The Choice
754 Words
I didn’t ask where he was taking me.
After he drank from me — not to weaken me, but to bind me — something changed between us. Not just the way he looked at me, but the way I felt when he did. Like I was no longer a guest in this house. Like I belonged to it.
Or worse — like I belonged to him.
We didn’t speak as he led me through the manor again, this time through an inner courtyard, overgrown with ivy and shrouded in mist. At the far end stood a small stone chapel, forgotten by time.
He opened the door with bare hands. The heavy wood creaked like it hadn’t moved in years.
Inside, everything was candlelit.
There was no cross. No altar. Just a circle of ancient runes burned into the stone floor, and a single, cracked mirror on the wall. The air felt electric — humming, tense. My skin prickled.
“This is where it ends,” Elias said softly. “Or begins.”
I turned to him. “What do you mean?”
He stepped into the center of the circle. His expression was unreadable. “This place was built to contain what I became. But it can also release it. Completely.”
“I thought you already were… what you are.”
“I am.” He paused. “But barely holding it back.”
He looked at me — really looked at me — and I felt the weight of centuries in his gaze.
“I’ve lived with this curse for over two hundred years. And never have I let someone in. Never have I wanted to. But now…”
I took a step toward him. “Now you do.”
“Yes. But it’s not just desire anymore.” He took a shaky breath. “You’re changing, Eliza. You’ve felt it.”
I nodded slowly.
“My blood inside you, your blood inside me… the bond is forming. Soon it won’t let us be apart.”
I shivered. “And if I leave?”
“It will tear us both apart.”
I closed my eyes. I could already feel it — like a thread pulling tight between us.
“What happens if I stay?”
He came closer. “You’ll live forever. As I do. But not unchanged.”
His voice dipped, raw and low. “You’ll be one of us. Not fully vampire — not unless you die first — but changed. Stronger. Hungrier. Marked.”
“And if I die?”
His hand trembled as he reached for me. “Then I turn you. Fully. Irrevocably. You’ll belong to the dark forever.”
The candles flickered. The mist pressed closer.
“Is it painful?”
He hesitated. “Yes. But only once.”
“And then?”
“Then you wake up… and nothing is the same.”
Silence.
He gave me space to decide.
I stepped into the circle.
My heart beat hard, loud in my ears. I thought of my old life — of debt, of loneliness, of fading into the world without ever really burning.
Then I thought of him.
Of his eyes on my throat.
Of the way he kissed me like he was drowning.
I met his gaze. “Then do it.”
He stared at me, stunned. “You’re sure?”
“I don’t want to be safe.” My voice cracked, but didn’t waver. “I want to be yours.”
He moved faster than thought.
One arm wrapped around my waist, the other tilted my head. His lips grazed mine, reverent, trembling.
Then they moved to my neck.
And this time, he didn’t stop.
His bite was pain—pure and blinding. But beneath it was something else. Heat. Power. Ecstasy. The room spun, and I felt myself falling… and flying.
My blood left me.
And something else took its place.
When I opened my eyes, the mirror cracked behind me.
My reflection… was different.
Eyes darker. Skin paler. Lips redder.
Elias stood before me, chest rising and falling with effort.
“You’re not dead,” he whispered. “But you’re not what you were.”
“I’m something else,” I breathed.
He took my hand.
And in the echoing stillness of that chapel, with candles flickering like stars around us, I understood:
This wasn’t the end of my story.
It was the beginning of a darker one.
And I had chosen it.
Freely.
- Writer
