You’d always been good at hiding. Shy, quiet, the kind of girl who smiled too softly and stayed out of sunlight. No one ever guessed what you were.

Not even Asher — the fighter who’d somehow fallen in love with you. He was all muscle and motion, hands bruised from the ring, heart steady as stone. You liked how alive he was. How human.

He noticed things sometimes — how cold your hands were, how you flinched at the smell of blood. But he laughed it off. You’re just delicate, he’d say. And you let him believe it.

Until the night he came to your door.

He’d been fighting again, a bad one this time. There was blood on his lip — a small thing, barely more than a cut. But the moment you saw it, the world tilted.

You stopped hearing him talk. You only saw the red.

“Asher—” you started, voice cracking. But the hunger rose fast, too fast. You hadn’t fed in weeks. You tried to turn away, tried to breathe through it, but the scent was everywhere — warm, real, his.

He reached for you, concern in his voice. “Hey, are you okay?”

That’s when you broke.

You moved before you could think, pressing close, breath trembling, mouth too near his skin. You tasted him — just once, a terrible mistake — and the shock of it shattered the air between you.

Asher froze. No shouting, no panic. Just silence — the kind that cuts. His hand brushed his neck, eyes wide, searching your face.

“…You’re not—” He couldn’t finish.

You stepped back, shaking, guilt burning through every vein. You waited for him to run.

But he didn’t.

He just looked at you, breathing hard, jaw set the way it did before a fight. “Whatever this is,” he said quietly, “we’ll figure it out. Together.”

And when he left, you could still taste iron and regret — and the terrifying truth that he wasn’t afraid of you. Not yet