(Sable POV)
The fold spat us out at the edge of the treeline like a cat hacking up something it regretted eating. My boots squelched in wet pine needles. My lungs remembered air. My ribs remembered that they preferred not to be compressed by vampire hands.
I blew out a long, shaky sigh and dusted imaginary ash off my coat.
"Welp," I said to the two who had just rewritten the definition of "close call." "This is where we part ways, I guess."
And I meant it. I had no problem slinking off into the night like a mouse who'd narrowly avoided becoming an hors d'oeuvre. They could go home, share a fire, drink wine out of goblets made from the skulls of their enemies—whatever married royalty and terrifying immortals did for fun—and I could find literally anywhere else to be.
I'd barely turned to make my getaway when her voice cut through the night.
"Wait."
It wasn't loud, but it was the kind of tone that made you stop without thinking. I turned back slowly, mentally mouthing, please, for the love of every pantheon, let me leave.
Lisa stepped forward, her eyes soft but searching. "You're a traveler, aren't you?"
"Guilty," I said warily.
"Do you have anywhere to stay?"
My brain was still wrapped in the afterimage of Dracula's hand around my throat, so the truth came out before my survival instincts could stuff a sock in it.
"…No."
She nodded once, decisive as a judge delivering a sentence. "Then you'll stay with us."
I froze. Dracula looked at her, one dark brow arched, like she'd just suggested adopting a stray wolf. I looked at her like she'd just signed my death certificate in calligraphy.
In my head, I was screaming: She's trying to kill me.
Aloud, I gave her my most polite, nervous chuckle. "Oh, no, I couldn't possibly. Really. You've got your… castle thing, your whole lord-and-lady vibe going—"
She cut me off with a look that could make a grown man apologize for breathing too loudly. "Where will you find lodging? The Church will be hunting you after what you did."
I winced. "Okay, but—"
"Your looks make you stand out," she added matter-of-factly.
Ouch. Dagger number one.
"You clearly have little knowledge of the geography here."
Dagger number two, straight through the ego.
"And from what I've seen in the short time I've been with you… you'd be dead in a week without shelter."
Dagger number three. At this point, my heart was a pincushion.
I threw my hands up. "Okay, wow. Just… roast me right here in the woods. Save the Church the trouble."
She didn't even blink. Just stood there, calm, as if she hadn't just dismantled my pride like a cheap table.
I mulled it over. Option A: stubbornly refuse and spend the next month sleeping in a ditch, eating bark, and wiping my ass with leaves. Option B: suck it up, swallow my fear of her husband, and live somewhere that—wait a second—has electricity.
…And plumbing.
I blinked. That one hit me like divine revelation. Dracula's castle probably had bathrooms. Real ones. With doors. And mirrors.
A jolt of hope zipped through me.
I squared my shoulders, bowed with mock formality, and said, "If it's not a bother."
Lisa's lips curled in a small, triumphant smile. She looked up at her husband like she'd just won an argument without even raising her voice.
Dracula regarded her for a long moment, then sighed—a sound that carried centuries of you're lucky I adore you—and gave a low chuckle.
"Very well."
He turned toward her first. With a sweep of his arm, flames bloomed into the air and coiled gently around Lisa—not searing, not even hot, just an otherworldly warmth as they lifted her slightly from the ground. Then the fire rolled toward me.
My instincts screamed, and I flinched back—but the fire didn't burn. It slid over my skin like warm wind, weightless and strangely clean, until I was wrapped in it too.
Before I could decide whether to panic, the world lurched upward.
The three of us shot into the night sky in a column of fire. The forest dropped away, the mountains unfolded beneath us, and the stars swung overhead in a dizzy arc. We streaked across the heavens toward a shape rising in the far dark—a castle that caught the moonlight like a blade.
Somewhere below, the Church could keep their torches and ditches. I was aiming for hot baths and lockable doors.
If I survived the in-laws.