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Mathias’ hands settled on his waist, cool and firm. “We decided. Measured. Controlled.”
“I know.” Carson was grinding down against him, the friction sending sparks up his spine. “I just...I can feel it under my skin. Like it’s going to claw its way out if I don’t—”
He didn’t finish. Instead he tilted his head, offering his throat.
For a long moment, Mathias held still. Carson felt the war through the bond—want, fear, love, the old terror of taking too much. Then Mathias groaned, low and rough, and struck.
The first pull of blood was careful. The second was deeper.
Carson cried out as the high slammed into him, white-hot and perfect. His hips jerked hard. The careful boundaries they had built began to distort. He clutched at Mathias’ shoulders, chasing more, losing the thread of restraint.
“Mathias—more—”
Mathias tore his mouth away with a ragged sound, sealing the wounds with shaking control. “No.” His voice was raw. “This is the edge. Feel it.”
Carson trembled above him, cock hard and leaking between them, every nerve screaming for the full plunge. The craving was a living thing in his chest, furious at being denied. For one terrifying second, he almost hated Mathias for stopping. But even through the white-hot rush, the truth stayed with him. He knew exactly what continued feeding could cost. He knew what the bond was doing to Mathias. The knowledge didn’t make him pull away. It only made the choice feel heavier—and more deliberate—when he pulled Mathias closer instead.
Then the moment passed.
He collapsed forwards, forehead pressed to Mathias’, breathing hard. The high receded slowly, leaving him shaky and ashamed and still aching.
“I almost didn’t let you stop,” he muttered.
Mathias’ arms wrapped tightly around him. “I know. That’s why we practice. That’s why we choose this every night instead of taking everything.”
Carson nodded against him, the lesson settling deep. The bond was still dangerous. The ruin still called. And the only way to keep what they had was to keep choosing the harder path—together.
***
Gina
Far to the south, Gina moved through the night like a predator on a different kind of hunt.
The mysterious sire’s scent had become an obsession. It lingered on the edges of her awareness even now—dark, rich, and dangerously enticing, wrapping around her senses like smoke and velvet. She had followed it for weeks, chasing faint trails through abandoned warehouses, forgotten tunnels, and moonlit cemeteries. Tonight was no different.
She slipped between shadows in the old industrial district, nostrils flaring as she caught another trace of him. It was not sustenance she sought, though the hunger gnawed at her as always. This was something sharper, more personal. The emotional high of the chase—the thrill of pursuit, the frustration of near misses, the intoxicating promise of finally uncovering the one who created so many reckless ferals. Each night she drew closer, and each night the sun’s jealous murmur grew quieter, drowned out by this new fixation.
She paused on the roof of a derelict factory, dark strands of hair lifting in the slight breeze. Below, a small group of humans moved through the streets, oblivious. Gina ignored them. Her focus narrowed to a faint thread of scent leading towards the river district. She shifted forwards, her movements allowing her to leap silently from rooftop to rooftop, the hunt singing in her blood.
Hours passed. She found an old lair he had used—books again, neatly stacked this time, as if someone else had touched them. Her lips curved in a dangerous smile. Clever boy. She delayed, breathing deeply, letting the lingering essence of him roll across her tongue. It was almost as potent as fresh blood, stirring something deep and hungry inside her that had nothing to do with feeding.
By the time the sky began to lighten in the east, she was still empty-handed, but the chase had left her buzzing with life. The Sun’s Call felt distant tonight, pushed back by purpose and obsession.
Gina straightened, brushing dust from her clothes, and mouthed into the fading night, “I will find you.”
She turned towards home, the promise of the next hunt burning bright in her ancient eyes.
***
Crowe
The name had surfaced three nights earlier from a half-broken thrall the network had intercepted two cities over—someone who had slipped the usual cleanup. In the few lucid minutes before the mind collapsed completely, the man had given them two words that mattered: Mathias and dam.
After that, the residual signatures in this city had started to make sense. The careful feeding pattern, the repeated memory work on Joe, the older, disciplined presence that didn’t match feral chaos. Crowe had cross-referenced the hunters’ quiet archive and found partial hits—decades-old reports of a sire who moved his people before the sun could take them, always with a female second who kept the younger ones in line.
The industrial district was mostly dead at this hour. Crowe moved along the edge of a shuttered loading bay, UV emitter clipped but not yet live, silver-lined blade riding easy at his hip. He had been following residual traces for three nights—faint, disciplined, old. Not the messy signature of ferals.
A flicker of movement at the far end of the alley stopped him.
