The walk home was quiet.
Not the peaceful kind. Not the hush of sleeping trees or stilled breath, but the kind of quiet that listened. Like something just out of sight was matching your footfalls, memorizing your silhouette.
I didn't rush. That would've been vulgar.
Instead, I walked the narrow forest path leading to Morrow's End with the calm of a man returning to his domain—a place wrapped in ivy and old bone, where the trees grew in crooked devotion and the wind never quite reached the soil. The wrought-iron gates shimmered faintly with wardlight as I approached. They recognized me. They always did.
But tonight… they weren't alone.
I smelled it a bit before reaching the outer arch.
Iron. Old blood. Not mine.
The scent drifted between the trees like a drunk lie—trying too hard not to be noticed. I caught a trace of animal musk beneath it, a leathery undertone, and the sharp rot of long-starved restraint.
Vampire.
Thin-blooded, not old. Probably fast. Definitely stupid.
He'd been following me since I left Bellflower House, thinking I hadn't noticed. Amateurs always made the same mistake—they believed silence made them invisible. But my blood had depth. And it rippled when it was watched.
I kept walking until the mortuary came into view.
Then I smiled.
And let the trap close.
The wards activated the moment I crossed the threshold.
Behind me, the forest floor shifted.
He moved fast—credit where due. I heard the hiss of air being sliced, the whisper of worn soles on stone, and then the leap.
I turned just enough to catch him. Mid-air.
My palm cracked against his ribs, redirecting his momentum. Then I spun, ducked, and caught the back of his coat with one hand and slammed him spine-first into the courtyard wall.
The impact sang through the stone.
He gasped and flailed, tried to scramble free. I let him twist for a second—just to feel the imbalance—then drove a knee into his stomach and dropped him hard onto the cobblestone.
He groaned rolling over into the dirt.
I crouched beside him, one hand already slick, with blood drawn from a sigil-carved ring on my finger. I pressed it to the ground.
The earth beneath him pulsed red.
Hands—skeletal, grasping, ancient—shot up and pinned him by the shoulders.
Necromancy came in handy when you kept bodies buried on your estate.
He struggled and snarled.
"Don't," I said gently. "You'll only embarrass yourself."
The vampire stilled, his lip split and dripping.
"Who sent you?"
He bared his fangs, a low growl building in his throat.
I sighed and pressed two fingers to his temple—my own blood still wet on my skin. With a muttered word, the blood sparked and burned against his cheek. Not fire, but sensation. Pain that burrowed through bone.
He screamed.
"Try again," I said softly.
"I don't know her name," he spat, breath ragged. "She paid me to follow you. Said she wanted to see where the Blood Keeper sleeps."
"Describe her."
"Tall. Pretty. Dark red coat. Cold eyes. She smiled a lot."
I leaned back, expression unreadable.
Her.
It had to be.
The woman from the blood house.
I stood slowly, letting the bones keep him pinned.
"And how did she pay you?"
He blinked. "Blood."
My jaw tightened.
"Whose?"
"I don't know," he rasped. "Didn't ask. Wasn't human, though. Sweet. Almost… golden."
That chilled me more than the lie.
Golden blood was rare. Ancient. Sometimes fae. Sometimes divine.
Either way—dangerous.
"Why follow me?"
"She wanted to know your movements. Said… she said there was change coming. That the streets would bleed, and she needed to know if you'd stand in the way."
I smiled then. A cold thing.
"Oh, darling," I whispered, crouching again. "I am the way."
I rose, wiped my hand clean, and flicked my fingers. The bones receded, leaving the vampire gasping on the ground.
"Tell your benefactor," I said, voice velvet and steel, "that if she wanted a tour of my house, SHE should've knocked."
Then I turned my back on him and walked toward the mortuary.
I left the gates open.
Let him crawl out on his own.
Inside, the candles lit themselves.
The stone remembered my name. The shadows folded around me like silk.
But even here, in my sanctuary, I could feel it now:
A thread had been pulled. A boundary tested. A story beginning.
And blood always told the truth.
Sooner or later, it would spill it.
The Next Day…
The late sun sloped low over the tree line, shadows lengthening like drawn-out secrets. Veylen was in his garden, dirt under his fingernails and a quiet hum at the back of his throat. He moved with easy precision, black sleeves rolled to his elbows, tending to a row of deep green vegetables whose names most mortals wouldn't recognize if whispered to them by a ghost. Some were benign. Others—not so much.
He plucked a sprig of nightshade, cradling its glossy leaves with unspoken reverence. Poison or potion—it always depended on the hand that wielded it.
"You talk to your plants, Bloodkeeper?"
The voice floated in like perfume—light, elegant, and curiously amused.
Veylen didn't look up right away. He finished tucking the nightshade into his harvesting pouch, brushing his hands off on his apron as he stood. His hazel eyes met hers, unreadable and sharp beneath the reddish-brown spill of his locs.
She stood at the edge of the garden's wrought iron arch, framed in late golden light like a painting of something both sacred and profane. Skin the color of velvet shadow. Crimson lips that curled slightly as if she knew every secret he tried to bury six feet under. Her dress was a waterfall of black silk and suggestion.
"Only the poisonous ones," Veylen said, a dry smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "They need the most affection."
She took a step forward. The gate creaked, uninvited yet unchallenged.
"You tend to death and grow life. Odd little duality, isn't it?"
"I prefer the term balance." He reached for a linen cloth and wiped the dirt from his palms, then tossed it aside. "You didn't come to marvel at my green thumb. So what is it? Lost another lover? Looking to purchase premium A-positive?"
She laughed softly, a sound like silk torn slowly. "You assume I'm here on business."
Veylen circled a nearby planter box, slow and casual. But his senses had already locked onto her scent. Her blood was veiled—glamoured, clever. But there was a trace of something strange beneath it. Not vampire. Not fully.
"I assume most beautiful strangers with sharp smiles and vague motives are."
He tilted his head. "But by all means, surprise me."
Her eyes glittered, catlike and gleaming. "You have a reputation, Veylen Graveblood. Not everyone believes the stories. But I've always had a fondness for legends."
"Flattering," he said. "But you're dodging my question."
She stepped closer. "You've been quite active lately. Poking around. Asking questions that make the wrong people… nervous."
"Good," Veylen said. "They should be."
A flicker in her expression—still pleasant, still poised, but edged now. "Careful, Blood Sovereign. You may find the wrong question earns you an answer you don't want."
"Or worse," he said, "an answer that makes me dig deeper."
They were close now. If she reached out, she could've touched the nightshade at his hip. He didn't flinch. Just smiled, slow and sly.
"You going to threaten me, or kiss me?" he said, voice low.
She held his gaze a moment longer, then smiled with all her teeth.
"Why not both?"
Then she turned, silks trailing like a storm, and walked back through the garden gate.
Veylen stood still. Let the silence settle back over the garden like dust over a coffin lid.
But the scent she left behind lingered too long. Something about it caught in his nose. Metallic. Wrong.
He sighed. "Lovely company."
He turned, walked inside, washed the dirt from his hands, and was halfway into his evening robe when the bell above his mortuary's back door rang.
A delivery.
The body was left by trusted courier, like all the others.
He stood in the prep room of his mortuary, surgical gloves sheathing his hands like second skin, the silver clasps of his coat glinting faintly under the low overhead lights. The air buzzed—not with electricity, but with something deeper. Something old. His eyes, golden-hazel with flecks of rust, scanned the cadaver laid out before him.
"Drained again," he muttered, half to himself, half to the dead. "No amateur this time either. Clean. Almost reverent."
He peeled back the tarp with quiet ceremony, revealing a young man, early twenties, pale as moonlight, lips faintly parted as if his last breath had been a question.
"No signs of struggle," Veylen noted aloud, circling the table. "No punctures in the neck either… not visibly."
He placed two fingers on the body's sternum and closed his eyes.
"Reverti."
The word slipped from his tongue like a thread unwinding from a loom.
A pulse of red magic flickered at his fingertips, seeping into the corpse's chest. Veins shimmered faintly beneath the skin like threads of glowing ink. The spell was delicate—he wasn't forcing animation. He was invoking memory. Echoes left behind in blood. Even what little remained.
The body jerked once.
Veylen opened his eyes slowly, watching as the mouth moved, sluggish and breathless. No voice came. Only the soft gasp of residual spirit attempting to answer.
"Who took your blood?" he asked, voice low, nearly coaxing. "Do you remember their face? Their scent?"
The mouth moved again, shaping the word.
"Woman."
Veylen's gaze sharpened.
He leaned in. "Describe her."
The jaw worked, struggling. The corpse trembled. A faint shimmer of blood memory flickered behind its clouded eyes. "Eyes like silver. She smiled… as I died."
Veylen exhaled through his nose. Calm. Controlled. But a glimmer of something colder passed across his features.
"Was it her again?" he murmured to himself, removing his hand and letting the spell dissolve. The body slumped back into stillness.
He stood straight, removing his gloves with a slow snap. The scent of residual magic still clung to the room—sharp, metallic, touched with something sour.
Whoever she was, she wasn't just killing. She was feeding with precision. Purpose. And if she had enough power to drain someone clean without a single external wound, she was no ordinary predator.
He stepped back from the slab and turned toward the garden-facing window. The moon hung low now, the sky cloaked in a dusty shade of violet.
"Twice in two days…" he muttered. "Either someone's challenging the order of things… or she's sending a message."
Veylen's jaw tightened slightly. Not out of fear. Out of irritation.
He hated being left out of the loop. And he loathed being played.
Outside, a crow landed on the wrought-iron fence that circled the garden, watching him through the window like a quiet sentinel. Veylen tilted his head, eyes narrowing. Was it a watcher? A familiar? Or just a bird too curious for its own good?
Didn't matter. He'd get to the bottom of it.
He turned back to the body and pulled a silver stylus from his drawer. With a few deft strokes, he etched a thin sigil along the dead man's sternum—a ward. Protection. Just in case someone else tried to raise the poor soul. The dead deserved their rest. Especially once they'd outlived their use.
Then, without looking back, Veylen walked into the hallway, coat swirling behind him like smoke, steps sure and deliberate.
Tomorrow, he'd go deeper.
But tonight, he'd prepare.