Page 21 of A Touch of Darkness

I lean forward, my heart pounding in my chest. “They’re interested in me, yes. But why? What do I have to do with their game?”

His lips curl slightly, but there’s no humor in it. “Because you’re not who you think you are. You’re not merely human, Sylvie. You’ve already been told this, yes?” He pauses, watching me for my reaction, and I can’t help but be slightly enamored by the way my name sounds rolling off his tongue. The slight accent that I can’t place only makes it sound…

But how doesheknow I’ve been told I’m not a human?

How does everyone here know more about me than I do?

“You’re something far more dangerous,” he says, breaking me from my thoughts.

My chest tightens. I want to ask him more, to demand answers, but the words won’t come. He’s right about one thing—I don’t understand any of this. But that’s not going to stop me from trying.

I open my mouth, but before I can speak, he steps closer and my breath catches. The space between us is foreboding and filled with tension, his presence almost suffocating. A sharp, stabbing pain starts behind my eyes. “They’ll come for you,” he says softly, his voice rougher now. “You need to be prepared.”

Prepared. The word rings in my head, and suddenly, I know something deep inside me has shifted. I can’t be the quiet girl who hides behind her sister’s strength anymore. I won’t be the girl who lets things happen to her.

Iwillfight.

I stand abruptly, surprising both of us, and I have to crane my neck to look him in the eyes. “I am prepared,” I say, my voice steady. Stronger than I’ve ever heard it before, even if I don’t think that’s true.

For a moment, his eyes soften—almost imperceptibly—and I catch a glimpse of something I didn’t expect: regret.

“This isn’t like preparing for an exam. You don’t yet know what you’re dealing with,” he says, his voice low, almost mournful.

I shake my head, because as much as he’s right, I don’t want to face it. Any of it.

“They’ve already started, you know. They aren’t just coming, they’ve already sent someone,” I tell him, although I’m not sure why I’m even letting him in. I feel myself getting lost in his eyes, like they are perfectly hypnotic spheres sucking me in, and then I snap out of it. “They sent someone to my dorm room.”

The professor inhales a visible breath, placing his hands on his hips, as students start trickling in for his next class. The air shifts once again, this time with a looming, dark presence I can’t place.

“Stay for the class. We’ll meet after. You need to tell me everything.”

Student slowly trickle out of the classroom, and I exhale a deep breath. Sylvie comes back down to my podium once nearly everyone has filtered out, and she sits across from me, the last words she said hanging in the air like heavy fog.

After recounting the secrets Isabel, a Solstice Society member, entrusted to her—the cryptic warnings, the shadowed path she now walks—I can see the terror in her eyes, the unspoken fear that dances behind her resolve. The truth is far darker than she is prepared to accept. But now, it is too late to turn back.

I exhale again, slowly, then deeply inhale, letting the stale, cool air fill my lungs. The room is dim, the flickering candlelight casting long, uneven shadows on the stone walls, as if the very atmosphere reflects the unspoken unease lingering between the two of us. Shadows stretch like twisted ghosts of the past, whispering their secrets in the quiet spaces of the room. A storm brews—both in the world outside and within the hollow of mychest. I feel it, the terrible inevitability, like the calm before a deluge. She waits for me to speak, her gaze fixed on mine, daring me to reveal the depths of the nightmare that awaits her. I know she’s still puzzled, but I cannot possibly make sense of everything for her. Not yet.

“The Solstice Society,” I begin, my voice low, tinged with an ancient bitterness, “is not a simple faction of extremists. No, Sylvie. They are far more insidious. They are not simply hunters of the supernatural, orslayers,as they like to refer to themselves. They are humans—but not in the sense you’ve come to understand. They use powerful dark magic, provided by old witches who are indebted to their service. They are the remnants of those who think they can cleanse the world of us—ofvampires, among other supernatural beings.”

I watch her chest rise and fall more quickly now, the goldSchain wrapped around her neck rising up and down with each breath. She could sense something was off about me, that much I know, but now she knows for sure.

Now she sees me for the monster I am.

The monster she made me.

“You’re a…a…”

She cannot even bring herself to say it.

“A vampire,” I say, finishing for her. “Solstice believes themselves to be the arbiters of some twisted fate, determined to rid the earth of any supernatural creature,” I continue, “but they’re starting with vampires and just going down the line until they ‘cleanse’the world.”

Her brow furrows, but she does not interrupt. She listens with the fragile hope that my words might provide some understanding, but I see her mind racing, seeking answers that will tear the veil of illusion from her world. But I know—I know—that she is not prepared for what follows. For that type of encumbrance.

“They have a singular, petrifying goal, Sylvie,” I continue, my tone darkening, as though the very words I speak stain the air. “They aim to eradicate us all. Vampires, witches, any creature born of the dark. They believe that humanity would flourish, untainted by our existence. And they are willing to destroy everything in their path to see that vision realized.”

I watch as her fingers twitch, as though she might lash out or perhaps retreat. I desire, so badly, to read her thoughts, but I won’t. I refuse. She is frightened—terrified, even—and I am wary to add to that burden.

Though I must.

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