The Trybrid's Bride

She sat on the floor beside her couch, she wrapped herself in a blanket she didn’t remember grabbing, with her eyes unfocused on the window of her small apartment.

The world outside looked smeared, like the rain was trying to wipe the city away instead of wash it.

Her apartment wasn’t messy, but it had that lived-in loneliness vibe.

“I don’t want to be alone anymore.” She whispered tom herself not anything as she bent her face towards her knee, wrapping herself with her hands, suddenly, the atmosphere felth too windy, more like someone opened a door to winter somewhere behind her.

She thought she imagined it at first, until her bed lights flickered.

There was someone standing near the corner of her living room.

She focused her gaze on the tall figure, who simply stood there, with his hands relaxed at his sides, like arriving in someone’s home uninvited was the most natural thing in the world.

His clothes were dark.

His presence felt wrong, like staring at a wolf that decided not to growl.

"Is he a ghost?" she thought to herself still rubbing her eyes with her hand, yet the figure was still there, his face didn't look evil like a ghost, actually it was the opposite, he looked tiredly beautiful, too beautiful to be true.

"Is he even a human being" she thought still thinking she was still hallucinating as she continued gazing on the figure, but the figure looked backed at her, like as if he was studying her, at that point, it felt kind of real now, panic already rising in her chest.

“Who are you?” she managed to say with a shaking voice.

He moved before the question finished

The lamp between them shattered under his hand, glasses sprayed across the floor.

The blanket she clutched slipped free.

Aeris shoved herself back,

Her palms scrabbling on hardwood to find safety but he was there in the next breath and slammed her against the wall with one arm and took her throat with the other

There was no glamour in his violence.

It was precise, efficient and cold.

Aeris clawed for anything, pain flashed white through her temples.

Through the panic she moved with a small, brutal clarity

her left hand went to the only thing she kept on the table, the thing she’d grabbed that night without thinking was a thin, silver pendant on a short chain.

Lucian didn’t give her time to breathe.

He pushed her chin up with his thumb so she had to look at him.

His eyes were hungry and terrible.

“Why did you summon me?”

Pain choked her vision.

The wall dug into her spine, her feet barely touching the floor as he wrapped his hand iron bar hand around her neck, choking her throat.

Her fingers trembled as they closed around the pendant.

She ripped it upward and drove the silver edge into the side of his neck.

The sound of a sharp animalistic cut was heard as the metal met flesh.

Aeris didn't wait to observe the effect of what she just did, instead she forced the silver pendant deeper with desperation.

But ehat happened next shocked her the more, he didn't flinch away, neither did he let her go to sort his wound, instead, he leaned his neck into the metal.

And as she watched, the wound sealed almost the same instant it opened, horrified at the sight, she struggled under him.

Lucian’s mouth twitched with the smallest hint of amusement, almost bored, but edged in hunger.

A soft, low chuckle rolled from him, vibrating through his chest into her bones.

“Cute” he murmured,

Then abruptly, his grip loosened.

“Speak,” he said.

Her voice was rough when it came out.

“I don’t. I don’t even know you.” Lucian froze.

He studied her face, the wide, terrified eyes, the tremor in her throat, the way her hands still shook but hadn’t tried to strike him again.

As he studied her, "she looked nothing like a summoner" he thought

"Just a girl too fragile for the world he came from."

The fire behind his eyes dimmed. His fingers uncurled, leaving the faint outline of bruises on her neck.

He stepped back once, enough for her to breathe. Aeris slid down the wall, coughing, clutching the pendant.

The edge bit her palm, slicing a small line across her skin. A drop of blood hit the floor. Lucian stiffened.

The scent hit him first, his pupils contracted and he suddenly found his body moving in a flash to her. Aeris tried to crawl backward, but his hand caught her wrist before she could. He pulled her hand up, this time he was gentle.

The cut gleamed red in the half light. He lowered his head to the cut, but Aeris jerked her hand back too fast and her teeth caught her lower lip.

The taste of her own blood spread warm and metallic in her mouth. Lucian inhaled the scent.

He groaned and leaned closer. The air between them thickened, his breath brushing her face.

His fangs grazed the air near her skin but didn’t touch. Aeris’ heartbeat stumbled.

She turned her face away, trembling which made him to stop immediately, with confusion clearly evident on his face.

He drew another breath, but it was slower this time. He looked at her again, really looked, as if trying to solve her.

"That didn’t happen, not to him." he thought

Her blood is so addictive and calming to him Lucian’s hand fell away as he stepped back like as if he was stopping himself from touching something sacred.

“What are you?” he whispered, more to himself than her.

Aeris shook her head with a terrified and clueless look.

Lucian looked at her not mad at her answer but pondering that for the first time in centuries, something he didn’t know and still confused him is right in front of him.

Before Aeris could even breathe, the world around her vanished into a violent blur.

She opened her eyes to find herself in a place that felt older than time, dark stones soaked in shadows, whispers crawling through the cracks.

Chains rattled somewhere deep, faint endless screams drifted from below.

"This wasn't her apartment" she thought with confusion and realization of her surroundings.

"This was a dungeon."