Eric gasped.
His eyes flew open, wild and glassy, and for a moment he didn't move.
Then the pain settled in.
His hand shot up to his neck—gripping, clawing—where the memory of Alaric's hand had snapped through flesh and bone.
It should have killed him.
It had killed him.
Eric whimpered, fingers trembling over unbroken skin, as if he could still feel the phantom fracture. There was no mark. No wound.
"Why…?"
Why had Alaric done it?
Why had he—
Eric curled inward, chest folding over his knees. He was still lying on the cold floor, body twisted, limbs stiff from death. His blood-soaked clothes clung to him.
His eyes dropped.
Dried blood.
So much of it. Spilled, smeared, seeping into every crack in the floor. His hands were stained with it.
"God"
He jolted upright.
He was alive.
But something inside him wasn't.
He didn't feel human anymore.
His vision sharpened unnaturally, catching every line of dust along the floor, every faint pulse of energy in the walls, like the house itself was breathing with him.
And under it all…
Hunger.
He pressed a hand to his healed stomach.
Empty.
So violently, awfully empty.
He crawled forward, eyes scanning for anything warm, anything alive. But there was only him, and the drying blood that had already lost its heat.
His fingers slid through it—dark, crusted—trying to lift some to his lips, but it was cold. Dead. Pointless.
He gagged.
"Why did you leave me here?"
Had Alaric killed him to punish him?
Or… was this something else?
A lesson?
Eric looked around the room. The mirror hallway was empty. No sign of movement. No sign of him.
"Alaric…"
Eric gritted his teeth. His fingers curled into the fabric at his sides, and he forced himself to keep moving.
The hallway narrowed.
He turned a corner and found a small, strange room tucked into the side of the manor—a space he hadn't seen before. The door was half-open, old and creaking on its hinges. He pushed it wider.
Golden light spilled through the wide, tall windows.
Alaric was there.
Naked.
Seated on a velvet cushion near the center of the room, legs crossed like a statue or a priest in the middle of some silent ritual. His white hair had returned completely—glowing in the morning light, a crown of ghost-light around his blood-slicked skin.
Eric froze in the doorway, red eyes gleaming, breath stuck in his throat.
Alaric hadn't noticed him yet.
He was reading.
No—not reading. Eric stared harder. The book in his lap wasn't a journal or a spellbook. It was a picture book, pages filled with vibrant, beautiful art. Paintings of gods, monsters, and dying stars—works that looked too perfect to be real.
In his other hand, Alaric held a glass.
Not wine.
Blood.
Dark and thick, swirling in the cup like molten rubies. He sipped it slowly, the way someone might savor an aged liquor. Calm. Content. As if the world hadn't just ended in the room next door.
Eric's body swayed with hunger.
His eyes flicked to the edge of the room—
And stopped.
He blinked once.
Twice.
Then stared.
There, collapsed near the wall like an afterthought, was the corpse of a deer. Its throat had been slit cleanly, blood still pooling beneath it. Its eyes wide. Lifeless.
Fresh.
So fresh.
But Eric didn't move toward it. Didn't lunge. Didn't even flinch.
He just… stared.
Expressionless.
Eric's breath hitched.
And still, Alaric didn't look up.
He turned another page.
Sipped.
So he stayed in the shadows, his eyes locked on Alaric.
When he finally looked up and met Eric's eyes, a grin bloomed on his lips.
"There you are," he said softly, as if greeting an old friend who'd simply wandered off.
Eric's voice cracked. "Why did you kill me?"
Alaric tilted his head. "Because you needed it."
"I—I thought I did what you wanted…"
"You hesitated," Alaric interrupted, calm as ever. "You made me ask, Eric. That's the problem."
Eric's throat tightened. The pain in his stomach sharpened as he looked at the blood in Alaric's hand. His knees felt weak.
Alaric leaned his head back, sipping from the glass again.
Then Alaric gestured lazily toward the far corner of the room. "Eat."
Eric followed the motion—the deer, glassy and open.
Eric's stomach twisted. "It's… a corpse."
Alaric gave a soft laugh. "So?"
"I… I don't know how to do this."
Alaric stood. He moved without hesitation, fully naked, stepping through the sunlight like it couldn't touch him. It adored him. Eric, meanwhile, shrank from the light. The heat was starting to sting at the edges of his face, blistering where it touched skin.
Alaric stopped just before the doorway, looking down at him with something like amusement. "Lesson one," he said, voice low. "You're not human anymore. That means no rules. No shame. No softness."
Eric stared at the cup in Alaric's hand. He could smell it now—rich, metallic, sweet. It made his mouth water and his bones ache.
"You want this?" Alaric asked, tilting the cup just slightly.
Eric nodded without thinking. "Yes."
Alaric's hand shot out and grabbed him by the jaw, fingers digging into his skin hard enough to leave marks.
"Then take it," he said.
Eric froze, the heat from the sun now creeping across his shoulders. His skin hissed, a low burn blooming just under the surface. The cup was right there—so close. If he stepped forward, he could grab it. But the sunlight would eat him alive.
"This is your first test," Alaric said, his voice soft against Eric's cheek now. "Crawl through the fire… or starve like a coward."
He let go of Eric's jaw, stepping back just a few feet. Watching. Waiting.
"If you're going to be mine," he added, "then learn to suffer beautifully."
Alaric raised his hand slowly, letting the morning light bathe it. A silver ring gleamed on his finger, ornate and old, with a deep red gem that pulsed faintly in the sun.
Eric's eyes caught on it instantly.
It didn't belong to Alaric. It didn't look like him.
He stared, lips parting slightly, but said nothing.
Alaric noticed, of course. He always did.
"Found it in Killian's room," he said casually, turning the ring slightly in the light. "I never put it there… but I recognized it."
Eric blinked slowly, hunger forgotten for half a second.
"What is it?" he asked, voice raw.
Alaric smiled faintly. "A day ring. For vampires."
His eyes flicked back to Eric's. "Not for me, obviously."
But it could be for Eric.
"If you want it," Alaric said, voice soft but deadly clear, "all you have to do is come get it."
Eric's stomach twisted.
The hunger clawed up again, sharp and vicious, and the sunlight licking at his feet was already starting to sting. He could feel his skin twitching with heat. His throat tightened.
The room was silent except for the birds outside, and the slow, cruel rhythm of Alaric sipping blood from the glass in his other hand.
Eric stared at the ring again.
Alaric tilted his head and added, almost kindly, "You'd look good in it."
He smiled, and took a step back—further into the sun.
Alaric let the sun kiss the ring again, slowly turning his hand to show off the gem's deep red shimmer. It pulsed faintly in the light, like something alive.
"You know," he said quietly, "vampires across the world would kill for a chance at this."
Eric didn't speak.
He couldn't.
His throat felt dry and sharp, like it had been scraped raw. The hunger was unbearable now. His stomach had twisted in on itself, his mouth was smeared with dried blood—his own and Alaric's—and his shirt clung to him, stiff with it.
Alaric kept speaking, voice soft and steady, like he was explaining something sacred.
"Only powerful witches and warlocks can make sun rings," he murmured, running a finger idly along the edge of the gem. "And even then, they don't last. Most crack within years. Most... reject the wearer. But this one's held up. Strong. Perfect. Like it was made for someone."
Eric stared at the ring, his pupils wide and red, lips parted slightly. His breath hitched.
His vampire—the thing inside him that had clawed its way up from death, from blood, from every inch of him that wasn't human anymore—it wanted it. It ached for it.
He wanted to step into the light.
To stop being trapped in the dark. To stand next to him again. To walk without shame or shadow or burning.
Alaric saw it in his eyes. Saw the quiet madness curling under his skin, threading itself into obsession.
Eric's hand twitched at his side.
Then, slowly, he extended it. His arm shook slightly as he held it out, palm open toward Alaric.
"Give it to me," he said, voice rough—hoarse with thirst, but low. Almost pleading. "Please."
Alaric looked down at the hand for a moment, quiet.
Then, eyes calm and unreadable, he asked gently, "Why should I?"
Eric faltered.
Because he wanted it?
Because he was hungry?
Because he couldn't take one more second of being trapped in doorways, hiding like an animal?
He didn't answer right away.
His hand stayed outstretched, trembling slightly in the sun's heat—but not crossing the threshold.
Not yet.
"I just… I need it," he said finally, softer this time. "I want to walk with you."
Alaric studied him in silence.
Then, slow as ever, he smiled again.
"Have you ever felt the full burn of the sun, Eric?" he asked, eyes steady. "Not just a brush. Not a graze. I mean the real thing. The kind that peels the skin from your bones. The kind that makes death feel like mercy."
Eric's throat tightened. His outstretched hand curled slightly.
Alaric's smirk deepened. "It's not just pain. It's a sentence. You will die, if you stay in it too long."
Eric stared at him, his heart pounding like it wanted out of his chest.
Then—without warning—Alaric stepped back, wound his arm once, and threw the ring.
It sailed through the sunlit air and crashed cleanly through the glass window at the far end of the room.
Eric's eyes went wide.
He turned to Alaric, stunned and betrayed. "Why… why would you do that?"
The hurt slipped out before he could stop it—raw and confused.
Alaric met his gaze, all softness gone. His voice dropped into something colder
"Go get it."
Eric's breath caught.
The sun outside was brutal. He could feel it from where he stood. There would be no shade. No mercy. And the ring—his salvation, his chance to stand beside Alaric—was lying somewhere in the open, two stories below.
But before the fear could paralyze him—before he even thought—his legs moved.
He ran.
Straight toward the shattered window.
The sun hit him mid-sprint—sharp, alive, angry. It seared across his shoulders, his chest, his face. His skin began to blister immediately, peeling back in pink and red as the heat clawed into him.
But he didn't stop.
He leapt.
Out the second-floor window.
The wind roared in his ears as he plummeted, and he hit the earth hard. Pain shattered up his leg—he felt something twist, maybe break—but it didn't matter. He didn't stop.
He hit the dirt and scrambled forward like a wounded animal, arms shielding his face as the sun punished him for every inch. The grass beneath him smoked. His shirt began to blacken, skin peeling at the edges like burnt paper.
But he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
All he could think was: Alaric is watching.
And Eric would do anything—anything—to prove he was worth it.