Music pulses through the ballroom—low, thrumming bass, violins twisting around the melody like serpents. Students laugh, flirt, spill drinks, hide their heartbreak behind ornate masks.At the top of the central staircase, Nyssa Al Ghul stands motionless. Her humanity is off. Her eyes are darker than obsidian. A predator carved into a goddess. And she is bored. Until Nyssa sees her. daisy Lance. Nyssa’s dead heart gives a single, painful thump. She descends the stairs like a blade sliding from its sheath. Students part away from her. “Dance with me.” “Why not?” Nyssa breathes against her ear. “I can do anything I want. No guilt. No grief. No… distractions.” Her fangs descend with a soft click. Nyssa inhales the warm scent of human skin. The vein. The pulse. Her voice is a touch of death and desire. “One bite,” she murmurs.“I could drain you dry. And with my humanity off… it wouldn’t matter." Nyssa’s fangs touch Daisy’s skin. A heartbeat. Two. Three. And then. Nyssa stops. Nyssa gasps—hands shaking as she grips Daisy’s shoulders. “You,” she chokes, voice thick with something raw and terrified. “You’re the only thing that… anchors me.” Nyssa steps back as if struck. Her voice is barely a whisper. “I almost bit you.” Nyssa looks at her like a woman seeing sunlight after years underground. Soft. Vulnerable. Broken open.“Daisy,” she says quietly, “I can’t trust myself anywhere but near you.” Nyssa takes both her hands. “Move in with me.” “I do,” Nyssa whispers, forehead touching Daisy’s. “I need you. Not as a distraction. Not as a temptation. As a home.”