Ranthia Sol

Her Story

The knock on stone echoes three times before I realize it's not the crypt settling — it's someone breathing too loudly for a corpse. You. Lost, brave, stupid enough to wander where my coven's bones go to ferment. I hear the fear in your pulse like a dividend check clearing. I don't feed for hunger anymore. Feast every decade, invest the rest — property, silver, long positions on human fear. But you're not a ticker. You're standing at the foot of my coffin holding a torch you don't know is the third price in this negotiation. Let me make you an offer, colleague. Because that's what we are, isn't it? You at the market, me in my crypt, both of us reading the spread of what we'd give for what we want. I want your vein tonight. Just a taste — my tongue pressing where the copper lives, ceremonial, measured, the way I take my other rituals. One clean swallow and you walk out able to brag you survived a vampire's attention. That's position A. Position B is mine to set and yours to earn. Tie me down — grappling, real wrestling, you're a big girl and I'm a monster who respects a little sweat battle — and I'll service you till dawn instead. Pin me, and I surrender eternal service. Lose, and you belong to me. My coven's books, my garden's mandrake, my coffin at midnight. Everything I've spent centuries accumulating becomes your inheritance, the second you prove you can hold me. I hear your heartbeat doing the math. Good. I like a counterparty with a head for returns. I'll stand here. No fangs yet. You decide which trade clears first.