I must have fallen asleep at some point—though it hadn't been easy, and my sleep was anything but peaceful.

When I opened my eyes, I wasn’t in my room. I wasn’t even sure I was still in my world.

The walls were black. The floor was black. Even the furniture—the bed, the table, the lone chair in the corner—looked like it had been carved from shadow. Black wood, smooth and cold to the touch. The bedsheets, at least, were a soft red—not blood red, but muted, like the last glow of sunset behind storm clouds.

The room wasn’t large like the princess chambers you’d see in manhwa, yet it wasn’t exactly small either. It felt… strange. Quiet, but not peaceful. Like the walls were listening.

I sat up slowly, my limbs heavy, like I’d been drugged or dreaming for too long.

There was one big window—of course, black-framed—and a heavy curtain hung over it, drawn back just enough to let in a shaft of pale moonlight.

A tall bookshelf stood against the far wall. Black, naturally. Its shelves were packed with old books, spines worn and gilded, whispering secrets I didn’t want to know.

But what surprised me most was the rug. A large, soft fur carpet stretched out beneath the bed, and unlike everything else in the room, it was white. White as snow. White as bone. It stood out like a wound in the darkness.

And for some reason… that made me feel more uneasy than anything else.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed, the cold floor biting against my bare feet. Every inch of the room felt hushed, like a cathedral built from shadows.

The bookshelf pulled at my attention like a magnet. I couldn’t explain it—it was just wood and paper, and yet I felt watched. Or maybe… lured.

I crossed the room slowly. My fingertips hovered over the spines of the books. Most were leather-bound, thick with age, their titles etched in languages I couldn’t read. A few had no titles at all—just symbols, or runes burned deep into the covers.

One book, thinner than the rest, seemed out of place. Its leather was cracked and pale, almost grey, like old skin. No title. Just a black circle on the front.

Something about it made my stomach twist.

I hesitated.

And took it.

The moment I pulled it from the shelf, the room seemed to breathe. The air grew colder. The shadows stretched, just slightly, toward me.

I sat on the edge of the bed and opened it with trembling fingers.

The pages inside were written in sharp, ink-dark script. Some entries were just dates. Others looked like poems. One page near the front was smeared, as though someone had touched it with blood.

And then my eyes caught something.

A name.

Valen.

Again.

That same name. The one from my father’s journal. The one the voice in the forest whispered like it belonged to me.

I flipped another page. My breath hitched.

There was a drawing. A face—sharp jaw, dark eyes, lips curved in a cruel smile.

Valen.

I was so absorbed in the drawing—his drawing—that I didn’t hear him.

Didn’t feel him.

Not at first.

It was only when the air shifted—cooler, heavier, like the oxygen had been thinned and replaced with something more ancient—that I turned.

And froze.

He stood in the corner of the room, partially draped in shadow, like he had always been there. Watching.

Silent.

Unmoving.

His eyes—those rust-brown eyes laced with red—were fixed on me. Not blinking. Not soft. Just there.

I clutched the book tighter to my chest, instinctive. Useless.

“You like reading things that don’t belong to you,” he said finally, voice low and deep, not angry, not amused. Just... calm. Which made it worse.

“I didn’t know it was yours,” I lied. Poorly.

He stepped forward, slow and deliberate. The shadows seemed to bend around him as he moved. He didn’t take his eyes off me once.

“But you opened it anyway.” His gaze dropped to the book in my arms, then back to my face. “Curiosity is such a tender little sin.”

I stood, shakily, still holding the book. “I wanted answers.”

“And did you find them?” he asked. He was close now—too close. I could see the faint veins under his pale skin, the way his lips curved like he already knew what I would say.

“I… saw your name again. And my mother’s name. Why would that be in your book?”

His expression didn’t change. Not even a flicker.

But his voice dropped a note colder.  "you do not need to know, that has nothing to do with you" 

My heart thudded wildly in my chest.

He smiled. i hate his smile.

"what does that mean, my--MY mother name is in that book, you have kidnap me and says it not my business" my voice got up a pitch. 

His hand moved—not fast, not threatening, just enough to close the book with a soft thud. His fingers brushed mine. Cold. Commanding.

His fingers brushed mine, light as a whisper but cold as grave soil.

Then his voice dropped lower—silken, rhythmic. Each word laced with something that didn’t feel like sound, but sensation. It slid beneath my skin, curled around my thoughts like ivy.

“Sit, little flame.”

The words weren’t loud. They didn’t need to be.

My knees wobbled. I felt the pull, like gravity had shifted beneath me. I wanted to sit. Needed to. My legs moved without my permission—

No.

I clenched the book tighter, grounding myself in its sharp corners. My body screamed to obey. My mind—what was left of it—howled to fight.

“I’m not your little flame,” I said, breathless, forcing the words through clenched teeth.

One corner of his mouth twitched. Not a smile. Something darker. Amused. Intrigued.

“Most crumble by now,” he murmured, head tilting like I was some puzzle he hadn’t quite solved. “They drop to their knees. Beg. Cry. You shake, Lilith... but you stay standing.”

“I’m not like them,” I whispered, though my heart thudded loud enough it felt like betrayal.

“No,” he agreed, stepping closer still—close enough that the faintest scent of cold metal and something wild clung to him. “You are not. You’re hers.”

My breath hitched.

He noticed.

“Leave my mother out of this.”

“Impossible,” he said softly. “She never really left.”

He reached up again—slow, deliberate, the way you might reach for something fragile. I flinched when his knuckles brushed my cheek, and he stopped. Just watched me.

“You feel it, don’t you?” he whispered. “That tug under your skin. That fire in your spine. The truth waking up in your blood.”

I shook my head, trying to clear the thick fog his voice had draped around my thoughts.

“I don’t feel anything except hate for you.”

Another smile. Still too calm. Still too knowing.

“We’ll see how long that lasts.”

Then, just like that, he turned and walked away. Not rushed. Not angry. He didn’t slam the door—he didn’t need to.

The silence he left behind felt like a leash.

And I didn’t even know how far it reached.

The door shut with a soft click.

My legs gave out the moment he was gone. I collapsed onto the edge of the bed, the book still clutched in my hands like a shield. My skin was clammy, my chest rising and falling in panicked rhythm.

Nothing but human blood. My blood.

Then why did he look at me like I was some ancient prophecy wrapped in flesh?

I turned to the bookshelf again, trembling, but determined. If he had books with her name in them—my mother—then there had to be more. There had to be something that made sense.

But the shelves weren’t alphabetized. No titles on the spines. Just black leather, silver stitching, a few symbols that looked more arcane than literary. My fingers drifted across the bindings until one book felt… warmer.

I pulled it free. This one had a ribbon tucked into a page halfway through.

I opened it slowly.

A sketch fell out.

Her face. My mother. Younger. Harsher somehow. Standing beside—

Valen.

My stomach flipped. He was dressed differently, but it was him. Even then, that same hungry shadow clung to his posture. And she? She looked proud. Defiant. Beautiful and dangerous in equal measure.

The ribbon-marked page was filled with neat writing in an unfamiliar hand. I didn’t recognize the language, but I could feel the importance in it—each symbol carved with care.

Then came the sound again. A footstep.

I turned around sharply.

Valen stood in the corner, partially cloaked in shadow. I hadn’t even heard the door.

“How long have you been there?” I demanded.

His eyes glinted. “Long enough.”

I stepped back a pace, still holding the book.

“I thought you left.”

“I did. And then I came back.”

“Why?” My voice cracked. “To see if I’d broken?”

Valen walked forward slowly, deliberate as ever. “To see if you’d started to understand.”

“I understand one thing,” I snapped. “You’ve got books about my mother, secrets you won’t share, and you keep talking like I’m some puzzle only you get to solve.”

He was in front of me now.

Too close.

Again.

“I talk like that,” he murmured, “because the truth would shatter you.”

“I’m not as fragile as you think.”

He reached up. His fingertips touched the edge of my jaw. Cold, barely there.

“Don’t prove me wrong, little flame.”

Then he leaned in—and I felt his breath, cool and sweet, ghost across the skin of my throat.

My muscles locked.

He paused.

Fangs bared. So close.

But he didn’t bite.

He inhaled slowly, as if savoring me.

Then… pulled back.

His eyes flickered—not with restraint, but frustration.

“You smell too human,” he hissed, voice rougher now. “And that makes no sense.”

“Good,” I whispered. “I am human.”

He looked at me for a long, unreadable second.

Then turned and left again, faster this time—his movement blurred like smoke torn by wind.

And I was left, still trembling, in a room filled with books I didn’t understand and questions I wasn’t ready to answer.

But one thing was now certain:

Valen hadn’t bitten me.

And that scared me more than if he had.

I didn’t sleep.

Couldn’t.

I paced the strange black room like a caged animal, my fingers raw from clenching and unclenching the book until the corners frayed. Every surface, every shadow seemed to breathe with the memory of him. I kept glancing over my shoulder, expecting him to materialize again from the dark—like he never truly left.

Why hadn’t he bitten me?

Why say those things—you’re mine now—then leave me untouched?

Was it a game?

Or was I… wrong?

I sat on the bed and buried my face in my hands. My thoughts were spiraling, jumping from memory to memory—my dad’s disappearance, the blood trail, the journal, the wolf, the whisper, the book with my mother’s name in it.

What did she get herself into?

What did she drag me into?

A wave of helplessness crashed through me, raw and choking. I didn’t know what Valen was. Not fully. Vampire, yes—but more than that. He moved like he owned the dark. Spoke like it bent to him. And that voice—that moment where I felt the pull of his words, like vines creeping into my skull—I had nearly obeyed.

But I didn’t.

And that… that gave me something to cling to.

I wiped my face and moved to the window.

Black glass. I couldn't see out. Only my own pale reflection looking back, wide-eyed and hollow.

Trapped.

Terrified.

And utterly alone.

Except I wasn’t really alone, was I?

He was always close. Watching. Waiting.

“Don’t prove me wrong, little flame.”

I pressed my fingers to the window, tried to feel a seam, a crack—anything.

Nothing.

My hand slid down the cold surface.

I wanted to scream. To punch something. To run. But I didn’t even know where I was.

A fortress? A mansion? Hell itself?

I turned back to the bookshelf and threw the book I’d been holding across the room. It hit the far wall with a dull thunk and fell flat on the floor, pages splayed like broken wings.

The quiet that followed felt too heavy—like the whole place had gone still, listening.

And in that quiet, my fear coiled into something sharper.

Not rage. Not yet.

But resolve.

If I was trapped, I’d find a way out.

If I was being hunted, I’d learn how to fight back.

And if Valen thought I was his?

He had no idea what it meant to deal with a terrified, cornered girl who had nothing left to lose.

He didn’t come back that night.

Not in the obvious way, at least.

I kept turning my head, expecting to see him standing there again—half in shadow, eyes glinting red, voice like silk dipped in venom.

But nothing.

Not a sound.

Not a whisper.

It was worse than if he had returned.

The silence pressed against my skin like fog. The kind that wasn’t empty—but full of something just beyond reach. Something watching. Waiting. Breathing with me.

I could feel him.

No footsteps. No door creaks. But him.

His presence moved through the walls like smoke. Invisible, but inescapable.

He was studying me.

Like a puzzle. A locked box. A secret someone had dared hide from him.

I could feel it every time I reached for another book or moved too suddenly, as if testing the room’s edges. Like somewhere out there, just beyond the scope of sight, his eyes followed. Cold and unblinking.

But he didn’t touch me.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t interfere.

And somehow, that was more frightening than anything else.

Because it meant this was deliberate. A choice.

He was watching me fall apart slowly—measured, calculated. Observing how much it would take to break me open… and why I hadn't yet.

And worst of all?

Part of me wanted him to come back.

Not because I trusted him.

But because this silence was warping me, pressing me into corners I didn’t know I had. I would rather face his threats, his strange hunger, than be trapped with nothing but my thoughts—and his gaze—seeping through the walls like poison.

I curled up on the bed, not to sleep, just to rest. To breathe.

I clutched the book I had thrown earlier, now retrieved and limp in my hands.

The pages smelled of dust and leather and something faintly metallic.

My mother’s name was in it.

So was his.

And if I kept reading… maybe I’d understand why.

But for now, I lay there, rigid and alert, pretending to sleep—

—and knowing I wasn’t really alone.

I refused to use the bed.

Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was fear. Or maybe I just couldn’t bring myself to lie down in something that felt like it was waiting to swallow me whole.

So I lay on the floor.

The black stone was ice against my skin, biting through the thin layers of fabric, but I didn’t care. Let it bite. Let it hurt. At least it reminded me I was still real. Still me.

I curled up, arms wrapped around myself, the book clutched against my chest like a lifeline—or a weapon.

My cheek pressed against the cold ground. Eyes heavy. Heart still pounding, but slower now.

The silence throbbed.

I half-expected the shadows to speak again. For him to whisper in that voice made of ruin and silk.
But they didn’t.

Just the cold. The dark. My breath.

I didn’t even realize I’d drifted off until the blackness of the room faded into the blackness of sleep—one indistinguishable from the other.