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Chapter Text

Long before Nova’s birth, before Cityline’s towers gleamed with electric light, before the cobblestone streets carried the weight of a thousand hurried footsteps, there was only a clearing at the edge of the dark forest and a river that split the land in two. The clearing became a settlement. The forest, already old and knotted with secrets, belonged to those who called themselves the Elders of the Night—creatures who fed on what humans feared to lose most: their warmth, their breath, their life.

At first, there was no peace. Tales older than parchment spoke of raids at dusk, of villagers who disappeared on moonless nights, of trails of crimson leading back into the trees. Cityline’s founders learned quickly that steel and fire meant little in the face of beings who could move faster than an arrow and heal faster than a wound could open. But humans were clever. They built walls not of stone but of words and ritual. They sent emissaries to the deepest part of the forest with white banners sewn from wedding dresses and the names of their children inked in trembling hands.

The treaty that emerged was simple, brutal, and—by their standards—merciful. Each generation, the vampires of Forest-Edge would claim a single life, offered freely by the city. In return, the predators would keep to their shadowed realm, feeding elsewhere, never again spilling uncontrolled blood at the edge of the settlement. One sacrifice for a hundred spared. Over time, the custom hardened into ceremony. The chosen name was inked on heavy vellum. A diplomatic letter, sealed in black wax, was sent from Forest-Edge to Cityline each spring. A single body went north. No soldiers followed. And the city slept.

Centuries passed. The small settlement grew into a city of lamps and trams and gilt-framed windows. Children learned the story in schoolbooks, bright pictures softening the terror into legend. The old river was bridged, the clearing paved, and still the forest loomed beyond, spires and branches rising like black teeth against the horizon.

Nova had learned the story the same way every child did—in a cramped classroom with faded maps on the wall and a teacher who called the vampires “our ancient neighbors” as if they were just another village over the hills. Even then, she’d thought the lesson felt rehearsed, a gloss over a wound no one wanted to press.

Now, sitting cross-legged on a narrow iron bed in the attic dormitory of Saint Martha’s Orphanage, she wasn’t thinking about the treaty at all. She was thinking about tomorrow.

Tomorrow, she would be eighteen. Legally grown. Old enough to vote if she’d cared to register, old enough to drink in the underground clubs her friends whispered about. Old enough to be put out on the street with a duffel bag and a polite handshake from the matron.

She stared at the low, slanted ceiling above her bunk. The plaster was cracked in hairline veins, like a map of some place she didn’t know how to reach. Beside her, the only window was a round porthole cut into the wood. Through it she could see the faint orange halo of Town Square’s lamps and, beyond, the blacker silhouette of the forest. On windy nights the smell of pine crept in like a warning.

“Nova,” whispered a voice from the next bed. It was Jo, the youngest of the attic girls, barely fifteen and all elbows and dark curls. “You awake?”

Nova rolled onto her side. “What do you think?”

Jo’s face appeared in the dim glow of the streetlight. “You’re thinking about tomorrow.”

“Brilliant deduction.” Nova tried for a smirk but it felt heavy on her mouth.

“You could stay with the laundry mistress,” Jo offered. “She likes you.”

“She likes free labor.” Nova brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Besides, they don’t keep you past eighteen. That’s the rule. Everyone knows it.”

Silence stretched. Nova had never liked this part of the night—the moment after the whispers ended, when the dark pressed in like a weight and there was nothing left to distract her from the truth.

She had nowhere to go. No parents waiting with an address scribbled on an envelope. No distant cousin. The orphanage had been her whole world since she was six, since the accident that took her mother and father in a train derailment on the west line. The papers had called it a tragedy; Nova had called it the end.

For years she’d built herself into a wall: strong-willed, sharp-tongued, quick to fight if someone tried to pity her. She’d told herself she didn’t need anyone. But inside, under all the armor, she felt like a hollow house—rooms where echoes lived but no one stayed.

Tomorrow she would be an adult. Tomorrow she would walk out of Saint Martha’s with the clothes on her back and the money in her envelope. Tomorrow, she would still be a nobody.

“Hey,” Jo murmured. “Happy early birthday.”

Nova shut her eyes. “Thanks.”

She didn’t say: I don’t know who I am. She didn’t say: I don’t know why I’m still here. She just listened to the creak of the rafters and the faint hiss of wind sliding past the round window. Far below, a clock struck midnight. One more night until she was gone.

Beyond the city’s lamps, the forest waited, older than any of them, its spires of stone and branches rising like a cathedral no human had ever built. In its heart, someone else was turning eighteen. Someone whose life would never be small, whose future would always be more than survival.

But Nova didn’t know that yet.

Chapter Text

Victor woke to the toll of bells. They reverberated through the stone walls of Forest Peak, deep and heavy, shaking the ancient castle awake as if the building itself breathed in time with its lords.

He rolled onto his back, staring at the canopy of his bed. It was carved from blackwood, spindled columns twisting upward like branches frozen in fire. The fabric draped above him shimmered faintly, woven from threads that glowed silver in moonlight. It was beautiful, suffocating, and ancient—like everything else here.

Forest Peak was not built to be kind. It was raised centuries ago, a fortress more than a home, perched on the spine of the ridge where the forest broke into jagged cliffs. Its spires rose into the night like claws, black against the stars. The stones were mismatched, pieced together over generations, patched and scarred from sieges long forgotten. Doorways gaped like mouths, high and arched, as though the castle itself were watching. Shingles along the highest roofs had aged into a scaly sheen, green-black like dragon hide. When the wind struck them, they rattled as if the beast still lived.

Inside, corridors twisted like veins. Some were lit with torches that burned cold blue. Others fell into shadow so complete Victor swore the walls swallowed light whole. Tapestries hung along the halls, depicting hunts and wars, blood-slick victories that no one spoke of but no one dared forget.

And yet, for all its grandeur, the place reeked of dust and memory. It was a mausoleum, a cathedral to power and fear, not a place for someone like him.

Victor stretched, yawning, then sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. His bare feet touched flagstone colder than frost. Eighteen. Officially grown. The word echoed in his head, mocking and heavy. He was now the Fifth Prince of Forest-Edge, rightful heir to a lineage he barely believed in, chained to a tradition that would outlive him a hundred times over.

A knock thundered at the door.

“Victor,” came a voice, smooth as aged wine. His uncle, Lord Alaric. “The council waits.”

Victor muttered something impolite, dragged on his shirt, and pushed open the massive door. Alaric stood tall, shoulders wrapped in a cloak lined with silver thread. His eyes gleamed in the torchlight, sharp and expectant.

“You’re late,” Alaric said.

“I was born late. Seems fitting,” Victor replied with a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Alaric’s mouth tightened. “This is no night for jokes. You are of age now. Tradition binds you, whether you laugh at it or not.”

Tradition. The word turned in Victor’s chest like a blade. He followed his uncle down the hall, boots echoing against stone, past rows of portraits that stared with cold disdain. The ancestors—stern men, merciless women—each painted with their trophies: swords wet with crimson, captives kneeling, cities burning. All reminders of what it meant to rule.

The council chamber was vast, its ceiling lost in shadow. A round table sat at the center, black marble veined with silver. Around it, elders of the clans watched him approach, their faces carved with centuries of hunger and patience. His father, seated at the head, gestured for silence.

“Victor.” His father’s voice carried like thunder. “Tonight you are a child no longer. You will inherit not only blood and land, but duty. Forest-Edge does not thrive on mercy. It survives because we honor our covenant.”

Victor’s throat tightened. He knew what was coming. The covenant—the sacrifice. Every vampire prince at eighteen was required to take a first kill, not in war or chaos, but in ritual. A human life, chosen and sent by Cityline. A reminder that peace was bought, not given.

“The letter has been prepared,” his father continued. “By dawn, it will reach the human capital. Within days, the offering will come. And you, my son, will make the sacrifice.”

The words fell like iron chains. Victor kept his face still, though his stomach turned. They all waited, measuring him, weighing his reaction. He forced a crooked smile, the kind that had always irritated his tutors.

“Nothing like a birthday gift,” he drawled.

A ripple of disapproval murmured around the table. His father’s gaze cut like a blade. “Do not take this lightly. You are a prince. You are a predator. Our world depends on it.”

Victor dipped his head, hiding the storm in his eyes. He’d always been the odd one, the laughing one, the impulsive heir who slipped out of lessons to race the wind through the trees. But here, under the gaze of the elders, his rebellion shrank to ash.

By night’s end, when the council released him, Victor was escorted not back to his chamber but through a different wing of the castle. Heavy doors creaked open to reveal a balcony overlooking the forest, and below it, a path lit with lanterns.

“Your gift,” Alaric said, leading him down.

At the end of the path stood a mansion unlike the castle. It was still gothic—arched windows, pointed roofs—but smaller, freer. The stones glimmered faintly under moonlight, and ivy crept across the walls as if trying to soften their severity. Unlike the suffocating corridors of Forest Peak, this house had space, gardens that whispered in the night, doors that opened to the forest instead of shutting it out.

Victor stood in the threshold, staring. It was his, now. His inheritance. His prison.

Alaric’s voice was low. “Make it your own. But remember, you cannot run from who you are. Tomorrow, you begin your duty.”

Victor let the words fade into the night air. He tilted his head back, staring at the spires of Forest Peak looming high above. The wind tugged at his hair. For the first time in his life, he felt both infinite and caged.

Tomorrow, he would take his first step into eternity. Tomorrow, someone’s life would end for his sake.

He swallowed hard, the taste of iron sharp on his tongue, and forced another smile. If they expected him to be a monster, perhaps he would learn how to play the part.

Chapter Text

The attic smelled faintly of candle wax and bread gone stale. Nova blinked awake to find three girls crouched around her bed, their faces alight with mischief.

“Happy birthday,” Jo whispered, shoving a stub of candle into a half-roll they must have snuck from the kitchen. The flame sputtered, painting their cheeks gold.

Nova sat up, rubbing her eyes. “You’re going to burn the place down.”

“That’s the idea,” one of the older girls muttered with a grin. “So you don’t have to leave.”

Laughter rippled. For a moment, it was easy to believe the warmth in her chest was more than borrowed. They sang softly, voices hushed so the matron wouldn’t hear. Jo pressed the bread-cake into Nova’s hands, and Nova pretended it was more than crumbs and wax, pretended she wasn’t leaving them behind in a few hours.

She blew out the flame. Smoke curled, brief and delicate. A wish stuck in her throat, one she didn’t dare put words to.

The knock shattered it. A fist pounded against the front door below, hard enough to rattle the attic rafters. Then a voice, deep and commanding, carrying through the halls:

“By order of the Cityline Council—every household to the square at once. An emergency meeting!”

The girls froze. Nova’s stomach twisted. Emergency meetings weren’t common; the last one had been during the plague, three years ago.

The matron’s footsteps thundered up the stairs. “Up, all of you. Quickly. Shoes on, no dawdling.”

Within minutes, they spilled into the street. Families joined from every alley, lanterns flickering as the city roused. Nova tugged her thin shawl tighter against the chill. The crowd moved like a tide, carrying her with it until the narrow lanes opened into the square.

Town Square was the heart of Cityline. By day, it bustled with vendors, fruit carts, and children darting between legs. But at night, under the urgency of the council’s call, it felt transformed.

Cobblestones stretched wide, gleaming faintly under torchlight. At the center stood the fountain—marble figures locked in frozen struggle, half heroism, half terror. Around the perimeter, gas lamps burned steady gold, their glass polished to shine brighter than the stars overhead.

But none of it drew the eye as much as the Capital.

The Capital building loomed at the far end of the square, its facade an expanse of pale stone that seemed almost luminous against the dark. Columns rose in perfect symmetry, carved with reliefs of battles and treaties. Balconies jutted like watchful brows, and above it all the clock tower pierced the sky, each face glowing faintly as if to remind the city that time itself belonged to the Council.

Tonight, its doors stood wide. Council guards lined the steps, armor gleaming, spears crossed. The crowd hushed as a figure emerged onto the balcony.

Councilor Brevin, tall and spare, his voice honed sharp from years of pronouncements.

“Citizens of Cityline,” he began, and the square seemed to lean closer. “Word has come from beyond the forest. The Fifth Prince of Forest-Edge has come of age.”

The words hit like a stone dropped in still water. A ripple of gasps, whispers, the name of the forest spoken with dread.

Brevin continued, steady and merciless. “By tradition, the covenant must be honored. A letter will soon arrive from the vampires, sealed with their demand. It will carry a name—the chosen sacrifice. One life, given, so that Cityline may endure another generation in peace.”

The square erupted. Shouts, protests, prayers tangled together. Mothers clutched their children tighter. Fathers cursed under their breath. Nova stood still, the noise around her like crashing waves, her heart a hollow drum.

The chosen sacrifice.

The words replayed in her mind, over and over, until they didn’t sound like words at all but chains dragging across stone. She had always known the story, always told herself it was distant, something that happened to nameless faces in history books.

But tonight, under the glow of the Capital’s tower, it felt closer. As if the shadow of the forest had stretched long enough to touch her.

She hugged the shawl tighter. Tomorrow she would be on the streets. Tomorrow she would be no one. And yet some part of her, the part that always ached when she stared at the dark line of trees beyond the lamps, whispered that no one was safe from being chosen.

No one. Not even her.

Chapter Text

Victor pushed open the front doors of the mansion and let them groan wide on their hinges. Dust motes spun in the moonlight like restless spirits. The place had been silent for decades, and it carried the silence like a wound.

He stepped into the foyer, boots echoing off marble floors streaked with veins of green. A chandelier, skeletal and dust-caked, hung above him like the ribcage of some long-dead beast. Cobwebs laced the corners. Windows stretched tall, their panes cloudy, as if they’d spent too long staring into the forest without blinking.

It was beautiful, in a haunted sort of way. Which made sense. It was haunted—by memories of the dead who had lived here before, by the expectations they’d left behind.

Victor dropped his cloak over the banister and started down the hall. Every step stirred echoes. Empty rooms gaped open, each with their own peculiar chill. A library lined with cracked leather spines. A music room where a piano sat in permanent silence. Bedrooms whose curtains sagged like defeated banners.

He rubbed his hands together and muttered, “Well, let’s make this less of a mausoleum, shall we?”

It wasn’t much, but it was his. If the Council wanted him to brood here for eternity, he might as well do it on his own terms.

He opened windows to let in night air. He shoved a cracked armchair closer to the hearth and lit a reluctant fire. He tore down one of the tapestries, coughing at the dust, and laughed when the sudden brightness of stone behind it made the room feel lighter. In the dining hall, he dragged the massive table so it sat off-center—because why should everything here be symmetrical and grim?

“Home sweet haunted home,” he said to no one. His voice bounced off the rafters.

But even as he worked, unease simmered in him. The Council chamber echoed in his head: You will make the sacrifice. He could still feel their eyes on him, like leeches sucking at the marrow. Every prince had done it. Every heir before him had lifted the blade or sunk the teeth, claimed the life that was owed.

And yet the thought of it gnawed at him. The idea that some name, scribbled in ink miles away, would arrive in a letter and tether him to murder disguised as tradition.

Victor leaned against the mantel, staring at the flicker of flame. “All this eternity,” he muttered, “and still no one’s figured out a better way.”

The knock came like a hammer on bone. Three raps against the iron knocker at the front door. He didn’t need to guess who it was.

Alaric.

Victor swung the door open to find his uncle standing tall, torchlight glinting off the silver threads of his cloak. His expression was as unreadable as stone.

“You’ve made yourself busy,” Alaric said, glancing past him at the rearranged hall.

“Trying to scare the ghosts off,” Victor replied. “You know, make the place less dreary. Hard to sulk properly with all this gloom.”

Alaric’s gaze sharpened. “This house is an inheritance, not a canvas for your whims.”

Victor gave him a crooked smile. “Then I’ll inherit it properly. With whims included.”

Alaric stepped inside. His presence filled the space like smoke. “I’ve come to speak of the sacrifice.”

Of course. The word was an iron weight between them.

“The council will deliberate once the letter is drafted,” Alaric continued. “As always, we will choose the offering carefully. The human city will not know until the decree is read. It is my seat on the board to decide. I thought you should understand how it is done.”

Victor leaned against the banister, arms folded, masking his unease with a grin. “Then do me a favor, Uncle. Pick a pretty one for me.”

The silence that followed was sharp as glass. Alaric’s eyes narrowed, the faintest trace of disapproval breaking through his composure. Then he exhaled, long and heavy.

“You treat this too lightly.”

“I treat everything lightly,” Victor said. “It’s how I survive this place.”

Alaric turned, cloak whispering against the floor. “Do as you will with these halls. But when the letter arrives, there will be no whims. You will do what is required.”

With that, he left, the door slamming like a verdict.

Victor stood alone again, staring at the hearth’s glow. Slowly, he dragged another chair closer to the fire, deliberately out of alignment, and sat. He let the warmth lick his skin, fighting the chill Alaric always carried with him.

If this was to be his home, he would make it his. Not the Council’s. Not the ancestors’. And not the ghosts.

Somewhere beyond the forest, someone’s name was already being whispered in ink and wax.

Victor threw another log onto the fire, forcing a smile into the empty air. “Pretty one, ugly one,” he murmured, “they’re all the same once the Council gets through with them.”

And yet, deep in his chest, the thought lodged sharp and unwelcome: what if the chosen name was someone who had never truly lived?

Chapter Text

The attic was quieter than she had ever known it. Nova knelt beside her narrow bed, folding her meager possessions into the worn duffel the matron had given her at breakfast. A few changes of clothes. A cracked leather notebook with empty pages. A chipped locket she had kept even though the picture inside was long gone. That was her life, distilled and zipped shut.

Each fold felt final. She had watched so many others do the same, each girl disappearing into the world with a bag and a forced smile. She had wondered, always, if they found something waiting for them. A job. A family. A place to belong. She wasn’t sure she believed in that kind of luck anymore.

The bell tolled from the square. Once, twice, three times. Not the hour—it was the summons.

Her hands stilled. Another meeting? Already?

The matron’s voice carried up the stairwell, sharp with urgency. “Everyone to the square. At once.”

Nova slung the duffel over her shoulder. It hardly weighed anything, and yet she felt crushed beneath it. The girls trailed after her in a hushed line, wide-eyed. Outside, the streets teemed with neighbors spilling from every door, all drifting toward the heart of the city.

The crowd pressed thick around the fountain when she arrived. Her bag bumped against her hip as she jostled into the square, the only one not empty-handed. She could feel the stares, curious, pitying, already imagining her life after the orphanage.

But pity turned to silence when the Capital’s doors opened.

Councilor Brevin stepped onto the balcony again, parchment in hand. The black wax seal glimmered under torchlight, unmistakable, unbreakable: the crest of Forest-Edge.

The letter had come.

Brevin unrolled it with deliberate care, and for a moment the only sound was the fountain’s trickle. Then his voice cut clean through the square.

“By decree of the ancient covenant, and in recognition of the Fifth Prince’s coming of age, the following name has been chosen for sacrifice…”

The world seemed to narrow, sound folding in on itself. Nova’s duffel strap bit into her shoulder.

“Nova.”

Her name fell like a stone in still water. The ripples spread in the gasps around her, in the whispers that rose like smoke.

“…of Saint Martha’s Orphanage.”

It was official. Ink and seal had made it law.

Nova’s breath caught, sharp and useless. She had expected nothing from her birthday but the street. She had expected to be no one, to vanish into the city’s endless churn. Now, suddenly, she was someone—but only as an offering, a body wrapped in tradition.

Her thoughts tumbled, scattered. Was this purpose? To be reduced to a line in the covenant? To have her life mean something only in ending it?

The duffel slipped from her shoulder and hit the cobblestones with a dull thud. People stepped back, giving her space as if she were already marked, already untouchable.

She stared up at the looming Capital. Its glowing clockface ticked on, merciless, as if the city itself didn’t care that her life had just been claimed.

Inside her, something fractured. A laugh, bitter and sharp, threatened to escape, but she bit it back.

So this is it. I wanted a reason. And they’ve given me one. To die.

Her chest ached. Her throat burned. Yet some stubborn spark whispered that it wasn’t fair—not to her, not to anyone. She clenched her fists at her sides, staring at the balcony as if she could burn a hole through stone with her gaze.

The crowd shifted. Whispers swelled: the orphan girl, of course, who else, no family to mourn her, no one to fight it.

Nova bent, lifted her duffel again, and held it tight against her chest. Her things, her past, her whole existence—if they were going to take her, she would not go empty-handed.

And somewhere, in the shadows of the forest beyond the lamps, a boy who had never met her was waiting to kill her.

Chapter Text

Victor sat before the fire until the logs crumbled into embers, watching them glow and blacken, one after another. He imagined his hands around a throat. His teeth sinking into skin. The sudden rush of warmth.

And he gagged.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t fed—every young vampire did. But feeding was different when it came from chalices of measured blood, poured under candlelight, sanctioned and sterile. It was ritual, not violence. It wasn’t personal.

The sacrifice would be.

His father’s words rang like shackles: You are a predator. Our world depends on it.

Victor rose abruptly, pacing across the room. His boots scraped against stone. He tried to picture it—the moment, the human before him, their pulse frantic in their throat. He tried to summon the instinct the elders spoke of, the hunger that was supposed to bloom like wildfire.

But all he felt was cold.

Finally, he stormed into the night, cloak dragging behind him, until the path carried him up the ridge to the castle.

Alaric was where he always was: in the council antechamber, bent over ledgers that smelled of old ink and iron. He looked up as Victor entered, and the faintest flicker of impatience crossed his face.

“Uncle,” Victor said, too loud in the quiet. “How do you do it?”

Alaric’s quill paused mid-scratch. “Do what?”

“Kill,” Victor said bluntly. “Not just feed. Kill. How do you… make yourself do it?”

Alaric leaned back, studying him with eyes that gleamed like wet stone. “You do not make yourself. You simply are what you are. Steel does not ask how to cut, nor fire how to burn. It is its nature.”

Victor laughed hollowly. “That’s poetic. But useless.”

“You are not ready to hear more,” Alaric said, dismissing him with a flick of his quill. “The first sacrifice will teach you.”

Victor’s jaw clenched. He wanted to shout, to demand something more than riddles and platitudes, but he knew better. Alaric never gave anything he didn’t mean to.

He turned on his heel, cloak flaring, but as he reached the doorway, Alaric’s voice followed, low and deliberate.

“I think you will like the one I’ve chosen.”

Victor froze.

Alaric’s tone was almost amused. “I heeded your advice. You said to pick a pretty one, did you not?”

The words lodged like ice in Victor’s spine. He turned, but Alaric had already bent back to his ledger, scratching ink as if nothing more had been said.

Victor left quickly, his pulse hammering harder than it had in years. The halls of Forest Peak seemed narrower, the torchlight harsher, as though the castle itself was listening.

Outside, he gripped the cold railing of the balcony and stared down at his mansion below, small against the dark forest. His own joke had come back to choke him.

Pick a pretty one for me.

What had Alaric meant? A jest, or a promise?

Victor shuddered. He’d wanted to play the part of the predator, to laugh in the Council’s face. But now he wondered if he had just signed his own damnation—or someone else’s.

Chapter Text

Nova barely remembered how she got from the square back to the Capital. One moment, the crowd had been pressing in on her, whispering her name like it was already carved on a headstone. The next, council guards were steering her by the elbows, her duffel snatched from her grasp, her feet stumbling across marble floors that glowed cold in torchlight.

“Nova of Saint Martha’s Orphanage,” a clerk recited as if she were a line item in a ledger. “By decree, you will be prepared for sacrifice.”

Prepared. The word made her stomach clench. She wanted to laugh, to spit in their faces, to ask if being devoured needed perfume and ribbons. But she was too stunned, too hollow.

They led her into a chamber that smelled of lavender water and candle wax. Steam curled from a copper tub, and hands she didn’t know began to strip her clothes away, pressing her into the bath before she could resist. Warmth swallowed her, too sweet, too cloying. They scrubbed her hair until her scalp burned, scraped her nails clean, combed every tangle until her skin prickled raw.

“Hold still,” one woman murmured, fastening a silver clasp at her wrist. Another adjusted the bodice of a pale gown, soft as a sigh. It clung at the waist, flared at the hem, its sleeves sheer as cobwebs. It was the sort of dress little girls dreamed of, the sort of thing painted in fairytales. Damsel, bride, victim—it made no difference.

Nova stared at her reflection in the polished steel mirror. She barely recognized the girl staring back: wide eyes, hair woven into careful braids, lips tinted faintly pink. She looked like someone important, someone cherished.

She had never looked less like herself.

An attendant cleared her throat. “You will go to the forest’s edge. A path of torches will be lit. You will follow it until you are greeted. There, the ritual will commence. You must not resist. Do you understand?”

Nova’s mouth was dry. “And if I run?”

The woman’s eyes flickered—pity, annoyance, maybe both. “No one runs. Not far. Not ever.”

They placed a cloak over her shoulders, heavy velvet, and led her back through the marble halls. The Capital’s bells tolled once, solemn. Outside, the square had filled again—this time silent, every face turned toward her. Some bowed their heads. Others looked away. No one spoke.

The matron stood near the steps, hands knotted in her apron. Her eyes, usually sharp, were soft with something almost like sorrow. She reached for Nova, hesitated, then pulled her into a brief, fierce hug.

“You’ve always been stubborn,” she whispered. “Be stubborn still.”

It was the only goodbye Nova got.

The guards parted the crowd, and she was shepherded through, her cloak dragging along the cobblestones. Ahead, the city gates yawned open. Beyond them, a ribbon of torches wound into the trees, flames bowing in the night wind.

Her heart pounded. Every step felt like it echoed, loud enough to rattle the stars. She tightened her fists in the folds of her dress and forced herself forward.

One foot, then the next.

Into the dark.

Into the forest that had been waiting for her all her life.

Chapter Text

Victor leaned against the mantel, staring into the fire until his eyes burned. Tomorrow, someone would walk into his forest. Tomorrow, he would kill them.

He had to. That was the rule. The covenant. The duty pressed into his blood since before he was born. And yet, standing here, he felt like a boy wrapped in a costume too heavy for his shoulders.

He began pacing the hall, the hem of his cloak whispering across the dusty floor.

Teeth or blade?

The thought was absurd, but he forced himself to answer. Teeth were primal, traditional. Every elder would expect it. But a blade—quick, clean—would spare him the intimacy of fangs sinking into flesh. The act would be less… personal. Less of him.

He flexed his jaw, baring the sharp points that caught the firelight. His stomach twisted. Teeth, then. He could not be accused of cowardice.

Where?

The mansion sprawled around him in echoing silence. The dining hall, with its long table like an altar? The library, where the ancestors glared from portraits? The garden, under the indifferent stars?

He stopped in the foyer, looking up at the great staircase. It felt wrong to imagine blood staining these stones, wrong to see the act as if he were planning a feast. And yet he had to choose. The Council would not tolerate dithering.

What if they resist?

His throat tightened. No one had ever spoken of that. The sacrifices were meant to go quietly, resigned. But what if this one screamed? What if they ran, dress tearing through the trees? Would he chase them down like prey? Would he drag them back, kicking, to the firelight?

The thought made his palms sweat. He hated it. Hated the way his mind conjured their face without even knowing it yet.

Victor stopped, drew in a breath that tasted of ash, and tried to still the storm inside him. He had made his decisions, at least. Teeth. The garden. Chase them if he must. By this time tomorrow, he would have blood on his hands and a future as solid as stone.

So why did he feel like a child pretending to play king?

He ran a hand through his hair, restless, and glanced at the shadows curling in the corners of the hall. He could not sit still, not with tomorrow pressing down on him like a coffin lid.

And so he turned to the one thing left in his control: the house.

Victor climbed the stairs and began throwing open doors. He pulled moth-eaten sheets from beds, shook them out of the windows. He dusted dressers with the hem of his cloak. He straightened chairs, dragged curtains wide to let in the moonlight. He even found himself scrubbing a tarnished mirror with the sleeve of his shirt until his own reflection glared back, pale and wild-eyed.

It was ridiculous—he was a prince, not a servant. Tomorrow he would be a murderer, not a housekeeper. And yet as he tucked the sheets tight at the corners of the bed, smoothing wrinkles with care, he felt a fragile calm.

For tonight, he could pretend.

For tonight, he could be nothing more than a boy in a haunted house, playing at normal.

By dawn, the pretense would end.

By dawn, he would belong to blood.

Chapter Text

The city gates creaked shut behind her like the closing of a book. Ahead, the forest rose in jagged silhouettes, branches and spires twisting together until sky and earth seemed the same black cloth. A line of torches marked the path, each flame bowing low in the night wind, the smoke curling like dark fingers into the canopy above.

Nova walked.

The dress dragged at her ankles, catching on roots she couldn’t see. Her slippers were thin; she felt every stone. The velvet cloak was heavy across her shoulders, stifling more than warm. She kept her eyes on the flames ahead, each one a heartbeat closer to whatever waited.

The city had vanished behind her. No bells, no murmurs, no matron calling her name. Just the hush of the forest and the steady crackle of fire. She tried to imagine she was walking into a fairytale, but the air smelled of iron and pine and something colder, older, watching.

At last, the trees broke open into a clearing, and there it was.

The mansion.

It rose from the earth like a thing the forest had grown rather than built. Stones glimmered faintly under moonlight, veined with silver and threaded with ivy. Pointed roofs jutted like dark wings. Tall windows glowed faintly, not from candlelight but from the way the night caught their glass. The air smelled of damp earth and old stone, and beneath it a sweetness she couldn’t place, like fruit gone soft.

She stood at the edge of the torchlight, clutching her cloak tight, staring. This was where she would die.

To her left, gardens stretched outward—twisting paths of marble chips, hedges shaped like serpents, fountains where statues half-human and half-beast poured water that glittered pale as milk. Roses climbed the trellises, their blooms black against the moonlight. Here and there, a lantern swung gently, casting shadows that shifted like whispers.

Nova stepped off the path and wandered into the garden. The air was cooler here, and the scents—earth, flowers, stone—wrapped around her like a lullaby. For a strange moment she felt almost calm.

Could I run?

The thought flickered, small but bright. She glanced at the trees beyond the hedges. Dark, endless. No torches there. She didn’t know which direction the city lay anymore. She didn’t know if she’d make it three steps before someone, something, stopped her.

Defeat, she decided, was easier when it was given instead of fought against.

She drew a slow breath, smoothing the skirt of her dress with hands that trembled only a little. If sacrifice was to be her purpose, she would be the perfect one. She would not scream or claw. She would not give them the satisfaction of seeing her beg.

She tilted her chin upward, staring at the dark windows of the mansion. Somewhere inside, the prince was waiting. Somewhere inside, her life would end.

Nova pressed her palm against the cold stone of a fountain, steadying herself. “Let’s get this over with,” she whispered.

And in the garden of her own ending, she stood still and waited.

Chapter Text

Victor stood at the tall window of the upper hall, hands braced against the sill, the glass cool against his forehead. The torches along the path had guttered in the breeze, but their glow was enough to show her.

The girl.

She stepped hesitantly into the clearing, cloak sweeping behind her, the pale gown catching every shred of moonlight until she looked more phantom than flesh. She paused at the edge of his garden, staring up at the house with a face caught somewhere between defiance and despair.

Victor didn’t breathe. He only watched.

She moved again, slow and deliberate, trailing her fingers along the hedge as though the thorns couldn’t touch her. He watched her skirt snag on a root, watched her free it with a tug. Watched her stop by the fountain, palm pressed against the stone, lips moving with words he could not hear.

The look on her face pierced him. Thoughtful, weighted, as if she were balancing the world on the blade of a knife only she could see.

Alaric said she was a pretty one.

Victor’s mouth twisted. Pretty. As if that were all that mattered. As if her life could be reduced to the angle of her jaw, the way her hair caught the wind. He hated how right his uncle had been, and how wrong.

She shifted then, glancing toward the trees. The cloak flared in the breeze, and for an instant Victor thought she might bolt—gown billowing, feet pounding the marble paths, dark hair a banner behind her.

Part of him almost wanted it.

He would let her run. Just for a while. Just long enough to see her hope alive in her eyes before it was extinguished forever. She deserved that much, didn’t she?

Victor’s hand curled against the sill. Why does she deserve this at all?

He could not answer. He only knew that the question lodged sharper than hunger.

With a growl low in his throat, he tore himself from the window. The house loomed silent around him, shadows stretching long in the flicker of the hearth below. He took the first step down the staircase, boots striking stone, each echo a countdown.

The girl was here. His sacrifice was waiting.

And he was going to meet her.

Chapter Text

The garden air had gone still, as if the night itself held its breath. Nova stood by the fountain, the velvet cloak heavy on her shoulders, the torchlight painting her in uneven gold. She traced the rim of the stone with her fingertips, forcing herself not to fidget, not to tremble.

Then she heard it—footsteps. Slow, deliberate, descending stairs inside the mansion. The creak of old hinges. And finally, the soft scrape of boots across gravel.

He emerged from the shadow of the archway. Taller than she expected. Dark hair tumbling into eyes that seemed lit from within, like coals banked under ash. He carried himself not like a predator but like someone trying to remember how to walk in his own skin.

Victor. The Fifth Prince. Her end.

Yet when he reached her, he did not bare teeth or brandish claws. He inclined his head, almost politely, as though she were a guest.

“Good evening,” he said, his voice smooth, edged faintly with amusement. “You must be Nova.”

Nova’s lips parted, but no words came. Her throat felt locked, her tongue leaden.

He smiled—charming, unexpected. Almost… human. His eyes, though, flickered over her like he was weighing her, measuring her. Evaluating. For what, she could not tell.

He leaned against the fountain’s edge, casual. “Strange arrangement, isn’t it? Meeting like this. A letter, a name, a dress, and suddenly—” He gestured at the mansion, the garden, himself. “Here we are.”

Nova forced herself to nod. Her voice scraped its way out, barely audible. “Here we are.”

Victor tilted his head, studying her. “Tell me… how old are you?”

“Eighteen,” she whispered.

The corner of his mouth quirked. “Same as me, then. A birthday gift, you could say.”

She didn’t answer.

His eyes softened, though the curiosity in them never left. “And family? Do you have any?”

Nova’s chest tightened. The answer felt like a stone she’d carried forever. She shook her head. “None.”

Silence stretched between them, filled only by the drip of water from the fountain. Victor seemed to turn that answer over in his mind, as if it mattered more than she understood.

Nova wrapped the cloak tighter around herself, wishing she could vanish inside it. The words came slow, broken. “Does it matter?”

Victor’s gaze lingered on her, thoughtful. Too thoughtful. “Maybe more than you think.”

He didn’t explain. He only straightened, looking at her as if she were both puzzle and prize. And though she wanted to meet his eyes, she found herself looking instead at the roses climbing the trellis, their petals black as spilled ink.

Her fate stood before her in the shape of a charming prince, and she couldn’t decide if that made it worse.

Chapter Text

Victor closed the heavy garden door behind him and leaned against it for a heartbeat, letting the cool night air slip into his lungs. He could still see her in his mind’s eye: the girl by the fountain, clutching her cloak like armor, answering him with words as thin as glass.

Eighteen. Alone. No one waiting for her. No one to write letters when she was gone.

He had expected fear, maybe pleading. He had not expected the quietness of her, the way her eyes moved over the garden as though memorising it, the way her voice carried like a secret she wasn’t supposed to tell.

She’s still a person, he thought. She could have been anyone. She could still be anything.

He stepped back into the garden, the gravel crunching softly under his boots. She hadn’t moved. The torchlight flickered across her pale dress, and for a moment she looked less like an offering and more like a girl lost on her way somewhere else.

Victor cleared his throat. “Nova,” he said, softer than before. “If you could have had anything… what would you have wanted? What’s your dream?”

Her head turned slowly, eyes finding his. For a long time she didn’t speak, and he thought she might not answer at all. Then, just as softly, she said, “Mercy.”

The word struck him like a blade. Mercy.

He stared at her, the question leaving his mouth before he realised he’d spoken. “Is death mercy?”

Nova’s eyes flickered, but she didn’t look away. “Sometimes,” she whispered.

Victor swallowed. The night pressed close around them, the torches hissing like serpents. What would happen if I let her go? he wondered. If I told her to run, if I turned my back, if I chose to break the covenant?

He could hear Alaric’s voice in his head, cold and certain: You will do what is required. He could see the Council’s faces, his father’s. He knew what it would mean.

But here, now, under the trembling light, it was only the two of them.

Victor stepped closer, his voice dropping, almost a whisper. “Do you… want to live?”

The question hung between them, a fragile, dangerous thing, like a single spark over dry tinder.

And for the first time since the letter arrived, Nova’s eyes widened — not with fear, but with something that looked almost like hope.

Chapter Text

For a heartbeat Nova wondered if she’d misheard him. Do you want to live? The words still hovered in the air between them, warm and dangerous. She blinked at him, at the dark-haired prince standing in his garden like a question mark, and her stomach flipped.

Was he serious? Or was this some sort of cruel rehearsal, a ritual meant to break her before it began? She had been raised on stories of vampires: ruthless, clever, beautiful as knives. He certainly looked the part—tall, handsome, a little too perfect—but his eyes were not cold. They flickered, restless, as though he were holding something heavy inside.

“Is this…” Her voice came out a rasp. She cleared her throat. “Is this a trick?”

Victor tilted his head. “No.”

“You’re trying to charm me,” she said, words tumbling out before she could stop them. “Make me… give myself willingly.” She pulled the cloak tighter around her shoulders. “I don’t need all this hubbub. I came here to die. I’ll do it without the performance.”

For a moment his mouth quirked—half a smile, half a grimace. “Aren’t princes supposed to be charming?”

Nova let out a sharp laugh. It sounded strange in the garden, brittle. “Princes are supposed to save the girl, not kill her.”

His smile faltered. For a moment she thought he might say something, but he didn’t. His eyes darted away, toward the trellises, the torches. She could see the turmoil flickering across his face, the same way her own hands trembled under the cloak.

She exhaled shakily. “You know,” she said quietly, “part of me is… relieved.”

His gaze snapped back to hers.

“By the concept of death,” she continued, almost whispering. “Is that wrong? To think that?” A small, unsteady laugh slipped from her throat, startling even herself. “It’s insane, right?”

Victor didn’t laugh. He only looked at her, eyes darker than the forest behind him, as though her words had struck something deep.

For the first time, Nova felt that maybe the prince didn’t want to be here any more than she did.

Chapter Text

Victor couldn’t stop staring at her. The girl’s laugh still echoed faintly in his ears, brittle and broken, and yet beneath it he’d heard truth. Relief at death. No sacrifice had ever spoken to him like that before, not even in rumor. He wasn’t supposed to care. He wasn’t supposed to feel.

But he did.

Every time her eyes met his, something flickered in his chest—a stutter, an ache, a heat he couldn’t name. He had spent his whole life thinking eternity meant nothing, but tonight, standing in the garden with Nova, he realized eternity might be unbearable if it began with her blood on his hands.

He knew then: he couldn’t do it. Not tonight.

“Come with me,” he said abruptly.

Her brows furrowed. “Where?”

“Inside. You’ll stay here.” He forced a grin, though his chest burned. “Even executioners need a night off.”

She hesitated, then followed him through the archway. The mansion swallowed her in shadow. Victor led her up the staircase, past corridors still thick with dust and silence, until he reached a bedroom he had bothered to clean. He pushed the door open. A simple bed, firelight in the grate, curtains drawn wide to let the moonlight in. Almost human. Almost safe.

“You’ll stay here tonight,” he said.

She looked at him as if searching for the trick in his words. He offered no explanation, only shut the door softly behind him.

Alaric arrived not long after, his knock more like a command than a request. Victor opened the front door to find his uncle’s expression expectant, almost smug.

“Well?” Alaric asked. “Done already?”

Victor’s stomach twisted. “Not yet.”

Disappointment flickered across Alaric’s face like a shadow. “Victor,” he sighed, stepping inside, “you cannot drag this out. The Council expects efficiency.” His gaze sharpened, lips curling faintly. “I know she’s pretty. But don’t play with your food, boy. Otherwise people like me might think they’re welcome to a bite.”

Something snapped. The easy grin Victor always wore burned away, replaced by a snarl he hadn’t felt rise in years. “She’s not food.” His voice thundered through the hall, sharp enough that the torches guttered in their brackets.

Alaric stilled, taken aback. For a heartbeat his composure cracked, just enough to reveal surprise. Then he smoothed it away, chuckling low. “Temper, temper. I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Victor’s fists clenched at his sides. He forced himself to breathe, though the anger coiled hot in his veins.

“If you don’t act soon,” Alaric said smoothly, “the Council will intervene. And when they do, it won’t just be you they punish. It will be her. Think carefully.”

Victor’s voice was low, dangerous. “Is there no other way?”

Alaric’s laugh was quiet, humorless. “There has never been another way. This is how it’s always been done. A prince comes of age. A human dies. The covenant is kept. You think you’re the first to balk at it?”

Victor didn’t answer. His chest burned with too many thoughts he couldn’t give voice to.

Alaric smirked, already turning toward the door. “What are you going to do instead?” he asked lightly. “Marry her?”

His chuckle lingered in the hall as he swept into the night.

Victor stood alone, his jaw tight, the echo of his uncle’s mockery gnawing at him.

Marry her. The words should have been ridiculous. But instead they lodged like a seed, dangerous and alive, in the part of his chest that wouldn’t stop flickering every time she looked at him.

Chapter Text

The room Victor had led her to was quiet in a way she’d never known. The fire in the grate whispered instead of roared. The curtains billowed faintly with the night wind. The bed stood like an invitation, its sheets white as winter, the pillow soft and full.

Nova sat on the edge, the velvet cloak still wrapped around her, and waited. She kept waiting for the sound of boots on the stairs, for a door to slam, for teeth or blade or decree. She waited to die.

But nothing came.

The minutes stretched until they lost their shape. She rubbed her arms through the cloak, staring at the carved wood of the bedpost, at the way moonlight slid across the floorboards like spilled milk. Why wasn’t she dead yet?

She thought of Victor—his eyes, restless and burning; his voice, soft and uncertain; the question he’d asked her, Do you want to live? He was exactly what she’d been taught to expect: handsome, dangerous, otherworldly. And yet he wasn’t. He hesitated. He smiled. He asked questions no predator should care about.

For a moment she let herself imagine: if she’d met him in the city, just another boy her age, another orphan maybe. If he’d been human. If they’d sat on the orphanage roof and watched the trains roll past. If they’d been friends. Maybe more.

She shut the thought down hard, pressing her palms to her eyes until the sparks danced. This was not a story with “maybe more.” This was a story with an ending written in wax and blood.

The dress was softer than anything she’d ever worn. The bed swallowed her like a cloud. She slid under the covers fully clothed, too tired to undo the ribbons, and let her head sink into the pillow.

The last thought that flickered through her mind as sleep crept over her was not about death but about the way Victor had looked at her — not like food, not like a prince, but like a boy trying to figure out how not to be a monster.

And then, for the first time since the letter had been read, she drifted off quickly, into a sleep deeper and quieter than she’d ever known.

Chapter Text

The mansion had never been so clean. Victor had dust in his hair, soot on his sleeves, and the faint sting of polish under his fingernails. He hadn’t stopped moving since Nova disappeared into the upstairs room. He couldn’t. If he stopped, if he let the silence settle, the weight of tomorrow would crush him.

Vampires didn’t need sleep. The elders had always considered that a gift. Tonight it felt like a curse. Every hour stretched wider than the last, an endless corridor of thoughts he couldn’t outrun.

By dawn, he would have to decide. To do it—to kill her, drink her dry, become what they wanted. Or not to, and face the Council’s wrath. Empathy, they’d call it. Weakness. Punishable.

He kept scrubbing. Chairs. Windows. Floors that hadn’t seen a broom in decades. He carried armfuls of cobwebs out to the garden and burned them in the torches until the smoke curled like ghosts.

At last, when there was little left to straighten, he turned to the kitchen. It was smaller than the halls, tucked in a corner of the house like a secret. Copper pans hung from hooks, dulled with age. The sink still smelled faintly of old soap.

That was where he found it.

In a chipped porcelain dish by the basin, half-buried under dust, a ring gleamed. A diamond, square-cut, set in a delicate band of silver. He lifted it between two fingers, the stone catching torchlight, flashing sharp.

Victor frowned. The last mistress of this house—he had heard she’d “disappeared.” No one had ever said more. But looking at the ring, abandoned by the sink as though its owner had slipped it off to scrub dishes and never come back, he felt the truth in his bones.

He turned the band over in his palm, thumb brushing the inside. What would it be like, he wondered, to have a wife here? To hear laughter in these halls instead of echoes. To have a little family—a partner, maybe fledglings toddling through the gardens. The idea ached in him, sharp and sudden.

His uncle’s mocking words came back to him like a ghost whisper: What are you going to do instead? Marry her?

He stared at the ring until his chest burned. Was it really just a joke? Or had Alaric meant something more?

Shoving the thought down, Victor strode into the library. Dust billowed as he pulled down volumes older than his father. He lit candles, their flames flickering against iron-buckled spines. He searched. Treaties, records, ancient covenants inked in blood and sealed with wax. If there was an escape, if Alaric’s barb had roots in truth, it would be here.

Hours bled away in silence broken only by the rustle of paper, the scrape of turning pages. Words blurred. His eyes burned.

Then—something. A line that made his pulse stumble. He froze, leaning closer, lips shaping the words under his breath.

And then he slammed the book shut.

The library fell silent, the echo rolling into the high rafters.

Victor leaned back, the ring still clenched in his fist, and stared into the dark.

If what he had read was true… then perhaps Alaric’s joke had not been a joke at all.

But he would not let himself believe it. Not yet.

Chapter Text

Nova woke to a room wrapped in silence. For a moment she forgot where she was—the softness of the sheets, the faint warmth of the fire still clinging to the grate, the gentleness of it all so unlike Saint Martha’s hard attic floor. Then the night before came rushing back. The torches. The garden. The prince.

And the fact that she was still alive.

She sat up slowly, clutching the cloak tighter, eyes sweeping the unfamiliar space. It felt less like a bedroom and more like someone else’s life. A wardrobe stood against the wall, doors ajar. Inside hung a dress—not velvet and ceremonial like hers, but simple linen, its hem worn soft, the kind someone might wear on an ordinary day. On the vanity lay a hairbrush, bristles catching the light, a few strands of hair still clinging. Beside it, a jewelry box rested, carved with roses and edged with dust.

Nova reached out, then pulled her hand back. She didn’t dare. Whoever had left these things behind had not come back for them.

She combed through her own tangled hair with the brush anyway, wincing at the knots left from her walk through the forest. It felt almost normal, almost human, to stand before a mirror and make herself neat again, even if it was for no reason at all.

When she could bear the four walls no longer, she slipped into the hall. The mansion loomed around her, echoing with emptiness. Fear didn’t grip her now—not after everything. Death was inevitable. Why should she flinch at shadows?

Her footsteps led her downward, past tall windows spilling pale light onto the floors, until she heard it: the faint shuffle of movement, the creak of leather, the whisper of a turning page.

The library.

She stepped inside.

Victor sat at a heavy oak table, head bowed, shadows pooling under his eyes. Books lay spread before him like dissected corpses, but it wasn’t the words that held him. It was the object in his hand—a glint of silver, a spark of stone. Something bright that caught and threw the light back at her.

A ring.

Nova froze, curiosity prickling her skin. “Are you… proposing to someone?”

Victor’s head snapped up, startled.

She smirked faintly, though her voice shook. “Do you have a vampire girlfriend hidden away somewhere?” She stepped closer, eyes flicking to the glittering band. “Do vampires even… date?”

He didn’t answer. His silence stretched heavy, his gaze locked on her, unreadable.

Nova shifted her weight, uneasy under the weight of his stare. “Well,” she muttered, folding her arms. “That’s an answer, I suppose.”

The library fell silent again, the ring flashing once in his palm before he closed his fist around it.

And the moment hung there, unfinished.

Chapter Text

Victor hadn’t meant to say anything. The words had been burning a hole in his chest all night, but he’d planned to keep them buried until he figured out what they meant. Until he figured out if he was brave enough—or foolish enough—to believe them.

But standing here with her eyes on him, sharp and questioning, the ring heavy in his fist, he couldn’t keep it in.

“I found something,” he said, voice low.

Nova tilted her head. “In those books?”

He nodded, setting the ring down on the table between them. It gleamed against the wood like a tiny, dangerous star. “There’s… a loophole. In the treaty. A clause the Council probably thought no one would ever be desperate enough to use.” He swallowed. “The sacrifice doesn’t have to die. They can… be bound instead.”

Her brow furrowed. “Bound?”

“Marriage,” he said, the word tasting half absurd and half salvation. “A union between vampire and human. It was written in as a way to settle disputes when the cities were smaller. Hardly anyone remembers it now. But it’s there. Marriage could take the place of death.”

Nova stared at him, the silence between them pressing close. Then she let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “Some would say that’s worse than dying.”

Victor’s mouth twitched despite himself. “Maybe. Depends who you ask.”

Her expression sobered, gaze flicking between him and the ring. “Were you actually… considering asking me to marry you?”

The question struck harder than he’d expected. He felt his chest stutter, felt the flicker inside him flare. “I—”

“You couldn’t,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “You couldn’t possibly sacrifice a chance at real happiness. At a future with someone you might actually love. Not for me. Not for my purposeless life.”

Victor stared at her, anger rising—not at her, but at the way she said it, as if she truly believed it. As if she truly thought she was worth nothing.

Without letting himself think, he dropped to one knee. The old floor creaked beneath him, the ring still glittering in his hand.

“Nova,” he said, looking up at her, every trace of his usual charm burned away, “I can’t promise you eternity. I can’t promise you peace with my family or safety from the Council. But I can promise you this: not only will you survive, but I will find you a purpose. I will make sure your life means more than attic beds and killer princes.”

The words left him like an oath, heavier than anything he’d ever spoken. For the first time in his life, he wasn’t charming, or joking, or stalling. He was raw, and real, and utterly certain.

He held out the ring. “Marry me.”

And the mansion seemed to still, as though it too waited for her answer.

Chapter Text

“You’re crazy.”

The words slipped out of Nova’s mouth before she could stop them. Her pulse thundered, her knees felt weak, and still he knelt there, ring in hand, eyes locked on her like she was the only person in the world.

“You don’t want this,” she added quickly, shaking her head.

Victor’s lips twitched, not into his usual grin but into something steadier. “I do.”

She laughed, bitter and sharp. “No. You deserve more than this. More than me. You’re a prince. You could have anyone.”

“And yet,” he said softly, “I want you.”

Her breath caught. She shook it off. “You have a chance at finding real love someday. With someone who can actually… give you something back.”

He leaned forward, firelight sparking in his eyes. “And what if I could find it in you?”

Nova’s stomach flipped. She turned away, as if the shelves of books could shield her. “You’re immortal. I’m not. I’ll be gone long before you’re tired of me.”

“I can make you immortal too.” His answer was immediate, certain. “You’ll never be gone.”

Her hands trembled, fists clenching at her sides. “You don’t even know me.”

“I want to,” he countered.

“You’re impulsive. You’ll regret this tomorrow.”

“I’ve had centuries to waste. Regret doesn’t scare me.”

“You’re supposed to kill me.”

His jaw tightened. “I refuse.”

Her voice broke into a whisper. “I don’t have anything to offer you.”

Victor’s gaze burned, steady and unyielding. “You are enough.”

Silence pressed between them. Her heart hammered, breath shallow, every excuse she’d held like armor splintering one by one. She had nothing left to throw at him, no argument sharp enough to pierce the truth in his eyes.

Nova swallowed hard. Her voice shook as she muttered, “Okay… so I guess we’re doing this.”

Victor’s lips curved into a smirk, the familiar charm slipping through, teasing her like it always had been meant to. But then his expression softened, settling into something quieter, deeper, almost solemn.

“Good,” he said, voice low.

And for the first time, Nova wasn’t sure if she had just been saved or sentenced.

Chapter Text

Victor couldn’t believe it. His knees still ached from the floorboards, the ring was still warm from his palm, and yet the impossible had already happened. She had said yes.

“Yes.”

The word echoed in his skull, absurd and exhilarating. He had just asked a human girl to marry him, not to save his life, but to save hers. And she’d agreed.

What in the gods’ name had he just done?

He ran a hand through his hair, pacing the library. Marriage. Binding. A loophole scratched into parchment hundreds of years ago—and now it was his reality. His father would rage. The Council would sneer. Alaric would tear strips off him. But it didn’t matter. She was alive.

“What’s next?” Nova’s voice cut into his spiraling thoughts.

He froze. She was standing by the table, arms crossed, eyes sharp as ever. The simplicity of the question snapped him into motion.

“What’s next,” he repeated, already pulling volumes from the shelves. “Next is preparing to convince the Council we haven’t lost our minds. Next is proving this is legitimate.”

He yanked down a thick tome, flipped it open, and cursed under his breath. “Vampire weddings,” he muttered, thrusting it into her hands. “I’m not exactly well-versed.”

Nova blinked, clutching the heavy book to her chest. “You’re serious?”

“As death,” he said, already gone in a blur of speed. Papers rustled, pages flew, drawers slammed. He darted from one desk to another, searching for seals, signatures, anything to make this madness official.

Soon the air itself seemed to be made of parchment. Loose sheets whirled like startled birds each time he passed. Nova pressed her lips together, smirking as she tried to follow him with her eyes.

When a pile finally toppled and a storm of pages erupted across the room, she burst into laughter. Not a stifled giggle, but a full, ringing sound that filled every shadowed corner of the library.

Victor froze mid-step.

He turned, staring. The papers still fluttered to the floor around him, but all he could hear was that sound, bright and alive. Something in his chest clenched tight and then spread warm, a flicker he couldn’t smother if he tried.

“Do that again,” he said, his voice rougher than he meant.

Nova blinked at him, still grinning, cheeks flushed from laughing.

“Laugh,” he clarified, stepping closer. “Do that again.”

She tilted her head, smile softening into something playful. “Then do something funny.”

For the first time since he could remember, Victor felt his mouth curve into a grin not worn as a mask, but as something real.

They batted words back and forth, teasing, daring, the sound of her laughter cutting through his doubt like sunlight through stained glass. For a moment, there was no covenant, no Council, no death. Just her, and him, and the strange, reckless promise they had made.

Then came the knock. Heavy. Commanding. A reminder that the world had not vanished outside these walls.

The library stilled. Papers drifted to the floor one last time.

Victor’s grin faded, replaced by the shadow of what waited on the other side of the door.

Chapter Text

“Stay here,” Victor whispered. His eyes were sharp, voice low but urgent as he guided Nova toward the shadowed end of the library.

She frowned. “Victor—”

“Hide,” he insisted, sliding the heavy paneled doors closed before she could argue. The latch clicked, muffling the sound of his boots as he crossed the hall.

Nova pressed her ear to the seam between the doors, her breath caught tight in her throat. Every nerve in her body screamed to know what waited on the other side.

The front door opened. Hinges groaned.

“Alaric,” Victor greeted, voice casual but taut like a bowstring.

Her heart thudded. Alaric. She remembered the name from Victor’s muttered complaints—an uncle, a councilor, one of those who had the power to decide her fate.

“You keep busy,” Alaric said. His tone was smooth, velvety with mockery. “I thought I’d find blood on your hands, not dust on your clothes.”

Victor chuckled, but it rang hollow. “I prefer the dust, thanks.”

“Strange.” A pause, footsteps crossing the stone. “Tell me, where did your bite from yesterday go? The Fifth Prince, strongest of our line, yet I’ve never once seen his fangs to their purpose.”

Nova’s hand flew to her neck before she could stop it. The words twisted cold in her stomach.

Victor’s reply came sharp, almost a growl. “Leave, Alaric. Before I have to use those same skills to remove you.”

Silence followed, thick and bristling. Nova bit down on her lip, afraid even her breath might betray her through the door.

At last, Alaric’s voice floated back, calm but edged like a blade. “Careful, boy. The Council will be expecting you later today. You’d best have more to show them than clever words.”

Boots clicked against stone. The front door shut with a thud that rattled the walls.

Nova sagged against the panel, heart hammering. She pressed her fingers hard into her palms, trying to keep her thoughts from spinning. Strongest of their line. The Council expecting him. What would they do to him if they knew he hadn’t… if he wouldn’t?

The silence stretched until she heard Victor’s steps again, softer now, returning toward the library.

She slipped away from the door, back into the center of the room, trying to look as if she hadn’t been listening. But her pulse still thrummed in her throat, every word Alaric had said echoing like a warning bell.

Chapter Text

Victor eased the library doors open. He didn’t need to look at Nova to know she’d been listening—her heart had betrayed her the entire time, thundering at each sharp word from Alaric, stumbling when his uncle spoke of fangs.

Her pulse still raced now, quick and uneven, and he had to bite back a smile at how unaware she was of how loud it sounded to him.

“You heard all of it,” he said softly, glancing at where her heart would be.

Nova crossed her arms, trying to look defiant, but her cheeks flushed. “I didn’t kno—It’s not my fault my heart tells on me. Maybe you should stop eavesdropping on my chest.”

Victor laughed, the sound breaking through the tension in his ribs. The grin stretched wide enough to show the edges of his fangs.

Her own smile faltered the instant she saw them. He caught the flicker in her eyes—the shift from humor to unease. The tension tightened in her shoulders, her breath catching.

Victor’s grin faded. He straightened, softer now. “What’s wrong?”

Nova shook her head quickly. “Nothing.”

“Your heart doesn’t say ‘nothing.’” His voice was gentle, coaxing. He stepped closer, slow, careful, until the firelight caught both their faces. “Tell me.”

She swallowed, glancing at his mouth before looking away. “It’s just… those. Your fangs. I keep thinking about…” She trailed off, hugging her arms tighter. “What they’re for.”

Victor’s chest ached. He tipped his head, forcing her to meet his eyes. “They don’t have to be for you.”

Her lips parted.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said firmly. “Not with teeth, not with anything. If the Council demands otherwise…” His jaw tightened. “We’ll find another way. Together.”

For a long moment, silence filled the library, broken only by the faint pop of a candle. Then Nova let out a shaky breath, nodding.

“Okay,” she whispered.

Victor’s shoulders eased. He let the grin return, gentler this time, no fangs. “Good. Now—” He turned back to the scattered papers, scooping them into some semblance of order. “We’ve got a Council to impress. And if I’m going to drag you into their nest of vipers, you should at least look like you belong.”

Nova rolled her eyes, but her mouth twitched into the hint of a smile. “So what, I get a dress rehearsal before the execution?”

“Exactly,” Victor said, tossing her the book of wedding rites again. “Come on, fiancé. Time to prepare our performance.”

And though her laughter didn’t come this time, the flicker of it in her eyes was enough to steady him as they began to ready themselves for what waited beyond the mansion walls.

Chapter Text

The library looked like a storm had blown through it. Papers clung to chair legs, half-folded jackets draped from shelves, the wedding-rites book splayed open on the table as if it had collapsed in despair.

Victor stood in the center of the chaos, holding up two jackets. “This one makes me look respectable,” he said, shaking the darker one. “And this one makes me look intimidating.”

Nova raised a brow. “Respectable, intimidating… You’re forgetting ridiculous. Both of them.”

He laughed, tossing one aside with deliberate dramatics. “You wound me.”

“Not yet,” she said dryly, though her lips curved.

He crossed the room in a blur, stopping close enough for her to feel the air shift. “If you’re going to wound me, at least wait until after the Council. I’ll need my strength.”

Nova rolled her eyes and pushed the rites book into his chest. “Then stop wasting time. If I’m being marched into a den of bloodsuckers, I’d like to know what I’m supposed to say when they start sharpening their teeth.”

Victor set the book down again, softer this time, and looked at her in a way that made her pulse jump. “You’ll need more than words. They’ll expect you to look like a bride.”

She snorted. “Funny how ‘bride’ and ‘sacrifice’ are starting to sound the same.”

But he didn’t laugh this time. He slipped a hand into his pocket, drew something small and gleaming into the light. Nova froze.

The ring.

Without ceremony, without even asking, he reached for her hand. His touch was warm, surprisingly steady, as he slid the band over her finger. The metal settled against her skin like it had been waiting for her all along.

Nova’s breath caught.

It was absurd. She stood in a ruined library, wearing a dress that wasn’t hers, preparing to trick a Council into sparing her life. And yet, as the diamond caught the candlelight and flared, she felt the strangest twist in her chest. Something almost… domestic. Romantic. As if this weren’t about treaties and death, but simply about a boy and a girl, exchanging promises in the quiet.

Her eyes lingered on the ring, on how ordinary it made her hand look. Ordinary and extraordinary all at once. Is this what it feels like for normal people? she wondered. To be chosen? To be wanted?

Victor gave her the faintest smile, crooked and unguarded. “Now you look the part.”

She forced a smirk, though her throat felt tight. “Don’t princes usually put the ring on right after proposing?”

“I’m not a usual prince,” he said simply.

Her heart thudded. She had no answer for that.

To cover it, she teased, “Fine. Then where are my flowers?”

Victor chuckled, vanished in a rush of air, and reappeared with a rose plucked from the trellis outside. Its petals were black as ink, dew still clinging to its stem. He offered it with a flourish and mock bow. “Your bouquet, milady.”

She laughed, full and unguarded, the sound echoing in the wreck of the library.

And as she tucked the rose into the folds of her cloak, she thought, Maybe this is worse than death. Because now I know what it feels like to want to live.

Chapter Text

The Council chamber was colder than the rest of Forest Peak, built from stone so dark it seemed to swallow the torchlight whole. Arched windows gaped open to the night, letting in a draft that smelled of pine and frost.

Victor entered with his head high, Nova at his side, her hand light on his arm. The diamond on her finger gleamed faintly, a fragile flame in a room full of predators.

The elders looked up from the black-marble table. Their faces were carved masks, their stares sharp as blades. A silence fell so heavy it pressed against Victor’s ribs.

At last, Lord Darius spoke, his voice like the scrape of steel. “So this is your… solution, Fifth Prince?” His gaze raked over Nova. “A human girl in a borrowed gown?”

Disdain rippled around the table. Cold stares. Thin smirks. Victor felt the weight of every eye on him, felt Nova’s fingers tighten just slightly on his sleeve.

He forced a smile. “This is my fiancée.”

A murmur rose—dark amusement, skepticism. “Impossible,” another elder spat. “The covenant demands death.”

“Not always,” Victor said, pulling a scroll from the folds of his coat. He spread it across the table, the ancient ink stark against the parchment. “The treaty speaks of binding as well as blood. A sacrifice may be claimed by death—or by union. Your own words. Your own law.”

The silence that followed was brittle, on the edge of shattering. Then one of the elder women leaned forward, sharp eyes glinting with interest. “Union…” she murmured. “It is written.”

Another, younger councilor’s lips curved faintly. “Perhaps it is prophetic. The strongest of us bound to the weakest of them.” His gaze flicked to Nova, dismissive.

Victor flinched, jaw tightening. He wanted to bare his fangs, to tear the word weak from their mouths. But then Nova’s gaze slid to his, steady, calm, and in it he read the words she didn’t speak: It’s okay.

The fury in him loosened, replaced by something warmer, something grateful.

The chamber buzzed with whispers now, not all hostile. “The stars have always spoken of balance.” “An omen, perhaps.” “A prince remade by a mortal bride.”

Victor seized the moment, inclining his head with just enough deference to keep their pride intact. “If the Council finds this acceptable, I ask your leave to take my bride home. There is much to prepare.”

A few scoffed. But others—romantics hidden beneath centuries of cold stone—actually sighed, their gazes softening as though the thought of a wedding had pried open something long buried.

Lord Darius rapped his knuckles against the table. “Enough. The law is the law. If the boy wishes to make a farce of marriage, let him. The covenant is kept.”

Victor exhaled, slow and quiet, relief flooding him. He bowed low, every inch of him humming with triumph.

“Come, Nova,” he said, straightening. His voice was steady, but his hand trembled faintly as he placed it over hers. “Let’s go home.”

And as they left the chamber, he caught sight of one of the elder women watching them with a faint, wistful smile, as though even in all her centuries, she’d never seen something quite like this.

Chapter Text

The night air clung damp to Nova’s skin as they left the Council chamber behind. The torches along the path hissed softly in the breeze, guiding them back through the forest, toward the mansion that—somehow—was now home.

Home. Not a grave. Not an attic bed.

Her thoughts churned with the words she’d heard tonight: bride… weak… omen… union.

Bride instead of sacrifice.

For the first time, she realized she wasn’t holding these thoughts alone anymore. There was someone beside her, tall and steady, who had asked her to share a life instead of an ending.

“Victor?” she asked, voice careful in the quiet.

He glanced down at her, the faintest quirk to his lips. “Mm?”

“What do you think the difference is? Between a bride and a sacrifice.”

For a moment, he actually thought about it, his brow furrowing in concentration. Then his mouth curved into something half-serious, half-dangerous. “The difference,” he said, “is that now I get a chance to seduce you into loving me.”

Nova blinked, stunned. His tone had been too steady, too sincere. And then she laughed—quick and bright, echoing off the trees.

Victor’s expression softened, the seriousness dissolving into something warmer as he listened. That sound again—his favorite sound. If laughter was all she could give him now, he’d take it as a consolation prize.

She nudged his shoulder lightly. “And what about me? Am I supposed to seduce you too?”

His smirk returned, full of challenge. “Don’t bother. I can’t be seduced.”

Nova narrowed her eyes, recognizing the bait even as she took it. “We’ll see about that,” she shot back.

Before he could answer, she darted ahead, skirts catching the torchlight, her hair flying behind her. The mansion loomed at the edge of the trees, its windows glowing faintly like waiting eyes. She ran through the door, up the grand staircase, her laughter trailing in her wake.

Victor stayed where he was for a moment, watching her go, the curve of his grin stretching wider. He could have blurred after her, caught her in an instant. But he liked the sight of her running—not from death, not from him, but toward something.

He threw his head back and laughed, the sound spilling into the night air, rich and unrestrained.

“Tomorrow,” he murmured to himself, delight curling in his chest, “we’ll see what tomorrow brings.”

Chapter Text

The house was quiet, but Victor hadn’t stopped moving all night.

Stacks of parchment surrounded him on the dining table, some in neat piles, others scattered where his hand had brushed them aside. Records of unions, lists of ceremonial rites, fragments of law he had stitched together like a fraying tapestry. By dawn he had charted an entire plan: the officiant, the order of vows, which words would matter most to the Council, even down to which rings they’d allow.

Nova would never know how many hours he’d spent piecing it together. He wouldn’t burden her with it. The weight was his to carry, and she didn’t seem the type to mind him doing the dull work. Let her sleep. Let her wake rested, free from the claws of parchment and ink.

Victor leaned back in the chair, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Immortality stretched out forever, but these small hours—the hours he spent trying to hold her life together with his bare hands—felt shorter than any he’d ever lived.

By the time the sun sent weak light through the high windows, Nova stirred upstairs. Victor gathered his notes quickly, shoving them into tidy stacks before she could come down and see how desperate he’d been.

Footsteps on the stairs. A rustle of fabric. Then she appeared in the doorway of the dining hall, hair mussed from sleep, eyes still heavy-lidded.

And then she did something he wasn’t prepared for.

She leaned against the doorframe, tilted her head just so, and smiled at him—a slow, deliberate smile that was far too self-aware for early morning.

Victor blinked. “What?”

“Nothing,” she said, sauntering in. Her voice carried a teasing lilt. “Just… starting my plan.”

He frowned. “Plan?”

She pulled out a chair opposite him, folding herself into it with an exaggerated air of grace. “You said I couldn’t seduce you.”

His chest tightened before he could stop it. “Ah. That plan.”

“Yes,” she said, deadpan. “Step one: smile at you until you melt. Step two…” She reached across the table and slid a stray piece of parchment toward her, eyes flicking over it. “…pretend to care about all this wedding nonsense so you think I’m invested.”

Victor laughed, sharp and unexpected. “That’s your grand strategy?”

She leaned closer, lowering her voice. “Step three: keep making you laugh until you forget you said you can’t be seduced.”

Her words were playful, but the way her eyes held his—it wasn’t just teasing. Something warm threaded through the humor, something that made Victor’s carefully laid plans blur around the edges.

For once, he had no clever retort. Only silence, and the dangerous thought that maybe she didn’t have to try very hard at all.

Chapter Text

Nova hadn’t expected her little plan to work. She thought she’d get a smirk, maybe a scoff, then he’d bury himself in parchment again. But when Victor’s laughter spilled into the hall—low, warm, real—her heart kicked.

She almost felt proud of herself. Almost.

“Not bad,” he said, leaning back in his chair. His dark eyes gleamed like he was measuring her, like she was a riddle he’d already solved but wanted to hear her guess anyway. “But you forget one thing.”

Nova narrowed her eyes. “What’s that?”

“I’ve had centuries to practice.”

Before she could blink, he was out of his chair, a blur of motion, and suddenly at her side. She startled, breath catching as he braced one hand against the table beside her, leaning close. Too close.

“Step one,” he murmured, his voice dipping like velvet into her ear. “Catch you off guard.”

Her pulse jumped—traitorously loud. He grinned when he heard it.

“Step two…” He reached, plucked the rose she’d tucked behind her ear the night before, and twirled it slowly between his fingers. “Remind you that I don’t need flowers to make you blush.”

“I’m not blushing,” she muttered, though heat licked at her cheeks.

He hummed, eyes flicking over her face with a hunger that was not entirely playful. “Step three…” His fangs caught the light as his grin sharpened. “Show you that I can be impulsive too.”

For a dizzy second she thought he might kiss her. Her heart thundered, every instinct screaming at once: danger, thrill, want. The air between them burned.

And then—

KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.

The pounding on the front door shattered the moment like glass. Nova jerked back, breathless. Victor growled under his breath, frustration flashing across his face before he stepped away, every line of him taut with irritation.

“Alaric,” he muttered, recognition sour on his tongue.

Nova’s stomach sank. The name alone chilled her more than his fangs ever had.

Victor straightened his coat, forcing his grin back into place like armor. “Stay here,” he said, though his voice still carried the heat of a moment stolen. “I’ll deal with him.”

And just like that, the game was over.

For now.

Chapter Text

Nova pressed herself to the crack of the library doors, heart quickening. She hadn’t meant to linger, but the moment Victor opened the front door and she heard Alaric’s voice—smooth, taunting—her feet refused to carry her anywhere else.

“I’ve come to meet your fiancée,” Alaric drawled.

Victor’s growl rumbled low in reply. “You don’t need—”

But heavy footsteps were already crossing the floor. Before Victor could stop him, the door to the library burst wide, hinges groaning.

Alaric filled the frame, tall, cloaked, his smile sharp as a blade. Victor was right on his heels, tense, every line of his body ready to strike if his uncle so much as glanced at her wrong.

And glance he did. Alaric’s gaze slid lazily over Nova, and his smile curved. “Damn, she is pretty,” he said, mock admiration dripping from every word. “You know, I chose you for him.”

Before Nova could even process the words, Victor’s hand cracked against the back of Alaric’s head. Not playful. Too hard.

“OW.” Alaric winced theatrically, rubbing the spot, though the pain never reached his eyes. “Really, nephew? That’s how you thank me for picking a fine sacrifice?”

Nova’s stomach twisted, and she looked down, clutching the cloak tighter.

Alaric’s gaze snapped back to her, all false charm. “So, tell me, little bride—how does it feel to live?”

Her throat dried. She shifted under the weight of his stare, unable to summon words. Silence was the only answer she could manage.

Victor moved between them like a shadow snapping shut. “Enough.”

Alaric’s grin only widened as he turned his attention back to Victor. “You gonna turn her?”

“Get out,” Victor snarled.

“What? It’s a serious question!” Alaric raised his hands in mock innocence.

“Get out now.” Victor’s voice dropped low, his eyes flashing crimson in the torchlight.

For a moment, Alaric’s grin faltered. Then he chuckled, shaking his head. “Touchy.” He backed toward the door, hands spread as if warding off a blow. “Enjoy your bride, nephew. Council will have fun with this one.”

And then he was gone, his boots echoing down the hall, the door slamming behind him.

The room seemed to exhale. Nova let out a shaky breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

Victor turned at once, his expression softening. He reached out, steadying her with a hand at her arm. “Don’t let him get under your skin. He’s all bark, no bite. I’ve known him for ages. He likes crude jokes, he likes pressing buttons, but he doesn’t mean half of what he says.”

Nova searched his face. He was trying to reassure her, to make it seem smaller than it was. But the echo of Alaric’s words—how does it feel to live? you gonna turn her?—still clung like smoke.

Victor gave her a faint smile, trying to coax one back from her. “He’s insufferable, I’ll admit. But he’s not the one you should worry about.”

Her lips curved just slightly, though the tension didn’t fully leave her chest. Still, the warmth of Victor’s hand was enough to ground her, to remind her that Alaric was gone, and she was still here.

Alive.

Chapter Text

Victor leaned against the mantel once Alaric’s presence had finally drained from the house. The fire crackled, but its warmth couldn’t thaw the tension in his chest.

What had Nova thought of that?

He replayed it over and over: Alaric’s leering smile, the way his words had dripped into the air like poison, and Nova’s silence under his gaze. Did she think Victor weak for letting it go on? Did she think he was just like them—cold, cruel, complicit?

He’d promised her safety, purpose, more than attic beds and death sentences. But what if this was already too much? What if the weight of vampire politics crushed her before he could pull her free?

Victor raked a hand through his hair, jaw tight. He wanted to say something, to make it right, but his thoughts knotted in circles.

Then her voice broke through, soft and hesitant.

“Victor?”

He turned. She stood in the middle of the room, clutching the edges of her cloak like it was the only thing keeping her steady. Her eyes darted once to the floor, then back to him. “Could I… have a hug?”

For a moment, his chest simply caved.

All his worries, his anger, his fear—washed away in the face of that simple, timid request. He crossed the space in an instant, no blur of speed this time, just steps measured and human.

When she folded against him, he melted. Her head pressed into his chest, her arms tentative at first before tightening. He held her close, so close he could feel her heartbeat steadying against his ribs.

And with it came a wave of feelings that staggered him: the fluttering warmth of her trust, the calming steadiness of her nearness, the fierce rise of his own protective nature.

Never again, he thought, his chin resting lightly on her hair. He would never stand by while she was in pain, not from Alaric, not from the Council, not from anyone.

If the covenant had once demanded her death, then let it be damned. He would rewrite it with his own hands if he had to.

He closed his eyes, drawing her closer, and for the first time since the letter arrived, Victor felt not just determined—but certain.

He wasn’t going to let her go.

Chapter Text

Nova stood in the center of the room, cloak heavy around her shoulders, the silence pressing close after Alaric’s departure. Her thoughts knotted like tangled string. How does it feel to live? You gonna turn her? The questions clung like smoke she couldn’t cough out.

Victor looked stormy across the firelight, one hand braced against the mantel, jaw tight as if he carried not just his own rage but hers too. She didn’t know what to say—how to thank him for standing between her and his uncle, how to admit that it had rattled her more than she wanted to confess.

So she said the first thing that rose in her throat.

“Victor?”

He turned at once, sharp, as if expecting another threat. She swallowed and forced the words out, small, almost childlike. “Could I… have a hug?”

His expression broke.

She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed it until his arms came around her. The world shrank to the warmth of his chest, the steady rhythm of his body against hers. For the first time since the orphanage doors had closed behind her, since the Council had called her name, since the torches had lined the path into the forest, she felt safe. Safe in a way she hadn’t thought possible in this house of vampires.

Her arms tightened, and he only pulled her closer, as though the space between them was the only enemy worth fighting.

When at last she drew back enough to look up at him, she found his gaze softer than she’d ever seen it. It made her brave.

“What will our future look like?” she asked quietly.

He arched a brow. “Do you mean the next week, the next year, or infinity?”

The absurdity of the question tugged a laugh out of her. “All of it.”

Victor smirked faintly, but there was thought behind his eyes. “Then in the next week, we’ll finalize the rites, pick the vows, and make the Council choke on their own ceremony. In the next year, we’ll turn this wreck of a mansion into something that actually feels like a home.”

She smiled faintly at that.

“And infinity?” she pressed.

His smirk deepened, eyes glinting. “Infinity is trickier. But I’ll make sure it’s yours, not theirs. You’ll have a life worth more than attic beds and sacrifice scrolls. That’s a promise.”

Her throat tightened, but she forced herself to keep smiling, to keep teasing. “So… when’s the wedding, then?”

Victor tilted his head, pretending to ponder. “Depends. Do you want dramatic and sweeping, with roses blooming black under the moonlight… or tomorrow morning with toast and tea?”

She laughed again, surprising herself with how easy it felt this time. “Maybe something in between.”

“Good,” he said, brushing her hand lightly with his fingers, the ring catching the firelight between them. “Then that’s what we’ll plan for.”

And for the first time, the future didn’t feel like a sentence—it felt like a choice.

Chapter Text

The Council came sooner than he’d hoped. They summoned him back to Forest Peak with thin smiles and clipped words: the humans in Cityline would need explanation. The sacrifice situation must be addressed, they said, as though Nova were an item misplaced, a bookkeeping error to tidy away.

Victor returned to the mansion bristling. He found Nova sitting cross-legged in one of the library’s patched armchairs, the heavy rites book abandoned on the floor beside her.

“They want a letter,” he said, pacing before the hearth.

“A letter?” she echoed. “What, like Dear Cityline, sorry your human didn’t get eaten?”

Victor’s mouth curved into a grin despite his frustration. “Exactly like that.”

For a beat, silence hung between them. Then Nova’s eyes sparked. “Let’s make it fun.”

He arched a brow. “Fun?”

She was already pulling parchment toward her, snatching a quill. “If they want a story, let’s give them one.”

And together, with heads bent close over the desk, they began to write.

Dearest Cityline, the letter began in Nova’s neat but hurried hand, your sacrifice has been delivered, but unfortunately, she was an extreme failure.

Victor leaned over her shoulder, laughter rumbling low. “Extreme failure?”

She smirked. “Am I wrong?”

He grinned wider. “Go on.”

I attempted to eat her, Nova scribbled, but she smelled so bitter I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Victor barked a laugh. “That’s slander!”

“It’s accurate,” she shot back, trying not to smile.

He plucked the quill from her fingers, scrawling his own lines in bold, slanted strokes: She became so frustrated with me that she started trying to feed herself to me. I was insulted by the lack of grace, and in my wounded pride I decided to keep her captive instead.

Nova snorted so hard ink spattered across the page. She doubled over, clutching her sides, laughter spilling into the quiet library.

Victor stared at her, grin softening, his chest pulling tight at the sound. “Don’t laugh too much, or they’ll think we actually enjoyed this.”

Still breathless, she grabbed the quill back and added the last line: I have since learned that she prefers captivity. Sincerely, Prince Victor.

When she dropped the quill, they both sat back, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter. The page was blotched and uneven, more parody than proclamation, but it was theirs.

Victor exhaled, still grinning. “They’ll hate it.”

“Good,” Nova said, eyes bright. “So do I.”

And as their laughter faded into the crackle of the fire, Victor realized that for the first time, they weren’t surviving the covenant—they were mocking it. Together.

Chapter Text

Nova rose with the sun, determined. Today she would prove Victor wrong—that he could be seduced, no matter how smugly he claimed otherwise.

She found him in the dining hall again, hair tousled from another sleepless night of planning, coat draped carelessly over the chair. He looked tired, dangerous, and irritatingly handsome. Perfect.

She slipped into the room quietly, leaning against the doorframe. Then, very deliberately, she stretched—slow, languid, the hem of her borrowed gown brushing her ankles, her arms arching above her head. She lowered them with a sigh designed to sound casual, though her pulse hammered.

Victor looked up from his stack of parchment, and the curve of his smirk told her he knew exactly what she was doing.

Before he could tease her, a sharp knock rattled the front door.

Victor sighed theatrically. “You have the worst timing.”

He crossed the hall in a blur, and Nova scurried after him, only to be caught by his hand pressing gently to her shoulder. “Stay in the next room,” he murmured. “Let me handle this.”

Curiosity burned hotter than dignity, so she obeyed—but only barely. She ducked behind the sliding door to the study, pressing her ear against the wood.

The front door opened, hinges protesting.

“Prince Victor,” a clipped voice announced, “I come on behalf of the Cityline Council. We’ve received your… letter.”

Nova stifled a laugh, remembering the inkblots and sarcasm sprawled across the page.

The messenger continued, sharp and humorless. “There are grave concerns. If the sacrifice was not accepted properly, the covenant is broken. Are we to believe vampires will begin raiding our city for blood?”

Victor’s reply came smooth, velvet and dangerous. “Tell your Council to rest easy. The sacrifice wholly satisfies me.”

Nova’s heart lurched.

“Wholly—?” The messenger’s voice cracked.

Victor pressed on, his tone dropping to something almost indecent. “In ways blood never could. I’ve no hunger for your people. My appetite is… otherwise occupied.”

Nova slapped a hand over her mouth, her cheeks burning so hot she was sure the messenger could feel the heat through the wall.

The envoy sputtered, horrified. “That’s—! You can’t mean—”

Victor let out a laugh, low and knowing. “Tell your Council that I’m well fed, and VERY well entertained. They need not worry about me seeking nourishment elsewhere.”

The silence that followed was thick enough Nova thought the man might faint. Instead, the door shut abruptly, boots clattering down the steps as the messenger fled back toward the city.

The moment the sound faded, Nova shoved the door open and stormed into the hall, her face aflame. “Victor!”

He leaned casually against the doorframe, laughter already breaking loose from him, rich and unrestrained.

“You—” She struggled, torn between outrage and embarrassment. “You can’t just—”

But his grin was infectious, his shoulders shaking with mirth, and despite herself, a laugh broke through her own lips.

Soon they were both laughing, helpless in the echoing hall, the absurdity of it all crashing over them.

Victor wiped his eyes, still chuckling. “See? Told you—wholly satisfied.”

Nova shoved him lightly in the chest, still laughing, cheeks burning hotter than ever.

Chapter Text

The envelope arrived on the morning breeze, delivered by one of the Council’s black-winged ravens. It landed on the dining table with a thud, the wax seal stamped with Cityline’s sun emblem like a brand against the dark wood.

Victor eyed it with suspicion, but Nova was the one whose name curled across the front in sharp ink strokes.

“For me?” she asked, eyebrows arching. She broke the seal before Victor could protest and unfolded the parchment.

The words made her snort before she was halfway through.

To the sacrifice, it read. We wish to inquire about your wellbeing. If you are in danger, if you are mistreated, or if you wish for sanctuary, the Council will act on your behalf.

Nova burst into laughter, loud and unrestrained. “Oh, now they care? A week ago they were ready to hand me over like stale bread, and suddenly they’re playing savior?”

Victor leaned over her shoulder, lips quirking. “I’m offended. They think I’d be cruel to you.”

“You are cruel,” she teased, waving the letter at him. “Just not in the way they think.”

For a moment she debated grabbing a quill and writing back—something sharp and simple: I’m fine, stop pretending you care. But when she voiced the thought aloud, Victor tilted his head, his smirk edged with mischief.

“Why waste ink on them?” he asked. “Send your words where they matter.”

So she did. Her heart tugged her hand steady as she began:

To my sisters at Saint Martha’s,

I am alive. More alive than you’d believe. I’ve been thinking of you every day since I left, and I miss you more than I can say. The attic feels far away now, but I carry it with me—your voices, your laughter, the nights we whispered until dawn.

She chewed her lip, then added:

I want to see you. I want to hear your stories, your laughter again. So I am inviting you to dinner at the mansion tonight, at dusk. Don’t be afraid—it’s safe, and it’s not a trick. There will be food for you, real food, not the sort of fare you’re imagining. Consider this proof that a sacrifice doesn’t always mean an ending.

Victor leaned over, plucking the quill from her hand. He added his own line beneath hers, his handwriting bold and slanted:

Dinner at dusk. Bring your appetite and your sharpest wit. Signed, Prince Victor, reluctant host.

Nova rolled her eyes. “Reluctant host?”

He winked as he sealed the envelope. “Would you prefer charming fiancé?”

Her cheeks warmed, but she shook her head quickly. “Not yet. That’s for tonight.”

Victor smirked, pleased, and let the raven carry the letter into the morning sky.

Chapter Text

By late afternoon, the mansion buzzed with activity. For once, it wasn’t dust or parchment covering the tables, but pots, pans, and baskets of food delivered from the market. Nova hadn’t touched ingredients this fresh since her earliest days at the orphanage—vegetables still smelling of earth, bread still warm enough to steam.

Victor leaned against the counter, inspecting a wooden spoon as though it were a weapon he wasn’t quite sure how to wield. “So,” he said, flashing his trademark grin, “this is where you teach me to be a respectable host.”

Nova tied the apron tighter around her waist, smirking. “This is where I teach you not to burn water.”

He pressed a hand to his chest, feigning injury. “Your faith in me is astounding.”

“Faith has nothing to do with it.” She plunked a knife into his hand, guiding him toward the chopping board. “Cut the carrots. Small pieces. Bite-sized.”

Victor eyed the knife, then her, smirk tugging at his lips. “Bite-sized? I’m good with bites.”

Her cheeks warmed instantly. “Not like that,” she snapped, glaring at the carrots.

He chuckled low, leaning closer. “Consider it practice. I need to charm your sisters tonight. Better to rehearse on you first.”

Nova gritted her teeth, but her lips betrayed her with a twitch. “Cut the carrots, Victor.”

To her surprise, he did—though each slice was more dramatic than the last, as if he thought the vegetables deserved flair. She rolled her eyes and reached for the bread, only to find him sliding the knife into the board with a flourish.

“See?” he said proudly, holding up the uneven pile. “Perfect.”

“They’re all different sizes,” she pointed out.

“Variety keeps life interesting.”

Her laughter slipped out before she could stop it. Victor grinned, triumphant.

They moved clumsily around the kitchen together, Nova stirring while he pretended to supervise, Victor teasing while she tried not to smile too much. At one point he reached past her for the salt, brushing close enough that her heart stumbled.

“Careful,” he murmured, low enough only she could hear. “Your blush is showing. What will your sisters think?”

She swatted him with the spoon, splattering a bit of broth onto his sleeve. “That you’re insufferable.”

He leaned back, laughter rumbling in his chest, and for a moment the mansion felt less like a cavern of shadows and more like a home.

Nova stirred the pot again, stealing a glance at him. He looked ridiculous in the apron, hair falling into his eyes, grinning at her like she was the best part of this entire charade.

And maybe—just maybe—he was.

Chapter Text

The knock at the door came right on dusk.

Nova’s heart leapt as she rushed to the window. Outside, framed by the glow of the torches, three familiar figures hovered at the threshold. Her sisters from Saint Martha’s—Elise, Maren, and little Jo—bundled in borrowed cloaks, their faces pale with fear.

“They look terrified,” Nova whispered.

Victor leaned against the window frame, arms folded, smirking. “Can’t imagine why.”

Nova shot him a look. “Stay here. Let me.”

He gave a mock bow. “As you wish, hostess.”

She opened the door slowly, warmth flooding her at the sight of them. “You came.”

Elise, the tallest, swallowed hard. “You’re alive.”

“I told you I was.” Nova reached for their hands, coaxing them across the threshold. “Come on. You’re safe. It’s just dinner.”

Their eyes darted nervously around the vast entry hall, following her closely as though shadows themselves might reach for them. Nova led them quickly into the dining room, where the long oak table was set with bread, steaming bowls, and polished goblets filled with nothing more sinister than water.

“Sit,” she urged gently.

They obeyed, stiff in their chairs. Jo’s small fingers tapped the table like a nervous drum.

“You really live here now?” Maren asked, eyes wide as she took in the high windows and flickering sconces.

“For now,” Nova said carefully. “It’s… complicated. But it’s better than you think.”

That only made their brows knit tighter.

She inhaled, steadying herself. “There’s something I want you to hear from him, not just me. He has news to share.”

“Do you have to?” Elise asked quickly, her voice taut.

Nova met her gaze firmly. “Yes. He’ll be joining us.”

Their anxiety spiked, clear as the stiff set of their shoulders, the way their eyes darted toward the doors. Nova pressed their hands, her tone gentler. “It’s all right. Trust me.”

Leaving them in uneasy silence, she slipped into the hall, her heart oddly buoyant despite their fear. She found the study door ajar and peeked in.

“Victor?”

No answer. Papers lay scattered on the desk, candles guttering low. She stepped inside, frowning. “Victor, where are—”

Arms wrapped around her waist from behind, pulling her back against a chest that vibrated with laughter.

Nova squealed, a startled sound bursting from her throat.

From the dining room down the hall, her sisters froze, wide-eyed at the echo. Jo’s goblet rattled against the table as her hands trembled.

Victor buried his grin in Nova’s hair, murmuring, “You’re too easy.”

She swatted at him, cheeks burning. “You’re impossible.”

Hand in hand, still bickering softly, they started back toward the dining room.

And at the table, three anxious girls waited, eyes wide, bracing for whatever would come through the door.

Chapter Text

 Victor stood just behind Nova as she ushered her sisters into the dining room. He had faced councils and courts, stared down predators far older than him, but three human girls at a dinner table made something primal twist in his stomach.

He had never been around so many humans at once. Their scents—warm, sharp, alive—hit him like a wave. For a heartbeat, he worried his instincts might overtake him, that he’d bare teeth instead of a smile.

But then Nova brushed his hand lightly, a small grounding touch, and the fear ebbed. He clung to her in small ways as they sat—his hand brushing hers under the table, a graze of his knee against her leg, fingers lacing with hers when the urge to retreat clawed too hard.

The girls—Elise, Maren, and little Jo—watched him like he might lunge at any second. He didn’t blame them. So he let Nova lead the conversation, chiming in only when her eyes flicked to him as though asking him to.

They spoke of the orphanage, of stolen apples and whispered secrets in the attic. They spoke of silly memories, little Jo’s antics, Maren’s stubborn streak. Victor watched Nova glow brighter than he’d ever seen her, laughter bubbling freely from her lips. Her sisters noticed too; he saw it in the way their shoulders softened as they listened.

At last, Nova drew a breath, her hand tightening in his beneath the table. “There’s something we need to tell you.”

The room quieted.

Victor squeezed her hand.

“I…” Nova hesitated, then blurted, “I’m engaged. To Victor.”

The silence that followed was brittle as glass. Elise’s spoon clattered against her bowl. Maren’s eyes went wide with alarm. Even Jo looked stricken.

“A vampire?” Elise whispered, voice sharp. “Nova—how could you—”

Nova’s chest caved, panic flickering across her face. She looked as though their rejection might shatter her, as though for all her strength she could not bear to lose them.

Victor pulled her close, slipping an arm around her shoulders, pressing his cheek to her hair. His voice came steady, calm, louder than her fears. “She hasn’t betrayed you. She’s alive because of this. Because of us. And she’s happier than I’ve ever seen her. Look at her.”

They did. And slowly, uncertainly, realization softened their expressions. They had never seen Nova this way—not laughing nervously, not scraping by, not swallowing down her feelings to survive. She looked… content. Whole, even.

Jo was the first to whisper, “She’s happy.”

“Yes,” Victor said simply, gazing down at Nova. “She is.”

The girls exchanged glances. The fear didn’t vanish, but it dulled into something cautious, something that might one day become acceptance.

When dinner ended, Elise squeezed Nova’s hands before they left. “Send us an invitation,” she said softly.

Nova’s eyes stung as she nodded. “I will.”

Victor stood in the doorway as the sisters disappeared into the torchlit night, Nova’s hand tucked in his. For once, he felt not like a monster—but like a man who could hold on to something good.

Chapter Text

Something shifted in Nova after dinner.

Telling her sisters—saying the word engaged aloud—had done what nothing else could. For the first time since the sacrifice letter arrived, she wasn’t walking toward an ending. She was walking toward something that felt like the beginning of a life. Her life.

So when Victor brought down stacks of parchment and a box of wax seals, she didn’t just roll her eyes at his over-preparation. She pulled up a chair, grabbed a quill, and dipped it in ink.

“Invitations,” she said firmly. “Let’s do this.”

Victor smirked, clearly pleased, and slid a neat pile toward her. “You’ll regret this after the fifth envelope.”

But she didn’t. Not really. Together they picked through names, argued over the right phrasing, and laughed whenever ink blotched across the page. Victor’s handwriting was bold and uneven, his quill strokes impatient. Hers was tidy, careful, each line like a thread.

When he teased her for taking too long, she flicked a dot of ink at him. He retaliated by sealing an envelope with too much wax and pretending it was deliberate. The library filled with the smell of hot wax, laughter, and something warm that almost felt like a home.

By the time dusk fell, stacks of invitations were addressed, sealed, and ready for the ravens. Victor leaned back, satisfied. “We’re really doing this.”

Nova smirked. “Of course we are.”

And then she saw her chance.

While Victor turned to gather the finished invitations, she slipped silently from her chair, moving as quietly as she could across the rug. She’d been thinking of this all day—payback for his little stunt in the study before dinner.

She darted forward and wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, giving a quick squeeze.

Victor jolted, actually startled, before spinning with supernatural speed. She barely leapt back in time to avoid being swept into his arms.

“Nova,” he said, eyes wide, then narrowing into a grin. “You didn’t—”

“I did,” she said smugly, arms crossed. “Consider us even.”

For a beat, silence hung in the air. Then Victor burst into laughter, rich and unrestrained.

“You think you’re even?” he said, stepping closer, eyes glinting. “That was cute. But if you want war, sweetheart, you’ve just declared it.”

Nova smirked back, though her pulse thudded at his teasing tone. “Bring it on, Prince Charming.”

And as the ravens took flight with their letters, carrying word of a wedding no one had expected, Nova realized she wasn’t just surviving anymore—she was building something.

Even if it came with pranks and battles along the way.

Chapter Text

The prank war began in earnest the next morning.
Victor woke to find his usual coat missing from its peg. In its place, neatly folded, was one of the ceremonial vampire robes—high-collared, dramatic, and utterly ridiculous for everyday wear. Nova sat at the table, calmly buttering bread.
“Really?” he asked, holding the robe aloft.
“You’ll look regal,” she said sweetly.
He pulled it on anyway, smirking the whole time, and promised himself revenge.

That evening, as Nova opened a book in the library, a folded slip of parchment fluttered free. Curious, she unfolded it—only to find Victor’s bold handwriting sprawled across the page:
Caught you. This counts as a prank. Score: Victor — 1.
Her laughter echoed through the hall, and she vowed he wouldn’t win so easily.

The next day, Victor reached for his goblet at dinner only to spit out a mouthful of salted water. Nova smirked across the table. “I thought you needed seasoning.”
He wiped his mouth with deliberate slowness, eyes gleaming. “You’re playing a dangerous game, sweetheart.”

In retaliation, she found a trail of rose petals leading up the staircase that night. Heart racing, she followed it—only to discover her own bed covered in nothing but the petals and a note on the pillow:
Romantic, isn’t it? Don’t get comfortable—it took me forever to find all these. Consider this a prank AND a gesture.
Her cheeks burned, though she laughed into the empty room.

By the third day, she was plotting carefully. She slipped quietly into the study while Victor bent over parchment and leaned down to whisper, “Boo.”
He jolted hard enough to smudge ink across the page. Her triumphant laughter nearly toppled her into his chair.
“You—” he began, then lunged, catching her wrist and tugging her down into his lap.
Her breath hitched, their faces suddenly far too close, her laughter dying in her throat. His smirk curved slow and deliberate.
“You really want to test me?” he asked, voice a low purr.
She swallowed, her pulse hammering. “Maybe I do.”
For a moment, the air burned between them. His gaze flicked to her lips; hers to his.
And then—
“Truce?” he asked suddenly, a crooked grin tugging his mouth.
Nova blinked, breathless. “Truce?”
His smirk deepened, though his eyes glinted with mischief. “Unless you’re too cowardly to quit.”
Her lips twitched into a matching grin. “Fine. Truce.”
They pulled apart slowly, laughter slipping in to cover what almost happened, but neither of them quite stopped smiling the rest of the night.

Chapter Text

The knock came in the middle of the afternoon—sharp, authoritative, the kind of knock that didn’t wait for permission. Victor opened the door to find a man in Cityline colors, a parchment clutched in his hand, and a guard standing stiffly behind him with a hand on his blade.

The envoy didn’t waste time. “Prince Victor. The Council of Cityline has received your… invitations.” His lip curled. “They find them immoral. A human girl bound to a beast who could snap her neck if she made one wrong move? It cannot stand. We are here to escort her home.”

Victor’s jaw tightened. Behind him, he could feel Nova’s heartbeat quicken through the stone hall. He forced a smile, sharp and cold. “She is home.”

The guard shifted uneasily. The envoy sneered. “You refuse her return? Then what are we to think but that you hold her here against her will? A prisoner dressed as a bride.”

The word hit like a blade. Prisoner.

Victor’s smile vanished. “Prisoner?” he echoed, voice low, dangerous. “If she wanted to go, she could. I’m not her chains.”

The envoy flinched but didn’t back down. “So you claim.”

Victor’s temper crackled, red flashing at the edges of his vision. “Leave. Tell your Council they meddle in things they don’t understand. If she wishes to walk away, she will. If she doesn’t, she won’t. But she is no one’s prisoner.”

He slammed the door before either man could answer.

The silence afterward was heavy.

Victor turned slowly, knowing without needing to look that Nova had heard every word. Her wide eyes met his from the corridor, her hand hovering in the air as though she’d been reaching for him but thought better of it.

He wondered if she’d known, truly known, that she had the choice before. If his words had carved something sharp into her heart—you could go, if you wanted.

And now that she definitely knew… would she take it?

The thought gnawed at him as her gaze lingered, as the silence stretched. For the first time, Victor wasn’t sure if his promise to keep her safe would be enough to make her stay.

Chapter Text

The words clung to her long after the door slammed.

If she wanted to go, she could.

Nova sat on the edge of the long dining table, fingers twisting in her skirts, her thoughts spiraling. She should have felt relieved—free. After all, wasn’t that what she’d wanted her whole life? A choice? But instead of relief, a heavy ache pulled at her chest.

If she could walk away whenever she wanted… did that mean she was replaceable? Just another fragile human he’d lifted out of pity?

Victor found her there minutes later, his expression drawn, his shoulders tense as though he already knew what she was about to ask.

“You meant it?” Her voice came out softer than she intended. “That I could leave? If I wished?”

He froze, something in his eyes shattering. For a long moment, he didn’t speak. Then he crossed the room, slow and deliberate, and knelt before her.

“Yes,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You could leave.” His hand hovered, then closed gently over hers. “But you could never be replaced.”

Her breath caught.

He swallowed hard, his gaze steady but vulnerable in a way she’d never seen before. “Nova… I’ve lived centuries never feeling anything that lasted longer than a moment. But you—” His hand pressed to his chest as though to steady the racing beneath. “You’re undoing me in days. I’m falling so fast it terrifies me. If you leave now…” His voice cracked, low and raw. “The broken pieces of me may never come back together.”

The room went still, the fire crackling faintly in the hearth.

Nova stared at him, her insecurities tangling with the shock of his words. He wasn’t hiding behind smirks or jokes now. He meant it. Every syllable was weighted, carved out of the deepest part of him.

Her heart fluttered wildly, half in fear, half in something much stronger. Something she wasn’t ready to name but couldn’t deny.

She tightened her grip on his hand. “Then maybe,” she whispered, “I won’t leave.”

For the first time that day, Victor breathed.

Chapter Text

The council chamber at Forest Peak had always felt suffocating, even to Victor. Dark stone, high ceilings that swallowed voices, long tables where vampires argued for hours over ceremony and pride. But today, the air was heavier still.

On one side: the vampire council, pale and severe in their finery. On the other: Cityline’s delegation, cloaks bright with their sun sigil, words sharp as their distrust.

At the center stood Nova—small, human, mortal—and Victor at her side.

Cityline’s envoy slammed his fist against the table. “We will not leave without her. If she is to marry, we must ensure it is not under duress. She must be looked over, spoken to privately, guarded if necessary.”

Victor’s jaw clenched, his eyes flicking to Nova. Her hand found his beneath the table, fingers tightening in silent plea. Don’t let them take me.

He didn’t move at first, but her grip was fire, steadying him, pulling him out of his own storm. Slowly, deliberately, he slid his arm around her waist, anchoring her to him for all to see.

The vampires across the table—stoic elders and cold strategists—softened visibly. One or two even smiled, faint and wistful, as though remembering something long past. Romantics, Victor thought bitterly, but in this moment, he was glad for it.

Still, Cityline pressed. “It is immoral. A beast cannot love a human. She is at risk every moment—”

“She is mine,” Victor snapped, crimson flashing in his eyes. “Not as a prisoner. Not as prey. As my equal.”

The room fell silent.

He drew a breath, forcing his voice calmer. “If you insist she return to Cityline for your scrutiny… then I will go with her. Every step. Every hour.”

The Cityline envoy stiffened, clearly reluctant. “You—”

Victor leaned forward, arm still firm around Nova. “You doubt me. Fine. Doubt all you want. But I will not let her walk into your world without me at her side.”

The vampire elders nodded, murmuring approval, their eyes bright with that insufferable romantic gleam. Cityline, cornered, exchanged grim looks before one finally spoke: “Then so be it. She will come home—with you.”

Nova exhaled shakily against his shoulder. Victor pressed his lips to her hair, a fleeting touch, but enough to calm the fire raging inside him.

The council session ended in uneasy compromise, parchment already being drafted for their departure. As they stepped from the cold chamber into the torchlit hall, Victor tightened his arm around her waist.

“Back to your home, then,” he murmured. “But not without me.”

And as the torches flickered, casting their shadows long against the stone, he wondered what awaited them in Cityline—friends, enemies, or something between.

Chapter Text

The road to Cityline stretched long and uneven, dust rising in soft clouds beneath the boots of the guards who flanked them. Nova should have felt safer with the escort—six armed men in gleaming armor—but their presence grated.

They called it protection. What it felt like was separation.

Every hour, one of them tried to edge between her and Victor, guiding her by the elbow or urging her to walk with them instead. “Safer this way,” one murmured. “You shouldn’t stay so close to him.”

Nova clenched her jaw. “I’m fine.”

The third time, she snapped. “I said I’m fine!” she hissed, yanking her arm back. But still they hovered, like her shadow belonged to them instead of Victor.

It happened quickly—too quickly. A guard stepped too close, nudging her off balance as he shifted into place. Her boot caught on a stone, her ankle twisting sharply beneath her. Pain shot up her leg, and she stumbled with a cry.

The guards surged forward, hands outstretched. “Miss, let us—”

They never reached her.

Victor was already there, his face a mask of fury as he swept her into his arms as though she weighed nothing. “Don’t touch her,” he snarled, his voice like steel cracking. “You’ve done enough.”

The guards froze, paling under his crimson glare.

Nova clutched his shoulders, wincing at the throb in her ankle. “Victor—”

“Quiet,” he said, though his tone softened for her alone. “I’ve got you.”

And he did. Strong arms cradled her against his chest, his stride unshaken as he carried her forward, faster and steadier than the plodding guards. Her head pressed against his shoulder, the steady rise and fall of his breath grounding her even as the pain flared.

Behind them, the guards muttered apologies, excuses—but Victor ignored them all. His eyes stayed fixed on the road ahead, jaw set like stone.

“You’re hurt because of them,” he muttered low, so only she could hear. “And they think they can protect you? Pathetic.”

She touched his chest gently, trying to ease the storm in his voice. “It’s just a twist.”

His grip tightened. “It will be looked at the instant we arrive.”

And though the ache in her ankle made each jolt of the road sting, Nova felt oddly at peace in his arms. The guards might have stripped her of dignity, of choice, of safety—but in Victor’s hold, she felt none of that.

In his arms, she wasn’t a prisoner, a sacrifice, or a charge to be guarded. She was his.

Chapter Text

Victor forced himself to breathe slowly as he carried Nova through Cityline’s gates. The guards who had tripped her were still flanking them, heads bowed in shame, but rage thrummed through his veins with every step. He wanted to tear them apart. He wanted them to bleed for daring to touch her.

But Nova’s weight in his arms, her quiet breaths against his chest, reminded him: she needed calm, not carnage.

So he swallowed the anger, every drop of it, and brought her straight to the medic hall. “See to her properly,” he ordered, voice level only through sheer will. “If she so much as winces, I’ll know you failed.”

While the healers bustled around her, Victor forced himself to leave. He couldn’t hover, not when she needed care and he needed… to find them a place to stay. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere safe.

The inns near the square turned him away with sneers, muttering about “fangs” and “beasts,” until at last he found one at the edge of the market that only frowned and shrugged. Not welcoming, but not a pitchfork mob either. It would have to do.

Relieved, he returned to collect Nova—only to find the room empty.

The bed untouched. The bandages unused. The medic stammering apologies: The Council came. They said she was needed.

Victor’s blood turned to ice.

He searched everywhere, his speed a blur through narrow streets and crowded alleys, following the faintest trace of her scent until he reached the capital’s marble steps. There, behind gilded doors, voices rang sharp and cruel.

“…a disgrace to our traditions.”

“…no grace, no respect for the honor she was given.”

“…traitor, claiming she chose him. As if choice had anything to do with it.”

Victor froze in the shadows of the corridor, every muscle coiled, fangs pressing against his lips.

Nova’s voice rose, trembling but fierce. “Stop it.”

The councilors scoffed. “Stop what? Speaking the truth? You were meant to die with dignity. Instead you’ve tangled yourself with a monster.”

Victor’s vision tinted red. His fists ached from clenching.

And then—

“Don’t you dare call him that!” Nova’s voice cracked like fire, her rage filling the hall. “He is more than any of you could ever hope to be. He saved me. He gave me purpose. And I—” Her breath caught, her words spilling faster than she could control. “I love him.”

The world stilled.

Victor staggered back against the wall, breath ripped from his lungs. Love. The word slammed into him with the force of centuries, breaking through every wall he had built. His chest burned, his veins sang, his mind spun between disbelief and the dizzying certainty that she meant it.

Nova loved him.

For a heartbeat, he let himself feel it all—the joy so sharp it almost hurt, the terror that she had given him something he could never live without, the desperate need to rush in and hold her until the world dissolved.

But before he could move, the Council’s voices cut through, hard and final.

“Enough. Until we decide what to do with you, you will be held below.”

Chains rattled. Boots dragged. And the last sound Victor heard before the heavy doors closed was the echo of Nova’s defiance.

Then silence.

Nova, locked in the dungeon.

And Victor, outside the door, with his heart blazing and his control hanging by a thread.

Chapter Text

The dungeon walls pressed in around her, damp stone sweating with the chill of night. A single torch sputtered outside the bars, throwing jagged shadows across the floor. The air smelled of mildew and rust, thick with the ghosts of those who’d been here before.

Nova pulled her knees to her chest, the rough straw scratching through her skirts. Her ankle throbbed, still tender from the fall, but it wasn’t the pain that made her tremble. It was the echo of her own voice, still ringing in her ears.

I love him.

The words had spilled out before she could stop them, a flood breaking through a dam. She hadn’t planned to say it—not in front of them, not in such a fury—but she had meant every syllable. And now, with nothing but stone for company, she wondered if that was the last thing she’d ever get to tell the world.

The Council’s eyes had been sharp, their mouths twisted in scorn. Traitor. Failure. They hadn’t wanted to hear her love, only her obedience. If Victor hadn’t killed her, maybe they would. Perhaps it was easier for them to erase her altogether than to let their people be tied to his.

Her throat tightened, but she forced herself to breathe slowly.

Would she ever see him again? The thought sliced her open. The memory of his arm around her waist, his voice steady when he’d told Cityline she wasn’t a prisoner—those things seemed impossibly far away now.

She pressed her forehead to her knees, tears burning hot. She didn’t regret the words. Not one of them. But she feared what price the Council might make her pay for saying them aloud.

Somewhere above, the stone ceiling groaned as footsteps passed. For a heartbeat, she let herself imagine they were his, that Victor was already tearing through the halls to reach her. But the sound faded, leaving only the drip of water and the pounding of her heart.

Nova closed her eyes, clutching the ring still snug on her finger. “Please,” she whispered into the silence, “just let me see him again.”

The dungeon swallowed the words whole.

Chapter Text

He had not meant to think of mercy. The word had sat in the back of his mind like a splinter — sharp, impossible, lodged where it could not be reached. But the splinter turned to iron tonight and hammered through him until all the careful things he’d practiced — politeness, jokes, the pleasant cruelty of a prince — fell away.

Victor moved through the capital like a shadow with intent. Torchlight clawed across his coat, guttering against the stone as if the very air knew there was a wrong that needed righting. He had planned a dozen civilized arguments, a dozen cold ways to bargain with the Council, but the sight of Nova in that room — stone pressing at her like a verdict, her voice thrown at them like a pebble — had cleared the fog from his head. The thing Alaric had called hunger in him roared in a way that had nothing to do with ritual or tradition. It was animal and immediate and ugly and it burned hot down to his bones.

Guards stepped between him and the dungeon stairs with that practiced stiffness of men who believed themselves sufficient. They raised spears. They thought blades and numbers could remedy what pride and law had done. Victor stopped so close the torchlight caught and threw his shadow across them, and for the first time in all his comfortable bluster, he felt small and very, very dangerous.

His eyes brightened without thought, flaring red like coals struck to iron.

“Move,” he said, low and calm, every syllable an icicle. “Or I will ensure you never move again.”

There was a beat — a small, stupid, suspended thing — in which their minds tried to translate it as bluster. Then the color in their faces changed. A man’s hands twitched on a spear, and he was suddenly very aware of how wooden shafts splintered and how a vampire could find a throat with the same casual efficiency a baker finds flour. Another guard took a step back. The sergeant’s jaw worked; he remembered rumors, remembered the stories whispered in taverns that adults told to frighten children — and he calculated, quickly and correctly, that the cost of holding the prince at swordpoint might be the cost of his own life.

They folded like paper. Not because they liked him or because they believed his threats, but because they understood the physics of living alongside predators who did not sleep.

Victor did not wait for thanks. He moved through them as though the corridor were an artery and he was blood, a single, clean current toward what mattered. The dungeon stank of damp stone and old defeat; the air chilled the breath in his chest. He did not let himself think in metaphors. He thought of Nova, of the way her laugh had sounded when he’d dared to be foolish enough to make her laugh, of the way she’d called him by some small name that belonged only to them. He thought of those syllables and of Alaric’s cheap instruction and of the councilors with their polite cruelties.

Her cell was the last down the row. He found her curled on the straw, wrists tucked close, eyes raw and hollow with crying. When she lifted her face and saw him, something like a sun cracked through the dullness of her expression; it made him stumble on feeling in a way that would have been laughable if not for the sweetness of it.

He didn’t announce himself. He didn’t wait for their ritual of demeanings. He took the bars in two hands and bent them as a sculptor might bend wire — not with a delicate hand, but with a force that ignored complaint. The iron groaned, the lock gave, and the space between them widened until he could slide his hand through. Cold metal bit his palm; it was a touch he didn’t notice because his whole focus was the distance between her and harm.

She moved into his arms the moment the bars split enough for him to slide between them. She leaned in like someone finding an axis, burying her face into his chest, crying with the kind of sound that was not shame but the release of a pressure she had carried through torches and speeches and the white-hot glare of a room full of judgment.

“Don’t,” she sobbed into him. “Don’t leave me. I thought— I thought I’d never—”

He let her words wash through him and counted them all as holy things. He gathered her as if he’d missed this shape his whole life and only now could remember how to hold it properly. Her hair smelled like straw and lavender and fear; the scent steadied him more surely than any vow ever had.

Minutes ago he had wanted blood. He had imagined the thin, bright noise of rupture, the way power tastes when it is taken with teeth and not asked for. He had rehearsed the motion of lashing out until the world bent. Now, with Nova in his arms, none of that found purchase.

Instead there was a quiet he had not expected — not the thin, cold absence of feeling he’d been taught to call serenity, but a full, heavy stillness that settled over his limbs and slowed the quick animal thought to ash. Where the hunger had been a wild thing clawing for release, peace rose like a tide that smoothed cliffs. It was not weakness. It was a decision made in the bones: there was nothing in the world he would burn and not save; there was nothing he would take that was hers to give until she gave it willingly.

He kissed the top of her head because words felt too clumsy and promises too small. “I’m here,” he said, voice a gravel-soft vow. “I won’t leave.”

Her hands clutched at his coat as though to anchor herself there, and he let himself be anchored. For all the ferocity he had born tonight, the world narrowed to the rhythm of her breathing in his arms. The roar that had nearly consumed him ebbed into something gentler and far more absolute: a quiet, resolute guard against a world that kept offering them reasons to be afraid.

Outside, somewhere in the corridors of the capital, footsteps sounded — hurried, alarmed — but they were only echoes. For now, in the small hollow he had carved free of iron and law, there was Nova, and there was the knowledge that whatever he had been minutes before had been replaced by the certainty of her hand in his.

He would bleed the world dry if it meant she was safe. But he did not want blood. He wanted her whole. And that wanting, he discovered with an odd and blazing clarity, was itself a kind of peace.

Chapter Text

They went into the council chamber side by side.

Nova’s ankle was still bandaged, her steps uneven, but she stood tall with Victor’s hand laced firmly in hers. The councilors’ gazes burned across the long table, stern and heavy, and still she refused to flinch.

Victor didn’t flinch either.

“We will not be staying here,” he said, his voice low and resonant in the vaulted chamber. “We’re going home.”

The head councilor sneered. “Home? With him? Do you even hear yourself, girl?”

Arguments flew across the table like arrows—about tradition, about safety, about morality. Nova answered some, Victor answered others, but still the words stacked, louder and harsher, until something inside him cracked.

Victor’s eyes flashed red, his voice a whip. “Enough.”

The chamber fell silent, every councilor shrinking in their seats. His fangs glinted in the torchlight, his fury barely leashed. “Let her go,” he growled, “or risk the bloodshed you’ve been tempting me toward all night.”

The silence stretched, brittle as glass. Then, one by one, the councilors nodded.

“Good choice,” Victor muttered, his arm still tight around Nova as they turned and left the chamber.

At the edge of the city walls, the guards parted without a word. Victor bent to scoop her up, but Nova shook her head stubbornly. “I can walk.”

He arched a brow. “I’m faster.”

And before she could argue again, he was.

The world blurred around her, wind rushing in her hair, torchlight streaking past until suddenly—home. The mansion’s familiar gates rose before them, the forest dark and steady around its spires.

Victor carried her inside and set her gently on her bed. Nova froze, realization dawning. He’d never crossed the boundary into her room before—not since showing her where it was. Respect, she realized. Care. He knew where lines belonged, and he didn’t cross them without cause.

Her throat tightened. She wanted to understand him as much as he seemed to understand her.

“Victor,” she whispered, “back there… when you snapped. Were you serious? About drinking their blood?”

His gaze caught hers, steady and unflinching. “If that’s what it would take to keep you safe,” he said, voice raw, “I’d do anything.”

Her breath stuttered. She looked at him, at the fangs that glinted when he spoke, and admitted softly, “They still terrify me. Just a little.”

Victor’s expression softened, his voice dropping low. “Then let me show you.” He leaned closer, lips parting just enough to bare them fully—sharp, gleaming, dangerous and beautiful. “You can look. Touch one, if you’re gentle. They’re not only harmful, Nova. And they’ll never be used on you, unless you ever wish it.”

Her hand trembled as she lifted it, fingers hovering in the air between them. Her pulse raced, fear and curiosity knotted together—but beneath it all, a growing trust that steadied her like nothing else could.

Chapter Text

Victor thought he’d known what it meant to be scrutinized. The Council, his brothers, the nobles of Forest Peak—all of them had weighed him on scales of tradition and found him lacking. He thought he’d built armor for it, learned how to laugh off stares and sharpen his charm into a shield.

But Nova’s eyes stripped him bare in a way none of them ever had.

At first, it was only his eyes. She studied them quietly, curiously, as though she might find the truth of him hidden in the shift between brown and the crimson glow that sometimes broke through. Then her gaze moved, lingering on his fangs—still bared, still gleaming faintly in the candlelight.

He expected her to flinch, to pull back the way every human was taught to. Instead she leaned closer, her breath steady, as though she had chosen to step into the shadow rather than be dragged.

“Fascinating,” she murmured, almost to herself.

Victor’s chest tightened.

Her eyes traced him slowly, deliberately, her attention so intense it left his skin tingling as though she were touching him everywhere at once. It was clinical and reverent all at once—like she was solving him, piece by piece, fitting him together in her mind until he was no longer a puzzle but something known.

“You move like you don’t even notice how strong you are,” she said softly. “But when you carry me, it feels like nothing could touch me. And your eyes—they scare me, but they’re beautiful, too. Like… storms I can stand inside of. And your voice—” She flushed, but pressed on. “It changes when you talk to me. Softer. Like you’re afraid I’ll break, even though I never have before.”

His own cheeks burned. Victor, who had flirted carelessly for decades, who had teased and taunted his way through every uncomfortable conversation, sat utterly silent. Useless.

She was taking him apart, piece by delicate piece, and all he could do was sit there and let her.

“Nova—” He tried, but the word caught in his throat.

Her lips quirked, as though she knew exactly what she was doing to him.

He finally snapped, though his voice came out lower than intended. “Is this another one of your seductions?”

Her expression sobered instantly. “No.” Her gaze didn’t waver. “I just… genuinely like looking at you.”

His heart gave a traitorous flutter, his head spinning. He couldn’t remember the last time words had left him this undone.

“You should sleep,” he managed at last, though the steadiness of his tone felt fragile. “Today was too much. It’s making you cheesy. Sentimental.”

She smiled faintly, settling back against the pillow. “Goodnight, Victor.” And then, before he could move, she leaned up and brushed her lips against his cheek.

The touch seared through him, small and impossibly powerful.

He left the room in a daze, closing the door softly behind him, his cheek still tingling where her kiss had landed.

And for the first time, he wondered if all the centuries before her had been nothing more than waiting.

Chapter Text

The door clicked shut behind him, and silence swallowed the room.

Nova lay back against the pillow, her heart still racing where her lips had brushed his cheek. She pressed her hands over her face, but it did nothing to steady the storm inside her.

It was one thing to survive Victor. To tolerate his smirks, his strange impulsive ways, his maddening protectiveness. It was another thing entirely to want him.

But she did. God, she did.

She wanted the way his arms felt around her, strong enough to quiet the world. She wanted the way his mouth lingered over words when he teased her, the way his eyes softened when he thought no one noticed. She wanted his laughter, his warmth, the sharp edge of his fangs—everything she’d been taught to fear.

More than anything, she wanted him to want her too.

The thought left her restless, her body too wired for sleep. She shifted under the blankets, the ache in her ankle nothing compared to the thrum of heat in her chest. All her life she had put up fronts—strong, sharp, impenetrable—but in front of Victor, the mask cracked and her feelings spilled over like water through a broken dam.

Her heart pounded harder with each breath, so loud she thought it might break her ribs. If it didn’t stop tonight, if she survived the weight of this overwhelming, unrelenting need, then tomorrow—

Tomorrow she would find out if he felt the same.

Chapter Text

Victor hadn’t slept.

He’d paced the halls until dawn, restless with the echo of her kiss still burning on his cheek. Every thought ended the same: Nova, her voice low and unguarded, her eyes heavy with truth. He had known hunger before, but this was something worse—something better.

When he finally knocked at her door the next morning, he told himself it was only to check her ankle. Practical. Necessary. Safe.

She was waiting for him.

Her hair was loose, her smile soft, and there was something in her eyes he couldn’t name without burning.

“How’s the ankle?” he asked, too brisk.

“Better,” she said, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She stood carefully, balancing herself on the bedpost, then stepped closer. Too close.

He backed up a fraction, heat crawling up his neck. “Don’t strain yourself.”

She tilted her head, that mischievous spark he thought he knew—but this time there was something heavier beneath it. “I’m fine,” she whispered. And then her hand brushed his chest, feather-light, lingering over his heartbeat.

Victor froze. His chest stuttered beneath her touch, every instinct screaming to pull her against him, to crush the distance. But fear clawed louder: if I lose control, if I hurt her—

He scrambled back a step, the movement clumsy. “Nova—” His voice cracked. “You should—sit. Rest.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t teasing. It was knowing.

The next attempt came when she reached for a book in the library. He was already beside her, plucking it from the high shelf, when she leaned just enough that her shoulder brushed his arm. Her eyes found his in the flickering candlelight, heavy, searching.

Victor nearly dropped the book. He thrust it into her hands and spun away, his pulse a thunderclap in his ears.

Twice now, he had run.

But Nova wasn’t discouraged. He could see it in her eyes, in the faint curl of her lips when he stumbled over his own restraint. She wasn’t teasing anymore. She was testing. Pushing.

And every time he faltered, she seemed only more determined.

By the third time her hand lingered on his, Victor knew he was one heartbeat away from surrendering. His restraint was crumbling, piece by piece, and he feared the moment it shattered completely.

Chapter Text

The first three attempts had failed.

Nova could admit it, if only to herself. A brush of her hand against his chest, a lingering shoulder against his arm, a touch of fingers when she passed him a book—each time, Victor scrambled back like a man on the edge of a cliff, terrified of falling.

And maybe he was. But that only made her more determined to push.

If her subtlety wasn’t enough, then she’d go bigger.

The fourth attempt came at breakfast, when she leaned across the table deliberately close, her breath grazing his cheek as she stole the bread roll from his plate instead of her own. He nearly choked on his water, coughing as if the universe had punished him for even breathing the same air.

The fifth was in the library again, where she stretched unnecessarily high for a book, letting her dress slip just slightly off one shoulder. He’d fumbled the quill in his hand, ink blotting across the parchment like a dark confession.

The sixth was simpler—she caught his hand mid-gesture, threaded her fingers through his, and refused to let go. He had stammered, actually stammered, before managing to free himself with an excuse about “needing to fetch something.”

And then came the seventh.

She waited until dusk, when the candlelight painted the study gold and shadow. Victor sat at the desk, his head bent over a tangle of letters. Nova crossed the room silently, leaning down until her lips hovered near his ear.

“Victor,” she whispered, soft enough to be mistaken for a thought.

He stilled, his quill hovering above parchment.

“If you keep doing this,” he said at last, his voice low and wrecked, “I’m going to want to kiss you senseless.”

Her pulse surged. She didn’t retreat, didn’t deflect with laughter or tease. Instead, she let the truth spill free, raw and steady.

“Maybe I want you to.”

The silence that followed was alive, thick with the sound of both their hearts beating far too fast.

For the first time, she saw his resolve fracture completely.

Chapter Text

He had survived battles, duels, even the suffocating politics of two councils tearing at his throat. He had survived hunger and loneliness, centuries of carrying the weight of an immortal name.

But he wasn’t sure he could survive Nova.

Her tests had come one after another, each more deliberate than the last. The bread stolen from his plate, the shoulder bared under candlelight, the stubborn hand twined in his until his own resolve nearly cracked apart. And then—the whisper in his ear, soft enough to be mistaken for a prayer.

Victor’s composure splintered.

He turned toward her, every muscle taut, every instinct screaming to pull her close and never let go. His fangs pressed against his lip, his breath came too fast, his heart—damn it all—his heart actually hurt.

“If you keep doing this,” he had warned, voice ragged, “I’m going to want to kiss you senseless.”

And then she had answered. Maybe I want you to.

The words struck him harder than any blade. For a heartbeat, he only stared at her, stunned into stillness by the sheer audacity of her honesty.

Then he cracked.

Victor rose from the chair in one smooth motion, the distance between them gone before she could blink. His hand found her cheek, his thumb brushing the warm line of her jaw, and for once he didn’t stop to think—he didn’t weigh consequences, didn’t fear his own strength.

He kissed her.

It wasn’t careful, not the way he’d promised himself it would be. It was too much, too long, the kind of kiss that came from weeks of restraint breaking in a single moment. But it was hers—entirely hers.

Nova leaned into him, answering without hesitation, her hands clutching his coat as if she’d been waiting just as long.

Victor’s world, once red with fury and hunger, went quiet.

When at last he pulled back, just enough to meet her eyes, he felt the tremor in his own voice. “You undo me,” he whispered, forehead resting against hers. “And I don’t even want to fight it anymore.”

Chapter Text

Her lips tingled. Her pulse still raced.

Nova had finally gotten what she wanted—Victor’s mouth on hers, his restraint shattered, his hands steady but desperate as they held her close. It felt like victory, but it also felt like something deeper, like breathing after nearly drowning.

When he leaned in to kiss her again, she stopped him with a palm to his chest. His eyes widened, worried he’d gone too far, but she shook her head quickly, her heart pounding with words that demanded to be spoken.

“I love you.”

The words tumbled out, unpolished and raw, but fierce with truth.

Victor stilled. His gaze searched hers, caught between wonder and disbelief.

“I needed you to know,” she pressed on, her voice trembling. “This isn’t just some game I wanted to win. It’s not just teasing, or testing, or… whatever you thought I was doing. I love you, Victor. I want you. All of you.”

Her throat tightened, but she forced herself to keep looking at him, even as her cheeks burned. “And I want you to love me back. So badly it hurts.”

Silence stretched between them, the kind of silence that held its breath before shattering into something new. She waited, terrified that she had ruined everything, that he would recoil or laugh or remind her of all the reasons this could never last.

But his hand was still on her cheek, and his thumb still traced the line of her jaw.

Nova swallowed hard. Her victory had never been about the kiss—it was this moment, this confession, this hope that he would claim her not just with his lips but with his heart.

Chapter Text

Victor let her words hang in the air, let them settle like drops of rain into the soil of his chest. I love you.

Nova squirmed under his silence, chewing her lip, her hands twitching as though she might snatch the words back before he could crush them. She opened her mouth again—probably to retreat, to call it a mistake—when he cut her off.

“I love you too.”

Her breath caught. Then she laughed, a quick, incredulous sound, and swatted his shoulder with both hands. “You let me wonder! You—”

He grinned, unrepentant, and before she could scold him further, he swept her off her feet, lifting her high into the air. Nova squealed as he spun her around the room, skirts flying, her laughter ringing so bright it drowned out the dark corners of the mansion.

God, he loved that sound.

He set her down gently, steadying her with hands still lingering at her waist, then pressed a quick, feather-light peck to her lips.

“Now,” he said, smirking, “go do something else. The wedding is in three days, and you’ve been nothing but a distraction while I try to untangle the last-minute details.”

Nova huffed, still breathless from laughing. “Fine. I’ll go find a dress.”

She turned toward the door, muttering something under her breath about “bossy vampires” as she left.

Victor leaned back against the desk once she was gone, his smile refusing to fade. He had centuries behind him, but for the first time, three days felt like forever.

Chapter Text

The castle smelled the way it always had—stone dust, candle wax, the faint echo of something older clinging to its walls. Nova hadn’t meant to wander here alone, but when she asked after a dress, no one in the city had offered help. Somehow, her steps had brought her back to Forest Peak.

She hadn’t expected Alaric.

“Looking for trouble?” he asked, leaning lazily against the stair rail when she nearly collided with him.

“No,” Nova answered cautiously. “A dress.”

His brow arched. “For the wedding?” At her nod, his mouth quirked. “As it happens, my wife’s a seamstress. Come.”

The seamstress’s chambers smelled of fabric and dye. Bolts of cloth leaned against the walls, pins glimmered in bowls, and sketches littered the tables. Alaric’s wife greeted Nova kindly, ushering her into the center of the room and circling with practiced eyes.

As she pinned fabric at Nova’s shoulders, Alaric lounged nearby, arms folded, watching.

“You’ve changed him,” he said suddenly.

Nova blinked. “What?”

“Victor,” Alaric clarified. “I’ve known that boy his whole life. Carefree. Irresponsible. Always running from one thrill to the next. Commitment was a word he couldn’t even pronounce, let alone consider. Yet here he is—ready to bind his eternity to a girl who walked into his garden.”

Nova smiled faintly, brushing her fingers over the fabric at her waist. “He’s changed me too. I used to think my life had no purpose. Now…” She swallowed. “Now it feels like it was waiting for this.”

Alaric tilted his head, studying her with eyes sharper than his jokes.

She laughed lightly, trying to cut the weight of his gaze. “He must love me or something.”

For once, Alaric’s tone was grave. “I think he might.”

Nova met his gaze, serious now. “I’ll do you one better. I know he does.”

The smile that spread across her face—unguarded, unshaken—was enough. Alaric leaned back, exhaling, and in that moment he understood what the Council had squabbled over, what Victor had risked. This wasn’t whim or rebellion. It was choice.

Later, when he dropped her back at the mansion, dress folded carefully over her arm, Victor was already waiting at the door. His eyes flicked from Nova to Alaric, suspicious, but Alaric only clapped a hand on his nephew’s shoulder.

“Your bride will be beautiful,” he said. Then, quieter: “And so will your life. I’m proud of you.”

Victor stiffened, startled, but before he could reply, Alaric was gone down the path, his cloak catching the torchlight like a shadow that almost smiled.

Chapter Text

The night before the wedding was not restful.

Victor found himself back in his old habit, pacing from room to room, picking up books to return to shelves, dusting corners no one would notice, straightening curtains for the third time. Every motion was a release valve for the storm gathering in his chest.

Nova, in her room, sat before the mirror with pins and ribbons scattered across the table, tugging at her hair in frustration. Should she braid it? Leave it down? Curl it? Nothing seemed right, and every choice felt heavier than it should.

They met in the hallway, both caught halfway between distractions. For a long, breathless moment, they only stared at each other, nerves humming between them like a drawn bowstring.

Then, at once, they moved.

The hug was fierce, grounding. Her arms locked around his waist; his chin rested in her hair. For a moment, the storm quieted.

Later, on the couch in the library, they sat close—too close for comfort, yet not close enough. Nova’s voice was soft, curious. “Tell me about vampire weddings. What traditions are we doing?”

Victor smirked faintly, though his nerves tugged at the edges. “Most of them are dramatic—blood vows, eternal oaths, ceremonies under moonlight. Some are for show. Some… matter.”

“Which ones will we do?”

“The ones you want,” he said simply. Then, after a pause: “Are there any Cityline traditions you want? Something from home?”

Nova thought for a moment, her head leaning against his shoulder. “There’s a song the brides sing when they walk through the square. It’s supposed to be about blessings, but really it’s about courage. I think I’d like to hum it, at least. Even if no one else knows the words.”

“Then hum it,” he said softly. “And I’ll know them through you.”

They talked like that for a long time—about what tomorrow would look like, about flowers and vows and the sound of laughter echoing through the halls. They spoke as if tomorrow was everything, as if the day ahead would be perfect and untouchable.

At some point, her words slowed, her breaths deepened, and she drifted off against his shoulder.

Victor smiled, reluctant to move, but careful all the same. He lifted her gently, carrying her down the hall, laying her onto her bed with reverence.

For a moment, he lingered, brushing a strand of hair from her forehead. Then he bent and pressed a kiss there, soft and lingering.

“Tomorrow,” he whispered.

And then he left, the door clicking shut on the quiet promise of forever.

Chapter Text

The morning light broke differently that day.

It spilled across Nova’s room in golden threads, catching on the folds of her gown draped neatly over the chair. The air itself felt charged, alive, as though the world had taken notice of what today was meant to be.

She lay awake long before the sun rose, her heart thundering too fast for sleep. Today. The word rang like a bell in her chest. Today she would walk into a life she’d never dared to imagine. Today she would stand beside Victor not as a sacrifice, not as a girl clawing for scraps of purpose, but as his bride.

Her hands trembled as she brushed through her hair. Pins clattered against the vanity, ribbons waiting to be chosen. Nothing seemed enough—too plain, too fine, too much. And yet, it was all for him, and that thought steadied her.

Down the hall, she could hear faint noises: the shuffle of servants setting tables, the muffled voices of guards who had grown less hostile over the last few days. Somewhere deeper in the mansion, Victor’s footsteps echoed—quick, purposeful, betraying nerves he would never admit aloud.

Nova pressed her palm against her chest, laughing breathlessly at herself. “Get it together,” she whispered.

A knock sounded at her door. Elise’s voice, warm and teasing: “May we come in?”

Her sisters spilled into the room, arms full of flowers and laughter. Maren tugged the pins from her hands. Jo circled her like a sparrow, eyes wide with excitement. They fussed, they teased, they arranged her hair until the mirror reflected not just a girl but a bride.

When the last ribbon was tied, Nova exhaled shakily. “I don’t feel ready.”

Elise squeezed her shoulders. “Then it’s perfect. Because he’ll make you feel ready the moment you see him.”

Nova smiled, tears pricking her eyes.

For the first time in her life, the future didn’t look empty. It looked like something she wanted.

And it was waiting at the end of the aisle.

Chapter Text

Victor had never been nervous before. Not when his name was called in the council chamber. Not when he faced down Alaric’s barbed teasing. Not even when he’d stood at the edge of the forest, told to sink his fangs into a life he hadn’t wanted to end.

But now—waiting at the altar, the stone hall lit with hundreds of candles, every set of eyes fixed on him—his hands wouldn’t still.

And then she appeared.

Nova stepped into the doorway, her gown a cascade of ivory and soft light, her hair woven with ribbons and wildflowers that caught the flicker of flames. She hummed softly as she walked, a tune only a handful in the room might know—the Cityline bridal song. Courage. Blessing.

Victor’s throat closed. For all his centuries, he had never seen anything so breathtaking. Not just beautiful—though she was that—but luminous with something no crown or council could bestow. Purpose.

His purpose.

When she reached him, her eyes lifted, and for a heartbeat, it was only the two of them.

The ceremony blurred, though he tried to hold each moment in his mind: the reading of vows older than stone, the binding of hands with crimson ribbon, the ring slipping onto her finger with his trembling hands.

“Do you swear to guard her, to honor her, to choose her in all things?” the officiant intoned.

Victor’s voice did not shake. “I swear.”

“And do you, Nova of Cityline, swear the same?”

Her gaze never left his. “I swear.”

The hall erupted when they kissed—her lips soft and certain against his, the ribbon warm between their joined hands. He didn’t care who saw, didn’t care if the world called him weak. In that moment, weakness was joy.

Later, as the ribbons were cut and the guests poured into the adjoining hall, music rising with laughter, Victor stood with Nova’s hand still in his. Candles glowed, goblets clinked, and voices carried, but he heard none of it.

All he heard was her laugh when he spun her into the first dance. All he saw was the smile that told him forever had already begun.

The after party began, full of clamor and celebration. And for the first time, Victor did not think of shadows or hunger or tradition.

He thought only of her.

Chapter Text

Nova had never seen so many candles lit at once. The great hall glowed like starlight had been trapped within its walls, every corner gilded with warmth. Music carried on the air—violins, laughter, the clink of goblets—and for the first time in her life, she felt like she belonged in the center of it all.

Victor hadn’t left her side, not for a moment. His hand in hers was steady, grounding, even as guests swirled around them, congratulating, bowing, offering smiles both genuine and stiff. She barely heard them. All she could hear was her own heartbeat, the word bride echoing like a bell in her chest.

And then came the speeches.

First, her sisters. Elise stood tall, Maren fidgeted with her sleeves, Jo grinned as if she’d burst otherwise. Elise’s voice carried across the room, steady but warm. She spoke of attic nights, whispered secrets, of Nova’s stubbornness and her bravery.

“You were never meant to fade into the background,” Elise said, lifting her goblet. “And now, everyone sees what we always knew. To courage, to love, to Nova.”

Nova’s cheeks burned hot, tears threatening, and she clung tighter to Victor’s hand as the hall cheered.

Then Alaric stepped forward, smirking as if he were about to make trouble—but his voice came softer than expected.

“When Victor was younger,” Alaric began, “I never imagined I’d see him like this. He was reckless, restless. Always running from something, or toward it, never content to stand still. And yet—here he stands. Still. Chosen. Changed.”

His gaze flicked to her. “I didn’t understand it at first, why he broke tradition for you. But tonight—watching the way he looks at you—I do. You’ve given him something the rest of us couldn’t. Something I don’t think he even knew he wanted.”

He raised his goblet high. “To Victor and Nova. May your eternity together be brighter than any candle in this hall.”

The cheer that followed made her chest ache in the best way. She laughed, half-choked on tears, and glanced up at Victor. His eyes shone with pride—not for himself, but for her.

In that moment, Nova realized: this wasn’t just a celebration of a wedding. It was a celebration of survival, of choice, of love she had never dared hope for.

She lifted her own goblet, smiling so wide it hurt. To forever, she thought, and let the warmth of the room sink into her bones.

Chapter Text

The hall buzzed with warmth and clamor—goblets clinking, shoes tapping across the stone floor, voices rising in cheer. But Victor barely heard any of it. His world narrowed to the girl laughing in his arms. His wife.

Nova’s cheeks were flushed from dancing, her hair slightly undone, ribbons slipping free. She looked more radiant than any queen in her polished crown. Every time she smiled, something inside Victor tightened, that familiar flicker in his chest sparking into flame.

He’d lived centuries without knowing what this felt like—joy so consuming it almost hurt.

“Enjoying yourself?” she teased, brushing stray strands of hair from her face as they swayed near the edge of the dance floor.

“Immensely,” he murmured, and pressed a fleeting kiss to her temple. He didn’t care who saw. Let them all know.

But even as he basked in her glow, another thought coiled in his chest. Something heavier. Something he could no longer ignore.

When the music shifted and the crowd turned their attention to the food tables, Victor guided Nova to a quieter corner of the hall. She tilted her head at him curiously, her goblet in hand.

“Victor?”

He studied her, memorizing the exact shade of her eyes, the exact curve of her lips. And then, steady but soft, he asked:

“Do you want to be turned?”

She blinked.

“Not now,” he added quickly, his hand tightening around hers. “But… soon. So we can stay like this for infinity. So there’s never a day I have to watch you slip away while I remain.”

Nova’s lips parted, her breath catching, the weight of his words sinking between them.

“I don’t ask lightly,” he went on, voice rougher now. “This isn’t tradition, or duty, or anything the Council can dictate. It’s us. It’s forever. And I want to know if you want that too.”

The music swelled behind them, laughter carrying, but Victor heard nothing—nothing but the pounding of her heart against his palm where their hands met.

Chapter Text

The music blurred into a distant hum. The clink of goblets, the laughter of her sisters, the shuffling of feet—all of it slipped away the moment Victor’s words settled in her chest.

Do you want to be turned? Not now, but soon. So we can stay like this for infinity.

Nova’s fingers tightened around his instinctively, as if to anchor herself. Her heart pounded so violently she was certain he could hear every beat.

Immortality.

It had always been a word whispered in fear. A curse, a fate worse than death. The thought of fangs in her neck had haunted her since childhood, and even now she could still feel the faint sting of terror when she pictured it.

But then she looked at him.

Victor’s eyes weren’t cold or cruel. They weren’t commanding, the way the councilors’ eyes always had been. They were steady. Vulnerable. Asking, not demanding.

Her fear unraveled in that gaze.

Did she want to live forever in attic beds, as a purposeless girl who had nothing to her name? No. But forever here, in his arms, with his laughter filling the halls and his love anchoring her?

Yes.

The thought burned through her so clear it shocked her into breathless laughter. She pressed her free hand against his chest, staring at him like he was both the question and the answer.

“I was terrified of this once,” she admitted softly. “Of you. Of your fangs. Of everything it meant. But now…” Her throat tightened, and she forced the words out anyway. “Now I think I’d rather risk forever with you than one more day without.”

Victor’s lips parted, his breath catching.

Her smile wavered but held. “So yes. Not now, not tonight. But someday, when it’s right. I want you to turn me.”

She felt the relief ripple through him before she even saw his smile. He pulled her close, his forehead resting against hers, their joined hands pressed between them like a vow.

For the first time, the word forever didn’t scare her. It thrilled her.

Chapter Text

Victor had expected hesitation. He had braced himself for fear, for the silence that would tell him she wasn’t ready, for the sting of rejection wrapped in her gentle voice.

He had not expected her laughter.

It spilled from her like light through cracks in stone, fragile and radiant, a sound that banished centuries of shadows in an instant. And then her words—her yes. Not tonight, not yet, but someday. A promise.

Victor felt something loosen in his chest, something he hadn’t realized he’d been holding all this time. Relief poured through him, so fierce it almost buckled his knees. He pulled her close, clutching her as though the world might still try to pry her away.

She chose forever.

He buried his face in her hair, inhaling the faint scent of flowers from her crown, and for a moment, time ceased. No councils, no threats, no blood-hunger gnawing at his ribs. Just Nova’s hand in his, her heartbeat against his palm, and the knowledge that someday that heartbeat would be his to guard eternally.

The thought should have terrified him. Responsibility of that magnitude should have sent him spiraling. But instead, it steadied him.

Because it wasn’t just about turning her. It was about everything that came with it. Building a life together, day after day, century after century. Facing the weight of eternity with someone who made it feel like joy instead of punishment.

He pulled back just enough to look at her, committing her face to memory: the courage in her eyes, the softness in her smile, the way she looked utterly unafraid.

“I’ll wait,” he whispered, voice rough with the strain of holding so much love inside. “However long it takes. When you’re ready—then. Not a moment sooner.”

Nova nodded, and the smile she gave him was brighter than the candlelit hall.

Victor exhaled slowly, finally letting himself believe it. For the first time since the day of his birth, the word forever didn’t feel like a sentence. It felt like a gift.

And it was hers to give.

Chapter Text

By the time the music softened and the last of the goblets were drained, Nova’s cheeks ached from smiling. Her sisters had long since fallen into chairs, their shoes abandoned beneath the tables. Even Alaric had slipped away with a muttered toast, though she caught the flicker of approval in his eyes before he disappeared into the night.

Victor remained at her side through it all. Always steady, always there. When the last candle was snuffed, he bent close, his voice warm in her ear. “Home?”

She nodded, too tired for words, and let herself sink into the circle of his arms as he carried her from the hall.

The house greeted them like an old friend waiting in the dark.

Victor carried her over the threshold, his steps unhurried, reverent. She laughed softly, burying her face against his chest, but when he set her down, she turned to look back at the place that had become theirs.

The porch stretched wide and deep, its planks creaking with memory beneath their weight. Lanterns dangled from crooked hooks, some glowing faintly, some dark as if deciding whether to join the celebration. The front door loomed heavy and scarred, but its handle gleamed where countless hands had touched it, a reminder that life had always found its way inside.

Beyond the door, windows winked with light—one upstairs flickering like a watchful eye, another glowing steady and golden in the study. Shadows shifted behind curtains, soft and harmless: the echo of a house lived in, not haunted.

From within came the low groan of wood settling, the faint rattle of wind teasing through loose shingles. The forest pressed close, its branches scratching gently against the eaves, whispering secrets to the stone. An owl called in the distance, answered by the hush of leaves.

It was imperfect. Crooked shingles, mismatched stones, lanterns that burned only when they pleased. But it was alive.

And as Nova stood there, hand resting on Victor’s, she thought: so was she.

Chapter Text

The months passed quickly, quietly, in the way only peace could. The mansion was no longer haunted—it breathed. Curtains hung where broken shutters once clattered, lanterns burned steady, laughter echoed in halls that had known only silence for decades.

On the morning of their shared nineteenth birthday, Nova woke to sunlight spilling across the bed and Victor pacing nervously at the foot of it.

“You’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” she teased, sitting up and rubbing her eyes.

He stopped, sheepish, running a hand through his hair. “I just… don’t want to rush you.”

Her heart fluttered, both at his nerves and at the memory of the promise she’d made months ago. Today, she was ready.

“Victor,” she said gently, holding out her hand. “I want this. I want you. Forever.”

He crossed to her in a breath, taking her hand as though it were fragile glass. His eyes glowed faintly crimson, his fangs catching in the light as he hesitated. “It will hurt.”

“I can take it.” Her voice didn’t waver.

He leaned closer, brushing his lips against her cheek first, then her jaw, then resting against the place where her pulse beat strongest. For a heartbeat, she thought he might pull away again. But then—

The bite came quick and sharp. Jarring, enough to make her flinch. A strange mix of pain and surrender, foreign and electric. But his arms were steady around her, holding her through it, and the rush of warmth that followed softened the edges of fear.

Her breath came fast, her heart racing, but beneath it all was something steadier: trust. He would never use this power to harm her. Only to bind them closer.

When he pulled back at last, crimson staining his lips, his eyes were wet with more than hunger. “You’re mine,” he whispered, voice breaking.

“And you’re mine,” she answered, pressing her forehead to his.

The rest of the day unfolded in simple, domestic pieces—cake that crumbled under their fingers, flowers her sisters had delivered, the sound of Victor humming badly while he tried to fix the dripping sink. They laughed, they teased, they touched lightly and often, as if reassurance had become their second language.

For all its oddities—for the jarring memory of the bite, for the strangeness of immortality beginning—life felt soft. Sweet. Full of promise.

Nova lay curled against him that night, her body still buzzing from the change, and thought: We are happy. We will be happy. Forever.

Outside, the lanterns glowed steady against the forest dark, and the house seemed to sigh in contentment with them.