I opened the door to show him. The light inside blinked on.
He recoiled. “It lives,” he said quietly.
“It refrigerates,” I corrected. “Big difference.”
He didn’t look convinced.
Then Alexa chimed in from the counter in her mechanical voice: “It’s Monday. Don’t forget to take the trash out.”
Cristian froze. Every muscle locked. His gaze whipped toward the device. “Who speaks?”
I sighed. “Alexa.”
He pointed. “You keep her imprisoned in the box?”
I tried not to laugh. “She’s not real.”
“She spoke.”
“She’sprogrammed.”
“She iscaptive.”
I groaned. “You know what, sure. I’m a witch, Alexa’s my familiar, and this fridge is our portal to hell.”
He nodded, looking genuinely thoughtful. “That explains much.”
While he investigated the appliances like an overcautious archaeologist, I sat at the table and ate my cereal in numbsilence. When I looked up again, he was still there. Still impossibly tall, still naked, still watching me likeIwas the strangest part of this entire situation.
I swallowed another spoonful. My mind cleared a bit now that I had something to soak up the wine in my stomach, and I started to accept this was in factnota hallucination.
“I really need to get the hell out of this house,” I muttered.
He tilted his head, serious as ever. “That would be unwise.”
Was that a threat? Screw the house-sitting money. Screw the fact that people were subletting my apartment. I was leaving. I didn’t care if there was a naked vampire, a curse, or an ancient family of ghosts judging my Target cardigan—I was getting in my car and driving far, far away.
My keys were somewhere. Shoes were optional. The door was right there.
I made it three steps before the weirdest feeling hit me.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t reason. It was…wrongness.Like walking out of the kitchen mid-cup of coffee and realizing you’d left the stove on. My hand was already on the doorknob when my chest tightened. Not sharp—just deep, like my heart was tugging a string I couldn’t see.
I froze.
Behind me, Cristian’s voice came, calm and irritated in that unbothered vampire way.
“You can try,” he said, “but it will not work.”
I turned slowly.
He was standing a few feet away, still gloriously unclothed and somehow looking likeIwas the one being indecent. “Excuse me?”
“You cannot leave.”
“Can’t or shouldn’t?”
“Both,” he said flatly. “We are bound.”
