He woke to the sound of dripping water. It was not rain—rain carried rhythm, a song of its own. This was slower. More deliberate. Each drop striking the floorboards like the tick of a clock marking down a sentence. The smell told him where he was before his eyes opened: wood smoke, boiled herbs, something metallic underneath. Blood, his own.
Victor Hale—though some nights he still struggled to remember if that was his name or just a costume he wore—tried to lift himself. Pain answered immediately, hot iron through the ribs. He sank back, breathing ragged. The ceiling above him was rough timber, heavy beams stained with age. A single candle guttered on a table by his side, its flame bending every time the wind rattled the shutters.
A shadow leaned over him, sharp lines cut by candlelight. A woman's face, narrow, eyes like glass that had seen too much. "Don't move," she said. Her voice carried the authority of someone who had given that command before and watched men die disobeying. Her hands pressed against his chest—not to restrain, but to steady. She smelled faintly of ash and bitter roots.
"Who—" The word rasped like sand in his throat. His tongue felt carved from stone.
She lifted a cup to his lips, tilting it carefully. Water, cool and clean, slid across his tongue and down his throat. It burned at first, then soothed. By the third swallow he realized how dry he had been, how close to cracking apart. "Drink slow," she warned, and he obeyed. When the cup was gone she set it aside and studied him as though weighing his soul.
"Dr. Mara Jarn," she said at last, as if offering both name and warning. "You were found on the edge of Havenrock. Half-dead, half-something worse. We brought you in."
He tried again to move. His muscles answered like rusted hinges, every motion scraping. Images came back in fractured flashes: rain turning to fire in the orchard, screams, shadows bursting from him as if they'd been waiting centuries. And Elena—her voice in the chaos, cutting through it like a bell. He clutched at the memory. "Elena."
"Alive," Mara said quickly, catching the panic in his eyes. "Exhausted, but alive. She hasn't left your side in two days. She sleeps now." Her mouth tightened. "You should be doing the same."
Relief struck harder than pain. He closed his eyes, letting it flood him. But with the relief came something darker. The hunger, always waiting. It stirred now, stretching like a cat in his ribs. It smelled Elena in his memory, in the air itself. He clenched his jaw until his teeth groaned. Not here. Not now.
When he opened his eyes, Mara was still watching him. Her gaze didn't flinch, didn't soften. "I've seen fevers," she said. "I've seen wounds that should have killed a man walk him to his grave a week later. But you…" She leaned closer, and her whisper brushed against his ear like the hiss of steel. "You're not just wounded. Are you?"
Victor swallowed. Lies came easy; survival demanded them. But Mara's stare rooted him. She wasn't guessing. She was diagnosing. He said nothing, and silence became his answer.
Mara drew back, expression unreadable. "I don't know what you are. But Havenrock isn't a fortress. If whatever hunts you finds you here, this village will be kindling."
He turned his face away. Shame was easier to face than her eyes. "I didn't ask to be brought here."
"No," she said. "But now you're here, and that means choices. For you. For all of us."
The door creaked. Elena stood there, pale from sleep but awake enough to hear the last words. Her hair was tangled, her eyes bloodshot, but when she saw Victor's gaze find her, something lit in her face. Relief, sharp as pain. She came to his side, took his hand in both of hers. Her skin was warm, too warm, and his hunger surged at the pulse beneath her wrist. He forced his hand still. Forced his mouth closed.
"You scared me," she whispered. "You always do."
He wanted to answer, to promise, to swear he'd stop. But promises were currency he no longer had the right to spend. So he only squeezed her hand and let the silence speak.
Outside, the village stirred—the low voices of farmers at dawn, the clatter of buckets, the cough of a child. Life went on, indifferent to monsters nursing themselves back to health in borrowed beds. Victor lay there between pain and hunger, Elena's hand in his, Mara's eyes sharp as glass at his side. The candle guttered. The drip went on. And the clock kept counting.