Something About Us - Chapter 44: Tending Wounds

Apocalypse befell, and roommates performed a skyward ritual.As the fog descended, the Book of Blood Spirit appeared in the hands of all survivors, and only those with a Contract monster could survive.Su Han directed his gaze to the neighbor who had already mutated and twisted, silently pulling out a gleaming fruit knife...Grotesque meat corpses, giant spiders with gaping mouths, eyeballs enveloping the city, one-eyed sharp-toothed hand monsters...Civilization fell, cities shattered, and all humans became meat for the monsters. There was only one way to survive:Use monsters to fight monsters.

Karl transmigrated into a new world, and once he reached the age of 18, the day of the profession awakening ceremony came.In this world, your strength and profession determined everything about your life, with no second chances.And with nobody to support him, it was make or break for Karl.Yet, once his turn arrived, and he closed his eyes...He woke up in a strange and unfamiliar place.[Welcome to the Spirit Cemetery]A skeletal figure appeared before his eyes: it was death, revealing itself to him.“What the...”But before he could even understand the situation he was in, he heard a notification.Ding![You have awakened the EX-Rank profession “Spirit Summoner”][This is your Spirit Cemetery, find a way to fill it.]

He called me his ruin. Then he made me one.Alpha Shiloh's rejection wasn’t just a scar—it was a betrayal. He left me shattered. Broken. And I had to rebuild myself in silence.I almost forgot the way his touch once burned like salvation.Now he’s back.Not to beg forgiveness. To bargain. A deadly mission, he says. He promises freedom.But then presence ignites my wolf into a frenzy. She thrashes, desperate to claim him again. But I remember the coldness in his eyes when he exiled me. The way the pack turned their backs as I crawled into the wilderness, half-dead and wholly broken. Hate simmers hotter than desire.Yet here I am, bargaining with the devil who shattered me. Every moment we share is a lie. He doesn’t know about the shadows I’ve fed, the truth I’ve buried.Or the child.One whisper of its existence, and the pack will paint the forest with my blood.But the closer we get to completing his mission, the harder it is to hide… from him, or from the part of me that still craves him.Freedom has a price.So does vengeance.And I’m not sure which will destroy me first.

A conversation with a handsome stranger leaves Ariane chained in a cellar with a strange affliction. She soon discovers that the darkness of the nineteenth century’s Deep South hides many dangers. Mages, wolf shifters and the humans who hunt them play a risky game where to stumble is to die, all under the amused gaze of the apex predators of the supernatural world: vampires.

It is never healthy to attract the gaze of the aristocracy of the night. It takes much to survive in this merciless world, but Ariane will not let that deter her. The southern belle has a bite, and she is willing to learn and to grow in this hostile new world. She will use whatever means necessary to reclaim her freedom, be it guile, charm, or those intriguing new instincts that make blood so delectable.

This is a story of vampires as I believe they should be, with their strengths and weaknesses, with their remnants of humanity and the beast inside. Updates every Friday. Mind the tags.

Cover by Antti Hakosaari: https://www.artstation.com/haco

Special thanks to Svensonsen for getting me started, as well as Omi Nya, Hesketh, Rhaegar, Yaksher, Selkie and Raven for proofreading my stuff. Thanks to my patrons and you dear readers, for the support. I could not do it without you.

Journey is on Amazon, both in ebooks and audio. here is a link to the first one:

https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B08DK6G8Y8

The story probably exists in your local marketplace as well of I can tempt you.