the way she flinches without meaning to.
Another step.
Another.
I can almost hear the frantic drum of her pulse from here.
My gaze never leaves her.
Small. Soft. And glowing just enough to make her a target even blind men could hunt.
"Where you gonna run to, little star?" I murmur, flashing teeth. "The woods? The gods ? They already sold you cheap."
She jerks her chin up slightly, defiant, trembling—but her voice, when it comes, is sharp and clear, "Leave me alone," she says. "I don't wish to hurt you."
I blink once.
Then bark a laugh—sharp, delighted.
"Oh, sweetheart," I croon, circling her now, slow as a wolf around a wounded deer. "You’re not the first little bloodsucker to think her teeth could save her. "
I lean down, just enough for her to catch the glint of my grin. "That amateur you drained in the last shrine? He was barely worth the trouble. I’m not him."
Her body jerks like I slapped her with the truth.
Doesn’t that count as a sin?
Killing in these little bone-and-moss temples?
She still won’t look at me.
Her gaze stays fixed on the altar, on the crumbling icon above it—on anything but me.
But I see it.
The flicker of realization. The weight of it pressing into her chest like the tip of a knife.
I hum low in my throat, amused. "Mmm. Should’ve hidden better. You’re practically begging to be found."
Her hands clench at her sides, nails digging into her own palms. A small, furious gesture.
Cute.
Still, she stays silent.
I take another step.
The warmth of her breath—ragged and uneven—ghosts against my collarbone. Not brave enough to run. Not bold enough to bite.
If she had an ounce of real predator in her, she’d lunge. Rip open my throat. Sink those pretty little teeth in and drink until I stopped twitching.
She doesn’t.
What’s she waiting for? An invitation? An attack?
A sign from her gods that this is righteous violence?
If you wait long enough, everything starts to feel like permission.
So I do what I do best. I test her .
My hand lifts—slow, unhurried—and I catch a loose strand of her hair between my fingers.
It’s soft. Silken. Cool from the night air.
The color’s strange up close. Not white, not gray. Something between. Almost silver. Almost moonlight. It slips over my calluses like water. Luxurious in a way that has no business surviving out here.
And her—
She’s slight, all sharp bones under soft skin, as if she was built for prayers, not survival. Skin too pale, bruised by cold. Mouth split slightly at the corner. Proud even in ruin.
She flinches at the touch, but doesn’t pull away.
I twirl the lock lazily, grinning wider.
"You're prettier up close," I say, savoring the way she trembles. "No wonder they want you back so bad."
Still she stays silent.
Defiant little thing.
Almost admirable. Almost .
I lean in, close enough that my breath stirs the loose strands near her ear. Close enough that she could tear my throat open if she dared.
Dangerous to put myself this close to a vampire’s fangs.
Maybe I want her to try.
Maybe I want to see what kind of girl Selene sends glowing into the jaws of wolves.
"You gonna beg, sweetheart?" I whisper.
She lifts her head. Finally.
Our eyes meet.
And that’s when it happens .
Her gaze snags mine like a blade catching flesh. Pale blue, rimmed in something too bright to be human. Silver flares in the moonlight, but it’s not the color that gets me.
It’s the look.
Recognition. Immediate. Undeniable. Burning with a desperate kind of knowing.
She knows me. Not my face. Not my reputation.
Me.
Her lips part, just barely, and when she speaks, it’s not loud. It’s not panicked.
It’s reverent.
"Selis."
One word.
One name.
Mine.
Spoken like a curse. Spoken like a prayer.
It punches the grin right off my face for half a second. A flicker. A slip.
How?
I don’t wait for the answer. Don’t give myself time to think. Some primal part of me takes over—loud, furious, contain her now —and I move before the thought fully forms.
I drop the strand of her hair. Grab her shoulders. Twist .
She stumbles, her breath catching in her throat as I shove her forward, palms slapping down onto the cold, moss-slicked altar stone. The sound echoes through the broken shrine like a crack of lightning.
I follow, pressing her down, one arm hooked behind her back, the other wrenching her wrist up. Not hard enough to break. Just enough to hurt.
She gasps. A quiet, bitten-off sound.
Good.
“I didn’t give you my name,” I murmur at her ear, voice low and smooth. “So tell me, little prophet—how’d you come by it?”
She breathes hard against the altar, her voice uneven but certain when it comes. “I dreamed it.”
My spine prickles. My grip tightens instinctively. I laugh—low, sharp, bitter.
“Of course you did.”
I draw the silver cuffs from my coat. A length of chain slithers behind them—bright even in the shadows, unmistakably a leash.
“Well then,” I say, tone slipping back into that same cold lilt I always use when I’m annoyed and amused in equal measure, “guess this makes it fate.”
The cuffs snap shut with a clean, vicious click .
There.
Tethered.
Contained.
The chain bites just enough to remind her that whatever game she thinks she’s playing?
I’m the one keeping score.
I step back, slow and deliberate, letting the chain go taut between us. Watching her.
Watching the way she struggles to straighten, shoulders rigid with pride even as she stumbles forward half a step. The way she blinks fast—like she’s trying not to cry, or not to scream. The way she fights not to look broken.
She still stares at me like I’ve torn open the sky and walked through. Like she’s seen something she isn’t supposed to.
Still tasting my name behind her teeth.
Still whispering it inside her head, I bet.
I bare my teeth in a grin she won't mistake for kindness .
"You glow real pretty, sweetheart," I say, voice syrup-thick and mocking. "Shame it won’t save you."
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t even blink.
Naera—because that’s her name, written in blood-red ink and a bounty worth killing over—just watches me.
Silent.
Unmoving.
As if she already knew I’d come.
As if she was waiting .
The thought shouldn’t sink its teeth into my head the way it does.
She’s just a bounty. A job. A glowing sack of sacred power and coin.
And yet—
It lodges deep. Wedges itself beneath my ribs like a thorn.
Because there’s something in her stillness. Something in the way she looks at me like I’m not her hunter, but her… answer. Her ending.
And I hate the way it makes my hands tighten on the chain.
Let the gods watch.
She’s mine now.