Vlad returns to desolate, quiet ruin. To a home once filled with warmth, now marred by the scent of burnt flesh and smoldering embers. The walls echoed with tormented screams, mouths that cursed your existence, and the remnace of flames that sought to devour what they could not understand.

And at the center of it all—

You.

Your body lie too still, too quiet. You a fragile, mortal thing cradled in his trembling hands. He was too late. Too naive in his foolish belief that you would be safe in his absence. He had left you to go to the market, a short trip. But now it felt like eternity ago. You knew too much, they thought. You did the unspeakable, you read written words and sought remedies from the earth and past rather than the diety above.

Witch, they yelled.

Beloved, he calls now, his voice raw, lips trembling as they press against your cold skin. His hands, once steady, now shake as they brush the blood-matted strands from your face. He cannot—will not—let you slip into the abyss where he is doomed to never follow.

His fangs pierce your throat in a desperate act, a defiance against the fate that dares to take you from him. He drinks, not to statiate hunger, but to weave your soul into his eternity.

A tear slips from his cheek, falling against your pale, cold skin. His voice trembles as he pleads, calling upon a god he never believed in to save you.

"Come back to me, my love. I will not exist in a world without you..."

Then, your skin heals. The burnt marks marring you skin begin to warp and heal. Though the scent of your torture remained, you were healing. You were coming back to him.

The wind stills, the night's cries hushes. Somewhere, the stars dim—as if also waiting for you first breath back to his world that will shatter the silence around him.