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"Celeste," he started, his voice trembling like a damned leaf on a flimsy branch, "I've done unspeakable things, lived through centuries of darkness, but nothing terrifies me more than this moment—being honest with you."
"Christ, Nash, you're not proposing, you're confessing to being an immortal bloodsucker. There's a difference."
"I know how it sounds," he continued, the moonlight casting a silver glow on his tortured features. "But stalking you wasn't some sick game. It began out of... pity for the pain I saw in your art, in every brushstroke. But fuck, it changed, Celeste. It grew into something I can't control. Something deeper. I love you, and that scares the living hell out of me."
"Love?" The word felt foreign on my tongue, ridiculous even. Here I was, standing with Dracula's prodigal son, and he's spouting lines from a fucked-up fairy tale.
"Love," he confirmed, as if saying it again would make it any less insane.
"Wow, stalker to lover—what a heartwarming transition," I said, the sarcasm dripping from my words like acid. Yet, despite myself, despite the ludicrousness of it all, there was a pull, a twisted knot of attraction that tightened with each ragged confession falling from his lips.
"God, Nash, you have issues," I muttered, my own voice betraying me as it wavered between repulsion and intrigue. I didn't want to admit it, but his darkness—it resonated with the shadows I kept locked within myself. Maybe we were both fucked up enough to fit together like puzzle pieces from hell.
"Only a thousand or so," he joked, dark humor flashing in his eyes. But there was truth behind it, and it struck a chord in me.
"Seriously, though, do you hear yourself? Confessing love like you're expecting some kind of redemption arc in your horror story? You're a goddamn vampire, Nash. And I—I'm just... Celeste. A girl who talks too much shit and paints her nightmares."
"Exactly," he said, stepping closer, and damn him, my heart danced a frenzied tango in response. "You see the world differently, feel it more intensely. That's why I?—"
"Stop," I commanded, holding up a hand. "I need... I need to think."
"By all means," he murmured, backing off with a bow that would've been charming if we weren't discussing predatory nocturnal habits and emotional confessions. "Take all the time you need."
The night clung to the woods like a suffocating cloud, but despite the darkness, I could still see the glint of determination in his eyes. My chest heaved with rapid breaths, each one tasting like the frosty Italian air and the metallic tang of fear.
"Alright, Nash," I bit out, the name tasting like a curse on my tongue. "I've entertained your fucking vampire sob story, but there's something else, isn't there? Aria."
Her name twisted in my gut like a knife, cold and sharp. The way it hung between us felt like an accusation, even before I'd spelled it out.
"Did you have anything to do with her death?" The words slashed through the silence, heavy with suspicion. I was half-convinced that saying it aloud would summon some spectral judge to pass sentence.
Nash recoiled like I'd hit him, his expression crumbling into one of raw pain. "Celeste, no!" His voice cracked like a whip in the stillness, each syllable laced with a sincerity that pissed me off because I wanted to believe him. "I swear on whatever shred of humanity I have left—I didn't touch Aria."
"Then why should I trust you?" I groaned. "Your track record isn't exactly stellar, is it?"
"Because I'm telling you the truth." He stepped forward, hands raised in a gesture that might have been pleading or surrendering—hard to tell with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Bloodthirsty. "I want to find out who did this as much as you do. Maybe more. Because if they came after her, you could be next, and I can't—" His voice broke, and fuck if that didn't make me waver just a little.
"Can't what? Handle another damsel dying on your watch?" I sneered, hating myself a little for the quiver in my voice.
"Can't lose you," he said quietly, eyes burning into mine like twin coals. "Not when I've only just found you."
My heart had no business skipping a beat at his words, but it did. Goddammit, it did.
As Nash's tortured confession stumbled to an end, the moon above us seemed to cast a sympathetic glow on his damned soul. The vulnerability in his eyes was as raw as a fresh wound, and it tore through my defenses like they were made of nothing but cobwebs and bullshit.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered under my breath. "You really are fucked up, aren't you?"
It wasn't a question, not really. But the way he nodded, a ghost of a man haunted by too many demons, it shattered something inside me. With that nod, he didn't just acknowledge his own mess; he laid bare the truth of the world—that sometimes the monsters weren't under the bed, but bleeding out beside us.
"Alright, Nash." My voice was steadier than I felt, a veneer of calm over the chaos of my emotions. "I'll stay, for now."
His gaze snapped to mine, a flare of something dangerously close to hope igniting in those deep brown eyes. "You will?"
"Yeah, I will," I said, brushing dirt from my jeans. "But listen here, if you ever—I mean ever—feed me a line of bullshit again, I'm out. No second chances, no tearful goodbyes. Clear?"
"Crystal," he replied instantly, the solemnity of his tone matching the gravity of my terms.
"Good. Because if we're going to do this—if we're going to dive headfirst into all those twisted, dark corners of each other's minds—we're doing it with our eyes wide open. No secrets. No lies." I could feel the reckless edge of my own desires sharpening at the thought, a dangerous dance with the devil himself.
