Chapter One : Tribute of the Blood Moon

Aria Blake had always feared the night.

But tonight, it wasn't just fear it was fate.

She stood among a line of trembling girls at the village edge, each dressed in white, faces ghostly in the cold silver light of the Blood Moon. Their dresses fluttered like trapped spirits, silent witnesses to what the village elders called tradition and what Aria knew was nothing less than sacrifice.

Her heartbeat pounded louder than the drums.

A tribute.

That's what she was.

The last to be chosen. The one they whispered about in hushed tones. The orphan girl with blood too dark and eyes too fierce. She wasn't docile like the others. She didn't beg or cry. She didn't pray to be spared.

She stared straight ahead, into the cursed forest that separated their world from theirs.

The vampires.

The wind carried the scent of wildflowers and death. Somewhere deep within the woods, horses stamped the earth, waiting. They would come soon, cloaked in darkness, armored in myth.

"Do not resist them," Elder Mareen intoned, her bony fingers wrapped around a staff carved with runes. "Do not scream. Do not shame us."

Aria didn't answer. Her fists clenched in her skirt.

They could dress her like a lamb and call it honor, but she knew the truth: she was being offered like meat to monsters.

She glanced sideways at the other girls. Some wept. Some stared hollowly at the trees. None looked brave. So why did I expect them to be? They were raised to obey. To believe this ritual kept them safe from raids. That the peace of the last fifty years was thanks to obedience.

But Aria had questions. Dangerous ones.

Why did the vampires really need tributes?

Why only during the Blood Moon?

And why had her name been called?

She was a nobody. An orphan raised by a fearful village. She had no status, no family line unless... unless the whispers were true.

Her mother, long dead, had always warned her: "Hide your blood, Aria. Hide your light."

What light? What blood?

Before her thoughts could spiral, a sound cut through the night: hooves.

The air turned electric.

The crowd stilled.

A single horse emerged from the shadows first jet black, eyes burning red. Behind it, more followed. Guards, perhaps, or noblemen. Aria couldn't tell. She only had eyes for the one leading them.

A figure cloaked in shadows, tall and silent, astride a massive silver beast with a mane like moonlight. He wore no helmet, no crest. But the aura around him was unmistakable: power.

His hair gleamed like frost. His eyes, when they met hers, were crimson flames. And his presence sharp, ancient, dangerous.

Her breath caught.

So this was the Vampire Prince.

He dismounted without a word. The air shimmered around him, thick with cold magic. Even the elders bowed low, their knees shaking.

But he looked only at her.

"You are the one," he said.

Aria swallowed. "The one what?"

He took one step closer. "The one with fire in her blood."

A murmur rippled through the villagers. Elder Mareen looked pale.

"I don't know what you mean," Aria said, fighting the tremor in her voice.

He tilted his head slightly. "You will."

Then, before she could move, he reached for her and touched her cheek with gloved fingers. The contact burned, not with heat, but with something older, deeper.

Magic.

She tried to recoil, but her legs wouldn't move. Her body betrayed her.

"You fight it," he murmured, voice like midnight. "Even now."

"You came to take a girl," Aria snapped. "Take one of them. I'm not a willing offering."

He laughed soft and low. "Willingness has nothing to do with it."

And in the next instant, he was gone from where he stood and behind her, lips grazing her neck.

"No" she gasped, jerking away.

Too late.

Fangs sank into her skin.

The world vanished.

She fell.

Not physically she still stood but her mind was pulled somewhere else. Like falling through time.

Flashes.

A burning castle.

A boy with silver hair screaming in chains.

A woman with Aria's eyes whispering, "She is the key."

A symbol glowing on a scroll. A curse.

What is this? her mind screamed. What am I seeing?

She couldn't breathe.

Then darkness.

When Aria awoke, she was in a carriage.

It was midnight still, but not the same kind. This darkness was velvet-lined and perfumed. The curtains were drawn shut, but she could sense movement. They were traveling.

Her neck throbbed where he bit her.

Lucien.

That had to be his name. It suited him elegant and cruel.

She tried to sit up but found her wrists loosely bound by enchanted silk. She could still move, just not flee.

"Relax," came his voice from across the carriage. "You'll tear the stitches."

She glared at him. "You bit me."

"I saved you."

"From what? A life where I had freedom and choice?"

He looked amused. "You had neither. Your village was going to offer you whether you liked it or not."

She froze. "...You were always coming for me, weren't you?"

His silence was the answer.

"Why me?" she asked.

Lucien leaned forward in his seat. The dim carriage lantern lit his face a face too perfect to belong to something with fangs.

"You carry a bloodline long thought extinct," he said. "Human... yes. But not ordinary. Your ancestors were part of a sacred pact, forged before the last eclipse."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

He studied her for a moment. "No. But your blood does."

Aria wanted to scream. "Why me? Why now?"

"Because the curse is awakening. And only the bound bride can prevent it."

She laughed bitterly. "You think I'm some prophecy? A chosen girl with magic in her veins?"

"You are," he said simply.

She tried to stand, ignoring the spinning in her head. "I'm not yours. I didn't agree to this."

Lucien didn't move. "And yet, the bond is made."

"What bond?"

"You'll feel it soon. The link. Our souls are tied now. By blood, by fate."

Aria's breath caught. "Undo it."

He tilted his head. "If I could... I wouldn't."

The carriage rolled on in silence, the weight of their fates settling between them.

Later that night, she touched the mark on her collarbone again, glowing softly in the dark.

It wasn't just a wound. It was a symbol.

A crescent moon with curling vines the Mark of the Bound.

And in that moment, Aria realized one horrifying truth

She didn't just belong to Lucien.

He belonged to her, too.