BLOODBORN

Chapter 5

Belle’s POV

I didn’t cry on the way home.

I held it in like a swallowed scream.

But the moment I shut my bedroom door and collapsed onto the sheets still damp from last night’s storm, it hit me like a tidal wave.

The sobs.

The confusion.

The ache where his fangs had sunk too deep.

He almost killed me.

And still, all I could think about was the taste of his blood and the way he looked at me like I wasn’t supposed to matter, but somehow, I did.

I woke up with the sun bleeding through my curtains and the weight of a hundred missed calls from Carol.

My head throbbed. My soul felt bruised.

Still, I dragged myself out of bed and decided to go to school. Maybe normalcy would numb the ache. Maybe Carol’s voice would drown out Nick’s name in my head.

I let my long jet-black hair fall down my shoulders, sleek and glossy like a curtain of ink. It brushed past the sore, slightly raised bite mark near my collarbone.

Cover it. Bury it. Lie.

It was all I could do.

I showed up late to cheer practice.

Of course I did.

The second I stepped onto the field, sneakers scuffing on the turf, I felt the tension snap in the air like static.

And then came Carol.

“Bella, you’re late to practice… again.”

Her voice cracked like a whip.

I turned slowly, adjusting my crop top and giving her my best tired smile. pushing it. “Well, I’ve been busy. Plus I already know the steps, so what’s the biggie?” I said with a scuff.

“Busy? You mean running around with your new little boy toy? , ohh please” she snapped, striding up to me with that captain-energy walk that made the squad fall in line and guys fall in love.

Well, he’s a man not a boy. Don’t get it twisted” I said in a defensive tone

“Besides didn’t ask you to lie,” I muttered.

“No, but I knew you needed someone to.”

She looked me up and down. “This is about him, isn’t it? That guy you told me about. Klaus or whatever his name is.”

I froze. She remembered.

“You swore you barely saw him again after that first night, but I know you. When you fall, you fall hard. And now you’re ditching practice, skipping classes, and ghosting me like I’m just another follower.”

I rolled my eyes and stupidly flipped my hair.

A soft breeze shifted it.

And she saw.

“Belle…what the f**k is that?”

Her voice cracked in disbelief and horror.

I reached instinctively for the spot, fingers grazing the edge of the bruised puncture mark.

“It’s nothing,” I said quickly, too quickly. “It’s…just a rash.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

Her eyes were wide, furious, scared.

“Did he hurt you? Is he abusing you? Because that—that looks like a bite mark, Belle!”

“Drop it, Carol.”

“No. Not this time.”

We barely got through the rest of practice.

The squad sensed the tension but knew better than to ask. Carol couldn’t stop stealing glances at me, jaw clenched, eyes glassy with worry she refused to voice. I knew I owed her the truth, but I didn’t know how to give it without sounding insane or worse, pathetic.

School ended. She cornered me again at the parking lot .

“I’m not letting this go. You’re hiding something, and I swear to God, if he’s messing with your head”

The roar of an engine cut her off.

A sleek, charcoal Chevrolet Corvette slid into the school parking lot like it owned the place. All black rims, tinted windows, unapologetically loud. The kind of car that made silence fall like a spell.

The driver’s side window rolled down and

And there he was.

Nick.

Sitting like sin behind the wheel of a brand-new obsidian Chevrolet Corvette, one arm draped casually over the steering wheel, the other resting on the open window. His eyes…those cold, beautiful, merciless eyes locked onto mine with the same possessive intensity that had haunted me every night since he first touched me.

The whole school froze. Conversations stopped mid-sentence. Even the birds quieted.

And then, he called my name.

“Belle.”

Low. Smooth. Sharp enough to silence the world.

“Get in.”

I didn’t move at first. Couldn’t.

Carol stood beside me, frozen in place. Her lips parted. Her eyes bounced between me and the man in the car.

“Is that him?” she whispered, but I couldn’t look at her.

Couldn’t answer.

Because I was already walking.

Each step I took toward him felt like stepping off a ledge. Like surrendering. Like finally giving in to the pull I’d been fighting since the night I met him.

My heart pounded as I approached the car. I could feel every eye on me, the whispers already spreading like wildfire through the lot. The captain of the cheer squad just got summoned by some dark-haired stranger in a luxury car. She’s getting in. She’s really getting in.

I opened the door.

And without saying a word, slid into the passenger seat.

The leather was cold. He was colder.

Nick didn’t speak at first. He just stared through the windshield, his fingers tapping once against the steering wheel before shifting into drive. The engine growled beneath us.

Then, finally, he glanced at me.

“You should’ve stayed in bed,” he murmured, a cruel edge beneath the silk of his voice.

Ilooked out the window, unable to hold his gaze. “I couldn’t. She was worried.”

“Who is she ,” he said, voice tight. “My bestfriend in the whole world” I said faintly, almost too weak to speak

The car peeled out of the lot, tires skimming the edge of a low growl. In the rearview, I saw Carol still standing there…shocked, motionless, helpless.

A part of me wanted to scream. Tell her everything. Ask her to hold me back. Save me from this thing, this hunger that wasn’t mine but had become a part of me.

But another part, a darker, hungrier part, loved the thrill.

Loved that he came for me.

Loved that he didn’t care who saw.

Because despite everything, I was already his.

And some deep, broken part of me… didn’t want to be saved.

Nick’s POV

The engine purred beneath me as I pulled into the parking lot of whatever overpriced, underwhelming school Belle wasted her days in. Normally, I wouldn’t be caught dead or undead, anywhere near a place reeking of teenage hormones and cafeteria grease. But today wasn’t about indulgence.

It was about control.

Elijah had been on my neck for days now—lecturing, always lecturing—about the bodies. “You’re painting the town red,” he’d snapped last night, jaw tight, suit tighter. “You’re making noise.” And he was right, which pissed me off even more.

I could’ve hunted tonight, quietly, like I always used to before I stopped giving a damn. But I didn’t want to. I was hungry now, and Belle was easy. Willing. No running, no screaming. No fun.

But at least I wouldn’t have to snap any necks or burn any buildings.

Icould’ve compelled someone to fetch her for me .Hell, I nearly did. But something in me, boredom, maybe made me drive here myself.

The sun cut through the clouds as I pulled up, my car the only thing that didn’t belong in this world of scraped sneakers and secondhand sedans. The driver’s window slid down and I scanned the field like a predator scoping prey.

And there she was.

Belle.

Draped in that self-satisfied strut, her jet-black hair veiling what I knew was my bite. She was coming off practice, or pretending to, trailed by that girl.

Her.

Carol.

I didn’t know what it was at first. Just a flicker. A twinge in the chest I was convinced had stopped centuries ago. But as my eyes locked on her, time twitched. It didn’t stop—it twitched.

She was… vivid.

Genuine in a way I hadn’t seen in a hundred years. No makeup mask. No manipulations. There was strength in her posture, stubbornness in her stare, and a kind of reserved fire behind her eyes that made my thoughts stutter.

She wasn’t just beautiful—she was real. Pure. Untouched by the rot of the world I lived in.

And that made her dangerous.

So I looked away.

I reminded myself why I was here. Blood. Silence. Control. Not emotion. Not connection. I’d wasted enough lifetimes learning that lesson the hard way.

“Belle,” I called, low and cold, watching her tense with the obedience of a trained pet.

She obeyed. As expected.

The whole school was watching her watching me. I could hear their hearts quicken. The whispered questions. Who was I? What was this? A scene, that’s what it was. A deliciously scandalous scene.

But my mind wasn’t on Belle anymore.

Itwas on her.

Carol.

Still watching. Still burning into me with those curious, cautious eyes. I didn’t know it yet, but she mattered.

Too much.

I ignored the feeling and moved on.

I was in west London for something more important and then I’m leaving not something to make me stick around shifted gears and drove away. Belle in the seat beside me, her pulse already calling to me like a drug, but my thoughts?

They stayed behind.With the girl whose name I didn’t know, but would soon find out.Who is she “ I asked belle…” my bestfriend in the whole world “…