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Gina closed her eyes and walked slowly back towards the warehouse entrance, keeping her consciousness entwined with his. The elder’s final thoughts brushed against her like cool smoke, the centuries of hunger, of loss, of watching the sun harvest one after another. She stayed with him as the sky lightened, her own steps measured and unhurried even as rage still simmered beneath her skin.
When the sun finally crested the horizon, she was still linked with him.
She felt the exact moment he stepped into the light—the searing bloom of pain that almost instantly transmuted into ecstasy. His body arched in the distant place, and Gina’s own back bowed in sympathy, a low, involuntary moan escaping her throat. He leapt willingly into the sun’s jealous arms, and for one blinding second, she felt the release he experienced, a glorious warmth flooding every cell, the endless hunger finally quieted, the weight of eternity lifted.
Then the link snapped.
Silence.
Gone.
Gina stood alone in the warehouse doorway, chest heaving, the echo of his final surrender reverberating through her bones. Her sun scars throbbed in reminder. Her own Sun Call murmured louder now, seductive and patient.
She glanced once towards the apartment across town where Mathias was undoubtedly still wrapped around his precious human, lost in possessive ecstasy.
Not yet, she thought, lips curling into a bitter smile. But soon.
***
Drew
Drew sat alone in his office with the door closed, the late-afternoon light slowly fading behind the blinds. The building had gone quiet. Most of the staff had left for the day. He stayed.
He had spent the morning in a long, frustrating meeting with HR. The options they offered for keeping Carson on staff were all variations of the same bad choices: unpaid leave, a formal performance plan that would almost certainly end in termination, or simply letting him go now and calling it a mutual decision. None of it sat right. Carson had been reliable for years—sharp, creative, the kind of employee who made the rest of the team look better. Watching that version of him disappear had been harder than Drew wanted to admit.
The memory that kept replaying was from three days ago.
He had walked over to Carson’s cubicle to ask about the revised client deck. Carson was there, seated, eyes open, staring at nothing. Not at the screen. Not at the papers on his desk. Just middle space. The expression on his face was the same glazed, faraway look Drew had seen on people who were high out of their minds—present in body, gone everywhere else. Drew had stood at the entrance to the cubicle for a full thirty seconds. He timed it. He cleared his throat once. Nothing. Carson never even blinked.
When Carson finally came back to himself, he was coherent. He answered questions. He even managed a weak joke. But the damage was done. Something was wrong. Deeply, visibly wrong. And it was getting worse.
Drew leaned back in his chair and rubbed both hands over his face.
“I’m going to have to make a shitty decision,” he muttered to the empty office.
He agreed with himself.
Whatever was happening to Carson, the company couldn’t carry it much longer. And neither, he was starting to realize, could he.
Chapter Nine
Carson
Carson hunched over his laptop in the dim glow of his apartment, the screen’s harsh light carving shadows under his eyes. Sleep had become a distant memory, fractured by cravings that left him hard and aching at odd hours. He typed with trembling fingers, chasing fragments of truth through folklore sites, Reddit threads, and obscure academic papers. Vampire. Blood bond. Sun Call. Mathias’ hints pieced together like a dark mosaic: the jealous sun, ethereal links that granted stolen warmth, the razor’s edge between lover and prey.
One site described silver as acid to their kind another mentioned hunters wielding UV tech like modern-day stakes. None captured the raw sensuality—the velvet glove of a hypnotic voice, the hands that claimed with their own language, or the euphoric haze brought on by a single drop of blood. But they confirmed enough.
Mathias wasn’t myth.
This was real.
And Carson was sinking deeper into it, his human life fraying at the seams.
A sharp knock at the door jolted him. Midafternoon sun slanted through the blinds, too bright, too dangerous for Mathias. Carson’s pulse spiked as he crossed the room, every instinct screaming wrongness.
The door barely cracked open before a flurry of motion slammed him backwards. A rogue vampire—feral eyes, gaunt face twisted with hunger—pinned him to the wall in the shadows of an interior surface. The creature’s nostrils flared, inhaling Carson’s scent like a drug. “His. But so sweet. Still untouched by the sire’s full claim.”
Carson struggled, but the rogue’s strength was inhuman. Fangs flashed towards his throat. Terror and a dark thrill twisted together as the creature’s chill breath ghosted his skin. The scent of Mathias clung to him still, pulling this monster like a beacon.
