She couldn’t move.
He had her in his sights—and that was all it took.
I stood frozen, every part of me pulled tight as wire, watching. Waiting.
He closed the distance in a breath.
His hand moved—faster than thought, faster than fear.
Steel flashed.
The blade sank into the woman’s chest with terrifying grace, a single motion so precise it was almost beautiful.
She gasped, eyes wide with stunned silence—then collapsed.
Blood bloomed beneath her like ink in water, and time forgot how to move for one suspended moment.
Then she laughed.
A wild, unearthly cackle tore through the air, jagged and wrong. Her body writhed once, then dissolved, collapsing into nothingness before my eyes, like smoke whipped away by the wind.
My heart thundered in my chest likeIhad been part of the ritual. As though her death had reached into me and pulled something dark to the surface.
He turned to me.
His gaze held unknowable secrets, and something far more frightening than cruelty.
Somethinghungry.
He consumed the night.
I felt it wrapping around my soul like frost and flame. It writhed inside me—corrupting, seducing, awakening. He was not of this world. That much I knew. No mortal bled power like this.
And yet... I didn’t step back.
“Forgive me,” he said, voice low and rough as if shaped by centuries of shadow.
“Who are you?” I breathed. “And what did you do to that woman?”
“Nothing she didn’t deserve,” he replied, his tone melting into something almost tender, almost purring.
But he was no longer in front of me.
His arms were suddenly around me—strong, unyielding—pulling me against him from behind. I gasped as heat surged through me, a wicked current of pleasure dancing through my veins. His breath was warm at my neck, and his hands gripped my waist like he’d been waiting for this moment across lifetimes.
I should have run.
I didn’t.
Iwantedthis.
Iwantedhim.
It was as though everything I’d ever loved—everything I’d ever feared—was rising inside me, untamed and wild.
I turned in his arms, breathless.
The blanket fell from my shoulders like a final illusion slipping away.
