Chapter 001: Dawn's Ruin

BOUND BY THE VEIN

CONTENT WARNING

This novel contains material intended for mature audiences only (18+).

It includes themes and scenes involving:

Graphic violence

Blood and feeding

Sexual content

Obsession and psychological manipulation

Power imbalance and coercive dynamics

Death and dark supernatural horror elements

🚫Reader discretion is strongly advised.

COPYRIGHT/DISCLAIMER

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, organizations, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

@Starlet Xross. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed without written permission from the author.

CHAPTER ONE : Dawn's Ruin

He woke to the muted buzz of his phone on the marble nightstand, winter light slipping thin and pale through the heavy drapes of the Carlyle suite. Upper East Side. New York. The room carried the faint scent of expensive cologne, sex, and the copper tang already gathering at the back of his throat. His fangs ached with a familiar hunger of both kinds.

The man beside him was nobody. A stranger from last night. He was tall, lean, dark hair mussed across the pillow, his skin still flushed from hours of being used. Owen had spotted him at the hotel’s bar and taken him upstairs after a few exchanges of words.

The man’s mind was already gone, dulled under compulsion. His eyes were unfocused, his mouth slack, his body moving only when Owen moved him.

He didn’t know where he was. He didn’t know who Owen was. He barely knew himself. There was only heat, need, and the steady pressure of another will guiding his every nerve.

Owen rolled him onto his stomach and spread his thighs apart. His body yielded easily, sore and open from the pleasures of the night before. He gripped the base of his own cock, hard and wet, spitting once before pushing in.

He pushed in with one long thrust.

The man gave a low moan, his stomach pressing into the mattress as Owen bottomed out. His balls pressed against the man’s warm skin. The grip around him tightened, fluttered, clung, greedily. He didn’t speak.

He started moving. Slowly at first, then firm. Each thrust pulled back and drove in again, dragging every inch through tight heat. The room filled with the wet sound of skin and lube, loud in the quiet of the suite.

Sweat gathered along the stranger’s spine. Owen ran his tongue up it, tasting salt and the thin metallic note that came right before the end. The man groaned into the pillow, his hips pushing back on instinct as his body gave without thought.

As his cock leaked onto the sheets, Owen drove into him again and again, each thrust landing hard and exact. The bed shifted under the force, wood knocking softly against the wall. The room filled with heat, sweat and the sharp smell of want.

Owen’s fangs lengthened fully, itching. He fisted dark hair, yanked the stranger’s head to the side, exposing the long throat where the pulse throbbed visibly. Then, without a warning, he struck. His fangs sank deeply into the carotid with a soft, wet pop.

Blood surged into his mouth. It was hot, thick, copper-bright and spiked with the faint sweetness of fear-laced lust still trapped under glamour. The stranger convulsed beneath him, a choked cry muffled into cotton as venom flooded his system. His cock jerked untouched, spurting weak pulses across the already-soaked sheets while his hole clenched rhythmically around Owen’s shaft, milking him in helpless peak.

He drank it slow and greedily as he fucked through the bite, short, brutal thrusts that slapped skin against skin, driving deeper with every heartbeat that weakened under his mouth. The stranger’s pulse stuttered, slowed; body going limp and pliant, ass still stuffed full, still taking every inch like it was made for it.

He was close. His body tightened, pleasure turning sharp and ugly at the edge. He would finish inside, stay there, then drain him until the heart gave out. After that, he'd glamour the staff, hide the body, wheel it out like expensive luggage during the quiet hour. Another missing face in a city full of them. That was clean and easy.

A muffled thump echoed from the sitting room, then frantic footsteps followed. Owen's heightened senses caught it too late. He heard the sharp intake of breath, pounding pulse, the scent of stale whiskey and human sweat.

Just then, his door burst open, slamming against the wall with a crack that rattled the antique sconces.

A stranger, young man in twenties, staggered in. His shirt rumpled and half-unbuttoned, hair a wild mess, eyes wide and bloodshot from whatever blackout hell he'd clawed out of. He looked lost, panicked, like he'd just woken up in a nightmare and was clawing for an exit. His gaze swept the room, then locked on the bed.

He froze.

Owen’s head snapped up. His face was death-pale, skin stretched tight over sharp bone, faint veins lit beneath the surface from the feed. His eyes burned crimson. His fangs were still buried deep in the dying man’s throat, blood slipping in thin trails down skin already cooling.

The body beneath him lay boneless. A weak, gurgling sound leaked from slack lips. Muscles clenched feebly around Owen’s cock, still lodged deep. The hips twitched in a shallow, fading rhythm as his shaft jerked inside the slick, wet heat.

Sex. Gay sex, tangled with death. Fangs buried deep in flesh, blood soaking into the sheets, the stranger’s cock slack and spent, his body emptying out while Owen kept moving inside him.

A vampire. A fucking real one. Feeding and taking life while he took pleasure.

And this intruder, who the fuck was he?

Owen hadn’t sensed him before, hadn’t caught his scent through the fog of lust and blood. Now he was there, frozen in the doorway, staring at everything with wide eyes.

Panic rolled off him raw and uncontained. He didn’t know where he was. He knew only that what he was seeing was real, and that he could be next.

Owen pulled his fangs free with a slow drag. Blood smeared his mouth and ran down his chin. He wiped it away with his tongue without looking away. He was still hard inside the body beneath him, heat and slick leaking at the base as the man went slack.

The intruder screamed. Loud, cracked, uncontrolled. He jerked back like he’d touched fire, face pulled tight with shock as the sound bounced once off the high ceiling and died.

He spun, clipping the doorframe with his shoulder, then ran. His footsteps tore down the carpeted hall toward the elevators, fast and uneven, until the hotel swallowed the sound.

The man beneath Owen let out one last, shallow breath.

Owen pulled out slowly, his length slick and still hard, release stalled for now. He lay back and stared at the ornate ceiling, chest rising and falling, the taste of blood heavy on his tongue.

What the fuck just happened?

He rolled away, his fangs drawing back with a dull ache as the rush faded. His skin settled into something closer to human. The suite opened into a sitting room, then another space beyond it.

Had the guy been out there all night?

Hotels were full of people. Always had been. Heartbeats layered over heartbeats, scents tangled until they meant nothing. If there had been another presence, it would have drowned in the rest.

Should he go after him? Glamour him in the lobby, wipe the memory clean? Or snap his neck in some alley before he blabbed? The risk burned. Exposure meant hunters, a stake through the heart or worse.

Owen sat up, wiping blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. But... no one would believe him. Vampires? In New York? The kid would sound insane, ranting about fangs and gay death-fucks in a luxury suite. Cops would chalk it up to drugs or hangover hallucinations. Myths. That's all they were to humans. They had no proof, nobody yet. By the time anyone checked, Owen would be gone.

‘Let it go.’ Let the boy run scared into the city. If he talked, it'd be dismissed as delirium.

‘For now.’

He dismissed the urge to chase him down. Killing him or erasing his memory would solve the problem, but it would also end it. And he didn’t want it to end yet. The boy had seen too much and lived. That alone made him worth watching. Owen decided he would find out who he was, where he lived, what he did, who he talked to. He would stay out of sight. Let the memory fester, just to haunt him. He'd love to watch the boy spiral—he thought.