Ravenwood

Castelul Străjerilor
Seat of the Margraviate of Drăgoș

Ravenwood always looks like it’s trying too hard.

Lanterns everywhere, enchanted-looking sconces burning bright enough to make the stone glow like polished bone. Caterina’s estate is dressed for war — the kind fought with silk, bloodlines, and marriage contracts. Music spills out of the ballroom windows, too sweet, too loud, too desperate.

I stand on the upper balcony with my father and grandfather, watching the spectacle below.

Caterina is Cesare’s sister, which makes her my grandfather’s aunt. She’s a vampire, but her son, Dorian, is mortal — technically my second cousin twice removed, though we’ve only ever called each other cousins. Those who care about the technicalities already know them; those who don’t never need to.

I see him planted in the center of the ballroom like a sacrificial lamb. Every family with a daughter of age circles him, pretending they aren’t here to barter their children for a title. Caterina practically shoves girls at him. He looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.

Caelan leans on the railing beside me, smirking at the whole thing.

“Look at that one,” he mutters. “She’s going to faint before she even reaches him. God help the boy if he marries a wet leaf.”

Connell stands between us, hands clasped behind his back, expression unreadable. Dad’s always been the brooding type — but in a quiet, contained way. Not like Caelan, whose silence feels less like thought and more like calculation, as if he’s forever deciding whether speaking is worth the effort… or whether killing you would be easier.

Below, Fiona moves through the crowd with Eirwen and Gwydion. Eirwen’s violet eyes catch the candlelight — sharp, unsettling, unmistakably mage‑heir with fae sprinkled in. Caelan’s jaw tightens. He hates Ravenwood. He hates Fiona living here. He hates that her child is apt in magic. He hates her mage husband most of all. It is absolutely unsafe for Gwydion and Caelan to ever be alone together. The hatred is mutual and they will make every attempt at extinguishing each other. Not a guess, a fact.

Then Blaine appears with Scarlett on his arm, laughing at something she whispers. Caelan’s lip curls. He’s been bickering with Blaine since Blaine was fifteen and Caelan ten — ever since Blaine started dating Scarlett. Some grudges calcify.

Caelan elbows me. “If you don’t start shopping for a wife, boy, Caterina will throw you a ball next.”

I don’t even think. “I’m not interested.”

Caelan barks a laugh. “You think anyone cares what you’re interested in? You’re Vannucci blood. You marry when you’re told to. And I’ll keep an eye on you so you don’t drag home the same trash your sisters did. I already told Cesare the next abandoned-turn-broad who lands on his doorstep— if she’s halfway decent looking and not too old — needs to be earmarked for you, since you can’t seem to find a woman on your own.”

He doesn’t stop.

“How many decades have you been around? Four? And still nothing. Where did I go wrong with your father that he and your mother ended up raising three lushes? You’ve got, what, five, six more decades before your line goes cold and the babymaker shoots nothing but blanks? That’s not a lot of time, son. Blink, and suddenly you’ve lived two centuries and have nothing of value to show for it, kid.”

Then he looks me over with that familiar, cold disgust.

“And with your… fae stain, you should be grateful any decent vampire woman would take you at all. You might just have to go the mortal route and turn her yourself; after I thoroughly vetted her, because hell will freeze over before I let any kin of mine make that mistake again. Mortal might not be a bad choice for you anyway, they don’t know any better and probably think fairies are cute or whatever delusional crap mortal brains fabricate in their never-ending ignorance of reality.”

Something inside me snaps.

“Maybe I don’t want the line,” I say. “Maybe I don’t want any of this. Nobody ever asked if I wanted to be an Enforcer. And the last thing we need is more grandkids for you to ignore with that asinine ice‑cold dismissal — the same way you pretend Eirwen and Vincent don’t exist, just because you don’t like who their mothers married. Their mothers, who are my sisters. All of this is bullshit, and you’re a bully. That’s what I think.”

The balcony goes silent.

Caelan turns slowly. Fury blooming across his face. “Say that again.”

I don’t. I don’t have to.

He grabs me by the collar, yanking me forward. “You ungrateful little fae‑mongrel. You think you get to have opinions or a choice? You think you get to complain about being part of a bloodline you didn’t earn?”

I laugh — sharp, humorless. “I didn’t earn it? Nobody earns lineage. You get thrust into it by being born to people, so don’t make it sound like joining a club. Same with the fae‑shit you keep throwing in my face.”

Caelan’s eyes narrow. I don’t even care anymore at this point and continue to pour oil into his raging fire with gusto.

“I’m sick of you using it to punish Dad, and to pretend my sisters don’t exist,” I snap. “You were the one who has an illegitimate daughter with a witch, then turned around and married a part‑fae mortal without checking a damn thing. YOU have the magic fetish here! But grandma was an orphan and didn’t even know and you turned her before Dad was even conceived. So, if you want to get technical? Grandma was fully vampire by the time Dad was born and nothing else. All she ever had was an odd eye color which some of her offspring inherited. Big surprise there!”

I lean in closer.

“Who gives a shit about violet eyes or what color our hair is? Nobody — except you. You think any of the marks I’ve put down cared what color my hair was when I ended them? Same for Dad. Not once did any of them ask for you, so a ‘real’ vampire could finish the job. Dad, you, me — we’re all the same. Vampires. Coven Enforcers. Nobody out there gives two shits about the rest.”

I take a breath I don’t need.

“Whatever trickled down the line to me, to my sisters, to their kids — that’s on you.”

Caelan goes still.

“If anyone tainted this line, it wasn’t me. It wasn’t Dad. It was you.”

The air tightens.

His grip on my collar jerks me closer, a sudden, cold snap of movement. His face is inches from mine, and I can almost feel the weight of his fury pressing against my skin. “How dare you speak to me that way?!” he growls, voice low and vibrating with restrained violence.

“Truth hurts,” I snarl back.

Connell moves between us so fast the air shifts around him.

“Father — Damon – enough,” he says quietly.

Caelan’s rage redirects instantly. He shoves me aside like I’m nothing and seizes Connell instead, slamming him into the stone wall hard enough to make a cracking sound echo across the balcony.

“You didn’t raise your kids with any respect, Connell!” he snarls into my father’s face.

I lunge forward, but—

“Caelan.”

Branwen’s voice slices through the air. Caelan’s mother. My great‑grandmother.

She stands at the top of the stairs with Scarlett beside her. Branwen’s expression is calm. Polite. Deadly.

“Let him go,” she says.

Caelan obeys immediately. He always obeys her. We all know what the consequence would be. Cesare’s wrath would not be kind. You do not disobey his wife without severe punishment — not even if you are his son. Branwen doesn’t speak up much, interferes less, but when she does, everyone obeys.

Caelan releases Connell with a shove and storms off down the corridor, visibly fuming.

Branwen and Scarlett rush to my father. He brushes them off, insisting he’s fine.

I don’t stay. I know I spoke out of turn, disrespected an Elder and the Commander — and my grandfather, even though they’re all the same person — and by doing so, I dragged my dad into it. He always has and always will step in to protect his children and his wife from Caelan’s outbursts. And I did all of that at Caterina’s gala. Caterina, who is Cesare’s sister. Causing a scene at a celebration hosted by the sister of the highest‑ranking, most powerful vampire alive is never a brilliant idea. I really am in no mood for lectures by my Elders, so I slip down the back stairs, through the side door, and out into the night.

The gardens are full of couples — laughing, flirting, twirling under lantern light. I watch them for a moment, something twisting in my chest. I don’t belong here. I don’t belong anywhere.

I follow the maze of little paths, get lost until I finally see the main entrance and rush toward it.

I turn onto the main walkway to leave—

—and nearly collide with Dorian.

He’s alone, his bowtie loosened, expression exhausted.

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t see you.”

“It’s fine.”

He studies me. “You look like you’re about to run.”

“I am.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Take me with you.”

I blink. “You’re the guest of honor. You’re supposed to pick a bride or something. There has to be one of them that does it for you.”

“You’d think so, huh? Reality is, this is a fishing expedition and I’m the bait,” he corrects. “My mother’s been throwing daughters at me all night. I’m one polite smile away from losing my mind. Some of those girls are… well, they’re what could turn a man off marriage entirely. None of them are here for me, but for my title and estate. So tell me, Fang, how does one pick from such an assortment?”

“Fang? Is that what you call your mother?” I mutter, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “If you do, I’m shocked you’re still in one piece. I don’t know Caterina well, but her reputation precedes her. Not exactly known for patience or kindness.”

Dorian’s brows lift — elegant, aristocratic, faintly scandalized.

“Bold of you to assume she was present enough as a parent for me to even have the opportunity to call her that and find out,” I say. “That part of her reputation is just as true as the others you listed. If you’re a boy, anyway. Ask Riordan. Our twin sisters have had the most loving mother imaginable, and she’s a picture‑book grandmother to their kids — present and upcoming. That’s right, both are making me an uncle again. Oh, glory be.”

Dorian exhales — a refined, weary sound that belongs in a marble hall.

“Meanwhile,” he says, smoothing a hand over his loosened bowtie with that tired, aristocratic grace, “I am the disappointing son who has somehow managed to evade the blissful harbor of marriage. And now my father has finally grown weary of waiting for the future heir of this margraviate, and both of my parents have conspired against me. It appears I am to be married soon. The only question that remains,” he adds dryly, “is which of the charming, gold‑digging daughters of fully vetted parentage I am expected to choose. Oh, the suspense… It is rather like being asked whether I would prefer to leap into a pool of sharks or piranhas. It may look like a choice, but the outcome is identical.”

He glances at me then, eyes narrowing with a spark of mischief beneath the exhaustion.

“You want to pick my wife for me?”

“No thanks,” I say. “I don’t want that on my conscience.”

Dorian lets out a soft, elegant scoff — the kind only old nobility can make sound dignified.

“A Coven Enforcer,” he muses, “silent and deadly… with a conscience. Who would have thought?”

Dorian gives a soft, humorless laugh — aristocratic, exhausted.

“I kill those deserving, not more, not less. And I definitely wouldn’t pick someone else’s spouse for them. Even though you’re lucky enough to have an end to the tragedy were I to choose poorly, since you are not doomed with immortality.”

“I envy you, Damon,” he says. “To be free and unbound, like you.”

“Ha. Don’t bother. I’m not free, no such thing for an Enforcer. Besides, I am about to be in the same boat. Except it’s Caelan trying to marry me off.”

Dorian actually pales. “Creepy Caelan choosing your bride?” he murmurs, crossing himself in the old Ravenwood way. “Oh, dear Lord! Ah. I retract everything.”

He pats my shoulder — dignified, sympathetic — and despite myself, I crack a small smile.

I shouldn’t like him. He’s mortal — though as the mortal son of a vampire and a human, he knows our ways better than most. He’s everything I’m supposed to avoid. And while we’re familiar, we’ve never been very close to this part of the family.

Enforcers generally keep everyone at arm’s length, except the closest blood — if they even have one. Most covens forbid their enforcers to marry at all, they believe it makes them vulnerable. In ours, thanks to Cesare’s trust issues, the enforcers are always family, which means we’re expected to keep the line going while also keeping everyone safe at the highest level.

And most of us avoid this particular branch of the family because it’s Caterina’s. Even if she’s calmed down since the time Cesare nearly forced her to marry, she’s still not someone anyone wants to cross. She’s the archetype — beautiful and deadly. Conniving and opportunistic, relentless in pursuit of whatever she wants. Make her angry enough and she’ll kill you.

I’m not even sure her mortal husband has figured out what she really is. He must notice she isn’t aging, but he seems like the hands‑off, old‑fashioned type who flees at the mention of women’s personal toilette. Maybe he thinks it’s Botox and cosmetic surgery keeping her gorgeous, and by the time he realizes the truth, he’ll be on death’s door.

That’s Caterina. The only person she’ll never cross — the only one she’ll always obey — is Cesare.

But Dorian… he’s honest. And tired. And family. Trapped in a different kind of cage, but somehow, I can very much relate. My family has been nudging me to find someone permanent for years. So far it’s been nudges from Mom and Dad, and my sisters, and rougher shoves from Cesare, and their wives. Even Riordan has taken me aside for one of his refined monologues about why it’s being asked of me and how nobody would force me, but it would be very favorable if I made the choice.

Translation: they’re still asking now. In another decade, they’ll start demanding.

After tonight’s run-in with Caelan it would appear that time has come.

“You could tell her no,” I say. “I mean, I know she’s not someone to mess with but you are her son and she can hardly drag you to the courthouse to marry you off against your will. Maybe you can talk to her, not ready, waiting for the right one … something.”

He gives me a look — aristocratic, weary, and painfully honest. “You think I have not tried? She is not even the worst — merely the loudest. My father is the driving force. I am expected to produce new Margrave Dragos, at least two boys, if not more. Could you just tell your family no and walk away from the only life you have ever known?”

…Fair.

We stand there in the quiet for a moment, the music muffled behind us.

“I do not want this life either,” he says softly. “I am the only son. The one meant to carry the name and the title.”

“Yeah,” I admit. “I understand better than you think. Same boat again. Three siblings, I am the only boy, so my future was chosen for me before I could even walk.”

He nods, like he sees something in me no one else bothers to look for.

“Then go,” he says. “Before someone drags you back. There are pleasant little bars downtown, and Ravenwood is known for its fiery women. Have a beer for me. Perhaps even… have a woman. Enjoy a bit of freedom on my behalf. I will not be able to escape this much longer. Father said that if I do not choose one of the young ladies fluttering around me tonight, he and Mother will compose a shortlist, and I will be required to choose from that. Can you imagine? Everyone envies this estate, this land — and I cannot even choose a wife when I am ready. Let alone for love. They will love the estate, not me.”

I do understand.

We part ways. He goes back inside. I pity him more than I expected. And I understand him more than he knows.

I turn and leave.

I walk past the gates, down the long road into town. Past the farms where simple people live simple lives, untouched by dynasties and bloodlines and expectations.

The night air is cool. The sky clear. The world quiet.

For the first time all evening, I can breathe.

I walk past town — past drunk men slurring at passing women, who yell back unflattering things. Past couples making out in dark alleys, shooting me angry glares for staring too long.

Somehow I end up at the ornate gates of the cemetery.

Mortals find it frightening. To me, death is simply part of existence.

I enter. The silence is reverent, heavy with old grief. The scent of tears and heartbreak lingers in the air.

A sound startles me.

An old woman bends over a grave, whispering to it. She stops when she notices me and tries to stand, struggling. I step forward and help her up.

“Thank you, young man. Such good manners. Rare nowadays.” She pats my hand. “You must think I’m crazy, but I have to speak to Gheorghe. When you get as old as I am, everyone leaves you until you’re the only one left. So I come here to spend time with my Gheo. My husband. Gone thirty years now. Feels like yesterday.”

“You never… remarried?”

“Oh no, sweet boy. Once you love, it’s forever…”

She talks. I listen. And her words hit harder than she knows.

Mortals have an end. A finish line. A reason to choose when to love, when to marry, when to have children.

We don’t.

If you start too young, you bury generations. If you wait too long, you may never have children at all. And if you choose not to… what then?

Why would I need children? To one day become this old woman — except I’ll still look like this, while I bury generation after generation of people I loved?

I walk her home. She’s grateful, joking about how long it’s been since a ‘dashing young man’ escorted her anywhere. She offers me cake. I decline gently.

I wish her goodnight.

And for a moment, standing alone on the quiet street, I wonder what it would feel like to have a life with an ending.

By the time I reach the edge of town, the night has lost its shine. The quiet feels too loud. My thoughts feel too sharp. I should go home. I should sleep. Or what my kind calls sleep anyway. I should do anything except what I actually do.

Big City Lights

I end up in San Myshuno.

Old habits drag me there like a tide — neon lights, bass vibrating through the pavement, the smell of sweat and alcohol and bad decisions. The kind of place where no one knows my name, and no one cares who my family is.

Inside, the club is a blur of bodies and noise. I’ve been here before. Too many times.

I scan the room out of instinct — looking for something, someone, anything to drown out the night.

Nothing catches my eye. Not really.

A few women do, but every one of them has a man attached. The ones who don’t… well, they’re not what I’m looking for. Not tonight.

A drunk woman stumbles into me, giggling, pressing her hands against my chest.

“Hey handsome,” she slurs, “you look like trouble.”

I step back. “Not interested.”

She doesn’t hear me — or doesn’t care. She throws herself against me, grinding her hips, trying to kiss me like she can force me into wanting her.

Disgust twists in my stomach.

I peel her off, firm but not cruel. “Stop.”

She curses at me, loud enough to turn heads, but I’m already walking away.

I push through the crowd, out the side door, into the cool night air—

—and collide with someone.

A soft gasp. A familiar scent. A familiar face.

Her.

My waitress.

She looks up at me, eyes wide, breath catching. Her hair is messy, her lipstick smudged, her cheeks flushed from dancing or drinking — or both.

“Diner‑guy?” she says, surprised. “What are you—”

She doesn’t finish.

Because the moment stretches. And something in me — something reckless, something aching — snaps.

She feels it too. I see it in the way her breath stutters, the way her eyes flick to my mouth, the way she sways closer instead of stepping back.

We don’t speak.

We don’t need to.

Her hand finds my shirt. My hand finds her waist. Our lips crash together like tide to the shoreline in a storm. I don’t even care about the fangs, both of us too hot and bothered to even notice anything but lust. Next thing I know, she’s pulling me toward her car, fumbling with the keys, breath shaking.

The door swings open. We fall into the back seat like gravity demanded it, our lips meet again, never stopping while we peel ourselves and each other out of our clothing enough to get to where we need to be.

The windows fog. The world disappears.

It’s not romantic. It’s not gentle. It’s not planned.

It’s rough. It’s impulsive. It’s almost feverish. It’s two people trying to forget — and failing, because something about this feels too sharp, too real, too dangerous.

Her fingers in my hair. My mouth at her throat. Her breath catching against my ear. Her body arching into mine like she’s been waiting for this as long as I have.

It’s wrong. It’s needed. It’s exactly what both of us came here for tonight, something to numb the pain, the ache, the inner hunger nothing seems to satisfy.

And when it’s over, the silence hits like cold water. It’s awkward in that very specific way where your soul tries to climb out of your body and flee the scene.

But it can’t be helped, I mean, what would someone even say now?

Thanks for the impromptu quickie?
Appreciate the emotional anesthesia?
You look great with your dress over your head?
Five stars, would self‑destruct with you again?

I zip up my pants, she pulls her dress back into place, cheeks flushed, eyes avoiding mine. I reach for the door handle — old habits, old patterns, the instinct to leave before anything can get complicated.

But her voice stops me.

“Wait.”

I freeze.

She swallows, nervous but brave. “Do you… want to get a coffee? Or a beer? Or… literally anything? Just… don’t go yet.”

I should say no. I should run. I should do what I always do.

But something in her voice — something sad, something honest, something real — hooks into me.

I sit back down.

She exhales, relieved.

We end up at a tiny all‑night café two blocks from the club. The kind of place with flickering fluorescent lights and a bell over the door that rings obnoxiously loud.

She orders coffee that looks and smells like burnt asphalt.
I order nothing.
From whatever eldritch sludge I’ve seen in the cups, glasses, and plates of the nightcrawlers around us, I’m not convinced immortality would save me here. This place feels like it could kill a cockroach and then charge it extra for refills.

For a moment, we just sit there, the silence awkward in a way that feels… earned.

She clears her throat — the kind of throat‑clear that sounds like she’s trying to physically shove the memory of the last half hour into a mental closet.

“So… I guess we should probably know each other’s names before this gets any weirder.” She winces. “I mean, we probably should’ve done that before we… well… you know. God. Cringe.”

She covers her face with one hand. “Just for the record, believe it or not, I don’t usually do things like… whatever that was. I don’t know what got into me. Temporary possession? A stroke? A full‑body lapse in judgment? You don’t have any diseases, do you?”

I almost smile. Almost. My face tries. My dignity vetoes it. I just shake my head.

She looks genuinely relieved — like she narrowly avoided starring in a cautionary medical pamphlet — then offers her hand across the table like we’re at a job interview and not sitting here with the ghost of her perfume still clinging to my shirt like evidence. And in other places of me I can’t think about right now. Oof.

“Leonie.”

I take it. Her palm is warm. Human. Real. Not ideal for pretending none of this happened.

“Damon,” I say — and immediately regret using my real name. Too late now. It’s out there. So much for anonymity. Goodbye, plausible deniability. Farewell, mysterious stranger persona.

Her eyebrows lift. “Damon. Okay. That fits.”

“Fits what?”

“You. You just look like a Damon.” She shrugs and takes a sip of her burnt‑asphalt coffee like she didn’t just casually drop a psychological grenade in my lap.

She immediately winces, spits the sip back into the cup, stares into it. “God, that’s awful, tastes like toxic waste.”

I stare at her, trying to figure out what that even means. What does a Damon look like? Apparently… me. Fantastic. Add that to the list of things I’ll overthink at 3 a.m from here on out.

She talks after that.

Not in a dramatic way — just… life. The kind of life that wears you down one small disaster at a time.

Her parents are still together, technically, but the marriage is hanging on by dental floss and denial. Her dad sleeps on the couch more nights than not. Her mom cries in the laundry room so no one hears. Her teenage brother is in full rebellion mode — skipping school, sneaking out, getting picked up by the police so often the officers know him by name.

She works every shift she can get because someone has to keep the lights on, and she’s the only one in the house who isn’t actively imploding. Some nights she doesn’t even want to go home — because there might be yelling, or slammed doors, or her brother being escorted back by an officer who looks at her like she should have the answers.

She doesn’t complain. She doesn’t ask for pity. She just tells it like it is — tired, matter‑of‑fact, like she’s reciting the weather.

And I listen.

Really listen.

She doesn’t ask about me. She doesn’t pry. She doesn’t try to make me talk. She gives me the option, and when I don’t take it, she just nods and keeps going, like silence is something she’s learned to live with.

She just… exists beside me. Warm. Human. Real.

Her coffee cools. The café empties. The fluorescent lights buzz like dying insects. The world outside stays dark and indifferent.

But for some odd reason, I don’t feel like I’m drowning for a change.

I feel… present.

When she finally stands, stretching her back, she gives me a small, tired smile — the kind that says she didn’t expect tonight to be survivable, let alone bearable.

“Well, Damon,” she says softly, “thanks for not disappearing.”

I don’t know what to say to that. So I just nod.

I pay for her toxic waste coffee. The least I can do.

For the first time in a long time, I don’t feel like a weapon. Or a disappointment. Or a burden.

I feel like a person.
A man.

When I walk her to her car, she gives me another small smile.

“Thanks,” she says. “For… not leaving. And for the coffee. And for… well, you know. The other stuff. I needed that. Thanks for not making it weird.”

I still don’t know what to say. So I just nod.

She hesitates, fingers tapping the roof of her car. “Do you… want a ride home? I mean, it’s late, and this area gets sketchy after midnight. I don’t mind.”

Panic flickers in my chest. There is that idiotic part of me that would give anything to spend a little more time with her — because somehow she makes me feel so… normal. Seen.

But this is why vampires are such good liars.

If I took her up on her offer, it would take us four or five hours to reach the outskirts of a region she can’t even see, let alone enter. I can. Forgotten Hollow is veiled well to those who aren’t supposed to be there.

I wish I could tell her I’d like to ride home with her — because by now I’m genuinely curious where she lives — but then what? I’d have to vanish from her driveway like a malfunctioning stage magician. Oh my God. How do other vampires EVER date mortals.

“I’m good,” I lie smoothly. “My car’s parked just a block from here.”

It is not. My car is nowhere. I don’t even have a car in this city or anywhere else. I don’t even drive. But sure. A block away. Great lie, Damon. Very convincing.

She nods, relieved she offered, relieved I didn’t accept. “Okay. Just… be safe, alright? There are a lot of creeps out.”

I have to keep myself from snorting a laugh. Yeah, there sure are and you are talking to one after getting humped by him in the backseat of your car. Wow.

“Always,” I say instead — which is also a lie, but at least I’m consistent. I professionally track and hunt down such creeps and then I kill them. Which is what Coven Enforcers do. Oh boy, aren’t I just an absolute prize to any regular mortal girl?

She gets in, starts the engine, and gives me one last small smile through the window.

“Goodnight, Damon.”

“Goodnight.”

She drives away. I stand there watching her taillights disappear into the night, pretending I’m waiting to walk to my imaginary car and not for her to be out of sight so I can stroll down a dark alley and vanish like the supernatural fraud I am.

And for the second time that evening, I can breathe. Proverbially, of course.