3. Aria
Aria
I can’t sleep.
Not even with the relief of dawn beginning to brush the edges of the sky in pale, silvery light. It’s close now—I can feel it like a hum in my bones, in my blood.
Am I safe now?
The makeshift bandage on my shoulder itches, pulsing with a dull, rhythmic throb that matches the slow drag of my heart.
People like to say vampires don’t have heartbeats. That we’re cold, lifeless things. They’re wrong. We do. It’s just…slower. Quieter. We’re not the dead—they only like to pretend we are.
But I feel every beat of mine tonight. Heavy. Loud. Anchoring me to the pain, to this moment, to the stranger only a few feet away who saw me bleeding and didn’t walk away.
Roan.
She leans against the remains of a crumbling wall, her sword still strapped across her back, legs stretched out in front of her. She’s not asleep either—I can tell from the way her fingers twitch now and then, like she’s ready to move at the first sign of danger.
I should be grateful—she’s done more for me than anyone else in recent memory. But caution gnaws at me, sharp as a fang against flesh. I’ve been taught to trust no one—especially not a pretty human with a blade.
My eyes flick to her hands, the calluses and faint scars telling their own story of violence. They aren’t the hands of a noble or a scholar—they are a warrior’s hands, roughened by years of wielding a blade, no doubt. They are hands built by survival.
But the rest of her isn’t as harsh.
She is…handsome. Not in the delicate way the court used to whisper about when discussing potential blood-bound suitors. There’s nothing delicate about Roan. She’s all sinew and edge—strong jaw, square shoulders, scars littering her skin where blades must have glanced her once, long ago. Her dark hair is shorn close to her scalp—efficient, no nonsense and her posture is the kind that comes from always being ready for a fight.
And yet, when she bandaged my shoulder, her hands were careful.
She keeps glancing in my direction, scanning my face as if trying to decide whether I’m a threat or a burden.
Probably both.
Her gaze lingers—not just wary, but calculating, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle she didn’t expect to find tonight.
It’s like she’s waiting for me to turn into something else. Or maybe she’s trying to decide what I already am.
I don’t know how to feel about that.
The wind picks up through the bones of the ruins, stirring fallen leaves and whispering across broken stone. I shift slightly where I’m propped against the cold wall, and pain flares hot and sharp beneath my ribs. I grit my teeth and ride it out, breath shallow. The movement stokes another kind of discomfort—worse than the pain. Deeper. Familiar.
Hunger.
Not for food. Not for water. Not for comfort.
The real kind. The kind that curls in my belly and scratches at the inside of my throat. The kind that comes with the scent of blood, faint but maddening, even now. It used to be so easy—back at the estate, back when I didn’t know better. Blood was a given. Poured into crystal goblets, offered up on silk-draped wrists. Never questioned. Never earned.
But I left that behind.
I press the back of my head harder against the stone, breathing in through my nose, willing the ache back down. Roan’s scent is close—leather, sweat, iron. Earth and danger. It's not helping.
She doesn’t know what I am. Not really. She hasn’t seen the fangs. She hasn’t seen what I become when the hunger slips its leash.
Roan clears her throat, gaze lingering on the bandage. “You good?” she asks, voice pitched low.
My throat feels desert-dry. “Yes,” I manage, the word coming out faint.
She nods slowly, watching me a moment longer. I can feel the weight of questions pressing against her tongue, but she doesn’t ask them. She just watches. Her silence—it should be a relief, but it unsettles me more than if she’d pried. Kindness, the real kind, always feels like a trick. I pull my knees up against my chest, trying not to wince at the pressure in my shoulder.
An owl calls in the distance, and my gaze shoots to the darkness beyond the crumbling walls, scanning for shadows. No movement, just the hush of the night. Tension eases in my chest—if the enforcers were closing in, they’d likely have revealed themselves by now.
Then why did they stop?
Did I lose them?
Did they stop when I entered the ruins?
Or is dawn too close for comfort for them?
I shiver, unsure which answer unnerves me more.
I swallow, tasting copper.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask softly, the question slipping from my lips before I can call it back. I’m not sure if I want to her to answer.
She glances away, as though my question unsettles her. “Couldn’t just…leave you there.” Her voice is gruff, uncomfortable. “I’m not a saint, but I’m not a monster, either.”
At the word monster , my breath catches. I glance down at my torn cloak, the dried blood crusted on the fabric. Monster. The word lands hard. My clan wore it like armor—like pride. We are the strong. The feared. We take what we want because it is our right.
But I never wanted to drink power like that. Never wanted to rule with blood on my tongue.
Roan leans forward slightly, resting one arm over her knee. “Anyway,” she adds, a short sigh escaping her lips, “if it makes you feel better, I’m not expecting anything. Just figured you needed help.”
The knot in my chest tightens. Relief and guilt twist together until I can’t tell which one is sharper.
“Thank you,” I whisper. The words taste foreign, like language I’ve never spoken but somehow still know.
She nods. Her shoulders ease, just a little, and the edge in her eyes softens. “Try to get some rest,” she says quietly. “I’ll keep watch.”
I cradle my injured arm close to my body and lean against the cold stone. Warnings clamor in my mind—don’t trust her, don’t trust anyone. Especially not a human with a sword and a voice that sounds too much like a lullaby in the dark.
But I’m tired. Gods, I’m so tired.
Overhead, the stars are fading, blotted out by the first dredges of dawn. I focus on the ones I can still see. I count them, one by one, as my breathing steadies. My eyelids slip lower, but not before the memory returns, uninvited. My mother’s face—sharp and cruel, her voice honeyed and hollow.
"Suffer now, or suffer later."
I grit my teeth and will the image away. The stars blur. The cold presses in.
And then…darkness.
***
I jolt awake to a soft rustling sound. The stone beneath me feels unfamiliar for half a second, and panic sinks its claws into my spine. My shoulder throbs violently beneath the bandages, and for one terrifying moment, I think I’m back at the estate.
I’m not.
A shape stirs in the dim firelight—Roan, crouched near the far side of the chamber, stirring the faint embers of a small fire. She glances back over her shoulder, her face drawn with fatigue.
“You’re alright,” she says, though it sounds more like a question than a statement.
My hands shake as I brace against the ground, dirt pressing into my palms. “Yes,” I rasp. “I just—thought…”
“Nightmare?” she asks gently, rising to her feet with a small grunt.
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. My jaw aches from how tightly I’ve been clenching it.
She doesn’t push. Instead, she jerks her chin at the barely-lit sky. “Sun’s not fully up yet, but it’s close. Figured I’d warm things up for a bit. You were shivering.”
Gratitude and something else—an unnamed emotion—clench in my chest.
I brush damp curls from my forehead and try not to notice how badly my hands are shaking. I feel…hollow. Starving.
“Thank you,” I whisper again, and hate the way my voice cracks.
She watches me too closely. Her eyes narrow, studying the pallor of my skin, the dryness of my lips. “You’re welcome,” she murmurs, then adds more cautiously, “But you don’t look alright. You look—” She stops herself.
“I’m fine,” I say quickly, too quickly.
She doesn’t argue. Just retrieves the canteen and holds it out again. “Drink.”
Water. If only that solved my real problem. But I take it anyway. She doesn’t need to know what I really need.
My hands tremble as I drink. The water soothes the raw edge of my throat, but it does nothing for the deeper ache.
The fire crackles softly, dancing shadows on the broken walls. Outside, the wind carries distant sounds of creatures stirring. For a moment, I let myself wonder what it would be like to stay here, in this quiet corner of the world, free from my clan’s reach. But I can’t forget they’re still hunting me. That dream— nightmare —might become reality again the moment they find me.
When I hand the canteen back, Roan takes it without a word. She nods in acknowledgment and settles down across from me, one arm draped over her raised knee. There’s a tension in her posture, like she’s ready to grab that sword at any sign of trouble.
Still, there’s something almost comforting about her. She hasn’t left my side yet, hasn’t asked for money or demanded explanations. In this world, that counts for something.
We sit like that, surrounded by crumbling stone and firelight, the ruins a cradle of brokenness that somehow holds us both. I close my eyes. Just a little longer, I tell myself. Just until the sun rises.
Because somehow, I think she’ll still be there when it does.
And that fragile sense of safety is enough to let me slip under the veil of sleep once more.