Page 6 of Vampire Solstice (Vampire Girl #5)

Chapter 6

The Villagers

T he sun is close to setting and the village is in turmoil when we arrive. A cacophony of shouts, the clang of rusted metal, and the dull thud of boots stomping through the snow greets us as we step back into the square. The air is thick with tension, sharper than the cold that bites at my face.

“What now?” Fen mutters, his hand instinctively going to the hilt of his sword. His gaze sweeps the scene, and I follow it to the source of the commotion.

A mob has formed near the central statue of the Midnight Star. Torches flare, casting flickering shadows across the villagers’ angry faces as they swarm toward a single figure. Myra stands at the base of the statue, her arms spread wide as if to hold them back, though she looks impossibly small against the encroaching crowd.

“This doesn’t look goods,” I whisper, quickening my pace. Fen keeps close, his presence steady beside me.

“Enough!” Myra’s voice cuts through the noise, surprisingly strong, though it’s tinged with desperation. “You can’t go after him! You don’t understand what you’re dealing with.”

“We understand enough!” a burly man with a pitchfork shouts, his face twisted with fury. “That beast has taken too much from us already. We won’t stand by and let it happen again.”

“She’s defending it!” a woman cries, her voice shrill. “She’s always defended it. Just like she’s defending them!” Her finger jabs in our direction, and I stiffen as dozens of eyes turn on Fen and me.

“You brought the Midnight Star into our midst,” the man snarls, his grip tightening on the pitchfork. “Where has she been all this time? Why did it take her so long to come? It’s because of her we’re cursed in the first place!”

The words hit me like a blow. “What?” I say, my voice faltering. “That’s not true. I—”

“Don’t act ignorant!” another villager shouts. “You’re the reason we’ve suffered for centuries. The Midnight Star brought this curse upon us, and now she’s here to… what? Gloat?”

“Stop this!” Myra cries, stepping forward. “You don’t know what you’re saying. She’s here to help us. She can end the curse.”

The crowd surges forward, shouts of derision rising like a tide. “She’s done nothing but bring more suffering!” a woman yells.

Fen tenses beside me, his eyes narrowing. “This is getting out of hand,” he mutters.

I take a step forward, raising my voice to be heard over the din. “Enough!” I shout. “ Let us—”

“This isn’t your business,” someone shouts back. “Go take a hike in the woods, Midnight Star, and leave us to deal with our own problems.”

Anger flares in my chest, but before I can respond, two men seize Myra by the arms, dragging her toward the small stone building. She struggles, her protests drowned out by the crowd’s jeers.

“Wait!” I shout, but no one listens. The heavy wooden door slams shut behind her, and the mob begins to disperse, their energy redirected into sharpening weapons and gathering supplies for a hunt they don’t understand.

I turn to Fen, my hands clenched into fists. “We have to talk to her,” I say.

He nods, his expression grim. “Let’s go.”

The jail is cold and dim, lit only by a single lantern that casts flickering shadows across the rough stone walls. Myra sits on a wooden bench, her head bowed, her hands clasped tightly in her lap. She doesn’t look up as we enter.

“Myra,” I say softly, stepping closer. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

She lifts her head, her eyes red and hollow. “Tell you what?” she asks, her voice flat.

Fen leans against the wall, his arms crossed. “We found the other half of your ribbon in an underground cavern.”

"On a bed," I say, softening my voice against Fen's anger. You catch more flies with honey than vinegar, as my mother always says. A lesson my warrior husband is still struggling to learn. "And there were chains in the walls. But why?"

Her face crumples, and for a moment, I think she won’t answer. But then she takes a shaky breath and speaks. “I’m in love with him,” she whispers, her voice breaking.

The words hang in the air, heavy and impossible. I exchange a stunned glance with Fen.

“In love?” I repeat, struggling to process what she’s saying. “With the beast?”

“He’s not… he’s not always like that,” she says, her voice trembling, hand clutching her ribbon “He was cursed when the village was cursed. He’s a good man. When the curse isn’t… when he isn’t…” She trails off, tears streaming down her face.

I’ll tell you everything.

The Beast and Myra

The first time I saw Kael, he was a shadow in the snow, barely a shape against the blinding white. I remember it so vividly—the storm was raging, the kind of winter fury that turns the forest into a frozen graveyard. I had wandered too far from the village, my basket empty because the traps I’d set for rabbits had come up barren yet again. I was cold, angry, hungry, and desperate.

And then I saw him.

At first, I thought he was dead. His body lay crumpled near a thicket of trees, snow already beginning to cover his pale skin. I didn’t recognize him as the beast—not then. He looked like a man who had lost everything, his chest barely rising and falling with the shallow breaths of someone clinging to life. His dark hair was plastered to his forehead, his hands bloodied and raw.

I should have run. The stories we grew up with, the ones whispered around firelight, always began with foolish girls who didn’t run when they had the chance. But I was nineteen and reckless. Something about him—his vulnerability, his sheer humanity—called to me.

I dropped my basket and knelt beside him, my heart pounding as I reached out to touch his shoulder. His skin was like ice, and his body flinched at the contact. His eyes fluttered open, and for a moment, I was caught in their depth—a sharp amber hue, almost glowing, like a predator’s.

“Help me,” he whispered, his voice barely audible over the wind.

It was enough to shatter whatever fear I’d been holding onto. I pulled off my cloak and draped it over him, murmuring reassurances as I tried to figure out how to drag him back to the village. He was heavier than he looked, his body dense with muscle, and it took all my strength just to get him upright.

I didn’t make it far before he stopped me, his hand gripping my arm with surprising force. “No,” he said, his eyes wild with fear. “Not the village. They’ll… they’ll kill me.”

I didn’t understand what he meant then, but something in his voice convinced me to listen. Instead, I helped him to a hollow beneath a fallen tree, shielding him from the worst of the storm. I gathered what little wood I could find and built a fire, sitting close to him as the warmth slowly returned to his face.

He didn’t say much that night. He didn’t have to. I saw the scars on his body, the haunted look in his eyes, and I knew he had been through something unimaginable.

When the storm eased, I left him there with promises to return.

I went back the next day, and the day after that.

At first, Kael was cautious, his answers clipped and guarded. He told me he had been a soldier, a protector of the village during the ancient wars between vampires and fae. He spoke of battles fought in the dead of night, of friends lost, of betrayals real and imagined. But the details were sparse, his pain too raw to share.

Still, something about him drew me in. Maybe it was the way his voice softened when he thanked me for bringing him food, or the way his lips curved into the faintest of smiles when I teased him about his terrible jokes.

It didn’t take long for me to notice the strange patterns in his behavior. Some days, he was strong and sharp, his wit quick and his movements precise. Other days, he was distant, his eyes clouded with something dark.

I remember the first time I saw him change.

It was late, the moon high in the sky, and I had brought him a blanket I’d stitched from scraps of fabric. He had smiled when I handed it to him, but then his face twisted, his body jerking as if some unseen force had taken hold.

“Run,” he choked out, his voice strangled. “Get away from me.”

I didn’t understand at first, but then I saw it—his hands, clawing at the ground, his body contorting in ways no human body should. His screams turned guttural, animalistic, as fur sprouted along his arms and his jaw elongated into a snout.

I should have been terrified. I should have run and never looked back.

But I stayed.

“Kael,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “It’s me. You’re safe.”

His amber eyes locked onto mine, wild and feral, and for a moment, I thought he would attack. But then he stilled, his massive form trembling as if holding back some deep, primal urge.

I stepped closer, my heart pounding. “You’re still you,” I said, more to convince myself than him. “This… this isn’t who you are.”

The beast growled low in its throat, but it didn’t attack. It simply watched me, its gaze filled with a sorrow so deep it nearly broke me.

When the transformation finally reversed, Kael collapsed into my arms, his body limp and trembling. He didn’t speak that night, but the way he clung to me said everything.

Over time, I pieced together the truth.

Kael had been cursed by the Midnight Star, but why, I wasn’t sure.

“I would never betray this village,” he told me one night, voice breaking. “I would die for them. So why? Why did she turn me into this immortal beast?”

I didn’t know what to say. How do you comfort someone who has been broken so completely?

All I could do was stay by his side.

We fell in love in the quiet moments between his pain.

I showed him the beauty of the forest, the way the snow sparkled in the sunlight, the way the trees swayed in the wind like they were dancing. He taught me to listen to the sounds of the woods, to hear the whispers of the animals and the creak of the branches.

It wasn’t easy. The curse hung over us like a shadow, and there were days when I thought it would consume him entirely. But we found ways to hold onto each other, to remind ourselves that there was still light in the darkness.

I tried to break the curse. I searched the forest, the village, the old stories for anything that might help. But the answers were always just out of reach, the magic too ancient and tangled to unravel.

“Why do you stay?” he asked me one night, his voice heavy with guilt. “You could have a life, a future. You don’t have to waste it on me.”

“I stay because I love you,” I said simply. “And I’ll keep fighting for you, no matter how long it takes.”

But now, years later, the Mythos tree is dying, and the curse is growing stronger. Kael’s transformations are more frequent, his control slipping further with each passing day.

I’ve tried to save him. I’ve done everything I can.

But I can’t do it alone.

“You knew all this time,” Fen says, his voice cold. “You knew, and you didn’t tell us.”

“I was trying to find a way to break the curse,” she says desperately. “I convinced my grandmother that only the Midnight Star could do it.”

The mention of the Midnight Star sends a chill down my spine. This clearly happened long before I was born. There have been many Midnight Stars over the ages. But it was one of my family. And it is my legacy, and now, my problem to fix.

Before I can process what she’s said, a low, mournful howl cuts through the night, sending a shiver down my spine. Myra goes pale, her eyes wide with fear.

“He’ll attack tonight,” she says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’ve kept him chained at night to stop him from hurting anyone, but tonight… I won’t be there to stop him. You have to save him. And the village. No one else can die.”

Her plea pierces through my shock, her desperation igniting something fierce within me. I glance at Fen, his jaw tight, his eyes burning with determination. Now we know why the attacks stopped the last few months.

“Is there anything else you can tell us? About the beast or the curse?” I ask before we leave her. “Your grandmother, she was trying to tell us something before she passed. Do you have any idea what it could have been? She said ‘jou’. Does that mean anything to you?”

She starts to shake her head, then pauses. “Wait, maybe. My grandmother, she kept a journal. I never read it. But she put everything into it. I know she’s been obsessed with breaking this curse, though not for the same reasons as me.” Myra pauses. “She never would have understood our love. It would have killed her. But I guess in the end, it did just that anyways.”

Myra wipes away a tear, and my heart can’t help but break for all she’s gone through.

“Where is the journal?” Fen asks, and though I can tell he used his nice voice, no one else would be able to.

“I’m not sure,” she says. “She was always very private about it.”

“We’ll look for it,” I promise, as we sprint back to her cottage.

The howl rises again, louder this time, and I steel myself for what’s to come. Tonight, we face the beast—and whatever truths lie hidden within the curse that now binds us all.