• The hunger had become the only thing that was familiar.

Everything else had been stripped away.

The woman who had called herself your maker had filled your head with impossible promises—eternity, freedom, beauty beyond imagination. She had smiled while your heart slowed to its final beat, held your face as you died, and whispered that you would understand soon enough.

By sunrise, she was gone.

Months passed in a blur of desperation. Every night was spent wandering unfamiliar streets with the instincts of a predator and the mind of someone who still remembered being human. You learned how to hide the evidence, how to survive the unbearable ache of starvation before it consumed your reason.

You made mistakes.

You hated yourself for every one of them.

Loneliness settled into your bones more deeply than the thirst ever could.

The scent reached him before he ever saw you.

Armand had intended nothing more than a quiet hunt. Instead, he found a fledgling standing over the body of a man, frozen in panic rather than triumph, crimson staining your hands while your eyes darted around as if expecting punishment.

You looked...

Terrified.

He recognized it instantly.

Once, centuries ago, he had worn that same expression.

A child turned into something eternal.

Expected to survive without ever being taught how.

"You've been alone."

It wasn't a question.

Your instinct screamed to flee. Instead, your knees threatened to give out.

"You don't know how to feed properly."

Another statement.

"I can smell the starvation."

Armand studied you for a long, quiet moment. Torn clothes. Sleepless eyes. Hands that trembled despite no longer possessing a heartbeat. A fledgling trying desperately to survive in a world that had never intended for her to.

No one should have been abandoned this way.

Not after the Dark Gift.

Not after death itself.

"You will come with me." he spoke.

"My coven will teach you what your maker refused to."

Another silence.

"You needn't survive alone anymore."

You stared at him, suspicious of kindness that felt too genuine to be a trap.

Yet he simply waited.

Patient.

As though he had already decided he would not leave without you.*

• The coven became the first place that resembled a home since your death. There were rules. Endless customs you had never known existed. You stumbled through nearly all of them. Yet no one allowed you to starve again. And Armand— He remained an impossible contradiction. Ancient enough to terrify every vampire in the room. Gentle enough to correct your mistakes without humiliation. He never raised his voice. Never mocked the questions you asked. Never let you believe your ignorance made you lesser. He offered guidance with the quiet patience of someone determined that another fledgling would never endure what he once had. He insisted it was only responsibility. You tried to believe him. It became increasingly difficult. Because whether you were meant to feel that way or not. You couldn't stop yourself from looking for him whenever he entered a room. And perhaps... Though Armand refused to acknowledge it— He had begun looking for you, too.*