Chapter I: The Bite of Midnight
The rain has not stopped since dawn.
It drums steadily on the rooftops of London, whispering secrets into the cracked pavement and broken gutters, as if the entire city itself is mourning something it cannot name. The streets gleam under the pale yellow lamps, their light fractured across puddles that seem too deep, too endless.
In a modest townhouse nestled between narrow brick alleys, Nathaniel Cross sits by the window, his eyes lost in the shifting reflection of the storm. His face is young—too young to look this weary. Only twenty years old, second-year in his engineering course at King's College, yet he carries an exhaustion in his eyes as if he has already fought a lifetime's worth of battles.
And in some ways, he has.
The wound is hidden beneath his collar, just above the shoulder blade, hidden beneath the neat folds of his shirt. A crescent-shaped scar, faint yet unyielding, burned into his flesh like a cruel memory. It throbs sometimes when the rain comes—when the air feels heavy with moisture and old secrets.
A vampire's mark.
Nathaniel closes his eyes, but closing them does nothing to erase the memory. He still sees it. The night she came.
Eris Gravenholt.
Her name lingers in his mind like poison, velvet-soft yet venomous. Once, she had been everything—beautiful in the way of moonlight on still water, mysterious in the way every word seemed crafted to ensnare. She had been his first love, his undoing, his downfall.
They had ended, painfully, broken shards of something that once seemed eternal. Nathaniel thought that would be the last of her.
Until the night he woke with her lips at his throat.
The memory burns him like fire. He had felt the press of her fangs piercing his skin, the unbearable intimacy of her breath against his ear, and the icy paralysis that flooded his body as she drank from him—not with passion, not with tenderness, but with hunger.
When he awoke fully, she was gone, leaving behind nothing but the blood on his sheets and the scar that refused to fade.
Now, weeks have passed. Weeks of silence. Weeks of nightmares.
"Nathaniel," a voice calls softly, grounding him.
His mother. Eleanor Cross stands in the doorway, her presence a steadying force in the storm. She is a woman of quiet strength, her features touched by lines of both worry and wisdom. In her hands is a tray, carrying tea and a plate of buttered bread, steam curling into the cool air.
"You'll miss dinner if you keep staring at the rain like that." Her voice is gentle, but there is a weight behind it—concern she cannot disguise.
Nathaniel manages a faint smile. "I'm not hungry, Mum."
"You've said that too often lately." She sets the tray down on his desk, eyes flicking—just for a moment—to the high collar of his shirt. She knows. Of course she knows. But she never speaks of it outright, as if the silence can protect him.
Behind her, his father appears. Daniel Cross, taller, sterner, his posture carrying the weight of discipline softened only by the fatigue of worry. His gaze lingers on his son, sharp and searching, yet threaded with compassion.
"You need to eat," Daniel says simply. His voice is firm, but not unkind. "Starving yourself won't make the world hurt less."
Nathaniel exhales slowly, dragging his eyes back to the storm. "It's not the world that hurts. It's me."
His father crosses the room, placing a hand on his shoulder. Strong, grounding, real. "Then let us carry some of that pain with you. You're not alone, son."
The words dig at something fragile inside him. For a moment, he nearly breaks.
But he doesn't. Not yet.
At King's College, Nathaniel walks the hallways like a ghost.
Students bustle past with their umbrellas dripping, their laughter echoing through vaulted ceilings, but he feels detached, as if the world has shifted an inch to the left and left him behind.
The weight of unfinished assignments, formulas scribbled half-heartedly in notebooks, and late-night study sessions blur together. Engineering demands precision, focus, and resilience. But how can one focus when every shadow seems to whisper her name?
Eris.
Sometimes he swears he sees her among the students—a flicker of silver hair vanishing into a crowd, a flash of pale skin at the corner of his vision. His breath would hitch, his pulse quicken, only for the image to dissolve into nothing. Hallucinations, perhaps. Or maybe not.
"Nate? Nate! Nathaniel!"
The shout pulls him back. A classmate waves him over, cheerful despite the dreary weather. It's Jacob, one of the few friends who still tries. His grin is wide, infectious, but Nathaniel forces only a small nod in return.
"You alright, mate? You look like you haven't slept in a century."
Nathaniel chuckles weakly. "Feels like it."
They walk together toward the lecture hall, but Nathaniel feels the eyes on him. Not Jacob's. Not anyone's in particular. A prickle at the back of his neck, the same sensation he felt the night of the bite.
She's watching. Somewhere, out there, Eris Gravenholt is watching him.
And she is not done with him.
That night, Nathaniel dreams again.
He stands in an endless field of withered roses, the petals blackened and brittle, crunching beneath his boots. The sky above is bruised with storm clouds, lightning flashing without thunder.
And there she is.
Eris.
Her silver hair sways gently in an unseen breeze, her crimson eyes gleaming with a hunger that chills him to his bones. She wears a smile, cruel and tender all at once.
"Mea amica Nathanael, (My darling Nathaniel,)" she whispers, voice smooth as silk. "Effugere non potes quod factus es. (You cannot escape what you've become.)"
He tries to speak, but his throat burns. His hands tremble as he lifts them, only to see veins blackened, skin pale, blood coursing beneath as if poisoned.
"Meus es tu, (You are mine,)" she says, stepping closer. Her hand rises, delicate fingers brushing his cheek. "Quamvis longe curras, sanguis nos ligat. In perpetuum. (No matter how far you run, the blood binds us. Forever.)"
Her fangs glint in the lightning's flash.
Nathaniel jerks awake, breath ragged, sweat dampening his sheets.
The scar throbs, burning as if freshly made.
Downstairs, he finds his parents waiting. They do not sleep until he does anymore, too fearful of what may happen in the night. His mother looks up from her knitting, her father from his book, both sets of eyes locking onto him the moment he descends the stairs.
"Another dream?" Eleanor asks softly.
Nathaniel swallows. "She won't leave me."
Daniel rises, stepping closer. "Then we won't leave you either. Whatever this is, Nathaniel—we'll face it as a family."
The young man grips the railing tightly, the storm raging outside reflected in his trembling form. He wants to believe them. He wants to believe he is not alone in this fight.
But as the wind howls and the scar burns, a thought gnaws at the edges of his mind.
What if Eris is right?
What if the bite was not just a wound—but a beginning?