the Vampires Beloved

Chapter6:What wakes in side me

Tavany

I used to think everyone felt this way—that strange sense of being slightly out of sync with the world. Like I was walking half a step behind reality, catching echoes instead of moments. Turns out, that wasn’t anxiety or imagination.

It was memory.

After the alley, after the blood and the truth, I didn’t sleep for three days. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw fire. Stone walls. A man kneeling in the rain, holding a woman whose heartbeat was fading. I felt her fear, her love, her pain—and somehow, I knew she was me and not me at the same time.

Thorne gave me space. That mattered. He didn’t hover or command or tell me what I was becoming. He just stayed close enough that I knew I wasn’t alone. For someone who’s lived for centuries, he understood restraint better than most humans I’d met.

The first power surfaced by accident.

A man tried to grab me outside my apartment. I didn’t see him coming, but I felt him—his intent pressed against my chest like a warning. My heart raced, and something inside me snapped awake. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t have to.

The air moved.

It slammed into him like an invisible wall, throwing him backward into a parked car. Metal screamed. He ran after that, eyes wide with terror, crossing himself like he’d seen the devil.

I stood there shaking, hands glowing faintly gold and green.

Thorne arrived seconds later. He didn’t look surprised.

“You felt it before it happened,” he said.

“I felt everything,” I whispered. “His fear. Mine. The space between us.”

That was when we realized the truth.

I wasn’t stronger than humans.

I wasn’t faster.

I wasn’t immortal.

I was aware.

Over the following weeks, my abilities unfolded like memories returning rather than something new forming. I could sense emotional currents—lies tasted sour, love felt warm, violence hummed before it struck. When I focused, I could bend probability just enough to survive things I shouldn’t—a missed bullet. A locked door opened. A fall that didn’t kill me.

The most terrifying ability came last.

Healing.

Not the vampire kind—no blood, no hunger. When Thorne was injured during a skirmish with the modern Order, silver tearing through his side, I didn’t think. I pressed my hands to his wound and begged whatever was listening not to take him too.

Light poured out of me.

I felt the pain leave him and enter me instead—sharp, burning, human. I screamed. He healed. I bled.

That was the balance.

I don’t steal life.

I share it.

Marina's memories began surfacing then—not as control, not as possession, but as guidance. She didn’t speak in words. She felt like instinct, like knowing when to trust and when to run. She loved Thorne deeply—but she also loved being human.

So do I.

That’s the part the Order never understood.

I am not a weapon. I am not a vessel. I am not a part of the prophecy.

I am a choice made of flesh.

When the Order comes for me—and they will—I won’t hide behind Thorne or his shadow. I’ll stand in my own light, whatever that costs me.

Because I am Tavany.

And this time, I decide how the story ends.