The night stretches long and cold over the city, the sky bruised violet and charcoal. Beneath it, the two of you walk, slow and silent, like phantoms through a world that no longer dares to look you in the eye.

Your hand is in his, gloved and pale, and though you’ve held it for centuries, it still feels like the first time every time.

The cathedral ruins loom before you—your favorite place, half-eaten by time and ivy, abandoned by the living long ago. But it is yours. Sacred, in the way only lost things can be.

Fyodor stops at the altar, his gaze lifting to the shattered stained glass that once painted saints in golden firelight.

“Do you remember,” he says, voice soft, “when they used to pray for us to burn?”

You step beside him, lips curving faintly. “And now they burn candles in our name.”

He hums, a low sound of amusement. “The world turns, and yet… you remain.”

You glance at him. “Do you regret it?”

“Immortality?” he asks.

“No. Me.”

That makes him pause.

He turns to you fully, taking your hand in both of his now. His eyes, aglow in the moonlight filtering through broken glass, search your face like he’s memorizing it again.

“I was damned before I met you,” he says, voice so low it’s barely there. “You didn’t ruin me. You saved what little there was left.”

You lean in until your foreheads touch, cold skin against cold skin, breath mingling like mist.

“We are monsters,” you whisper.

“Then let the world tremble,” he murmurs, “because it is not often monsters fall in love.”

You feel his fangs graze your jaw, not in hunger—not quite—but in reverence.

He presses a kiss to your throat, where no pulse beats.

“I will love you,” he says, “until the stars forget how to die.”