Desperate Measures

POV: Astrid

“Astrid, what the hell were you thinking?” Silas asks, his voice thick with a mixture of disbelief and raw frustration.

It is not the first time he has demanded an answer since we hurried away from the bakery. He matches my pace as we trudge through the miserable, muddy streets of Miretown, putting as much distance as possible between us and the spot where I just accosted three massive, deadly male vampires.

He has every right to be furious with me. My reckless outburst over a dropped loaf of bread could have easily drawn him into a brutal fight we had no chance of surviving. Silas would do anything to protect me. If those vampires had decided to snap my neck for my insolence, he would have thrown himself into the fray without a second thought. And he would have died for it.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” I admit, my voice trembling. The residual adrenaline still pumps through my veins, making my hands shake inside my pockets. “I was just… mad. I am so sick and tired of them treating us like dirt beneath their expensive boots.”

“Why do you have to be so mad all the time, Astrid? You’re going to end up getting yourself killed.” He shakes his head, kicking a jagged rock down the rutted dirt road.

He is right. He is always right, which only irritates me more. With nothing left to say to defend my own stupidity, I clamp my mouth shut. My stomach twists into a painful, hollow knot, not just from the fading adrenaline, but from a deep, gnawing hunger. The rich, mouth-watering aroma of fresh yeast and baked flour wafts from the bundle in Silas’s arms. He carries four massive, warm loaves of bread.

Images of my little sister and brother flash in my mind. Their sunken cheeks, their wide, hopeful eyes waiting for me to bring something home. I am going to have to do something drastic to feed them today.

Silas notices my gaze lingering on the food. A heavy, sorrowful look crosses his face. “I wish I could give mine to you, Asti. I really do.” He sighs, shifting the warm loaves against his chest as if trying to hide the scent from the bitter wind. “But Ma already warned me. If I don’t come home with our full allotment, she doesn't care what the reason is. She’ll strike me dead on the spot. And I believe her.”

If I were still in a fighting mood, I would remind him that his mother weighs less than eighty pounds soaking wet, and the top of her graying head only reaches the middle of his chest. But I know better than to push him. The guilt is already eating him alive.

I force a soft, reassuring tone into my voice to ease his burden. Mom will know it is his bread anyway, and she would hate taking food from his family. “It’s okay, Silas. Honestly. I think we might have some leftover flour from last spring tucked away in the back of the pantry.”

“Really?” His posture immediately straightens, his tone turning chipper and relieved.

It is a smooth, desperate lie. We have no flour. Even if we did, it takes a hell of a lot more than just flour and water to bake a decent loaf of bread. But I need him to stop looking at me with such agonizing pity.

“Sure. I’ll check around when I get inside.” I point toward my tiny, rundown house looming in the gray distance. “You go on home. Your Ma is waiting. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Clearly eager to escape the heavy tension of my presence, he nods quickly. “See you later, Astrid.” He flashes a quick smile, turns, and heads down the branching path toward his own street.

The moment his back is turned, my own fake smile drops into a fierce scowl. I am left alone in the dreary, freezing street. The cold wind bites through my thin, frayed cloak, chilling me to the bone. I want to punch a wall. I want to scream at the gray sky. But mostly, I am just furious with myself.

My thoughts drift back to the smug, wealthy vampire outside the bakery. The one who carelessly knocked my only source of food out of my hands. A dark, simmering rage bubbles in my chest. I want to track him down, grab him by the lapels of his immaculate coat, and scream directly into his arrogant face. I want him to know what it feels like to watch your family wither away into nothing.

But beneath that fiery anger, another emotion stirs—something unsettling and foreign that I cannot quite articulate.

I picture his face again. His dark, perfectly styled hair that caught the dim sunlight. His broad, imposing shoulders. And those piercing, icy blue eyes. He was undeniably attractive. Most vampires are, except for the ancient ones who eventually rot into wrinkly, opaque-eyed monsters. But this male was different. Despite his raw, intimidating power, he did not look menacing or cruel like the royal guards who patrol our streets. When I stared up at him, ready to unleash my fury, I wasn’t truly afraid.

I should have been terrified. It was a stupid, suicidal risk. I was outnumbered three to one by apex predators. In a fraction of a second, any one of them could have ripped my throat out and left my blood to freeze in the mud.

As wolf shifters, our people used to be proud. We used to be fast and strong. When fully fed, a shifter is faster and stronger than a fae, and far more agile than a lumbering lycan. Sometimes, a healthy wolf can even outmaneuver a vampire on four feet. But vampires possess unmatched, brutal physical strength. In the old days, we held them off with sheer numbers and pack tactics.

But that was before the blood taxes. Before the cullings. They systematically depleted our ranks, starved us into submission, and broke the spirit of the packs. Now, we are a fractured, malnourished shadows of our former glory.

“Bend the knee,” I mutter bitterly to myself, mocking the royal decree as I approach my property.

My house is a pathetic sight. The roof sags, the wooden slats are rotting from the dampness, and the single front window is cloudy with grime. Through the glass, I can see my mother sitting at the small, rickety kitchen table. She looks pale and exhausted, her posture slumped with the weight of chronic illness.

Our living conditions are a constant, suffocating reminder of our poverty. We have two small rooms and a tiny washroom. Mom and my stepfather, Orson, share the bedroom. My younger siblings and I share a single, lumpy mattress in the main room. There is a rusting stove in the corner, but we have not had the resources to fire it up in years.

My heart shatters into jagged pieces as I climb the creaking wooden steps to the porch. I have come home empty-handed before. There were times when the tax collectors drained so much blood from me that I passed out, unable to work or forage. Watching my family go without food on those nights nearly destroyed me. Today will be just as painful.

The front door groans loudly on its rusted hinges as I push it open.

“Sissy!” Taran shouts, his frail voice echoing in the cramped space. “You’re home!” He runs toward me on thin, shaky legs. He is five years old, but his severe malnourishment stunts his growth so badly he could easily pass for four.

Fiona follows close behind. She is four, but looks no older than a toddler. Despite her physical frailty, her mind is razor-sharp. She does not offer her usual cheerful greeting. Instead, her large, sunken eyes scan my empty hands.

“Where is it?” she asks, her voice dropping into a disappointed whisper. “Is it hiding in your cloak?”

A solitary, burning tear escapes my eye, tracing a hot path down my freezing cheek. I scrub it away fiercely with the back of my hand, refusing to let them see me break. I cannot cry over a lost loaf of bread when they need me to be strong.

“I don’t have it,” I tell them gently, keeping my voice steady. “I’m sorry, little ones. I’ll have to do something else to get us dinner.”

“Oh, Astrid.” Mom’s raspy voice drifts across the room. She grips the edge of the table, her knuckles white, and manages to push herself up from her chair.

“Mom, sit down before you fall,” I warn her, stepping forward.

She ignores my plea, dragging her feet across the worn floorboards until she reaches me. She wraps her thin, trembling arms around my shoulders, pulling me into a weak, comforting hug. She smells like stale medicinal herbs and endless exhaustion. Part of me wants to bury my face in her shoulder and sob like a frightened child, but I force my spine to stay rigid. I cannot afford the luxury of breaking down.

“Did you not have enough coin?” she asks, her breath barely a whisper against my ear.

“No,” I lie smoothly, pulling back just enough to look into her worried eyes without throwing off her delicate balance. “It’s a long story. I bought the bread, but I tripped in the mud on the way back and dropped it. A stray dog snatched it before I could grab it.”

It is the easiest, safest lie I can spin. If she knew the truth—if I told her I stood in the middle of the street and screamed at three royal vampires—the sheer, paralyzing terror would likely trigger a heart attack and kill her on the spot. My mind flashes to the possibility of those vampires tracking me down. Would they come knocking on this rotting door? Would they slaughter my family just to make an example out of me?

No. I shake the intrusive thought away. The blue-eyed vampire did not seem like a mindless killer. I have to believe they already forgot about the starving peasant girl in the street.

“Well, we can try again tomorrow,” Mom says, her voice strained as she slowly shuffles back to her chair and collapses into it. “Maybe your father will have something for us when his shift ends.”

Taran and Fiona groan in unison, their small hands pressing against their hollow stomachs. They are too hungry to wait for evening. And worse, we all know Orson will not bring anything home.

Orson works deep in the mining pits on the edge of the territory. The labor is backbreaking, soul-crushing work. He earns barely enough rations to eat three meager meals a day, which is the absolute minimum caloric intake required for him to swing a pickaxe for twelve hours. If he skips a meal to feed us, he grows weak. If he grows weak, he loses his job. And if the sole earner of our household stops working, we default on our pack dues.

The punishment for default is debtor's prison. A filthy, lightless dungeon where shifters are left to rot in their own filth until they starve to death.

I refuse to let that tragic fate claim my family.

“I’ll go find you something right now,” I announce, my tone clipped and decisive. I march determinedly across the living room, heading straight for my parents’ bedroom.

“Astrid, no,” Mom calls out, panic instantly lacing her raspy voice. “Don’t do anything foolish. I cannot let you do that.”

“Don’t worry, Mom. No one will know,” I call back, completely ignoring her weak, frantic protests.

I step into the dim bedroom and head straight for the small closet built into the far wall. It is the only storage space in the house. The air inside smells of dust and old mothballs. I push past the few threadbare dresses and patched trousers hanging on the rack, reaching toward the back wall.

As my hands search the shadows, my knuckles brush against a small, hard object tucked on the top shelf. I pause, pulling it down into the faint sliver of light filtering through the doorway.

It is a cracked, faded photograph secured in a cheap wooden frame. My late father smiles back at me.

My chest tightens with a fierce, suffocating ache. He was a good, strong, respected man. Even the corrupt local officials like Mayor Grimm and Sheriff Mercer treated him with a grudging baseline of respect. He was a proud wolf shifter who did whatever it took to keep his pack safe. But years ago, he was drafted into a royal scouting party sent over the border into Bloodfang territory. He never came back.

My world crumbled the day the squad leader stood on our porch and delivered the news of his death. Mom and I survived the crushing grief together for eight long years until she finally married Orson. Orson is a good man. He treats me like his own blood, and he loves Taran and Fiona fiercely. But gazing at the handsome, fearless face in the photograph, I miss my real father with a burning intensity.

I trace the crack in the glass with my thumb. I cannot afford to stand in the dark pining for ghosts. Survival requires action.

Placing the frame carefully back on the shelf, I reach deeper into the closet, pressing my fingers against the bottom corner of the wooden backboard. I find the familiar groove, dig my nails in, and apply pressure. With a soft click, the hidden wooden panel pops loose.

I slide the panel aside, revealing a narrow, secret compartment built directly into the wall framing. I reach inside, my fingers closing around smooth, polished wood and tight, waxed string.

I pull out my ultimate prize: Daddy’s handmade wooden recurve bow.

He crafted it himself years ago, back when the vampires first started tightening their grip on the shifter packs and meat became scarce. He taught me how to carve arrows, how to string the tension, how to breathe through the shot. Under current vampire law, possessing a hunting weapon is a severe crime punishable by public flogging or execution.

I run my hand along the curved limb of the weapon. I don't care about the laws. With this bow, I can slip past the border fences, sneak deep into the untamed woods, and hunt down a rabbit or a wild bird. I will do whatever it takes to put meat on the table and keep my siblings breathing.

I slide a small quiver of crude, handmade arrows over my shoulder and grip the bow firmly in my right hand.

Marching back into the living room, I plaster a confident, fearless smile on my face for the sake of the kids. I hold the bow down by my side, angling my body so the children can't see the weapon clearly.

“See? I told you I’d figure it out. It’ll all be all right,” I say, projecting a bright, artificial cheerfulness.

Mom’s eyes drop to the weapon in my hand. Her pupils dilate with sheer terror. She shakes her head wildly, gripping the arms of her chair.

“Astrid, no. I knew I should have burned that thing,” she whispers, her voice cracking with panic. “It’s too dangerous. Put it back right now. If the royal guards catch you with that, or even the sheriff, they will drag you to the square. They’ll punish you.”

“They won’t catch me,” I reply, waving off her concern effortlessly. I roll my eyes, acting as if the very idea of getting caught by the sluggish town guards is ridiculous. “I know the woods better than any of them. I’ll be back before sunset with dinner.”

I stride confidently toward the front door, feeling the familiar, comforting weight of the wood in my grip. My pulse thrums with risky determination. I am ready to face the freezing woods. I am ready to break the law.

I grab the rusted iron handle, twist it, and pull the door open with a dramatic flourish, ready to step out into the biting wind.

My breath catches in my throat. My boots freeze to the floorboards.

Standing right there on our sagging wooden porch, blocking the pale sunlight with his massive, imposing frame, is a vampire.

He glares down at me, his icy blue eyes locking onto mine, tracking the illegal weapon gripped tightly in my hand.

“Oh, fuck.”