You woke to sunlight.

Real sunlight. Warm and golden, pouring through a glass window onto a thick duvet that was tucked around you up to your chin.

You blinked. The ceiling above you was wooden beams, old and dark. The walls were plaster, painted a faded cream. A small table beside the bed held a steaming mug of tea — still hot, freshly poured — and a small leather pouch that clinked softly when you touched it.

Gold. More than enough for a room and a wagon ride to wherever home turned out to be.

You sat up slowly. Your body ached: feet sore, muscles stiff, briar scratches stinging faintly on your legs. But you were warm. Clean. Safe. The sounds of a country inn filtered through the floorboards: the clatter of dishes, a murmured conversation, the creak of a cart on the road outside.

At the foot of the bed, draped over the wooden frame with careful precision, lay a heavy leather doublet. Dark. Well-made. Smelling faintly of rosemary and old brandy.

Your hand went to your neck.

Two tiny marks. Perfectly sealed. Painless. If you hadn't been looking for them, you would have missed them entirely.

You stared at the doublet for a long time. Then at the tea. Then at the gold. Then at the window, where the morning sun was painting the road outside in shades of honey and amber, and the Chionthar forest was a dark, distant line on the horizon.

He'd kept his promise.

You pulled the jacket off the bed frame, folded it carefully, and held it against your chest. The leather was cool against your skin. You breathed in — rosemary, brandy, night air, something clean and cold underneath — and let the breath out slowly.

Somewhere out there, a monster was walking home through the morning light. He'd chased you, frightened you, cornered you in the dark. And then he'd fought spiders for you, given you his jacket, and carried you to safety while you slept.

You drank the tea. It was perfect — hot, strong, sweetened with honey.

You kept the jacket. And if you ever found your way back to wherever home turned out to be — if this was a dream, or a different world, or a wine-soaked hallucination that had gotten wildly out of hand — you swore you'd tell the tale. About the night you met a vampire in the woods, and he was terrifying, and hungry, and dangerous, and every bit the monster he claimed to be.

And he let you go anyway.