All Chapters of To Bleed For You: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

The next morning, the freezing sleet had cleared, leaving St. Jude University bathed in a crisp, sharp autumn sunlight. For Elena, walking into the open quad under the sun was a massive risk. The bright light caught the edges of her flawless, porcelain skin, making it look unnaturally luminous—almost like finely polished diamond dust.But she didn’t care about hiding her nature today. She only cared about the woman beside her. As they stepped onto the main campus walkway, Elena did something she had never done in seventy years of hiding. She reached out and slid her pale, cool fingers between Maya’s, locking their hands together tightly in plain view of everyone. The effect on the student body was instantaneous. The bustling quad seemed to slow down. Whispers broke out like wildfire among the groups of students gathered near the university fountain. For semesters, Elena Vance had been the campus ghost—the impossibly beautiful, fiercely distant sophomore who sat in the shadows, i

The air inside the abandoned St. Jude University theater was freezing, smelling heavily of moldering velvet curtains, rotted stage wood, and ancient dust. Above, the cavernous ceiling was laced with old iron catwalks and heavy fly-gallery ropes that hung like cobwebs in the absolute dark. Elena pushed the heavy backstage door closed, the metallic click echoing through the hollow auditorium. She didn't turn on a flashlight. She didn't need to. Her pitch-black eyes adjusted instantly to the pitch-black space. "Stay close to the prompter's box on the left wing," Elena whispered into Maya's ear, her breath a ghost-like chill against Maya's skin. "And remember the ring." Maya nodded in the dark, her fingers curling tightly around the heavy silver band on her hand. She stepped into the designated shadow, her mortal heart hammering a frantic, loud thump-thump that she knew both vampires could hear. "I know you're here, Marcus," Elena's velvety voice boomed through the empty theater,

The campus of St. Jude University was completely empty as semester break officially arrived [local]. The dorms were locked, the lecture halls were quiet, and the heavy snow had turned the quad into a peaceful, white blanket. But for Elena, the end of the semester brought a completely new kind of terror.She wasn't facing a rogue vampire tracker this time. She was facing Maya's parents."Are you sure about this?" Elena asked, her velvety voice tight with an anxiety she hadn't felt in decades. She was sitting in the passenger seat of Maya’s old car, her hands folded tightly in her lap. Her porcelain skin looked stark against the dark fabric of her winter coat. "I haven't interacted with a human family since 1976, Maya. What if I say something wrong? What if they notice I don't touch the food?"Maya laughed softly, reaching across the center console to squeeze Elena’s ice-cold hand. "Elena, you fought a century-old vampire tracker in an abandoned theater and won. You can survive a family

The return to St. Jude University for the spring semester brought a shift in the atmosphere. The heavy, bruised snow clouds of winter had cleared, making way for crisp, bright mornings and the first faint hints of early spring.For Elena and Maya, walking back through the heavy archways of the university quad felt entirely different. They weren't the quiet project partners hiding in the shadows of Hall 304 anymore. They were the couple that everyone on campus talked about.As they walked hand-in-hand toward the art department, the usual whispers followed them. A group of freshmen near the campus fountain openly gaped, and the same girl students on the student union patio looked on with a familiar, burning jealousy. Elena was still the most striking, impossibly beautiful woman at St. Jude, but her icy defense mechanism had completely melted whenever Maya was near."Look at them," Maya murmured, a playful smirk touching her lips as she adjusted the strap of her canvas tote bag. "I th

The rhythmic, rhythmic scratch-scratch of charcoal against heavy cotton paper was the loudest sound in the room. To human ears, it was barely a whisper. To Elena, it was a symphony, perfectly synchronized with the steady, beautiful thump-thump of Maya’s heart. Elena sat perfectly still on the wooden stool, her posture flawless, her breathing artificial and shallow just to mimic life. She didn't need to move. She could hold this exact pose for days without a single muscle twitching. Centuries of hiding, of freezing in the shadows of alleys and ancient stone crypts, had made stillness her default state. But sitting here under the soft northern light of the studio, the stillness didn't feel like a curse. It felt like a gift. She sees me, Elena thought, her amber eyes tracking the intense concentration in Maya's face. Not as a monster. Not as an apex predator to be feared, or a relic of a dead decade. She sees the lines of my face, the silver in my hair, and she t