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The sun’s voice had always been a constant, low murmur at the edge of his mind—something he had learned to live with, the way a man learns to live with an old injury. Tonight it was different.

Mathias stood on the warehouse roof after leaving Carson’s bed, the city spread out beneath him, a map drawn in indifferent yellow lights. The eastern sky was still black, yet he could already feel the first thin pressure of dawn gathering beyond the horizon. It was not the usual distant invitation. It was sharper. More personal.

Come home, it hissed. This hunger will only grow. This attachment will only make the ending worse.

He pressed both hands to the cold brick parapet and forced his body to remain still. Carson’s scent still clung to his skin. The borrowed warmth in his veins felt like a brand. For the first time in decades, Mathias understood that the sun was no longer simply waiting for him.

She had begun to take an interest in what he loved.

Chapter Six

Carson

The pull had become unbearable. For days after that fevered night in his bed, Carson found himself drawn back to the empty warehouse like a moth to the flame he knew would burn him. The buzzing under his skin had sharpened into a constant, rattling tremor, his dreams filled with Mathias’ gravel-filled voice and the metallic tang of bliss. He told himself he was only going to watch, to prove it was real and not another fractured memory. But deep down, he knew better. He needed it. Needed him.

Dusk had bled into full night by the time Carson slipped through the sagging doors, the feeble beam of his phone swallowed by the cavernous space. He’d returned and wondered at the detritus behind the previous illusions, but that had changed tonight. What he saw stole the breath from his lungs.

The abandoned warehouse had transformed once more. Not into the pulsing club of that first night, but something primal and hypnotic. Shadowy figures—Mathias’ camp, vampires all—moved with predatory grace through the gloom. Illusions shimmered in the air: sultry music with no visible source, dim golden lights that painted the concrete in seductive warmth, the faint scent of perfume and sweat masking the underlying chill of undeath. A handful of humans wandered in, lured by whatever compulsion the vampires wove, their eyes glassy with artificial desire. “Reapings,” Mathias had called them—ethical mass feedings that sustained the camp without needless death.

Bodies writhed together in clusters, humans pressed between cool vampire forms, soft gasps and moans echoing off the rafters. Carson’s gaze locked on one pair: a woman arched against a dark-haired vampire, her head falling back in ecstasy as fangs sank into her throat. The vampire drank sparingly, one hand stroking her with reverent hunger while her hips rolled helplessly. Nearby, Rolf, his white-blond hair gleaming in the low light, held a man close, feeding with controlled precision, their bodies swaying in a slow, sensual rhythm. The air hummed with shared excitement, a careful dance of predator and prey.

Gina’s thick dark hair gleamed as she moved among them like a Gothic muse, her tired voice soothing a young whelp who trembled at the edge of bloodlust, guiding her to feed gently. It was intimate, almost tender, the dam’s nurturer role on full display, a far cry from the horror stories Carson had read in his frantic research.

But the tremor in Carson’s veins surged violently as Mathias stepped into view near the center, his presence commanding the space without effort. Their eyes met across the distance, and Carson felt that invisible snare tighten around his chest, pulling him forwards before he could think better of it.

“Carson.” Mathias’ voice cut through the illusions, drawing every head in the room. The camp stilled, humans momentarily forgotten as Mathias crossed to him in a quick movement. Strong hands seized Carson’s arms—possessive, unyielding—and pulled him into the circle of light and shadow. “You came.”

Publicly claimed. The words burned through Carson’s mind as Mathias turned him to face the others, one arm banded across his chest like an iron bar, the other splayed possessively over his abdomen. Whispers rippled through the camp. Gina’s gaze sharpened with something dark and hungry. Several whelps shifted restlessly, eyes narrowing at the blatant display. Zeke lingered at the edge, watchful.

“He is mine,” Mathias announced, voice low and resonant, carrying that hypnotic weight that demanded obedience. “Touch him at your peril.”

Carson’s knees weakened at the raw declaration, heat flooding his face even as the craving roared louder inside him. Mathias’ mouth brushed his ear, breath chilling his skin. “You’re trembling, love. The cravings...I can ease them. Just a drop.”

Before Carson could protest—or beg—Mathias nicked his own wrist with a fang and pressed the wound to Carson’s lips. A single drop of blood, rich and sweet, powerful, touched his tongue. Power surged through him, chasing the bone-deep buzz into a warm, euphoric haze. The world sharpened and softened at once. Renfieldism’s shadow loomed in the back of his mind, but the relief was immediate and devastating.

Mathias spun him, claiming his mouth in a deep, devouring kiss right there in front of the camp. Cool hands stripped clothing with efficient hunger, baring skin to the charged air. Carson gasped as Mathias lifted him effortlessly, legs wrapping instinctively around the vampire’s waist. They sank to a shadowed pallet of blankets and discarded fabrics, bodies fusing together with desperate need.

Mathias’ cock pressed against him, slicked by that unnatural ease, thick and insistent. “Mine,” he growled again, thrusting in with one powerful stroke. Carson cried out at the stretch, the perfect burn, every nerve alight. Mathias moved with inhuman grace, hips snapping in a rhythm that hit that spot inside him relentlessly. Borrowed heat surged where their skin met, Mathias’ dead heart pounding back to life against Carson’s chest. Fangs grazed his shoulder, not piercing but promising, while callused hands pinned his wrists above his head.

The pleasure built like a storm. Passion drew down to a single wire and broke, strand by strand as Carson lost himself in the inhuman highs. He came with a shattered moan, clenching around Mathias, who followed with a quiet, low groan, flooding him with cool release that somehow warmed from within.

They collapsed together, Mathias blanketing him, still buried deep. The camp’s eyes drifted away respectfully, the reaping resuming in murmurs and sighs. Carson clung to him, boneless and sated, fingers tracing the lines of Mathias’ back as aftershocks continued to ripple through him.

***

Mathias

The claim had been made. The reaping continued under heavier illusions, but the air inside the warehouse had changed.

Mathias felt it in the way the older vampires watched him—with a mixture of respect and unease. A soul-mate bond was legend. To see their sire bind himself so openly to a human was both impressive and deeply unsettling. Several of them inclined their heads in acknowledgment, but their eyes lingered on Carson with something closer to calculation than welcome.

The younger ones were less subtle.

Envy rolled off them in waves. A few of the whelps stared at Carson with naked hunger, resentful that their sire had found something so rare while they remained restless and unbound. One of the more dangerous ferals actually took a half step forwards before Rolf’s low warning stopped him. The message was clear to all: The human was now the most valuable, and most dangerous, thing in the camp.

And underneath the awe and envy ran a colder current.

Fear.