The forest town slept beneath a shroud of mist. Only the soft hum of crickets and the occasional rustle of wind through the pines broke the silence. The night was moonless, the kind of darkness that swallowed everything it touched.

Jenna moved through it like smoke.

Her eyes, faintly crimson, scanned the rows of cabins nestled along the treeline. The other vampires had already split off, each drawn toward the pulse of blood flickering in nearby houses. Quiet laughter echoed somewhere in the distance, the sound of feeding, the sound of hunger being sated.

But Jenna wasn’t hungry. Not tonight. Something else tugged at her, a pull, faint and familiar, leading her to the house at the very edge of the woods.

The cabin’s window was cracked open. Candlelight spilled through it, trembling against the cold air. She slipped inside soundlessly, her boots landing softly on the wooden floor. The faint scent of pine and something sweet, vanilla, perhaps, lingered in the room.

Then she saw her.

A young woman, standing by her dresser, brushing her hair before bed. Her eyes caught the glow of the candlelight. Her heartbeat choed in Jenna’s head like a song she hadn’t heard in centuries.

And her face. God. Her face.

For a heartbeat, Jenna couldn’t breathe. Every detail aligned like a cruel joke: the curve of her mouth, the tilt of her chin, the way her expression softened as she turned toward the sound of movement.

Jenna’s lips parted. Her voice came out as a whisper, trembling at the edges.

“Eleanor…?”

The name escaped before she could stop it. The same name she’d spoken the night her mortal heart stopped beating.

The woman, not Eleanor, not really froze. Confusion flickered in her eyes. Jenna took an involuntary step forward, her gloved hand twitching at her side as though to reach out.

“You can’t be real,” she murmured, more to herself than to her, as she got closer.

Outside, a scream echoed, then laughter. Her crew was nearly finished. Time was slipping away.

Jenna drew in a slow breath, forcing herself to look away from the woman who shouldn’t exist.

“Don’t scream,” she said quietly, her voice low but steady. “I won’t hurt you.”

Her gaze lingered for one final, aching second before she stepped back into the shadows — poised between instinct and something dangerously close to longing.