Bound by blood and moonlight
But buried beneath it—deep, shameful, and unyielding—was something else.
A question I couldn’t silence.
If I was nothing—no magic, no curse, no power—then why did he look at me like I was everything?
***
Clara sat across from me one afternoon, humming softly while she threaded a cloth with a needle. The sunlight caught in her hair, turning it gold. Her movements were careful, practiced, almost tender.
It should have felt normal. Human.
But the sight of her there, so close, made my skin crawl.
“You don’t have to hover,” I muttered, my voice sharper than I intended.