It wasn't a night like any other.
Not because of the star-washed sky above the mountains, nor the murmur of wind stroking the tall trees around the cabin complex.
It was different because Alessia felt herself belonging to that fragile, warm world—
a human world, one where words didn't weigh centuries, where love wasn't a sentence or a trap disguised as a caress.
Tonight, what lived in her chest wasn't hunger… it was hope.
Liam Thomas took her hand with an easy certainty, as if such a simple gesture could seal destinies.
They followed a stone path to the back of the grounds, where a shared terrace gathered several couples around a great fire.
The air was fresh, almost cutting, but the scene answered with mulled wine, blankets over knees, and laughter that burst without shame.
The scent of woodsmoke mingled with the sweetness of melting chocolate and the gentle bite of red wine.
Alessia let it all wrap around her, each sound and fragrance sinking into her skin as though she had been designed for this moment.
A soft shiver ran down her spine—not from cold, but from an emotion brushing close to nostalgia, that bittersweet seam between belonging and the fear of losing it all.
The musicians kept playing as they walked, trailing them with a romantic melody that held the moment like an old whisper.
Liam looked at her, stepped closer, and without releasing her hand, drew her gently by the waist.
His eyes gleamed—not with the firelight, but with what burned inside him, with a certainty growing each second.
"There's something I need to ask you," he murmured at her ear, his voice soft and unsteady, "but I want to do it right."
Alessia met his gaze without words, her expression a braid of surprise, tenderness, and a faint thread of disbelief.
Liam leaned slightly, slipped a small box from his jacket, and opened it.
Inside, a gold necklace glowed in the firelight; at its center, a small heart pendant carried their initials engraved on either side.
The metal seemed alive, pulsing—as if it knew something sacred was about to be sealed.
For Liam, it wasn't merely a gift; it was a way to promise that his love was neither momentary nor improvised.
It was the symbol of a bond he didn't fully understand yet longed to protect with every fiber of himself.
It was his way of saying that—though the world around them might shout no—his heart had already said yes.
"It isn't a ring… not yet," he went on with a soft smile, holding back emotion. "But I want this to be the beginning of something. Something real. Alessia… will you be my girlfriend?"
The murmurs faded.
A few couples looked over in silence, smiling knowingly, eyes bright.
The crackle of the fire filled the space between words.
Alessia lifted both hands to her face as tears welled—tears born not of pain, but of something she had almost forgotten: the possibility of a new life.
The right to choose love—not as strategy or refuge, but as destiny.
"Yes…" she breathed. "Yes, Liam, I will."
He clasped the necklace around her throat with the care of someone handling a sacred thing.
When he finished, his fingers grazed her skin, and she drew him into a fierce embrace, eyes closed.
The onlookers, the rules of her world—none of it mattered.
Only that suspended instant in which she became wholly his without needing a single word.
The kiss was inevitable—but it wasn't just another kiss.
It was one Alessia hadn't felt in centuries.
Not an anxious brush, not a mechanical gesture.
It was like sinking into a warm lake after an eternity of winter—
as if every cell in her body remembered what it meant to be touched without violence, without hunger—only with love.
This kiss had the texture of memory, the weight of long-buried longing, the sweetness of what you believed lost forever.
As she kissed him, something inside her loosened.
It wasn't the future she saw—no visions of war or death.
It was the past.
She saw herself at fifteen in an Eastern European village, hair tied back, bare feet, a teenager's laughter.
A young man gazed at her with tenderness; their lips barely touched.
Her first love—before they made her into what she was now.
Before the council. Before the blood.
For a heartbeat, she felt herself become that girl again—human, innocent, capable of loving without fear.
She returned to herself with a knot in her chest.
She was still kissing him, but now she understood everything—
the connection, the fire, that infinite tenderness threading through flesh and eternity.
She drew back just enough to look into his eyes, and she saw it—knew it.
She was in love with Liam.
Nothing could change that.
Applause broke around them; glasses chimed; the musicians shifted to a brighter melody that seemed to celebrate alongside them.
Liam took her hand and spun her, a secret waltz.
Behind them, sparks from the fire climbed in spirals, mingling with the cool air.
The melody, now warmer and more enveloping, rose like a wave that bore them up—
as though the world itself had become music to cradle that small, intimate dance between eternity and desire.
He pulled her close, both of them laughing—bells ringing softly in an abandoned church.
But at the edge of the terrace, where the firelight thinned, a figure watched in silence.
Miroslava, leaning against a wooden pillar, her face a mask of contemplation, affection, and regret.
Inside her, a voice rose—laden with centuries of loyalty and warning.
I've seen her happy at last… but this will bring a storm. And I won't be able to stop it.
She lifted a glass of wine someone had left on a nearby table.
Brought it to her lips, but didn't drink—holding it the way one holds a secret too ancient to tell.
Her gaze fixed on Alessia, as if she wanted to etch not only the image of her friend in love, but the echo of what this moment meant.
Within Miroslava, sadness for the inevitable mixed with the guilt of not having warned her in time, admiration for her courage, and a quiet fear of betraying the council.
She knew that what was right wasn't always just—and that sometimes watching in silence was the only thing she could do without shattering her loyalty entirely.
The last night, perhaps, she would see her like this—hopeful, unbound, alive.
Liam kissed Alessia again—calmer now, more promise than fever—and whispered something only for her:
"I feel like this is going to change our lives."
Alessia didn't answer.
She simply pressed her forehead to his, closed her eyes, and let herself believe it.
The cold didn't matter anymore—nor time, nor the eternity weighing on her back.
The invisible camera pulled away.
The fire burned high.
The stars shone brighter.
The necklace gleamed with the glow of something just beginning.
And Miroslava, still in the shadows, lifted her eyes to the moon.
Her face hovered between melancholy… and fear—
because even the purest love, when it is born among shadows, exacts a price no one is willing to pay without spilling blood.