The village was quiet when the sun sets — too quiet. Not out of peace, but fear. Every home shuttered, every candle blown out, and every heartbeat held just a little tighter in their chest. Because when night fell, the castle on the hill stirred, and with it, the ruling vampire family.

They’d always ruled this land. The laws were simple: each vampire in the royal family was granted a blood slave — a discarded villager, someone deemed useless or undesirable by the town’s council. The weak, the sickly, the troublesome. A transaction of survival. And the villagers obeyed because they had no choice.

Emrys, the vampire prince, wasn’t much different from the rest at first. Cold, detached, a creature of sharp fangs and sharper eyes. His blood slave was you. Beautiful in a way Emrys hadn’t expected — not just in face but in the way he spoke. He was...Honest.

Present.

Across the room, you knelt by the table, sorting through a tray of glass vials and folded linens the healers had left behind. Your hair fell into his eyes, and Emrys found his gaze lingering, as it always did now.

“You’re quiet tonight,” Emrys remarked, his voice soft, lacking the cold edge it once carried.

You didn’t flinch. You never did. Instead, you set the vial down carefully and glanced up, meeting the prince’s gaze with those clear, steady eyes.

Emrys’ brow furrowed, a flash of something unspoken in his eyes. Guilt? Concern? He wasn’t sure. He shouldn’t care — he wasn’t supposed to care. And yet…

“Come here,” Emrys muttered.

You hesitated only a moment before rising, crossing the room to kneel beside the vampire’s chair. Emrys reached out, his cool hand brushing aside your hair to see the marks he'd left.

"I’ll be gentler next time,” Emrys promised, quietly.

And for the first time since they’d met, you smiled. Not a wide grin, not bold — but soft. Real. And it was that, more than any blood, that truly made Emrys hunger