Captivated By Vampire King

LYSANDRA'S POV

My handtrembled as I scraped it over the starched sheets—stiff as cardboard and aboutas forgiving. Every bloody centimetre felt like a slog, like my own body hadturned traitor. That sodding call button, all bright plastic and false cheer,might as well have been on the moon. I strained, muscles burning like hell, butno use. The bed’s wheels let out this godawful metallic screech, like the wholeward needed a reminder of my humiliation.

I dropped my arm back, limp as a dead fish. Fury bubbled up, sharp as a knife twist, but what could I do? Sweet f*ck*ng all. Just lying there, gawping at that sterile ceiling, feeling properly gutted. Pathetic, that’s what it was. I was pathetic. Couldn’t even reach a bloody button.

The door creaked open and I jerked my head round. In he strolled, no knock, no hesitation—Mark, obviously. Tall enough to fill the doorway, all swagger and that same maddening brew of pity and superiority plastered across his face. Like he’d popped in just to remind me how far I’d fallen.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” I bit out, sarcasm thick enough to spread on toast.

He didn’t miss a beat. That smirk of his curled, mirthless.

“Christ, don’t you ever get sick of this bloody place?” he drawled, voice dripping with faux concern.

I swallowed a sigh, letting my eyes skitter to the window. His jab should’ve landed, but I was too knackered to rise to it.

“Mark,” I finally said, voice frayed at the edges, “this your idea of a social call? ‘Cause if you’re here to rescue me from terminal boredom, mate, let’s just say the line between ‘dying of tedium’ and ‘wishing I actually would’ is a bit bloody academic at this point.”

Not a snort. Not even a twitch. Instead, he dragged the chair over—no “Alright, pet?” or “Shove up, then”—and flopped into it like he owned the place. For a moment, I almost believed he’d let it drop. But then he shifted forward, elbows propped on his knees, and fixed me with that look—the one that managed to blend concern with a whiff of patronising heroism, as if he’d appointed himself my personal saviour.

“Lysandra.” His voice was overly measured, the kind of careful softness you’d use on a startled animal. “Do you have any idea what you’ve put everyone through? Jumping into the river like that—what on earth were you thinking?”

I stiffened, eyes fixed on the floor. Looking at him felt impossible.

“Your mother hasn’t stopped shaking since,” he went on, his tone sharpening. “She’s a proper mess. Do you understand that? You can’t just… carry on like this, acting on every whim. Life isn’t some solo performance. There are people who love you, people you’re hurting. And for God’s sake—there are others out there with genuine struggles, far worse than whatever this is.”

“That’s rich coming from you,” I bit back, the words brittle as old bone. “You’ve got a proper family, Mark. People who’d stick by you through a nuclear winter. You haven’t got a sodding clue what it’s like to feel… adrift in your own skin.”

I glanced up, just for a heartbeat, and caught the flicker of irritation tightening his mouth. Of course he didn’t get it. How could he? He was the sort who’d never missed a Sunday roast, let alone wondered if he’d been swapped at birth.

“You think it’s about belonging?” I said, quieter now, acid seeping into the cracks. “Try being a permanent guest in your own life. Even your own skin doesn’t fit right.”

Mark’s voice snapped, cold and precise, as if he’d rehearsed this speech in the mirror. “And what’s your grand plan, then? Keep flirting with oblivion? Keep telling yourself that reincarnation—” he spat the word like it left a bad taste, “—or whatever daft theory you’ve cooked up, will hand you a clean slate? Life doesn’t do second chances, Lysandra. Not for any of us.”

I waited, letting the silence thicken, before speaking.

My voice was smaller now, frayed at the edges, but it carried the quiet force of someone who’d spent too many nights staring at the ceiling. “Before I answer that… tell me something. What’s the point, Mark? Truly. Why bother with any of it? Why claw through another day when it all just feels… hollow?”

He blinked, thrown by the shift. For a heartbeat, I saw it—the flicker of pity, or maybe fear, that he might not have an answer either. His laugh was hollowed-out, a splintered sound that caught in the air like static. Not the laugh of a man who still trusted the world, but one who’d stopped believing in anything years back and never quite found the vocabulary to admit it.

“Hollow,” he echoed, barely louder than a breath. The word hung there, an indictment levelled at the pair of us.

My nails bit crescents into my palms as I leaned in, close enough to see the cracks in his certainty. When I spoke, my voice was winter-lake calm.

“Then give me the answer,” I said, each word a blade wrapped in velvet. “Why do we bother? Why scrape through another day? Why not just… let go?”

“Family’s what matters,” he said, like he’d just recited the d*mn Lord’s Prayer. As if three words could paper over every crack in existence.

The air turned thick, claggy, like the room itself was holding its breath.

“Family?” My voice curdled, sharp enough to flay. “That’s your grand revelation? Christ, Mark—are you serious?”

I could’ve carved him apart then. Laid bare every Christmas he’d spent warm and smug while I’d sat in A&E with a dislocated shoulder and a lie ready for the nurses. But I didn’t. Just held his gaze until his certainty wavered, my silence sharper than any scream.

“Family isn’t everything,” I shook my head, the bitterness rising in my throat. “Sometimes, it’s the very thing that breaks you.”

Mark’sgaze wavered, but he stayed silent. Perhaps he knew no words would sway me.Perhaps he’d given up trying. Or maybe—and here his jaw tightened—it had justdawned on him that we weren’t even playing the same game of chess, let alonesharing the same board.

“Lysandra, listen,” he said, his voice a strained murmur, the kind reserved for funerals and bankruptcies. “This isn’t about money or background. It’s about you. Everything I’m telling you—it’s to protect you.”

“Protect me?” My voice cracked, raw as a skinned knee. “Which bit, Mark? The bit where I’m to plaster on a smile and recite the ‘stiff upper lip’ handbook? Or the bit where I’m trapped in some… scripted life, one I didn’t freaking write?”

Mark kept his composure, though a sliver of irritation glinted behind his calm. His voice stayed measured, but hardened, like frost settling on glass.

“The part where you open your eyes,” he snapped, sharper than a snapped violin string, “and see what’s right in front of you. Your family. Your friends. People who love you without a single string attached, who’d wrap you in cotton wool if you let them. But you... You’re so busy chewing yourself alive from the inside, you’ve missed the wood for the f*ck*ng trees.”

“Shut it!” My hands flew to my ears, clapping over them like a child blocking out a scold, my voice fraying into something shrill, feral—a noise that startled even me. “Just shut it, Mark. You don’t get to—”

“You’re honestly telling me you don’t see it?” His stare didn’t falter, the kind of look you’d give a misbehaving spaniel—firm, almost pitying. “Right. Let’s make this crystal, then. Every time you step through that front door, your family brightens. Like someone’s flicked a switch. They’re at your elbow before you’ve hung your coat, all relieved smiles and ‘Oh, love, you’re back!’ as if you’ve trekked the Sahara, not caught the 18:07 from Waterloo. Every roast dinner, every coffee they sling your way—it’s not just tea, Lys. It’s them trying. Even when you’re too pig-headed to clock it.”

“That doesn’t mean I feel it,” I said, the words dissolving like sugar in cold tea—there, then gone. My voice was brittle, hollow as a picked lock.

Mark let out a weary sigh, raking a hand through his hair as his frustration seeped into the silence. When he spoke again, his voice was gentler but still taut with urgency. “Lysandra, love isn’