Chapter 1
OLIVIA
The world crashes back in with the taste of her blood still on my tongue. Her body is limp in my arms, her skin pale and her lips stained red where I kissed too deep, too desperate.
The forest is silent, broken only by Lennox’s ragged breathing somewhere behind me. Sylas’s corpse lies crumpled in the dirt, its heart still cooling in the mud.
But none of that matters. Only her.
Her chest rises faintly against mine – shallow, uneven. Her pulse is barely there. But it’s enough. Enough for me to know she isn’t gone.
I press my mouth back to her neck, whispering against her skin.“Stay. You hear me? Stay with me.”
Lennox moves closer, his voice raw. “Olivia – what have you done?”
I don’t look at him. My eyes never leave her face. My hands cradle her like she’s all that’s left of the world.“I’ve done what I had to.”
The first rays of dawn bleed through the trees, painting her skin gold, and I know what I’ve set in motion can’t be undone.
Because Eve belongs to me now.And when she wakes... she won’t wake the same.
˟ ˟ ˟
We carry her back through the woods in silence. Lennox clears the path ahead, but his shoulders are tight, his silence loud. Every step feels like a clock ticking.
Inside, the space is quiet, too white, too fragile.
I lower her onto the sofa near the fire, brushing a strand of hair from her face. She looks almost asleep, if not for the faint stain on her throat and the way her body doesn’t warm against mine.
Lennox lingers by the door, jaw set, eyes sharp. “You’ve cursed her.”
“I saved her.”
“Same thing.”
Before I can answer, the door opens and Val walks in, fury already on her face. Her eyes go straight to Eve on the sofa, then to the red on my mouth.
Her voice cracks through the room like glass.“Tell me you didn’t.”
I stand, squaring myself between her and Eve. “She was dying.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Val snaps, pointing at the faint rise of Eve’s chest. “But this? This is worse.” She takes a step closer, her hands shaking. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? What she’ll become? How it could go?”
“She asked me once,” I say, softer than I mean to. “She wanted this.”
“And you told her no,” Val fires back. “Over and over. Because you knew better.”
“I wasn’t going to let her die.”
“You weren’t supposed to give her this either.” Val’s voice breaks, a ragged mix of fury and grief. “God, Olivia... when she wakes, you won’t recognize her. And if she loses control – ”
“She won’t.”
“You don’t know that.” Val shakes her head, backing a step. “The hunger will own her before you do.”
The fire crackles behind me, throwing light over Eve’s still body. I look down at her, my throat tight.
“She’ll be okay,” I whisper.
Val’s voice cuts through the quiet, low and venomous. “Then pray to whatever god you’ve got left that you’re right. Because if you’re wrong...” Her eyes harden, fixed on Eve. “...I’ll do what you won’t.”
˟ ˟ ˟
EVE
Something hums.
At first I think it’s the fireplace at my place, the old one that pops and breathes when the wind hits it right. Then I realize fireplaces don’t hum like wires through drywall or blood through pipes.
Also: I can hear it from three rooms away.
I open my eyes. The ceiling isn’t my place; it’s too clean, too white. A hairline crack runs from the light fixture to the corner, like a vein.
My mouth is sand. My throat is worse.
“Eve.” Olivia’s voice – low, steady, wrecked around the edges.
I turn my head. She’s there on a chair, elbows on her knees, hands clasped so tight the knuckles are white. There’s blood on her sleeve. Not mine – darker.
I try to say her name but my tongue sticks. The noise that comes out isn’t words; it’s... want.
The smell hits me next. Copper and heat and something sweet that makes my stomach twist. It’s everywhere, pressed into the walls, the sheets, the skin of the person standing by the door.
Lennox. Watchful. Arms folded. Jaw tight. He looks between us like he’s braced for a grenade.
“What –” I manage. It hurts. “What happened?”
Olivia winces like I hit her. Just a flicker, before she stands up slowly. “Sylas... He almost... I had to keep you alive.”
I remember the trees. Sylas’s hand punching through me like paper. The cold. The way everything turned quiet and bright and then – nothing.
My hand comes up, fingers touching the two punctured holes.
“You... you turned me.” My voice is a scrape, half-wonder, half-fear.
Her throat works. “Yes.”
For a second, I can’t breathe. Because this – this is what I used to dream of, what I begged her for when she always said no.
Forever. Hers.
And now I have it. But it doesn’t feel like a dream. It feels like drowning with my eyes wide open.
“You were dying,” she says, “I didn’t –” She stops, presses her lips together like she’s afraid the rest will spill out.
The hum gets louder. It’s not the room – it’s me. My pulse is too slow, too heavy. Every drop feels like it’s scraping down the inside of my veins.
“What’s wrong with me?” My voice cracks. “Why is everything so loud?”
Lennox pushes off the wall. “You’re in the window.” He says flat. “Between one thing and the next.”
“The next,” I echo.
“If you take it,” he adds. His gaze flicks to Olivia’s hands.
My attention follows. There are healing cuts across her wrist. New. Shallow. The smell spikes and my stomach cramps so hard I curl.
Olivia shifts closer. “You don’t have to” she says, and I hear the lie inside the hope. “We can try bags. Or –”
“Bags won’t work,” Lennox cuts me off. “Not for a first. Not in the window. She needs yours.”
Olivia snaps, “Get out.”
For a second Lennox hesitates, eyes cutting between us. Then he exhales, mutters, “Clock’s ticking, Liv. And when it stops, she doesn’t get another chance.” and leaves. The door shuts soft, but it feels like a wall slamming down.
It’s just us.
Olivia kneels beside the sofa, so close I can feel the heat off her skin. She lifts her wrist, not closer, just enough that I can see the thin line where she’s already tried to do the ugly part herself.
“I’ll stop if you tell me to,” she says, voice low, breaking.
Air scrapes in. Air scrapes out. I can taste every breath she takes. Taste the old blood on her sleeve. Taste her.
“I want to be yours,” I whisper.
Her eyes flicker. “Then take me.”
I reach for her wrist with trembling fingers. Her skin is warm under mine I notice. Not cold as it used to be. The cut she made is shallow. I hesitate for a heartbeat before my mouth opens and close around her skin.
The first drop is a spark. The second is a fuse catching. By the third, the world narrows to one point and explodes.
And this time – it’s not just me.
I feel her. The way my hunger slams through her chest, stealing her breath. The way her body jolts at the pull, like every vein is lit with the same fire eating me alive.
This isn’t just hunger. It’s rewriting. Every swallow tells my cells who I belong to.
She gasps – soft, broken – and her free hand clamps on my shoulder, not to stop me, but to hold on.
It’s not sweetness. It’s not fire. It’s pressure releasing in my bones, lights going out in rooms that should never have been lit. It’s quiet. The hum finally falls below a scream.
But beneath it – Olivia. Everywhere.
And the bond slams wide open.
It’s never been like this before.
Before, I’d catch her sometimes – a whisper when her guard slipped. A thought. A choice.
But now there’s no choice. No walls.
Her voice roars through me, raw and desperate: That’s it. Take all you need.
At the same time, my own memory crashes into her – the nights I begged her to turn me, the way my chest cracked open with want and fear. She recoils like she’s inside my skin, like she’s the one who said the words.
Her need hits me back, sharp and unhidden. God, don’t stop. Don’t leave me.
It’s too much. Her fear, her guilt, her want – all tangled in with mine. There’s no telling whose hunger belongs to who.
Her hand fists in my shirt. My mind isn’t mine anymore. It’s ours.
Every swallow pulls me deeper into her, and her into me. The tether surges, not just thoughts or flashes, but everything. I feel her fear. Her relief. The sharp edge of desire tangled up in her guilt. It’s so much I almost choke.
I could take all of her. I feel that too. I could pull and pull until there’s nothing left, and she wouldn’t stop me.
I tear myself off her wrist, breath heaving. Blood stains my mouth, my tongue, my chin. Her blood.
She stares at me, wide-eyed, lips parted, like she’s trying to steady herself but failing. I can feel her dead heart pounding, even as mine slows into something alien.
The tether hums. Her want is in me as much as my own.
I lift my head. Olivia’s eyes lock on mine, and for a second, we just stare at each other – both breathing like we’ve run miles, even though I don’t think Ineedto breathe anymore.
“How do you feel?” she asks, voice raw.
I try to find the words, but I don’t know how to answer. My body feels... sharp. Lit. My skin’s buzzing. My stomach’s not empty anymore, but it’s not full either. My heartbeat is slow, like it’ll stop any minute now.
“Like I’m unraveling.”
Olivia nods, slow. “It’s the bond. The blood. Everything’s loud at first, but it settles... eventually.”
“So what happens now?” I whisper. “What am I supposed to do?”
She hesitates, like she’s weighing how much to tell me. Then:
“You’ll be stronger. Faster. More aware. You’ll smell everything. Hear everything. Feel everything, all at once.”
I shift slightly, my hands still trembling. “And the blood?”
“It gets worse before it gets better,” she says. “The thirst will come in waves. You’ll feel like you’re dying all over again. But you won’t. You’ll just want to.”
My throat tightens. “How do I stop it?”
“You don’t. Not completely. You just learn to live with it. Keep it from owning you.”
“And if I can’t?”
Her voice drops, almost a whisper. “Then someone else will.”
I just nod, because I know exactly what she means by that.
My eyes shift to my hands. They don’t feel like mine. Nothing does.
“You said no,” I whisper. “When I asked you for this. You told me it wasn’t simple.”
“It’s not,” she says gently. “But I couldn’t let you die.”
I nod, even though the truth sits crooked in my chest.
This is what I wanted. Her. Forever. That part hasn’t changed. I would’ve chosen her again. A thousand times.
I just didn’t know it would feel like burning from the inside out.
Olivia reaches out, slow, giving me time to pull away, and brushes her fingers lightly over mine.
“You won’t be alone,” she adds. “I’ll help you through it. Every step. If you let me.”
Her eyes are so open it hurts to look at her. Not demanding. Not pleading. Just there.
I hesitate, not because I don’t love her – God, I do – but because the ground under my feet doesn’t feel real anymore.
Still, I look at her as I take her hand in mine.
“Okay.”
She lifts her hand and places it on my cheekbone, her thumb brushing gently. For a moment I’m lost in her touch. I close my eyes and enjoy her now warm hands against me.
And when I open them again, I don’t know which of us moves first. Maybe both.
Her mouth finds mine – not with hunger, but with something slower. Gentler. Her lips are soft, trembling against mine like she’s just as unsteady as I am.
It’s not about blood now. It’s aboutus. About anchoring. About answering every broken, burning thing inside me with touch.
I kiss her like I need to remember who I am. She kisses me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
Her hand slides to my jaw, her thumb brushing my cheekbone, and I lean into it like it’s the only solid thing in the world.
The bond thrums low and deep between us, quieter than before – no longer a scream, but a pulse. Shared. Steady.
Then her mouth opens a little more, and mine answers, and the kiss turns – deeper, fuller, need threading in through the softness. It builds slowly, and I don’t fight it. I want her. I’vealwayswanted her.
But I want her like this – with the ache, the fear, the promise of something we’re both still learning how to survive.
Her breath stutters against my lips, and I feel her restraint like a cord drawn tight. She’s holding back. For me.
And that – that’s what undoes me.
I press closer, whispering into her mouth, “I’m still me.”
She exhales a shaky sound, and the kiss deepens again, but now it’s something else – reverent. Devastated. Alive.
Then the door clicks, and we pull back.
Lennox’s voice comes quietly from the doorway – not mocking, but edged with concern:
“You sure you want to anchor her to you with this much heat in her blood?”
Olivia pulls back an inch, breath shaking, eyes dark. Her hand lingers on my jaw like she doesn’t want to let go.
“She’s not just blood to me,” she says without looking at him. “She never was.”
He exhales slowly, steps just inside. “Doesn’t change what she is now.”
Lennox’s gaze shifts to me. Not hostile. Just cautious.
“You’re in it deep,” he says. “Both of you. And that kind of bond... it doesn’t stay quiet for long.”
A beat of silence. The fire crackles.
Then, more gently:
“You’ve got maybe hours before the thirst hits again, and it won’t be gentle next time.”
Olivia finally turns toward him, her voice steady but low. “I know.”
Lennox nods once, then backs toward the door. He leaves without another word. The door shutting soflty behind him.
And we’re alone again. But not the same.
