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“No!” I surge forward, boots pounding the ground as I duck beneath the closing gate.

The stench hits me: human fear, sweat, and despair layered so thick it coats the air like oil. The low rumble of frantic people locked in cages, awaiting fates too horrible to imagine.

Eagan rolls through the narrow gap beside me at the last second, the doors slamming shut behind us. The sound echoes like a coffin sealing.

For a moment, blessed darkness envelopes me, the warehouse interior dim after the punishing brightness outside. My skin stings, but already I feel the accelerated healing taking effect. Another gift of her blood still flowing through me. Despite how weak it must be, it’s the only explanation I have for it.

The moment of relief is short-lived. Guards stationed near the entrance spin toward us, weapons snapping up in practiced motions. Their uniforms mark them as market security, mercenaries hired to keep order among the desperate and ensure the profitable transfer of human debt contracts.

“Halt!” one shouts, a gun aimed at my chest. “Auction’s closed to new—”

Too slow. I move before his sentence finishes forming, a blur of motion that leaves them disoriented. One guard charges, thinking to overwhelm me with his bulk. I catch him by the throat and hurl him across the warehouse with a flick of my wrist. He crashes into a nearby cage, the metal buckling inward as bodies inside scream and scatter, pressing away from the impact point.

Another lunges from my left. I backhand him hard enough that his skull cracks against a wall with a wet, splitting sound. He crumples to the ground, body twitching once before going still.

More rush me. Fools. Mortals with mortal weapons against a king who has lived through plagues and wars and the slow death of empires. I tear through them, grabbing, throwing, and breaking. Bones snap beneath my fingers like kindling. Blood spatters across my face, the floor, the cages. The scent would normally drive me wild with hunger. Now, it does nothing but fuel my rage.

My hands are still burned from the sunlight as I wrench the hood back further, ripping it free from where it’s caught on a guard’s weapon. Gunshots ring out, the sound deafening in the vast space. A bullet grazes my shoulder, tearing through fabric and flesh before embedding in the roller door behind me. I don’t slow. The wound closes almost as soon as it opens.

More guards converge, weapons drawn. I slam one into a wall hard enough to leave an imprint of his body. Another tries to flank me, but I kick him with enough force to send him flying over a row of cages. The third hesitates, watching his companions fall. In that moment of uncertainty, I’m on him, teeth bared, hands closing around his throat.

“Where is she?” I hiss, tightening my grip just enough to make breathing difficult. “Where?”

His eyes bulge, face reddening as he claws at my hands. “I don’t know . . . who,” he chokes out, clutching my wrists.

I drop him to the ground, letting him gasp and retch. Pathetic. All of them, so pathetic.

I stride forward, past rows of cages filled with wide-eyed humans pressed against the bars. Past guards who now shrink back rather than challenge me directly. The ambience changes as I move deeper into the warehouse—fluorescent lights casting everything in a sickly yellow glow. The smell of unwashed bodies grows stronger, mingling with the sharp tang of fear and blood.

My vision sharpens, every heartbeat in the room roars in my ears, each pulse calling to me. As I enter the largest opening of the warehouse, guns are raised—dozens of them. Black metal barrels gleaming, fingers tensed on triggers. I can hear each individual hammer clicking back, each nervous swallow, each racing pulse. Time seems to slow as my senses accelerate beyond their normal capabilities.

Then someone finally recognizes me.

“My . . . My king,” a guard stammers, weapon shaking as he lowers it. His face drains of color, eyes widening.

One by one, weapons fall and hands go up. Fear replaces aggression instantly, like a switch has been flipped. No one dares to move. The warehouse falls into an eerie silence, broken only by the soft whimpering from the cages.

I don’t slow, I stalk through the center of the warehouse, boots crunching over debris. Cages line the space in endless rows, packed with bodies pressed together like sardines in a can. Their cries blur into a single, maddening noise, a background hum that should awaken my hunger further. It doesn’t. There’s only one hunger now, one thirst that matters.

Then I see her. Alessia. She’s trapped in King Xavian’s arms. The Demon King stands tall and composed amid the chaos, one hand fisted in the front of her jacket, holding her off the ground like a trophy he’s won. Her feet dangle, toes barely brushing the floor, her face a mask of fear. His fingers curl possessively at her throat, his face close to hers, lips curved in something far too pleased.

He knows.

Something inside me snaps.

The hunger vanishes, replaced by something colder. Rage in its purest form, undiluted by reason or restraint. Rage that burns cities to ash. The world narrows until there is only him. Only her. Only the space between them that shouldn’t exist.

Zander’s grip tightens on her throat, his nostrils flaring as he scents her, inhaling what doesn’t belong to him. His other hand snakes up to grip her chin, forcing her face toward his, examining her like a curious artifact. Like a possession. His thumb brushes her lower lip, lingering there as she tries to jerk her head away.

My blood roars in my ears, drowning out every other sound in the warehouse. Every instinct I possess—vampire, predator, king, man—screams ownership, violence, annihilation.

I want to rip him limb from limb with my bare hands.

I want to paint the walls with his entrails for daring to touch what is mine.

Taking one step forward, then another, the guards part for me without a word. They sense death in my approach. Alessia’s watery blue eyes find me across the distance, widening with recognition. Relief flashes across her face, but it’s quickly eclipsed by fear. She doesn’t understand yet. I would burn this entire kingdom to the ground before I let another man claim her.

“Xavian,” I say, voice carrying across the sudden silence. The words emerge as something barely human, a sound dragged from the darkest corners of my nature.