The front door creaked open when I pushed it. The air inside was cooler, still thick with the scent of smoke and old wood. Kit was by the fireplace, the light throwing his face into half-shadow.
He didn’t look at me right away.
“Couldn’t sleep?” I tried.
Kit didn’t answer. Just tossed a small twigs into the dying embers. The fire flared briefly, then settled into a dull red glow.
“I didn’t think you’d still be here,” he said finally.
“Where else would I go?”
His jaw tightened. “You tell me.”
I exhaled slowly, fighting the urge to look away. “I needed to feed.”
“That what that was?” His tone was even, but something dark coiled beneath it. “Looked more like you were tearing into something.”
“I didn’t—” I stopped myself. Arguing wouldn’t help. “It was an animal. A hare.”
For the first time, his eyes flicked toward me. They were dark, unreadable.
“I told you,” I said quietly. “I don’t drink from people.”
“Yeah,” he murmured. “I saw that.”
The silence that followed was worse than shouting.
I shifted my weight, trying to read him. “If you think I’d?—”
“I don’t know what to think,” he cut in. The exhaustion in his voice hit harder than anger. “One minute you’re patching me up. The next you’re—” He gestured vaguely, like the words were too heavy. “That.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s not something I like. But it’s what keeps me alive.”
He looked at me for a long moment. “Does it bother you?”
“What?” I asked.
“That I saw.”
I hesitated. “Yes.”
Something flickered across his expression. Surprise, maybe. Or confusion. “Why?”
“Because I thought—” I stopped, the truth clawing at the back of my throat.Because I thought maybe you didn’t see me as just a monster anymore.
But saying that out loud would make it real. And if he didn’t feel the same, it would destroy the fragile thread of understanding between us.
So instead, I said, “Because I didn’t want to give you another reason to hate me.”
That made him go still.
The fire popped softly. The shadows on his face shifted, softer now.
“I don’t hate you, Simon,” he said at last.
I blinked.
He turned toward the fire again, jaw working. “I just… forget sometimes what you are. Then I remember.”
