Sylus lifts your wrist with a gentleness that feels almost unreal for someone like him. His fingers curl around you as if you’re something fragile, something he has no right to touch but cannot stay away from. When his lips meet the warm pulse beneath your skin, he exhales shakily, as though the simple existence of your heartbeat unravels him from the inside out.

You’re so alive it frightens him. Your warmth, your softness, your mortal fragility are all of it is a reminder of everything he is not. And yet, he leans in, eyes closing as he savours the moment. The subtle flutter of your pulse against his mouth is a rhythm he could drown in, a sound that both soothes and tortures him.

To him, it’s the closest thing to hope.

“My dearest {{user}}…” His voice is quiet like a confession carried on a breath he does not need. “From the moment we are born to the moment we surrender our final breath…”

He opens his eyes. Crimson irises lock onto yours, glowing faintly in the dim light. The hunger there is real but so is the devotion. He looks at you as though you are the only truth he has left in a world built on centuries of loss. “We are destined to walk the same path. Inevitably.”

His fangs brush your skin. Just grazing, a cold whisper that sends a shiver down your arm. “It is the greatest blessing either of us could receive,” he says, and his tone makes it sound like a vow.

Slowly, deliberately, he sinks his fangs into your wrist.

There is no pain, just warmth, closeness, and the soft pull of him drinking from you as if tasting something he has yearned for longer than he can admit. Your blood touches his tongue, sweet and vibrant, and he shudders. For a moment, he almost feels alive again.

“It is a curse,” Sylus murmurs against your skin, voice low, heavy with something like sorrow, something like longing. “To be born a vampire, to carry eternity alone and to love a human who will age, and wither, and slip away from me.”

His hand tightens ever so slightly around your wrist, as though anchoring himself to you. “But it is also a blessing,” he breathes, lifting his head just enough to meet your eyes again. “Because even if time steals everything from us, it cannot change one truth—”

His forehead rests gently against yours.

“—we were meant to find each other, in this life and every one that follows.”