Page 1 of Craving Carla

PROLOGUE

Amari

Granada, Spain - January 2, 1492

The screams have finally stopped.

I stand on the hillside watching my civilization burn. The smoke billows into the night sky, thick and black, obscuring the stars that have guided my people for centuries. My heart—though it hasn’t beat in over seven hundred years—aches with a pain I thought immortality had numbed me to.

The night air is thick with the stench of burning flesh and timber, mixed with the acrid smell of fear. From this vantage point, I can see the magnificent domed roofs that once shone under the Andalusian sun now collapsing under relentless flames. Eight centuries of Moorish dominance erased in a single night of Christian conquest. The legendary libraries, the architectural wonders, the achievements in medicine and astronomy—all of it vanishing before my eyes.

Damon stands beside me, flipping that damn coin of his. The silver denarius glints with each rotation, a flash of Rome’sglory days taunting me as my own people’s achievements turn to ash. The rhythmic sound—metal against thumbnail, spinning through air, caught in palm—feels like a mockery of my grief.

I watch as his pale hand opens, the coin landing flat—heads up, Emperor Hadrian’s profile in the light of the distant flames. The same result, time after time. I often wonder if Damon has enchanted the coin, or if seven centuries of practice have given him this uncanny control.

“It was inevitable,” Damon says, his voice steady, controlled, emotionless. He’s dressed simply compared to me—practical clothes that wouldn’t distinguish him from any common merchant. A deliberate choice, part of his philosophy of blending in rather than standing out.

I still wear the fine silk robes of a Moorish nobleman. The fabric is with intricate embroidery, the deep blues and golds marking me as a man of learning and wealth. A pointless attachment to a life I can no longer claim. Yet I cling to it, as if these garments somehow preserve a connection to what I once was.

“Nothing about this was inevitable,” I snap, my fangs extending slightly with my anger. “They destroyed the greatest center of learning in the western world. Eight hundred years of knowledge. Of progress.”

I can feel the rage churning inside me, a beast separate from the vampire I’ve become. It claws at my insides, demanding action, demanding blood. I want to tear down the hillside and rip out the throats of Ferdinand’s soldiers. I want to drain them dry and leave their bodies in the streets as a warning. I want to save what remains of my civilization.

“And yet here we stand, unable to intervene,” Damon replies, flipping his coin again. The soft metallic ping as his thumb launches it upward sounds obscenely cheerful against the backdrop of destruction.

I clench my fists at my sides, my nails—sharper than any human’s—digging crescents into my palms. “Wecouldintervene. We choose not to.”

“No, Amari.Youchoose not to becauseIcommand it.” Damon’s voice hardens, reminding me of my place. He doesn’t raise his voice—he never needs to. The authority in his tone is absolute, built on centuries of power and the blood-bond between maker and progeny. “You are not of them anymore. You are vampire. You answer to different laws now—the laws of Mother Fate and King Amir.”

Below us, a group of soldiers drag a Moorish scholar from his home. I recognize him—Abdullah ibn Yusef, a man who devoted his life to understanding the movement of stars. They force him to his knees in the street. Even from this distance, my vampire sight allows me to see the terror on his face.

“King Amir sleeps while my people burn.” My voice is a low growl, dangerously close to insubordination. The sword falls, and Abdullah’s head rolls across the street. My body tenses, ready to spring forward.

Damon’s hand clamps on my shoulder, his strength—greater than mine by virtue of his age—keeping me rooted in place. “Yourformerpeople,” he corrects me, his Roman accent thickening with irritation. “This isn’t the first civilization to fall, and it won’t be the last you’ll witness.”

“They’re killing scholars! Men whose only crime was to study the heavens, to advance medicine, to preserve knowledge!” I snarl, twisting free of his grip.

“Men who happened to pray facing Mecca rather than Rome,” Damon says coolly. “Today it’s Muslims killed by Christians. Yesterday it was Christians killed by Romans. Tomorrow it will be something else. The methods change, but the madness remains the same.”

I turn away from him, unable to bear his cold logic. Below us, the University of Al-Andalus is collapsing, its great roof caving in with a thunderous crash that across the valley. The structure that housed the largest library in western Europe, gone in an instant. The collected wisdom of Greek philosophers, preserved by Arab scholars when Europe descended into darkness, now turned to cinders.

Damon hisses, his composure finally cracking. “So many books. So much precious history, wasted.” For a moment, I can see genuine pain in his eyes—not for the people, but for the knowledge being lost.

I whirl on him, fury rising in my throat. “You don’t give a damn about my people dying, but you mourn for books?”

“Books outlive people, Amari.” Damon sighs, pocketing his coin. “Knowledge has a longer lifespan than humanity. In time, you’ll understand that.”

“I don’t want to understand that,” I growl, turning back to the inferno below. Another explosion rocks the night as barrels of oil stored in the market quarter ignite. The flames leap higher, painting the sky in shades of orange and red. The beautiful Alhambra palace, spared from destruction but now in Christian hands, looms untouched amidst the surrounding devastation.

Damon’s eyes—normally a cold, calculating green—soften slightly. “I stood where you stand now, you know. I watched Rome fall. My people, my language, my gods—all of it swept away by time and barbarism.”

“And you did nothing.”

“I could do nothing. Just as you can do nothing now.” He gestures to the burning city below. “The Moors achieved greatness—architecture, mathematics, medicine, astronomy. They also engaged in slave trading, religious persecution, and tribal warfare. Just as Rome built roads and aqueducts while crucifying dissenters and feeding Christians to lions.”

“Don’t you dare compare?—”

“I compare because it’s the same story, told with different characters.” Damon cuts me off. “You think your pain is unique? Special? It’s not. It’s as old as civilization itself.”

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