Velmorra Human District, Year 317 After Dominion
The blood had dried to rust. No matter how hard she scrubbed, it clung to the stone like it belonged there—like it wanted to remind them.
Aria Vale dipped the rag into the murky bucket again, steam rising from the water. Her fingers were raw. The smell of iron filled her nose.
She paused, rubbing the sore skin beneath her barcode.
UNCLAIMED.
Branded at birth. Just like every other human beneath vampire rule.
Just like livestock.
"Lock the door, Aria," her aunt hissed from the other room. "You don't want to die next."
Aria didn't move. She kept scrubbing.
"I thought vampires had to ask permission to enter someone's home," she said flatly.
Her aunt stormed in, sleeves rolled up, hair coming undone. "You don't look them in the face either, but you did that too!"
"You can always tell who's next." Aria stood slowly, eyes flicking to the cracked door. "They hover. They listen."
"Stop arguing with your aunt and shut the goddamn door!" her uncle bellowed from the back.
Aria slammed it shut. Bolted it. Not that it mattered. If they wanted in, they got in.
She moved to the sink, scraping old food off tin plates. The pump groaned as she drew water. Outside, the usual sounds filled the air — screams, laughter, hunger.
The sounds of a city ruled by monsters.
Her jaw clenched. Every day, the blood-drinking freaks paraded through the human quarter like gods. Every week, a new body showed up in the square. Sometimes a friend. Sometimes a neighbor.
No one fought back. No one could. But Aria?
She wanted to kill one.
They ate quietly that night. A watery stew made from roots and government-issued ration powder. It tasted like dirt and defeat.
"We heard from the checkpoint boys," her uncle said between slurps. "The Offering this year might come earlier. Whole city's tightening up."
Her aunt looked up, her face drawn. "God help the girls."
"God's dead," Aria said.
"Don't say that," her aunt whispered.
"Why not? You think He's watching this?" Aria stabbed at the limp vegetables in her bowl. "Watching us beg for scraps like rats in cages? Watching them drag girls away every year to get drained dry?"
"Enough," her uncle snapped. "Eat. Don't start."
Aria didn't stop. She couldn't. The fire in her gut had been growing for years now, ever since her brother never came back from the Offering three years ago — disguised as a girl, trying to save their sister. He never stood a chance.
"Do you know what I heard today?" she said, voice low. "That the Vampire King is coming to the capital. Himself."
That silenced the room.
"No way," her aunt whispered. "Not for the Offering."
Aria leaned back in her chair, brown hair falling over one shoulder, sticking to her sweat-slicked skin. Her eyes — bright, fierce hazel flecked with gold — burned in the dim light.
She didn't look like prey.
She was dangerous, even if no one saw it yet.
Slim but not fragile, strong from labor. Her arms scarred, her hands calloused, her body lithe and quick like a feral cat. She was beautiful, but in a sharp, almost reckless way — the kind of beauty that could draw blood if you touched it wrong.
"Let him come," she whispered to herself.
"Let me be the one they choose."
"Aria!" her aunt hissed. "Don't say that. That's death!"
But Aria just stood. Walked to her cot in the corner. Lifted the mattress.
The knife was still there. Rusty. Dull. But hers.
One day, she'd bury it in a vampire's heart.
And if she died doing it?
So be it.
—-
The market stank of sweat, smoke, and the quiet desperation of the dying.
Aria weaved through the makeshift stalls—rickety wood slats strung with scraps of food, threadbare clothing, and whispers. She kept her hood low and her grip tight on the coin hidden in her palm.
A human trader caught her eye, waving a small loaf of bread from beneath the folds of his worn cloak. His teeth were brown, but his smile was kind.
"Stolen this morning," he said under his breath. "Soft. Barely touched."
Aria glanced over her shoulder. No guards. No enforcers. She nodded and slipped him the coin.
"Be careful," the man said as he wrapped the bread in cloth and dropped it into her basket. "They're already watching the quarter. Girls have started disappearing again."
Aria stilled. "You mean for—?"
"The Offering," he whispered. "It's happening this week. And they say he's coming."
She didn't need to ask who he was. Every human knew.
The Vampire King.
The one with crimson eyes and a crown forged from the bones of traitors. The one who'd burned cities to ash just to silence a rebellion. The one who ruled it all.
Aria stepped back into the sunlight, squinting as it hit her face like a slap. The bread was warm in her basket, but her stomach turned.
They were choosing this week.
Which meant her time was running out.
She slammed the basket onto the table when she returned home.
"It's happening this week," she said.
Her aunt looked up from washing wilted greens. "What is?"
"The Offering."
Her uncle paused mid-step. "Who told you that?"
"The market's full of whispers. Girls are disappearing in the night." Aria looked between them.
Her aunt pressed a hand to her chest, going pale. "Oh, gods. No. No, not again."
She crossed the kitchen and grabbed Aria's face in trembling hands. "We'll pray. Tonight. You need to stay inside after dark—"
"I'm tired of praying," Aria snapped, pulling away. "Tired of hoping. It never changes."
Her aunt's lips trembled. "Aria—"
"You think he'll skip us this time just because we light a few candles? You think prayers stop vampires?"
Her uncle gave a bitter grunt and took the bread from the basket. "It's reality. Face it. The King comes, he chooses, and we survive another year. That's the way of it."
Survive.
That was what they called it.
Aria sat at the table, her fists clenched in her lap.
She'd been surviving since she was six—since the night her parents disappeared and all that was left behind was a bloodstained doorway.
But something was shifting. She could feel it in her chest like fire behind her ribs. Burning, coiling, waiting.
She wasn't made to survive this world.
She was made to set it on fire.
That night, she heard the first scream.
And this time, it came from their street.