The living room was quiet, the fire burning low. Callum sat stiffly on the sofa, his hands clenched, his eyes darting between the three men who had gathered around him. He had thrown a glass, shouted, hidden in his room. Now, coaxed out by Adrian's calm words, he sat tense, waiting for answers.
Étienne leaned forward, his posture elegant even in the dim light. "You deserve the truth," he said softly. "We are not ordinary men. You have seen enough to know this."
Callum swallowed hard. "Then tell me. Tell me why you haven't killed me."
Lukas spoke first, his voice calm, steady. "Because we are not killers. I am a werewolf, yes. But I was raised among humans. My parents abandoned me when I was four. I grew up in a village, surrounded by people who didn't know what I was. I learned to bake, to work, to live quietly. The wolf is part of me, but it does not rule me."
Callum's eyes widened, but Lukas's calm tone softened the shock.
Étienne smiled faintly, though guilt lingered in his eyes. "I am a vampire. Old money, French, centuries old. I chose medicine because I wished to remain close to humanity, to heal rather than harm. I am cheerful, yes, but hunger is always near. I lost control once, with Adrian. I regret it. But I do not feed on innocents. I live as a man, not a monster."
Callum's gaze shifted to Adrian, who sat with his journal closed, his hands folded neatly.
"I was human," Adrian said quietly. "A diplomat. I traveled, negotiated, lived among people. I saw through their secrets, their lies. When I came here, I saw through theirs too. I confronted them. Étienne bit me. It should have made me a vampire. But I became something rare instead — a dhampir. Neither human nor vampire. I complained, I raged, but I have learned to live with it. I am still myself. Still Adrian. Just… changed."
Silence filled the room. The fire crackled, shadows danced across the walls.
Callum's breath came uneven. "So you're all… monsters."
"No," Adrian corrected gently. "We are men with burdens. We live, we work, we laugh. We bleed, we suffer. We are not what you fear."
Étienne leaned closer, his voice soft but firm. "If we wished to harm you, Callum, we would have done so already. But we have not. Because you are part of this house now. You are one of us."
Callum's eyes flicked between them — the elegant vampire, the calm werewolf, the rare dhampir. His fear lingered, but beneath it, something else stirred: understanding.
He exhaled slowly, his shoulders relaxing just slightly. "Then tell me everything. If I'm to stay here, I need to know who I'm living with."
And so they did.
Lukas spoke of his childhood, of the loneliness of being abandoned, of finding solace in bread and ovens. Étienne spoke of centuries past, of Parisian salons and medical wards, of choosing compassion over hunger. Adrian spoke of diplomacy, of rare transformation, of learning to balance humanity with something darker.
Callum listened, his fear fading into curiosity. He did not yet trust them fully, but he began to see them not as monsters, but as men with stories, scars, and lives.
The house in the fields, once a place of suspicion, now held something new: truth.