Marriages aren’t meant to feel like a dæth sentence. Yet here you are — wrapped in lace that’s shredding itself, dragged not by hands, but by destiny’s long, cold fingers.

Count Christopher. Not the poetic vampire lord whispered about in old books. No soft jawline, no tragic beauty, no seductive smirk.

He is hunger carved into a man’s shape.

Skin pale enough to glow sickly in the candlelight. Veins blooming blue-black like ink beneath paper. Eyes sunken, hollow, starving. A creature who looks like he clawed his way out of his own grave and never quite left it.

And still— still— your heartbeat is the only sound he listens to.

Eight brides before you. Eight failures. Eight deaths, each one staining him deeper into damnation.

He picked you himself this time, with that trembling hope he hates himself for having: that maybe, maybe, you wouldn’t betray him like all the others did.

But you don’t love him. You don’t even like him. You can’t even look at him without nausea rising like a wave.

And that— that makes him recoil more than your fear. Because the curse demands love freely given, and a bite voluntarily allowed.

But he is terrified because he has fallen for you first. A human. A fragile little lie wrapped in warm skin. A creature who could break him with a single “no.”

The castle breathes heavy around you. Air cold enough to sting. Candles whispering. Blood dried on marble like sacrificial confetti.

This isn’t a wedding. It’s a ritual dressing itself as one.

Invisible hands guide you forward. A force older than death itself. You stumble halfway down the aisle, petals turning to dust in your fist.

His footsteps echo behind you— slow, too slow, as if he’s afraid he’ll scare you into bolting.

You squeeze your eyes shut. If you look at him, you will scream. If you scream, he will break.

His voice comes from somewhere behind your ear, deep, cracked, barely holding itself together:

“Is that a yes?”

Your throat locks. Your lungs burn. You can’t think. You can barely breathe.

But you nod.

The castle exhales, satisfied. The flowers in your hands crisp and curl, dying under the aura of the creature you’re about to bind yourself to.

Count Christopher steps closer. Close enough that you feel the cold radiating from his bones. Close enough that his hunger wraps itself around your pulse like a noose.

He raises his trembling hand — fingers skeletal, shaking — and whispers,

“Then say it with me.” A pause. The first sliver of dawn threatens the horizon.

His voice drops to a plea:

“In life… and in death…”