15. Darius Hunt Speaks
Chapter fifteen
Darius Hunt Speaks
The island breathes differently at dusk. At sunset. It always has.
From The Cliffs, I feel it more than I hear it—the slow withdrawal of sound from the harbor, the closing of doors, the subtle tightening of the air as the light fades. Down below, Hunt’s Harbor closes up, small and careful, as if it remembers something the rest of the world has forgotten.
Up here, nothing closes.
Up here, things awaken at sunset.
I stand at the edge of the western terrace, the wind cutting cleanly across the stone, carrying salt and fog and something older threaded beneath it. My coat shifts with the current, a quiet acknowledgment of forces that have never once asked permission.
Below, the town is already dimming.
Lights blink on in scattered patterns—the square, the Victorian home where the doctor now lives.
I don’t look at the house at first. I don’t need to. I’m aware of it in the same way I am aware of the tide, the bell tower, the boundaries that define this place.
And of her. The scent of her blood and hair and skin.
“Silas is stable,” Charles says from behind me.
I don’t turn.
“Details,” I reply.
A pause. Then, “He’s alive and healing.”
His footsteps approach, careful on the stone. Charles Crowe has always been deliberate. It’s why he’s still here, still my assistant.
“He should not be,” Charles says quietly. “Not with a wound like that, from the … creature.”
“No,” I agree. “He should not.”
The wind shifts again. I listen to it as it moves along the cliff face, down into the trees beyond.
The Wilds.
There is a difference tonight. Not in sound. In absence.
“Where was he found?” Charles asks.
“On the edge of The Wilds. He has an old storage shed there.”
My gaze lowers slightly, toward the dark seam of forest that divides the island. Even from here, it presses against the edges of everything.
“It’s been more than twenty years since the hunger … It’s been so quiet.”
“It’s not quiet now. Three donors have visited the clinic with some odd symptoms.”
Silence settles between us.
“And few others here at The Cliffs have reported…” Charles begins, then stops.
“Tell me.”
“…changes,” he finishes. “Hunger. Irritation. Small losses of things like scent. Marcus and Adrien.”
My jaw tightens, barely perceptible.
“Not good. Is it contained?” I ask.
“For now.”
I turn then, slowly, fixing him with my gaze. “We do not operate on ‘for now.’ We operate on certainty.”
He bows. I built this place on precedent. On rules. On restraint for all of us who live at The Cliffs. For all of the vampires here.
I set up safeguards for the humans and for us.
The bell at sunset, the boundaries. More than one hundred years ago I told the mayor that all residents should wear silver.
Made it tradition, and a modicum of protection against vampires.
I set up the distance between Hunt’s Harbor and The Cliffs—none of it is arbitrary.
But the ‘thing” is the variable. I don’t control it.
“Silas said it moved wrong,” I tell Charles. “Not like us. But he saw very little.”
“He saw enough,” Charles replies.
“Perhaps,” I say. “Or perhaps he saw what fear makes of shadows.”
Charles nods.
The wind shifts again. And with it comes her scent. Below, in the harbor, she’s there. With the coffee shop owner and her children.
Dr. Arabella Russo.
Bella.
What am I going to do about her?
She makes me think of my past. Of my wants and desires. She’s the woman in my recurring dreams. It means something, but I’m not sure what.
There was a time long ago when I laughed more easily. The thought comes without warning, unwelcome in its familiarity. I don’t dwell on the past. It serves little purpose. Memory is not a refuge—it’s a weight.
And yet—
I remember being human.
This house before it became a fortress. Before silence replaced noise. Before blood was everything. Before every decision carried consequence.
I was not always this.
I moved freely then. Spoke without calculation. Laughed at things that did not matter.
I irritated my father with it. Delighted my mother. My sister called me impossible.
There were long summers along the harbor, where the water was nothing more than water and not a boundary to be defended. Fishing lines cast without purpose. Racing boats. Music drifting from open windows. Laying in the sun or swimming. Games that lasted too long into the evening.
I knew the island then as something I was born to and grew up on.
Our family was a leader in the whaling industry and became very wealthy. From one ship to three to ten and then a dominant fleet. My Uncle Arthur had an even larger company in Nantucket.
I still remember the night he came to visit my father and mother. In 1830. At the height of everything. We ruled the world then.
Uncle Arthur looked different that night, thinner and paler. Overworked or maybe sick? My father sent my brother and I to bed and I remember hearing shouting and anger later.
The next morning, they were dead. Mother and father and my sister, too. Uncle Arthur was waiting for us, for Drake and I.
He explained everything and nothing. It was shocking and all a blur.
Vampires, the immortal life he now led, the whaling money that made him powerful.
But immortality made him want even more.
He said our industry would decline in the next decade and he wanted father to sell the ships and business and cash in now.
And become one of him. An immortal. My father refused. Arthur said he was disgusted.
Now Arthur made the same proposition to Drake and I. Become vampires, join him in immortality. As heir, I was to sell the business, build a mini empire for vampires here on the island. And more of his planned empire would follow.
We accepted, Drake and I. We had little choice.
He would have killed us. And so everything changed.
Arthur taught us how to be vampires, how to feed, how to hide, how to use our strength and power, how to glamour humans.
He introduced us to wealthy vampires who wanted to buy mansions here on the The Cliffs or build new ones, vampires who would be beholden to me. My coven.
Bloodhaven Cove is perfect for vampires as it’s often foggy, is relatively isolated and has never developed into a tourist location.
Responsibility did not arrive all at once. It settled, layer by layer on me over the century. Expectation. Loss. Control.
The turning to vampire was not the end for me, I one day realized. It was a beginning, not one planned but thrust upon us by Uncle Arthur. I admit I hated the need for blood in the beginning, but I loved the new power in my body. And how time changed. It does, if you’re immortal.
Uncle Arthur gifted me with a day ring, similar to one he wore. I was never forced to live in darkness like most of the vampires on the island. Drake had one, too.
I remember those days and how I shifted from human to vampire.
Stillness replaced impulse.
Control replaced free thoughts.
Silence replaced laughter.
Not because I preferred it. Because it was required. A leader does not have the luxury of unpredictability and frivolity.
A predator does not have the luxury of softness.
So I learned. Adapted. Refined.
But I loved this island, Bloodhaven Cove. I knew many of the residents, the humans I grew up with.
And so I built the bell tower. Demanded residents be indoors at sunset because of dangers in the night. Wear silver. I had to find ways to protect the innocent, as I had become a monster.
And yes, there were plenty of humans who were not worthy, who were not from here, who were not worth the life they had been given. Thieves. Rapists. Ugly souls. We fed on them. But I know some innocents died under the fangs of vampires who came to live here.
Uncle Arthur arranged shipments of blood wine from Europe for us and we built large supplies.
Over time, things changed. Electricity, refrigeration, blood stores we could actually buy.
Then we started the Ceremony. It was my idea.
After high school graduation each year on the island, it happened.
A few humans would be approached and agree to give us blood in exchange for money.
As a job. They were ones not going away to college or not inheriting a family business.
These were humans without prospects, but valuable to us.
Humans who learned what we were. It was a way to give them an economy and survival.
We glamoured the ones who learned what we were but did not want to become donors.
Over time, things improved and changed. But I insisted that our vampire community remain controlled. Secretive. Hidden. Discrete. So that we could thrive and not be hunted or exposed to the whims of modern society or some politican. So that we would not become unwelcome.
Bloodhaven Cove is an ideal setting for this. Small enough. Far enough away from the mainland. Under the radar.
I shake my head and the memories clear.
I sniff the air. I can scent her again. Even from this distance, her scent is unmistakable. Seductive.
Why was she in my recurring dreams? What role does she have in my undead life? Will she recognize me?
“She’s already asking questions,” Charles says quietly behind me.
“Of course she is,” I reply.
“She found Dr. Mercer’s notes.”
That shifts my attention fully.
“How?” I ask.
“In the house. Storage room.”
“And?” I ask.
“She might start connecting things,” Charles says. “Silas. The anemia cases. The blood.”
“She’s observant,” I say. “Smart.”
“She might become a problem,” Charles corrects.
I admire the way she moves, the way she thinks. Her strength and courage. The way she stands in a place that teaches caution and has not yet learned it.
It is … unusual.
“We will not push her away,” I say. “We observe. We allow her to do what she will do regardless. She might be useful. Even vampires may need a doctor, Charles.”
The bell begins to toll.
Once.
The sound carries cleanly to The Cliffs, resonating through stone and bone.
Twice.
Below, the town withdraws further.
Three times.
Vampires will start to emerge as the sun has set. I remain where I am. Watching the harbor.
But something is wrong. In The Wilds. On the island. My control is no longer absolute.
And though I do not yet understand why, the presence of one human doctor in a Victorian house at the edge of my island has begun to feel like something important to me.
Below, the fog thickens.
The town disappears, piece by piece.
But I know exactly where she is.
And I will not stop watching.