The wind caught between us, tugging my cloak, daring me to move closer. And before I could command myself otherwise, I obeyed—as if the world held its breath, lest he decide to devour it.
"Your name," I breathed.
"Vladimir," he answered, tasting the words like a confession. His gaze lowered, as if he feared what the sound of it might awaken. "A name with too many ghosts."
"Then take mine," I said, my voice trembling but firm. "Evangelina. A name with too few angels."
For the briefest moment, his lips curved—not into a smile, but something more fragile, more dangerous. I should have turned back then, fled before darkness could claim me. Fled into the safety of silence, into the chains I already knew. Yet my feet betrayed me. The space between us sharpened like knives, alive with unspoken fervor.
The syllables of his name trembled in the cold, vibrating against the hollow of my throat. To speak mine in answer was like bearing a wound, as though syllables themselves could bleed. In that exchange, there was no audience but the night, and yet it felt as though centuries watched, silent witnesses to a vow I did not yet understand.
The world seemed to listen as our names crossed the air, stitched together by moonlight and blood. And I understood, even then, that my life had begun to shift its course.
The silence between us thickened, the kind that does not merely fill a space but alters it. I felt as though the air itself had shifted to watch us, the trees leaning in, the fog gathering closer, even the snow pausing in its descent.
"You are far from safety," Vladimir said, his tone quiet but edged with something I could not name. "The night is not kind."
His words curled around me like smoke, intoxicating. The wind carried his scent—iron, snow, and something ancient. I felt it cling to my throat, making me dizzy with strange desire. How cruel that danger could feel like deliverance.
It was not desire I felt—it was starvation, the sudden ache of realizing I had never truly breathed until that moment. Every sound, every scent, every nerve in me seemed sharpened, made aware of him. I thought if he touched me once, even by accident, I might unravel completely.
I swallowed, though my throat was dry. "Neither is the day," I answered before I could stop myself. The words slipped out like a wound, startling me more than him.
His eyes studied me—not as a man studies a woman, but as a judge studies a plea. "You speak like someone accustomed to cruelty," he murmured.
My lips parted, but no defense came. To tell the truth would be to expose the bruises Elias had painted across my body. To lie would be to dishonor the voice that had finally escaped me.
I chose silence.
Vladimir's gaze fell briefly to the snow at my feet, where the edge of my cloak had shifted and revealed the faintest shadow of a mark on my ankle, a bruise that had traveled down farther than I'd thought. His expression hardened, though his voice did not rise.
"I have seen men like him before," he said. "Men who believe themselves kings because others are too afraid to tell them they are not."
The cold slipped deeper into me, though not from the weather. "You know nothing of him," I whispered, my words shaking with equal parts of fear and defiance.
"No," he admitted. "But I know everything about what he leaves behind." His eyes held mine then, steady and unblinking, and for the first time I felt seen—not the way Elias watched me with possession, but the way a mirror reflects what you cannot deny.
I shivered. My body begged me to retreat, to run back into the familiar prison, because at least there the danger was known. Yet another part of me—the part that still dared to call itself alive—took a step forward instead.
"Tell me," I murmured, "why do crimson roses bloom where you walk? Why does your path burn with blood?"
He tilted his head, and the moon caught the line of his jaw, making it appear carved from marble. "Because blood is honest," he said at last. "It cannot lie, it cannot disguise itself. It is the only truth men leave when they are gone."
He smiled—predatory, the kind of smile that devours you behind the masquerade of a gentleman. "For blood," he said, weary, "is the sole thing that still remembers me."
His words hung between us like incense, fragrant and suffocating. I tried to imagine what centuries must feel like—the ache of endless nights, the monotony of survival. Perhaps that was why he killed: to remind himself the world still bled. I almost pitied him then, though pity felt like blasphemy.
His words unraveled me, lingering, and yet they resonated deeply with terrible beauty. Instinct begged me to let distance be my shield, yet I did not step back, as if destiny brought me here to witness the ruin falling upon me. My desperation tasted of sin—I longed to drown in his sweet poison.
Heaven, have mercy on me.
His life was carved in violence, and still I found myself listening as though his darkness offered me something my own world never had: choice.
"And you?" His voice lowered. "Why do you walk into the night alone, Evangelina?"
My name on his lips sent something sharp through me. I hesitated, then confessed:
"Life still clings to me. There is one who would rather I perish. I seek salvation... I seek the taste of freedom." The pale moonlight revealed my bruises, blooming like crushed petals against my skin once again.
He did not look away. The silence that followed was heavy, but not cruel. "Then perhaps," he said, "we are both fugitives."
I wanted to ask him—from what? But the answer already lay in the crimson at his feet.
The world seemed to pause, listening for my answer. Even the wind stilled, its breath caught between mercy and indifference. I thought of Elias's voice echoing through the manor, of his hand gripping my wrist until it bruised. The memory tightened around my throat like a ribbon. I would rather face the devil himself than wear my brother's name another day.
His nearness unsettled the air itself. Each breath I took seemed borrowed from him, as though my lungs had forgotten their own rhythm. His shadow wrapped across mine until I no longer knew where I ended and he began.
"If I stay near you," I whispered, "will I lose myself?"
He leaned closer, his lips brushing the air above my ear. "You will lose what was never yours to keep. But you may gain what only ruin grants—truth."
The snow between us gleamed as though each flake were a vow waiting to be spoken. The night, the sky, the earth—all seemed to hold their breath. Something unseen had already written our names side by side in the frost.
Each flake glowed with spectral light, settling upon my lashes, my lips, his shoulders, until we seemed crowned in frost. In that silver haze, it was not death I saw—but coronation. If we were to perish, the snow itself would serve as witness and veil.
"You think I will save you," he said softly. "But I am the storm that unhouses the saved."
"Perhaps I do not want salvation," I said. "Perhaps I crave damnation more, if it wears your face."
His laugh was low, bitter, edged with longing. "Do not feed me such hunger, Evangelina. I have starved on desire for centuries, and I have killed to quiet it."
"Then let me be unhouse'd," I whispered. "I would rather drown in your storm than rot in his peace."
The night pressed us closer, though we had not moved. My heart thrummed against my ribs with such force I feared he could hear it. And still, I stayed.
The moon leaned lower, as if it too wished to eavesdrop. The night no longer felt empty—it throbbed with something alive, sharp, and dangerous.
"Do you know what they call me?" Vladimir asked suddenly, his tone so calm it startled me.
I hesitated. "A murderer." The word left my lips like a shard of glass.
He did not flinch. Instead, he inclined his head as though accepting a title long earned. "And yet here you stand before me."
I drew my cloak tighter, though it was not the cold that made me tremble. "Perhaps," I whispered, "because I no longer fear death as much as I fear captivity."
His eyes studied me then, piercing and deliberate. "Captivity," he repeated, as though tasting the word. "Yes. That is worse than death. I know it well."
The response surprised me. "Were you ever caged?"
"Not by stone," he answered after a pause. "But by men, by promises, by debts I did not owe. I still carry them." His voice grew quieter. "Blood was the only key that opened the lock."
My heart hammered. I had not realized until then how close I had drifted—whether my steps betrayed me or his presence pulled me, I could not tell. The snow crunched faintly beneath me, like glass breaking underfoot.
"You should turn back, Evangelina," he said, though his voice lacked conviction. "I am not the savior you imagine."
"Then let me tempt habit," I said. "I lay before you an offering: eyes that burn like embers, as though the sun itself had been drowned in honey—my twin's. Take them, and leave to me the life he covets so cruelly."
"You offer jewels," he said, "but you wear the same color." His gaze touched me—face, throat, and body. "Why should I not take yours instead?"
I lifted my chin and showed him the map of my suffering.
"Mine tells a story not yet finished," I said. "I give you my word; take his instead, as I have purpose."
"My brother would rather see me buried than free. If death must take me, let it be on my terms—not his."
Vladimir studied me as if I were a book in a dead language. "Your twin," he murmured, " yellow eyes like summer trapped in a gem."
"Warmth he does not deserve," I said, unafraid to be devoured.
"You ask me for protection, yet you know what I am."
"Yes," I whispered. "And still, I ask."