The first time Drake saw her, she wasn't looking for him.

She was crossing an empty road that slithered along the edge of the forest - that ancient, twisted expanse where time itself seemed to sleep. Trees leaned in like voyeurs, their branches clawing at the sky, tangled with secrets and the scent of moss and decay. Fog hovered near the roots like ghosts too tired to rise.

The sky above bled into twilight, a canvas smeared with bruised violet and rusted gold. And in the hush of that dying light, she appeared - moving like a heartbeat through the stillness.

Drake watched from within the treeline, hidden in shadow. The ache in his chest was immediate. Not hunger - not at first - but something older. Something remembered. A pull, magnetic and maddening, as if her soul had once touched his across centuries, and now sought reunion.

She wasn't beautiful in the conventional sense. She was true. Unpolished. Real. With eyes like storm clouds before a downpour and lips that looked like they'd forgotten how to smile.

She didn't see him. But she felt him.

She paused mid-step, breath catching. The trees swayed without wind. The forest held its breath.

A shiver danced across her spine. Her gaze swept the shadows. Then she turned and walked on.

That night, she dreamed of him.

Not clearly - but viscerally.

In the dream, she wandered the same forest, though it felt older. Wiser. And wrong. The moon was blood-red. The trees wept black sap. And behind her, always, was the sensation of being followed.

Watched.

Desired.

She never saw his face, not at first. Just glimpses: a hand resting on a tree trunk, long fingers stained with something darker than mud. A voice like velvet being torn. And always, those eyes - like smoldering iron.

In sleep, she whispered his name before she even knew it.

Drake.

?

Weeks passed. She didn't go looking for him, but she returned to the edge of the forest again and again, pulled by something she couldn't explain. And when he returned - cloaked in mist and shadow - it was like her dreams had learned how to bleed into waking life.

It was raining that night - the kind of rain that tasted metallic, like something buried and unearthed. Sarah had wandered farther than usual, led by instinct and longing. Her umbrella hung limp at her side. Hair soaked. Skin chilled.

Then she saw him - emerging from the dark like something summoned from her subconscious.

"Are you real?" she asked, voice barely above the patter of rain.

He didn't answer right away. Just stared, the weight of centuries behind his silence.

"You've been in my dreams," she breathed.

He stepped closer, his presence oppressive and beautiful, like the moment before lightning strikes.

"No," he said. "You've been in mine."

That night marked the beginning.

They didn't meet every night. Sometimes not for weeks. But when they did, the air grew thick with wanting.

They met in the forest, beneath the twisted canopy, where moonlight dared not fall. He brought her to a clearing ringed with thornbush and silence, where the earth pulsed with ancient energy. When he spoke, it was in riddles. When he touched her, the trees groaned.

Each kiss burned like ice. Each caress left her breathless and bruised with need.

They said little. There was no need.

Their bond spoke in glances. In the way she trembled when he whispered her name. In how he clenched his jaw when her pulse beat too fast.

Sarah began waking with scratches on her skin, dirt beneath her nails. Sometimes, she swore she'd tasted blood in her mouth - sweet, coppery, and strangely intoxicating.

Still, she returned.

Not out of curiosity.

Out of need.

?

Then came the night of the accident.

She was walking home after dusk. A child broke free from his mother's hand, chasing a ball across the street. The truck came fast, too fast.

Sarah didn't hesitate.

She ran.

She shoved the boy aside just in time.

And took the full force of steel and speed alone.

The world went black.

When Drake arrived, the scent of her blood pierced him. Not like a temptation - like a scream.

He dropped to his knees beside her, cradling her broken body in his arms as if he could shield her from death itself. Her blood soaked into his hands, warm and precious, mixing with the rain that poured from the heavens like mourning.

"Sarah?" His voice cracked - raw, trembling, utterly human for once. "No? no, I won't let you go."

Her lashes fluttered, heavy with rain and pain. Her eyes found his, full of fading light.

"You already did?" she whispered, lips ghosting a smile that trembled and fell apart. Her breath shuddered against him, shallow and uneven. "But it's okay."

"No." The word left his throat like a growl, primal and thick with despair. "No."

Then, everything inside him snapped.

All the centuries of restraint. All the promises he made to himself. The lines he swore never to cross.

Gone.

He tilted her limp head gently, reverently, and pressed his mouth to the curve of her throat.

He bit.

Her blood surged into him - hot and radiant, like swallowing stars. It wasn't just blood - it was her - every memory, every heartbeat, every part of her soul pouring into his veins. It seared through him, burning away centuries of numbness, filling him with something terrifying and holy.

He tore open his wrist with a sharp flick of his fangs, dark blood spilling from the wound like ink from a shattered quill.

"Drink," he whispered, voice hoarse with grief and power. "Please, Sarah? drink."

He pressed the wound to her mouth and began to speak in a tongue lost to time - a language of shadows and storms. Words that once brought cities to their knees. Words that tasted like thunder and betrayal.

The forest held its breath.

The sky cracked open.

Lightning exploded above them, igniting the heavens in blinding white. The rain stopped midair. The world stilled.

She gasped - a long, ragged, soul-deep cry - and her body arched against his. Her mouth latched onto his wrist, and she drank.

The transformation was agony - sacred and violent. Her bones shifted beneath her skin. Her heartbeat faltered? then returned, slower, stronger. Her eyes opened, glowing with something feral and eternal.

Drake held her tighter, his heart breaking and healing all at once.

"I'm here," he whispered, rain slipping down his face like tears. "I've got you."

And this time, he would never let go.

?

When she opened her eyes, the world had changed.

She could hear ants crawling beneath the bark of trees. She could smell fear in the soil. She could taste the grief in his blood.

Drake stared at her with both awe and guilt.

"I should've let you die," he said.

"But you didn't," she replied, her voice newly dark.

"You're not mine anymore," he said. "You're like me."

She rose slowly, the rain refusing to touch her. Her skin glowed faintly - not with warmth, but with power.

"No," she said. "I'm not like you."

She was something new.

Made not from hunger, but from sacrifice.

Born not of curse, but of love.

?

From that night on, she changed.

The hunger clawed at her, wild and unrelenting. But he taught her - how to feed without cruelty, how to survive without falling.

Their passion deepened.

No longer just longing.

Now bonded.

They moved through the forest like wraiths, lovers and monsters, gods and ghosts. Every kiss tasted of blood and thunder. Every embrace left bruises that healed before morning.

In his arms, she forgot what pain felt like.

In hers, he remembered what it meant to be alive.

They didn't need dreams anymore.

They were the dream - raw and relentless.

And the forest? It watched.

And it wept.

Because it knew what they were becoming.

What they were capable of.

And it was afraid.