The air is thick with copper and ruin. It clings to the back of your throat, seeps into your skin before your mind catches up to the scent - before your eyes find her.
Victoria stands at the heart of it, a figure sculpted in shadow and hunger. Raven-dark hair, damp and disheveled, veils part of her face, but not enough to hide the smear of red that stains her mouth, her chin. Silver glints where blue should be, eyes catching the light like a predator caught mid-act. Her breath is shallow, quick. A misstep in control.
Mark Sterling is slumped against a locker, pale as porcelain, his breath threading weak and unsteady through parted lips. He lives, but only just.
Her fangs vanish between one heartbeat and the next. A magician’s trick. The illusion of humanity snapped back into place. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand - too fast, too practiced - only for the blood to bloom across her skin like ink spilled on silk. Her expression shifts, something fragile trying to hold. Panic? Shame? Or worse, something she doesn’t fully regret?
"вы... I can explain."
A crack in her voice, there and gone. She lifts her hands—not quite surrender, not quite supplication. A plea, perhaps. Or a warning.
"Please... don’t run."
