Chapter four : Dreams of Blood and Fire

Ava didn’t sleep that night. Not really.

She lay still in her bed, staring at the stone ceiling as moonlight crawled across it, minute by minute, like a silent clock counting down. Her mind refused to rest. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw him—the way he looked at her, like she was something he’d waited for. Like he knew her.

And then there was the house. That place had pulled at her like it remembered her, like it had been waiting too.

But that didn’t make sense.

She rubbed her hands over her face, frustration bubbling just beneath her skin. Maybe she was just hungry. Maybe she’d lost control, just once, and it meant nothing. Just a mistake.

But her body said otherwise.

Her heart wouldn’t let her forget the way he touched her.

At some point, the exhaustion dragged her under.

And that’s when the dream began.

⸻

She stood in a field of ash. The trees around her were burning, but she didn’t feel heat—just silence.

And then she saw herself. A version of her, pale and bloody, standing in front of a stone altar. Her eyes weren’t her eyes. They were glowing.

A man lay across the altar.

Achi.

His chest was bare. His eyes closed. And in her hand—in the other Ava’s hand—was a silver blade.

“No,” dream-Ava whispered. “Not him.”

But the prophecy voice—the one she’d never heard, but somehow knew—boomed all around her.

“One must bleed so the bloodline may rise.”

“One must die so the curse may live.”

She screamed—but the forest swallowed the sound whole.

She woke up gasping.

⸻

Morning bled into the manor like poison.

Ava barely spoke. She sat through the blood gathering with the others, ignored the maid gossip, and avoided her father’s eyes like they burned. Because they did. He was watching her too closely, like he could smell every lie.

When he finally pulled her aside, his voice was quiet—but sharp.

“You’re slipping.”

“I’m fine,” she said.

“You’re not feeding. You’re not resting. You’re hiding something.”

She stared him down, but her hands trembled. “I’m just tired.”

His jaw clenched. “Ava, I know what it means when a vampire starts dreaming. Especially you.”

“I said I’m fine.”

He didn’t press. But his silence said more than words ever could.

⸻

That night, she stood by her window, cloak on, boots laced.

She couldn’t ignore it anymore.

Something was calling her. Pulling her. Begging her to remember what she wasn’t supposed to know.

She slipped out into the night again, heart pounding.

She didn’t go to hunt.

She went back.

Back to the ruin.

Back to him.

And this time, he was waiting for her—standing in the doorway like he’d been carved out of the shadows, those gold eyes glowing in the dark.

“You came back,” he said.

She didn’t answer.

She just walked into the house and closed the door behind her.