Valerius Manor became a silent tomb haunted by a single, vital spark.
Grief for Selene was a vast, frozen ocean within Valerius ancient, immeasurable, and inescapable. But Lyra, tiny and fierce, was a flickering candle flame he shielded with every fiber of his being. Her cries, piercing the manor's centuries old stillness, were both agonizing and anchoring.
Raising Lyra was a puzzle Valerius felt ill equipped to solve.
Vampires didn't raise children. They created fledglings meticulously chosen adults turned in cold ceremonies. Infancy? Utterly alien.
For the first few months, Lyra seemed mostly human demanding milk, sleep, and clean linens. Valerius employed a discreet, heavily compelled wet nurse from a distant village, ensuring she saw only shadows and remembered nothing.
But differences surfaced.
Lyra's eyes a deep, warm brown like Selene's sometimes absorbed candlelight, holding it unnaturally before releasing it again. Her grip on his chilled finger was startlingly strong. And she was loud. Her cries echoed through the cavernous halls, a sound Valerius found both distressing and... strangely vital.
Silence had been his companion for centuries. Lyra shattered it daily.
The biggest challenge was sustenance.
The wet nurse provided milk, but Valerius remembered Selene once whispering that werewolf pups needed denser nutrition as they grew meat. Blood.
The thought chilled him in a way nothing else could.
Was his daughter part predator?
He hunted deer with silent precision, returning with the freshest haunches. Mixing tiny drops of warm blood with milk, he offered it carefully.
Lyra screwed up her face and spat it out, wailing for familiar milk.
Valerius felt both relief and confusion.
What was she?
What would she become?
To protect her, he cloistered them deep within the manor's most secure wing.
Dusty ancestral portraits stared down as they passed. He moved her cradle from the opulent, death stained master bedroom to a smaller, fortified chamber adjacent to his own crypt. The air was thick with protective wards and buried memory.
He taught Lyra quietness not with words, but with presence.
When she babbled too loudly by a window overlooking the moonlit grounds, he appeared beside her in still silence. She'd blink, stunned, falling into silence, staring into his fathomless eyes.
She learned the language of stillness early.
Lyra grew.
By two, she was a sturdy toddler with Selene's wild, tawny curls and Valerius's sharp, quiet gaze.
She explored the confines of their hidden world fearlessly, poking dusty suits of armor and tracing the patterns on old tapestries depicting vampire triumphs.
Valerius taught her the names of constellations seen through narrow, high windows… the feel of cool marble… the unspoken rules of predator and prey. He showed her a spider weaving its web. An owl's shadow gliding across moonlit lawns.
He was her world
Papa. Protector. Distant teacher. Silent shadow.
One moonless night, thick fog clung to the manor like a burial shroud.
Valerius sat reading an ancient tome on lunar cycles in his study. Lyra played quietly nearby with smooth river stones he'd gathered for her.
The air was damp, still, and heavy with old paper and stone.
Then he froze.
He didn't breathe. Didn't need to. His senses stretched out like a net.
A presence.
Powerful. Earthy. Werewolf.
Not just any werewolf Silvermane.
And they were approaching the manor's outer walls.
Alarm, cold and sharp, replaced stillness.
In a blur, Valerius scooped Lyra into his arms and vanished into the fortified wing deep into the chamber by the crypt.
He placed her gently behind a carved screen, pressing a finger to his lips.
The gesture wasn't needed. Lyra felt his tension and stayed silent, eyes wide and alert.
Valerius melted into the shadows near the chamber's single, heavily barred entrance.
A faint scratching.
Not an attack. A signal.
Then, a low, mournful howl.
It was muffled by stone and wood, but he recognized the cadence. It wasn't random.
Selene had used it once to call him in secret.
Anya's call.
Cautiously, Valerius unbarred the small viewing slit in the thick oak door.
Outside, in the swirling fog, stood a figure.
An older woman. Her iron-grey braid streaked with white. A face lined by grief and strength. Her leathers were stained from long travel, and her aura unmistakably that of a wolf matriarch.
Selene's mother.
Anya.
Silvermane elder. Healer.
She didn't speak.
She stood, amber eyes scanning the wall, her posture radiating weariness, but also... hope.
Lyra peeked around the screen, curious at the scent on the air.
Valerius remained stone-still. Was Anya alone? A scout for Borak? Was she sent to find the abomination?
His mind mapped escape tunnels beneath the crypt.
Anya took a hesitant step forward. Then another. She stood directly beneath the viewing slit.
Valerius could smell pine, earth, and wild herbs clinging to her. The scent ached so close to Selene's.
He heard her exhale. A shaky breath that fogged the cold air.
"Valerius?" Her voice was low and frayed with exhaustion. "I know you're there. I... felt the wards shift. Felt Selene go. That night. A mother knows."
Her voice cracked.
"And I felt... a flicker left behind. Please. Let me see my grandchild. Just... just let me see her face."
Valerius didn't move.
Lyra let out a soft coo, wriggling faintly.
"Please," Anya whispered, placing a hand against the cold stone. "I mean no harm. Borak rages, but he doesn't know I'm here. No one does."
She looked upward. Her amber eyes sought the slit in the door.
"She's all I have left of my daughter. Please, vampire. Let me see Selene's child."
Valerius's thoughts reeled. Kaelen's words echoed: Abomination. Violation.
But this was Selene's mother.
He remembered those rare, tense meetings before their exile.
Anya had loved Selene fiercely. She'd respected Valerius with wary restraint.
And now her grief was raw. Real.
Slowly, Valerius unbarred the door just enough to allow her inside.
He remained poised. Ready to vanish. Lyra safely behind him.
Anya stepped through. Her eyes found Lyra immediately.
Tears welled, tracing streaks through grime and sorrow.
"Oh… oh, my fierce cub," she whispered thickly. "She has your eyes, Valerius. Dark and deep. But the hair… the wild spirit in her face… Selene."
She choked on a sob.
"She's beautiful."
Lyra stared up at her, unafraid. She lifted a small finger.
"Gamma?" she whispered.
Valerius froze. He had never spoken that word.
Anya gasped softly, tears tumbling.
"Yes, little one… Grandma. I'm your Grandma Anya."
She looked at the shadow where Valerius lingered.
"Please. Just for a moment. I brought things things Selene would've wanted her to have. A wolf-carved teether. Soft furs. Please."
Valerius's icy guard cracked just slightly.
Raising this child alone had been... suffocating. There was knowledge Anya had. Love she still carried.
And maybe just maybe that love could help them both.
With silent grace, Valerius stepped aside. Lyra was fully visible now.
He stayed between them, watchful.
Anya dropped her pack and slowly knelt on the cold floor.
Tears ran freely.
"Hello, little Lyra," she whispered. "Hello, my precious, fierce cub."
Lyra tilted her head, birdlike. Then, with sudden, wild joy Selene's joy she toddled forward and threw herself into Anya's waiting arms.
Anya held her tightly, burying her face in her granddaughter's curls, shoulders shaking with sobs.
Valerius watched.
And something stirred in him fragile as a moth's wing brushing frozen grief.
This was love. Not fear. Not disgust.
For the first time since Selene's death, Valerius realized
They weren't entirely alone.
The shadows of Valerius Manor now held something more.
A new thread. A fragile connection. A quiet, complex hope.
Grandma Anya had found them.