Chapter 7 Simon
SIMON
Kit fell asleep sometime after midnight. I knew the exact moment it happened.
The tension bled from his shoulders, his head tilted slightly toward me, and the deep, steady rhythm of his breathing filled the silence.
The faint glow from the dying fire caught in his hair, softening the hard lines of his face. He looked peaceful. I didn’t realize I’d been staring until his hand twitched in his sleep, brushing against mine.
Instinct made me pull away, though a part of me wanted to linger in that accidental warmth just a little longer. It wouldn’t help either of us.
The hunger had been gnawing at me since the fight felt like a a deep, restless ache that coiled low in my stomach and clawed up the back of my throat.
I’d ignored it, telling myself I could go another night. But now, with Kit asleep and his scent so close it was unbearable.
I pushed to my feet as quietly as I could. My body protested the movement, stiff from the night before. The bandage on my arm pulled tight where the feral vampire’s claws had grazed me.
It wasn’t serious. It would heal but the weakness that came with hunger was worse. If I didn’t feed soon, I’d be no good to either of us.
I hesitated by the door, looking back at him. Kit had slumped sideways in his sleep, one arm half-buried under the blanket I’d thrown over him.
Even injured, he looked dangerous. Like a blade left resting on the edge of a table, sharp no matter how still it seemed. Yet I found myself smiling, just a little.
“Don’t worry,” I murmured. “I’ll behave.”
Outside, the air was cool and damp. The world felt washed clean after the earlier rain. The ground was soft under my boots, the scent of wet earth mingling with the faint tang of rust from the old gutters.
The house loomed behind me, its boarded windows glowing faintly with firelight.
I skirted the edge of the property, past the overgrown garden and toward the line of trees that backed the old lot. The forest had reclaimed most of this place years ago.
Nature was always quicker than people to take back what was abandoned. I closed my eyes, let my senses stretch out.
Every sound sharpened. The chirp of insects, the soft rustle of leaves, the quick flutter of something small moving through the underbrush.
Hunting wasn’t easy for me. It required restraint and precision. A fine line between control and instinct.
A few moments later, I caught it. The quick patter of something alive. A hare, maybe. Small, fast, but enough to take the edge off.
I moved slowly, the way my sire had taught me long ago. The hare paused near a fallen branch, nose twitching. I hated this part.
I’d never liked taking life, even before I was turned. The animal would go still in my hands, its heartbeat fluttering like a trapped bird. Then silence.
But that was the trade. I fed to stay sane. I fed to stop myself from turning into the thing that killed me.
“Quick,” I whispered.
When I struck, it was clean. A brief struggle, a soft thud. Then the copper rush of blood filled my mouth.
I swallowed once, twice, forcing myself to stop before instinct could take over. I’d learned the hard way that drinking too deep, even from animals, blurred the line between what I wanted and what I feared.
The hare’s body went limp. I lowered it gently to the grass, murmured a quiet apology, and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand.
It wasn’t satisfying. It never was. Animal blood was a compromise. Thin, metallic, barely enough to keep the hunger quiet. But it kept me from losing control.
I straightened. The trees creaked around me. The wind carried the faint scent of wet wood and smoke from the house. And something else.
I froze. The hairs on my neck rose before I even looked. I knew that feeling. The weight of a gaze. Someone watching. My eyes lifted instinctively toward the house.
There, framed by the broken window on the second floor, was Kit.
He wasn’t moving, not at first. Just standing there, one hand braced against the sill, the faint orange light behind him outlining his silhouette.
His injured shoulder was still bandaged, but he’d pulled his jacket on again, like armor. Even from this distance, I could see the way his expression shifted. Shock first. Then something harder, sharper.
Our eyes met. For a moment, the world went silent.
I didn’t move. Couldn’t. The blood on my lips felt like a brand. My hands still trembled faintly from the hunt, the ghost of the hare’s heartbeat echoing in my palms.
He saw everything. The body at my feet. The way I’d bent over it. The red smeared across my mouth. Kit didn’t shout. Didn’t reach for a weapon. He just stared, and somehow, that was worse.
“Kit,” I said, though I knew he couldn’t hear me from this far. My voice cracked anyway.
He didn’t respond. Didn’t turn away. Shame settled cold and heavy in my gut.
This was it, the turning point. The part where the fragile, impossible thing between us cracked wide open. I’d been fooling myself thinking Kit could ever see me as anything but what I was.
A monster. The thought made my stomach twist. I’d spent months convincing myself I wasn’t.
That I could live quietly, feed cleanly, hurt no one. But in that moment, with his eyes on me and the dead animal cooling at my feet, I saw what he saw.
A creature bent over a body. Blood smeared across his face. A thing pretending at humanity. I wanted to wipe it away, to hide it somehow. But what would that change?
The damage was done. The worst part wasn’t even the disgust I expected to see in him. It was the look underneath it. Something like disappointment.
That cut deeper than anything else.
I took a step back, breaking the connection between us. My hands felt useless, clumsy. The forest seemed suddenly too quiet, the smell of blood too thick.
I turned away and wiped my mouth again, this time with the inside of my sleeve. The taste lingered, bitter and wrong. By the time I looked back up, Kit was gone from the window.
I didn’t know what that meant.
For a moment, I stood there, caught between the urge to flee and the pull of something heavier. The need to explain, even if he’d never believe me.
But running wouldn’t fix it, and if I left now, he’d assume the worst. That I’d fed on someone else and that I couldn’t be trusted. So I went back slowly.
The front door creaked open when I pushed it. The air inside was cooler, still thick with the scent of smoke and old wood. Kit was by the fireplace, the light throwing his face into half-shadow.
He didn’t look at me right away.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I tried.
Kit didn’t answer. Just tossed a small twigs into the dying embers. The fire flared briefly, then settled into a dull red glow.
“I didn’t think you’d still be here,” he said finally.
“Where else would I go?”
His jaw tightened. “You tell me.”
I exhaled slowly, fighting the urge to look away. “I needed to feed.”
“That what that was?” His tone was even, but something dark coiled beneath it. “Looked more like you were tearing into something.”
“I didn’t—” I stopped myself. Arguing wouldn’t help. “It was an animal. A hare.”
For the first time, his eyes flicked toward me. They were dark, unreadable.
“I told you,” I said quietly. “I don’t drink from people.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I saw that.”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
I shifted my weight, trying to read him. “If you think I’d—”
“I don’t know what to think,” he cut in. The exhaustion in his voice hit harder than anger. “One minute you’re patching me up. The next you’re—” He gestured vaguely, like the words were too heavy. “That.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s not something I like. But it’s what keeps me alive.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Does it bother you?”
“What?” I asked.
“That I saw.”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
Something flickered across his expression. Surprise, maybe. Or confusion. “Why?”
“Because I thought—” I stopped, the truth clawing at the back of my throat. Because I thought maybe you didn’t see me as just a monster anymore.
But saying that out loud would make it real. And if he didn’t feel the same, it would destroy the fragile thread of understanding between us.
So instead, I said, “Because I didn’t want to give you another reason to hate me.”
That made him go still.
The fire popped softly. The shadows on his face shifted, softer now.
“I don’t hate you, Simon,” he said at last.
I blinked.
He turned toward the fire again, jaw working. “I just… forget sometimes what you are. Then I remember.”
The words stung more than they should have.
“I understand,” I said quietly. “It’s easier that way.”
He looked over, meeting my gaze at last. “No. That’s the problem. It’s not.”
The space between us felt suddenly too small. The air thick with something unspoken. Regret, fear, maybe something else neither of us wanted to name.
Kit shifted, grimaced, then gestured toward the floor. “You should sit. You look like hell.”
I almost laughed. “I’ve been told worse.”
But I sat, because arguing would’ve meant standing too close to him again. The fire’s warmth brushed against my skin, a faint contrast to the chill that never really left me.
He didn’t speak again for a long time. Neither did I.
When he finally reached for his blanket, pulling it back over his shoulders, he hesitated.
“For what it’s worth… thanks for not feeding on me,” Kit said.
“Wouldn’t have helped either of us,” I said.
He made a soft noise that might’ve been agreement, or might’ve been a laugh. Then he closed his eyes again, exhaustion dragging him under.
I watched the rise and fall of his chest until the hunger faded to a dull ache, until the guilt stopped clawing quite so hard.
When the last light of dusk gave way to full darkness, I let myself look at him one more time.
“Sleep well,” I whispered. “You’re safe, hunter.”