In the city of Sabu, this was the hour of the ghosts—the thin, grey time when the line between the living and the things that crawled in the dark became porous and frayed. The biting cold of the pre-dawn mist clung to my skin like a wet shroud, dampening the fabric of my hoodie, but I welcomed the chill. It was the only thing that could dampen the electric heat pulsing through my veins.
To the few early-shift workers nursing their thermoses or the occasional drunk stragglers weaving their way home from the neon-lit districts, I was nothing more than a pale blur—a ghost in a hoodie sprinting through the concrete veins of the city. I ran with a rhythmic, predatory grace that I absolutely loathed. Every muscle in my body felt like a coiled spring, tuned by years of "training" that no normal child should have survived. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird trying to break free from a cage.
Run before the sun arrives, I urged myself, the command repeating like a mantra in my head. My lungs burned with the intake of frost, each breath a crystalline shard in my throat. Stay in the grey. Stay hidden. I could feel the weight of gazes from the darkened apartments above. I knew what they called me on the local neighborhood forums. I was the "Vampire of Sabu"—the sickly, pale boy with eyes like cooling embers who vanished the moment the first ray of gold touched the horizon. They thought it was a myth. I knew it was a survival tactic. Sunlight was too loud; it exposed the things I wanted to bury. It shone too brightly on the calluses of my hands and the tension in my jaw.
"Be still, my heart," I whispered, leaning my forehead against a rough, moisture-slicked brick wall as the sky began to bleed into a deep, bruised purple. "You like the grind, don’t you? You just can’t help yourself."
My heart responded with a violent, rhythmic thrum—a Peculiar Heart resonance that sent a sharp, agonizing spark of electricity through my veins. It was a reminder that I wasn't like them. I wasn't like the people sleeping soundly behind those brick walls. To finish the routine, I dropped into a handstand on the damp pavement. I shifted my weight, lifting my palms until my entire frame was supported by only two fingers—the index and the middle. Static electricity crackled around my fingertips, visible as tiny blue arcs in the dark, as I defied gravity. Sweat dripped upward toward my chin, and my vision swam with the rush of blood. This wasn't exercise; it was a ritual of suppression. If I didn't burn this energy now, it would explode out of me in a way I couldn't control.
Three hours later, the monster was gone. Or so I desperately hoped as I scrubbed the scent of the morning mist off my skin.
In his place stood Luke, a freshman with a neatly pressed bag and a smile that felt almost alien on my face, like a mask that didn't quite fit the bones underneath. I stood before the towering iron gates of Sabu University, looking up at the ancient stone arches. This was it. This was the boundary line of my life. On one side was the blood, the Malice, and the suffocating shadows of my upbringing; on this side was Accounting 101 and the promise of a quiet life.
"Finally," I breathed, my voice barely a whisper. "The dream."
I pulled out my phone, scrolling through my Integrated Course Schedule just to feel the comfort of the rigid numbers. 18 units. A perfect, heavy load. Accounting, Macroeconomics, Business Law, Statistics. These were things that stayed on the page. They were logical. They followed rules. They didn't bleed. They didn't scream in the middle of the night. They were the absolute opposite of my grandmother.
Arthur hadn’t sent any "Consultant" work lately. He’d mentioned something about a cat shelter project he was obsessed with, likely involving more logistics than combat. Good. Let him be. I had a ledger to balance, and for once, I wanted the only red in my life to be a deficit on a balance sheet. For a few glorious hours, I walked the halls as just another face in the crowd. I stood in line for a mediocre coffee. I navigated the sea of exchange students and tech-heads. For the first time in eighteen years, I felt Normal.
Then, the air grew cold. It wasn't a drop in the ambient temperature; it was a drop in reality itself.
It wasn't a sound that alerted me; it was a vibration. A specific, jagged frequency that resonated with the electric hum in my own chest. She’s here. The girl who had tried to open my throat weeks ago—the girl who moved with the same predatory grace I tried to hide—was moving through the crowd. I felt her eyes on the back of my neck during my entire lecture on "The Double-Entry System." I couldn't focus on the professor’s drone about assets and liabilities. All I could feel was the rhythmic pulse of her heart echoing mine through the concrete floor.
After class, the cat-and-mouse game began. I didn't rush. I moved with the practiced ease of a student exploring the facilities, but every sense I possessed was dialed to a lethal degree. I tracked the echo of her pulse through the stone walls of the Student Union, past the central fountain where the spray of water hummed with static, and toward the grand spire of the University Library.
I followed her into the labyrinth of the "Special Collections" section. The scent of old parchment, leather, and dust filled the air, thick and suffocating. This was a place of silence and forgotten names. She was fast, moving like a shadow between the tall mahogany shelves, but I had been raised by the Matriarch. I knew how to cut off an escape. I rounded the corner of the 'Genealogy and History' aisle, my footsteps silent as a ghost, blocking her only exit.
"Got you," I said, my voice low and steady, vibrating with a tension I couldn't suppress.
She slammed against the bookshelf, trapped between the heavy, ancient tomes and my reaching arm. Up close, she was beautiful in a way that felt like a warning—her jet-black eyes wide with a mix of terror and a fierce, sharp defiance. I leaned in, my heart racing, ready to demand answers about why she was stalking me, why she was invading the one place I thought was safe.
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"Yviel?" I whispered, my gaze dropping to the silver name tag on her blazer: C. Yviel. "That's my name. Who are you? Are we... family?"
Suddenly, the heavy silence of the library was shattered by the sound of approaching footsteps and the bright, jarring noise of laughter.
"There you are, Camilla! We’ve been looking for you everywhere since the lab ended!"
A group of three female students rounded the corner, clutching iced coffees and vibrant notebooks. They stopped dead, their eyes going wide as they saw the tableau: me—the pale, "intense" guy—pinning the most beautiful girl in the freshman class against a shelf.
"Oh my god," one of them giggled, nudging her friend with an elbow. "Is... is this your boyfriend, Camilla? You never told us you had a guy!"
My brain stalled. My training had prepared me for knives, for Malice, for ghosts—it had not prepared me for this. Boyfriend? I opened my mouth to explain that I was cornered her for information, that we were potentially long-lost relatives, but the words died in my throat.
Camilla didn't look at them. She looked at me, her face flushing a deep, brilliant crimson that made her look startlingly human. She stepped away from the shelf, smoothing her blazer with trembling hands. She walked toward her classmates, her voice soft but carrying across the quiet library like a thunderclap.
"He isn't my boyfriend," she said, her head held high.
I let out a shaky breath of relief. Right. See? Just a misunderstanding. I can still be normal.
"He is my husband," she added firmly.
Husband? I stood there, my arm still extended toward the empty space where she had been. The world seemed to tilt on its axis. I’m eighteen! I haven't even had a first date! When did I get a wife?! The girls gasped in unison, their whispers erupting like a wildfire, and Camilla led them away, leaving me alone in the shadows. The word husband echoed in the hollows of my mind like a death sentence.
I practically sprinted back to the Yviel Estate. It was a sprawling, ancient mansion of twenty-four bedrooms and cold stone hallways—a place I had hoped to leave empty. I kicked the heavy oak door open, the sound booming through the foyer, ready to collapse and scream into a pillow.
Instead, I froze.
Camilla was already there. She wasn't stalking me from the shadows anymore. She was sitting perfectly straight on a velvet couch in the center of the foyer, her jet-black hair falling over her shoulders like silk. She looked as if she had been part of the house for a hundred years, an immovable fixture of my fate.
"You!" I pointed a finger, my voice cracking with frustration. "How did you get in here? Why are you... why are we... married?!"
Camilla didn't flinch. She stood up with a fluid, terrifying grace that suggested she was always ready for a fight or a dance. She didn't attack. Instead, she bowed deeply—the formal, traditional bow of a bride to her lord. She reached into her bag and held out a thick, cream-colored envelope with both hands. It was sealed with a wax stamp I recognized instantly: The Yviel Crest.
"For you," she whispered, her voice like velvet and iron. "From the Matriarch."
I snatched the letter, my hands trembling so hard the paper rattled. Grandma’s handwriting was as sharp and jagged as a blade, written with a fountain pen that must have been a century old:
"To my favorite little monster, Luke,
I know you're busy playing 'Normal Boy' at that university. It's cute, really. But the Yviel bloodline is thinning, and your Peculiar Heart needs an anchor. Camilla is that anchor. She is your wife by the Old Laws and the New. Her family has served ours since the first Abyssal crawled out of the dirt. She is your sword, your shield, and your spouse. Don't be 'bothersome' and try to run away. If you divorce her, I’ll find you and make you do ten thousand finger-stands on a bed of hot coals.
P.S. She’s a better cook than you. Try not to get her killed before I get grand-babies.
— Grandma"
I dropped the letter, watching Camilla calmly begin moving her Biology textbooks—Advanced Genetics and Anatomy of Apex Predators—into the master suite.
"Camilla, stop!" I shouted, the sound swallowed by the vastness of the room. "There are twenty-three other rooms in this house! Why are you putting your things in mine? And more importantly—you literally tried to kill me the first time we met! Your knife was an inch from my jugular, and now you’re suddenly my wife?"
Camilla turned slowly. She crossed the room in a blur of motion, kneeling at my feet before I could even flinch.
"My husband must be strong," she said, her eyes fixed on the floor in a show of submissive devotion. "I had to test your reflexes. I had to know if the blood was as potent as the legends claimed. If you had died, you wouldn't have been the Patriarch Mistress Yohan promised."
"I don't want to be the Patriarch! I want to be an accountant! And I know Grandma is just a world-class assassin who dumped her chores on me!"
"Mistress Yohan is no 'assassin,'" Camilla whispered, taking my hand. Her grip was soft but felt like iron. "And I have seen the other things you do, Master Luke. I have witnessed your work in the shadows. Your side jobs, your 'exorcisms'—as your wife, I will ensure those remain in the dark. Your 'normal' life is safe as long as I am here. I will be the shadow that hides your light."
My heart hammered. She really does know about the Slayer jobs. But... turf? Shadows? What is she talking about?
The next morning, the estate felt like a fortress. I dressed in a hoodie and jeans, praying for anonymity. Camilla, however, was dressed for her first day as a Biology major—sharp, elegant, and looking like she could dissect the world with a glance.
"I must study the science of life to serve the Patriarch's bloodline," she announced as we walked through the massive iron gates. "It is only logical."
"Can't you just study... I don't know... plants?" I muttered, clutching my accounting bag.
"Plants do not have your 'Vitality Essence', My Lord," she replied smoothly as we entered the campus.
The gossip hit us like a tidal wave. The pale, "Vampire" freshman and his stunningly beautiful, authoritative wife.
"That's her husband... the Yviel guy... he looks like a gothic prince."
I felt my face burning. "Everyone thinks I'm a gothic prince because you're walking three inches away from me! We were supposed to be invisible!"
"A Patriarch is the center of the ledger, Luke," she said, stopping at the split between the Business and Science buildings. She reached out and straightened my collar—a gesture of such deep, submissive devotion that a nearby group of students actually gasped. "Drink the 'Vitality Essence' I packed in your thermos. I have already analyzed the biology of your classmates from afar; none are a threat to you."
"PLEASE DON'T ANALYZE MY CLASSMATES!" I shouted, but she was already walking toward the lab, her head held high.
I stood alone in the hallway, clutching my Introduction to Accounting book. My heart gave an electric, jagged jump. I just wanted to be an accountant, I whispered. But now I’m a Patriarch with a wife who knows my secrets, and a ledger that refuses to stay in the black.