Chapter Six: Despair

I slid down the wall.

Not in some elegant collapse. Not with grace. Just... gravity. Despair. The kind that doesn’t howl—it sinks. Slow. Heavy. Inescapable.

My legs gave out, and I let them. My knees hit stone that scraped skin. The wall at my back felt like a tomb—too warm, too still, too final. The air thickened around me, the kind of thick that clings to your lungs, that presses against your ribs like it's trying to keep your heart from moving.

I wrapped my arms around myself, curling in like I could make my shape smaller. Quieter. Forgettable. The bite on my hand still wept in shallow pulses, each sting a whisper of failure. My blood had dried into the seams of my skin like ink etched by refusal. Proof that even pain couldn’t buy freedom here.

I didn’t sob. I didn’t scream. I just cried.

Slow, silent tears. The kind that burn because they don’t come with sound. The kind you can’t stop because they aren’t just sadness—they’re surrender. They’re the body’s way of breaking in a language the mind refuses to speak.

I was trapped.

Not just in the stone. In them.

Four creatures. Each one too much. Too close. Too wrong in their own impossible ways.

A hollow—whatever the hell that truly meant—who wrapped obsession in silk and called it love. Who whispered with reverence, as if I were already his. As if he'd found me carved into his bones before I ever opened my eyes.

A fae whose beauty wasn’t soft, but weaponized. Too perfect. Too still. Who watched the world like a puzzle beneath him and spoke like his words were spells designed to keep me off balance. Who made my skin crawl and my stomach flutter, and I hated that it could be both.

A werewolf who trembled with need, who buried himself in chains rather than bury himself in me. Who breathed me in like scent alone could shatter him. Whose hunger made my fear ache with the wrong kind of heat.

And a vampire who hadn’t asked. Who hadn’t waited. Who had taken—with fangs and breath and need—and left me gasping on the floor because someone stronger pulled him off.

There was no safety here. No choice. Just degrees of danger, each dressed in a different lie: love, restraint, prophecy, instinct.

And still—I looked down at my hand.

At the teeth marks I’d put there myself.

The skin was torn open by desperation. By belief. By stupid, useless hope that the wall would answer the way it had before. That blood was the key. That sacrifice still meant something in this place.

It didn’t.

And for a moment... I wanted to tear it wider.

Let the blood spill freely. Let it drip down my wrist, marking the floor behind me like a trail for him to follow. Let it call to the one who already knew my taste.

Let him find me again.

Let it be over.

At least the vampire wouldn’t lie.

He wouldn’t murmur sweet things into my ear or pretend I was chosen. He wouldn’t smile like he’d dreamed of me or speak like he had all the time in the world to win me.

He’d just drink. Because that’s what he did. Because hunger wasn’t sentimental. Because monsters don’t pretend to be anything else.

And maybe that was mercy.

Quick.

Clean.

Final.

The thought settled like a stone in my chest—cold, heavy, unmoving.

I exhaled. It felt like giving something away.

Then I stood, one trembling breath at a time.

The blood from my palm had begun to dry in crooked lines, tight across my skin, a map of the choice I’d made.

And I walked. One slow step at a time. Each one steadier than the last.

Into the dark.

Toward him.

Toward the end.

The air shifted before I saw him.

Thicker. Sharper. Like the scent of iron pressed close to the skin. I followed it through crumbled arches and shadow-choked corridors, the stones beneath my feet cold and uneven. The castle wasn’t alive the way the rest of the prison was—it was dead, and it knew it. Every hallway mourned.

Candlelight flickered in recessed alcoves. Most had burned low, wax puddling like old blood. The mirrors—what few remained—were veiled in velvet, heavy with dust and silence. The air clung to me like breath that didn’t belong to my lungs.

I didn’t call out to him

I didn’t need to.

He found me.

He moved like smoke—sudden and soundless. One moment the hall was empty, and the next, he was there.

The vampire.

He looked worse than before. Paler. Hollow. His eyes glowed faintly red in the dark, bloodshot and rimmed in shadow. He didn’t speak. Just stood, frozen, scenting the air.

Then he saw my hand.

The dried blood.

His pupils dilated.

And he moved.

Not like a man. Like something pulled on strings of hunger. He was on me before I could blink.

I didn’t flinch.

I couldn’t. Some fragile thread inside me had snapped long before his hands found me. The fear should have kicked in. The instinct to run. But I was past that. Past logic. Past self-preservation.

He slammed me against the stone—rough, but not cruel. It wasn't punishment. It was possession. His breath shuddered against my throat, hot and ragged, as if the effort to not sink in immediately was tearing him apart. His fangs grazed my skin, hovering just at the edge.

I tilted my head.

"Do it."

My voice barely cracked. But it was enough.

His fingers tightened on my waist. Not bruising. Anchoring. Like he needed to hold onto something real, something solid, before he unraveled.

"You don’t know what you’re asking," he rasped. The words scratched their way out of him. Voice frayed. Not cold. Not controlled. Just wrecked. Desperate. Like the sound of someone trying to mourn while starving.

"I know what I want."

My pulse pounded under his lips. I think he felt it. I think it hurt him. I felt the tremor in his hands—like his body was already grieving what came next.

He growled. Not in warning—but need. A raw, guttural sound that came from somewhere deeper than hunger. His nose skimmed the edge of my jaw, breath hitching like it hurt to breathe me in. His lips ghosted over the shell of my ear, reverent and shaking.

"You smell like heat and fear," he whispered. "Makes me ache. Makes me want to lose myself."

And then—he bit.

Fangs sank in slow. Like prayer. Like worship. Like apology. Reverent. My breath hitched, pain blooming like lightning—bright and sharp and gone too fast. It left heat in its wake. Ache. My spine arched, and my hands gripped his shoulders, unsure if I meant to push him away or pull him closer.

And he groaned against my throat.

"Little pulse," he breathed. His voice had changed—thicker now. Reverent. “Sweet thing.”

And fed.

His mouth latched deeper, his hands sliding around my back, holding me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to himself. My blood pulsed against his lips, and the sound he made—half gasp, half whimper—wasn’t hunger. It was relief. Like something inside him had broken open and been soothed in the same breath.

He fed like he didn’t know when to stop.

And I let him.

Because for a moment—just one—everything else fell away.

The prison, the voices, the weight of being wanted by things I barely understood. It all quieted beneath the steady pull of his mouth, the throb of my blood leaving me, and the strange, aching calm that followed.

I sagged against him.

My legs were weak. My breath came shallow. But I didn’t pull away.

His hands gripped tighter, not cruel but desperate. Like if he let go, he’d vanish. Like feeding from me wasn’t just hunger—it was anchoring.

My fingers threaded into the fabric of his shirt. Cold. Damp. Torn at the seams like him.

“Mine,” he murmured into my throat between gulps, voice wrecked and reverent. "Little pulse. Mine."

My heart stuttered.

It should’ve scared me.

But I felt the truth in it—and that was worse.

Because it wasn’t a threat. It was a vow.

He pulled back slowly, fangs slipping free with a wet sound that made my stomach twist. His lips, stained with my blood, hovered just above my skin.

He didn’t look at me right away. He was still catching up to himself—shaking.

Then his gaze met mine.

Eyes burning. Hollow and full all at once.

And he said, "You taste like ruin. Like memory. Like everything I lost."

And I knew I wasn’t going anywhere.

But that wasn’t why I cried.

The moment stretched—too long, too quiet. His breath still ghosted over my skin, but the fangs were gone. My blood no longer flowed, just lingered—warm and wet between us.

And I was still standing.

Alive.

My lips trembled.

He hadn’t finished it.

I’d come here to die. I’d chosen him because I thought he was the end—the most honest monster in this place. The one who wouldn’t lie, who wouldn’t hesitate. And yet… he had.

He’d stopped himself.

Tears welled in my eyes again, and this time, I didn’t fight them. I didn’t even understand them fully. Rage, grief, disappointment—hope. It all tangled into something raw and choking.

I shoved at his chest. Weakly. Pointlessly. "Why didn’t you finish it?"

He blinked, slow. Like he was still tasting me, still unraveling.

“I came to you because I thought you’d end it,” I whispered, voice breaking. “Because you were the only one who didn’t pretend. Who didn’t wrap it in love or prophecy. You were just hunger. And I needed that.”

His brows knit, and for a moment, he looked almost human. Almost sorry.

“I’m not what I was,” he said hoarsely. “Your blood changed me.”

“I didn’t want to change you,” I cried. “I didn’t want to save you. I just wanted it to be over.”

His hand touched my face, featherlight. Cold fingers trembling.

“I know,” he murmured. “But now I can’t let you go.”

And I broke.

I collapsed into his chest, sobbing. Ugly. Shaking. Because he hadn’t killed me—and now I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted or how to breathe in a world that kept choosing me against my will.

And he held me.

Not like a savior.

Like a ruin, too broken to let go.

His hands trembled as they curled around me, pulling me tighter—not possessive, but desperate. Like I was warmth in a room that had long gone cold. Like if he let go, the hollow inside him would wake again, snarling.

I sobbed into his chest, my face pressed against the fabric soaked in old blood and guilt. The scent of him—salt and steel and something older—wrapped around me, heavy as grief. It was the smell of mourning and hunger, layered into his skin.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t hush me. He just held. Let my cries pour out unchallenged, unsoothed.

And in that quiet, I felt it:

His lips ghosted the crown of my head.

Not a kiss.

A prayer.

"I didn’t want to want you," he murmured finally. "But now I don’t remember what it was like before."

A fresh wave of tears carved hot lines down my cheeks.

Because neither did I.