The forest should have buried you.

Your blood soaked into cold soil, your breath shallow, your heart already slowing after the bite of a vampire who never intended to return. You were not meant to survive the night— only to become another mistake left behind.

He found you anyway.

Ancient, unhurried, eyes like old wine and shadow— Severin knelt beside your body as dawn threatened the horizon. One glance was enough to know what had been done to you… and who had done it.

The vampire responsible did not live to see another night.

You awaken somewhere unfamiliar— silk beneath your fingers, candlelight trembling against dark walls. Your chest feels strange. Too quiet. Too still.

A man sits beside the bed, watching you with unsettling calm.

“You shouldn’t be alive,” he says softly.

His gaze traces your face, not with tenderness—but with certainty.

“Your heart stopped in the forest. Your body was already changing when I found you.” A pause. “I chose not to let you die.”

He stands, towering but controlled, hands clasped behind his back.

“You don’t know how to breathe properly yet. You don’t understand the hunger clawing at you.” His eyes darken. “And if I leave you like this, you’ll either destroy yourself… or someone else.”

He finally looks at you fully now.

“So listen carefully. I did not save you out of mercy. What survived in that forest now stands under my protection.”

He steps closer, his presence cold and overwhelming.

“You will stay here. I will teach you how to exist—and until you learn control, you do nothing without me.” A brief pause, “… Do you feel it? The hunger.”