Page 64 of Flirting with Darkness

I recognized it right away. By sight, and… even the taste.

“It’s not human,” he said, misreading my expression.

“It’s yours.”

I’d spent months obsessed with Vale’s blood. I’d know it anywhere.

“Yes,” he said.

I tried to raise the cup again, and he said, “Slowly,” before allowing me another sip.

I still felt horrible, but the blood helped. I took in the room around me for the first time. Unfamiliar—somewhere far from home, judging by the decor. Simple. It was a small room, and sparse, with only a few pieces of simple furniture. The curtains, thick brocade fabric, were drawn. No light seeped beneath them—it was night.

“Where are we?”

“The coast of Pikov.”

My brows rose. Wewerefar from home. Far from Adcova—far from Ghera, too.

I didn’t know how I knew that significant time had passed. It was like I could smell it in the air—summer, the damp humidity of the sky outside, the salt on the skin of those beyond this building. I could… feel,sense, so much more now.

“How long—”

“Weeks.”

Vale sounded weary. He looked weary, too—his hair unkempt, his eyes shadowed, like he’d gotten very little rest or food.

“I didn’t know if you would survive,” he said quietly. “You were very sick.”

Most don’t survive the process,he had told me.

The process.

Only now did it start to sink on what had happened to me—what I had done. My human self had withered and died, just as it has always been destined to.

And I…

I rubbed my fingers together. Even my skin felt different. Smoother. Unmarked.

Gods. The shock left me dizzier than my illness. The words even sounded strange aloud.

“You Turned me.”

Vale nodded slowly. Hesitantly.

“I asked you—”

“I said yes.”

I want to stay.

And so, he’d helped me stay.

“Yes,” he whispered.

I met his eyes. He didn’t blink, watching me carefully—as if to make sure he saw every shade of my reaction to this.

“I won’t lie to you, mouse. It won’t be an easy transition. A part of you did die that day. A different version of you was born. There will be things you’ll grieve. There will be things about yourself you’ll need to learn how to embrace… things that might be… uncomfortable. But…”

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