Prologue
Heart of stone
5 YEARS AGO
MARSHALL
Ihope it will be worth sacrificing a night of pure pleasure for a free dinner.
I looked over the invitation I had received in the mail that morning one more time to confirm that I was in the right place. I opened the restaurant’s door and went directly to a table in a dark corner, far away from everyone’s looks.
The menu from the table found its way into my hands in search of an attractive dish, but whattrulycaught my attention was an electrifying presence.
Someone was watching me.
I slowly took my eyes off the menu until they reached the most beautiful human ever to be seen by mankind. She almostlit up a fire inside me with her red hair, something I had been working on for years, without any visible result.
Something inside me was rotten, and I wanted to bring it back to life. Staring at her, analysing her, seeing deep inside her soul — it all opened up the way to a brightening hope I desperately needed.
She was curiously watching me with a large smile on her lips. That was how all of them looked at me before figuring out the danger behind my mask. But with her, something was completely different.
She’s tarnished. She isn’t pure. She isn’t like… them.
I felt it from a distance with the same intensity as the fresh and chilly air of a summer morning in the middle of the forest.
Her essence was attracting me differently from the ones who lost their lives under the needle of the wrong liquid that flowed through their veins while they begged for their lives.
She was whispering something while laughing with the girl standing next to her. I hadn’t even seen the other girl, being too hypnotised by the reddie’s aura. I was watching her bite her bottom lip while getting closer to me. Our gazes, once intersected, remained strongly connected and didn't break away until she had to send my order to the kitchen.
Her smile reduced my sickness to a mere whisper. I wasn’t feeling the attraction in the normal way, but she left me wanting more, only with her simple presence. To achieve what others couldn’t. To make me morehumanthan I’d been my entire life.
I had lived too long surrounded by darkness, by the souls from hell who were always whispering, telling me to kill, giving them reasons to take me to the afterlife’s trial. I was listening to the voices. I didn’t have anything else to do. My heart was a giant pile of rocks from deep inside the earth, without the hope of ever seeing the light of day. But with her, they were simplytransforming into ice, waiting for a spark to break them, to soften them.
To revive.To come to life.
It might have sounded poetic, but that was not the case. I had always been broken. They told me that, with time, things would settle down, but I couldn’t wait my whole life to have the emotions of a normal human being or a genuine smile. That was why I had decided to take the matter into my own hands and at least try to forge them onto me from a young age.
After a lot of studies and numerous failed experiments, my hope was almost lost.
Until I saw Anmara, who was already coming with the ordered dishes in her strong hands, not knowing I was going to share them with her.
I smiled at her as authentically as my facial muscles could, signalling her to sit at my table. Her cheeks turned red as her soft and warm presence drew closer, eating up the distance between us, and she sat in the chair in front of me.
My eyes weren’t saying much. I didn’t have control over them as I had over the rest of my body’s muscles. They remained empty, full of extinguished amber, but she didn’t seem to be bothered by this aspect, making the interaction between us extremely pleasant and easy. The conversation with her felt like the mosthumanway to spend my dinner, while sharing the delicious food.
I couldn’t be myself, but I could pretend to be however she wanted me to be until it would no longer be necessary. Until I could really feel all the things around me.
Her laugh was like a bandage over my soul. I knew I had to have her. She needed to be mine, but not like the others. No, she should never find out who I really was in the past. Not after I would completely transform my entire blood for her. Not after I would become ahumanworthy of her. Especially not then,because if I were to lose her, I wouldn’t have anything else to do with my life. It would be a shame to learn how to love if I wouldn’t be able to keep the love she’d be giving me in my heart.
Upon departure, I knew she was head over heels for me, especially when we exchanged numbers. It seemed like a simple thing, ripped from the stories I always heard around me, but had never gotten to live. I couldn’t say I was truly living in the moment, but I would sacrifice my life to find out what it would feel like to do so.
Even if it was the last thing I would ever do, she would be mine, and I would learn what love meant, no matter how many innocent souls would lose their breath in front of me. I wished to not feel pleasure anymore from the moments where I took a pure life with my bare hands, but from the moments next to the girl that, at some point, I would be able to love.
Chapter 1
Tamwine
PRESENT DAY
