Chapter 4
1130 Words
Every muscle in my body locked.
I couldn't breathe—not because of anything he did, but because of the weight he carried. He was overwhelming in a way no person had ever been to me before. Standing this close to him felt like standing at the edge of something vast and irreversible.
I stared into those gold eyes—the same ones that had watched me drown.
Vale. The name surfaced in my mind without explanation, as though it had always been there.
"That's right. That's my name, thrall." His voice was smooth, unhurried. "But you don't address me that way. From now on, you call me Master Vale. That is the only acceptable form of address."
I tried to ignore him. I tried to convince myself this was still a dream. I looked around—the frozen nurse, the motionless child, the stopped clock. None of it was a dream.
"This is reality," he said, as though he'd heard my thought. "And the reality is that you belong to me now."
My brow furrowed. He couldn't actually be reading my mind.
He raised an eyebrow. The answer was in his expression. He absolutely could.
"I told you. You are bound to me, Aria."
"Shut up!" I snapped.
Both of his eyebrows rose slightly. He was clearly not accustomed to being spoken to that way.
I looked away from him and scanned the room again. Every soul around us was frozen. Absolutely still. Like a photograph of a hospital.
"What did you do to them?" I demanded, my voice unsteady. "Why aren't they moving? Who are you?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he reached out, his cold fingers brushing my cheek before trailing down to my jaw. His touch sent a shock through me—half electricity, half ice water—spreading into my veins before I could pull away.
"I am the reason your lungs are still pulling air, Aria," he said, his voice as smooth as polished stone. "I am the reason the rot in your brain has vanished."
I swallowed. "So it's true. You're the one who did this to me. But how? What did you do to me?"
He smiled again—slow, deliberate. For just an instant, the fangs caught the light.
"I didn't simply heal you. I remade you," he whispered, leaning closer. "You were a broken vessel, discarded by a world that had stopped caring. I chose to fill that vessel with my own essence."
"Essence." I repeated the word carefully. "You mean blood. Are you a vampire?"
Something like amusement crossed his face. "The word is primitive. But if it helps your human mind understand what I am—yes. I am a Nightborn."
The memory of that morning surfaced in sharp detail. The wound sealing itself. The sunlight burning. The water tasting like poison. The terrible, hollow thirst.
"That's why the sun felt like it was burning me," I said slowly, the pieces assembling themselves. "That's why I couldn't drink water."
"The sun is no longer your friend," Vale confirmed, his gaze intensifying. "And your human cravings are behind you. Your body is transitioning. It is searching for the only thing that can sustain it now."
"Blood," I whispered.
"No." I shook my head, backing away. "I can't do this. I'm a human being. I have a brother. I can't become—I won't become a monster."
I turned to put distance between us. He crossed it in an instant—not walking, not running. One moment he was in front of me. The next he was behind me. No sound, no blur. Simply there.
"You have a choice, my thrall," he murmured into my ear. His breath was cold against my skin. "You can embrace this gift and live forever at my side. Or you can let the hunger consume you from the inside out until there is nothing left but an animal."
"Let go of me!" I spun around and pushed against his chest.
He didn't move. But I felt it—a strange, magnetic pull that had nothing to do with fear. My pulse was doing something alarming, something that wasn't entirely about terror. I stood very still.
The thirst came rushing back.
My gaze moved involuntarily to his neck. Beneath the pale skin, the faintest trace of his own ancient pulse was visible. And the scent—even from a creature like him—was intoxicating. Like rare perfume and fresh rain. My mouth watered. My gums ached.
"Hungry, aren't you?" he said, and the mockery in his voice was perfectly calibrated. "It's been several hours since your rebirth. Your body is screaming."
"I'm not going to hurt anyone," I gasped, clutching my own throat. "I won't."
He stepped forward, forcing me to look at him. "I never said you had to hurt anyone. Not yet. But understand this, Aria Sinclair—your life was forfeited the moment you jumped from that bridge. You belong to me now."
"I didn't ask for this!" Tears of frustration blurred my vision. "I wanted to die! Why didn't you just let me?"
His expression cooled into something absolute. He seized my chin, tilting my face upward, keeping me still.
"Because I found you interesting," he said quietly. "Because in a city full of people shuffling through their days half-asleep, you were the only one with the nerve to actually step off the edge. And because I need someone like you for what's coming."
"What's coming?"
Before he could answer, the clock above the nurses' station ticked.
Tick. Tick.
The frozen world exhaled. The child began crying again. The nurse completed her stride. The old man shuffled on. No one seemed aware that anything had happened. The film had simply been paused, and now it played again.
Vale was gone.
I spun around. The lobby was exactly as it had been before—ordinary, noisy, mundane. He had simply ceased to be present, as completely as if he had never been there at all.
But in my palm, something rustled. A small folded note. I opened it with fingers that had gone completely still.
The handwriting was elegant. Old-fashioned.
Tonight. 10 PM. The bridge where you died. Do not be late, my thrall.
My blood ran cold.
This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a hallucination. This was my new reality.
"Ms. Sinclair? Are you all right?" A nurse appeared at my elbow. "You look like you're about to faint again."
I couldn't answer. I clutched the note, pushed through the exit, and stepped out into the burning sun—flinching at its bite—and ran.
I had to get home. I had to see Adrian.
But most of all, I had to figure out how to survive the night.
- Writer
