Page 9 of A Hunger Soft and Wild

People like to say vampires don’t have heartbeats. That we’re cold, lifeless things. They’re wrong. We do. It’s just…slower. Quieter. We’re not the dead—they only like to pretend we are.

But I feel every beat of mine tonight. Heavy. Loud. Anchoring me to the pain, to this moment, to the stranger only a few feet away who saw me bleeding and didn’t walk away.

Roan.

She leans against the remains of a crumbling wall, her sword still strapped across her back, legs stretched out in front of her. She’s not asleep either—I can tell from the way her fingers twitch now and then, like she’s ready to move at the first sign of danger.

I should be grateful—she’s done more for me than anyone else in recent memory. But caution gnaws at me, sharp as a fang against flesh. I’ve been taught to trust no one—especially not a pretty human with a blade.

My eyes flick to her hands, the calluses and faint scars telling their own story of violence. They aren’t the hands of a noble or a scholar—they are a warrior’s hands, roughened by years of wielding a blade, no doubt. They are hands built by survival.

But the rest of her isn’t as harsh.

She is…handsome. Not in the delicate way the court used to whisper about when discussing potential blood-bound suitors. There’s nothing delicate about Roan. She’s all sinew and edge—strong jaw, square shoulders, scars littering her skin where blades must have glanced her once, long ago. Her dark hair is shorn close to her scalp—efficient, no nonsense and her posture is the kind that comes from always being ready for a fight.

And yet, when she bandaged my shoulder, her hands were careful.

She keeps glancing in my direction, scanning my face as if trying to decide whether I’m a threat or a burden.

Probably both.

Her gaze lingers—not just wary, but calculating, like she’s trying to solve a puzzle she didn’t expect to find tonight.

It’s like she’s waiting for me to turn into something else. Or maybe she’s trying to decide what I already am.

I don’t know how to feel about that.

The wind picks up through the bones of the ruins, stirring fallen leaves and whispering across broken stone. I shift slightly where I’m propped against the cold wall, and pain flares hot and sharp beneath my ribs. I grit my teeth and ride it out, breath shallow. The movement stokes another kind of discomfort—worse than the pain. Deeper. Familiar.

Hunger.

Not for food. Not for water. Not for comfort.

The real kind. The kind that curls in my belly and scratches at the inside of my throat. The kind that comes with the scent of blood, faint but maddening, even now. It used to be so easy—back at the estate, back when I didn’t know better. Blood was a given. Poured into crystal goblets, offered up on silk-draped wrists. Never questioned. Never earned.

But I left that behind.

I press the back of my head harder against the stone, breathing in through my nose, willing the ache back down. Roan’s scent is close—leather, sweat, iron. Earth and danger. It's not helping.

She doesn’t know what I am. Not really. She hasn’t seen the fangs. She hasn’t seen what I become when the hunger slips its leash.

Roan clears her throat, gaze lingering on the bandage. “You good?” she asks, voice pitched low.

My throat feels desert-dry. “Yes,” I manage, the word coming out faint.

She nods slowly, watching me a moment longer. I can feel the weight of questions pressing against her tongue, but she doesn’t ask them. She just watches. Her silence—it should be a relief, but it unsettles me more than if she’d pried. Kindness, the real kind, always feels like a trick. I pull my knees up against my chest, trying not to wince at the pressure in my shoulder.

An owl calls in the distance, and my gaze shoots to the darkness beyond the crumbling walls, scanning for shadows. No movement, just the hush of the night. Tension eases in my chest—if the enforcers were closing in, they’d likely have revealed themselves by now.

Then why did they stop?

Did I lose them?

Did they stop when I entered the ruins?

Or is dawn too close for comfort for them?

I shiver, unsure which answer unnerves me more.

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