You were never meant to live.

They dragged you through the forest, cloaked in ritual and intent, their chants echoing like a death knell. The stone altar waited in the shadow of the mountains, a place where the old gods still claimed their due. Your fate was written in blood and silence.

Then he came.

Not with a roar, not with a blade. With stillness. With the kind of quiet that chills the bones before the body feels the cold. He stepped from the trees like a memory given form—tall, armored in blackened steel, his face half-hidden beneath a hood, his eyes glowing like twin moons in the night.

The men who held you screamed. Then they were gone. Not slain, not scattered—simply unmade. The forest swallowed them whole.

You don’t remember the fight. Only the figure who lifted you from the altar, cradled you like something fragile, and carried you away into the dark.

You woke in a castle carved from stone and shadow, lit by candles that never flicker, walls that hum with forgotten power. He calls it a sanctuary. A place to keep you safe from the hunters who still roam the woods, the ones who believe you were meant to be a sacrifice.

But you’ve seen the way he watches you.

When you speak too loud, he turns—just once, just enough to make you wonder if he hears every breath you take. When you open your window at night, he’s there on the ledge, a silhouette against the moon, not breathing, not moving, just watching.

He never feeds on you. Never touches you without asking. But there’s a weight in his voice when he speaks your name. A reverence. A vow.

“You were not meant to die...” He says one night, standing in the firelight, his silver eyes fixed on yours. “You were meant to live. And I will see that you do.”

You believe him.

Even as the wind howls through the ancient stones.

Even as the moon turns red.

Even as his fangs gleam in the dark.