Page 15 of Vampire Solstice

I should have been terrified. I should have run and never looked back.

But I stayed.

“Kael,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “It’s me. You’re safe.”

His amber eyes locked onto mine, wild and feral, and for a moment, I thought he would attack. But then he stilled, his massive form trembling as if holding back some deep, primal urge.

I stepped closer, my heart pounding. “You’re still you,” I said, more to convince myself than him. “This… this isn’t who you are.”

The beast growled low in its throat, but it didn’t attack. It simply watched me, its gaze filled with a sorrow so deep it nearly broke me.

When the transformation finally reversed, Kael collapsed into my arms, his body limp and trembling. He didn’t speak that night, but the way he clung to me said everything.

Over time, I pieced together the truth.

Kael had been cursed by the Midnight Star, but why, I wasn’t sure.

“I would never betray this village,” he told me one night, voice breaking. “I would die for them. So why? Why did she turn me into this immortal beast?”

I didn’t know what to say. How do you comfort someone who has been broken so completely?

All I could do was stay by his side.

We fell in love in the quiet moments between his pain.

I showed him the beauty of the forest, the way the snow sparkled in the sunlight, the way the trees swayed in the wind like they were dancing. He taught me to listen to the sounds of the woods, to hear the whispers of the animals and the creak of the branches.

It wasn’t easy. The curse hung over us like a shadow, and there were days when I thought it would consume him entirely. But we found ways to hold onto each other, to remind ourselves that there was still light in the darkness.

I tried to break the curse. I searched the forest, the village, the old stories for anything that might help. But the answers were always just out of reach, the magic too ancient and tangled to unravel.

“Why do you stay?” he asked me one night, his voice heavy with guilt. “You could have a life, a future. You don’t have to waste it on me.”

“I stay because I love you,” I said simply. “And I’ll keep fighting for you, no matter how long it takes.”

But now,years later, the Mythos tree is dying, and the curse is growing stronger. Kael’s transformations are more frequent, his control slipping further with each passing day.

I’ve tried to save him. I’ve done everything I can.

But I can’t do it alone.

“You knew all this time,”Fen says, his voice cold. “You knew, and you didn’t tell us.”

“I was trying to find a way to break the curse,” she says desperately. “I convinced my grandmother that only the Midnight Star could do it.”

The mention of the Midnight Star sends a chill down my spine. This clearly happened long before I was born. There have been many Midnight Stars over the ages. But it was one of my family. And it is my legacy, and now, my problem to fix.

Before I can process what she’s said, a low, mournful howl cuts through the night, sending a shiver down my spine. Myra goes pale, her eyes wide with fear.

“He’ll attack tonight,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve kept him chained at night to stop him from hurting anyone, but tonight… I won’t be there to stop him. You have to save him. And the village. No one else can die.”

Her plea pierces through my shock, her desperation igniting something fierce within me. I glance at Fen, his jaw tight, his eyes burning with determination. Now we know why the attacks stopped the last few months.

“Is there anything else you can tell us? About the beast or the curse?” I ask before we leave her. “Your grandmother, she was trying to tell us something before she passed. Do you have any idea what it could have been? She said ‘jou’. Does that mean anything to you?”

She starts to shake her head, then pauses. “Wait, maybe. My grandmother, she kept a journal. I never read it. But she put everything into it. I know she’s been obsessed with breaking this curse, though not for the same reasons as me.” Myra pauses. “She never would have understood our love. It would have killed her. But I guess in the end, it did just that anyways.”

Myra wipes away a tear, and my heart can’t help but break for all she’s gone through.