LOGINWe dropped into the sewer tunnel, the cold water soaking my pants and making the collar burn even hotter against my skin. “Damn, this place is nasty,” I muttered, coughing as the smell hit me hard. Marcus pulled me close, his arm tight around my waist. “I got you, baby. Just breathe.” His voice was rough, but the bond between us hummed warm, pushing back some of the sickness that was eating at me from the inside.Ethan led the way with his phone light, checking the old map he’d printed. “Service tunnel ends at the east hatch. Elara’s got the fragment ready to fake the blood sig.” Elara nodded, her bag clutched tight, the relic piece glowing faint inside it. We waded through the muck, my boots sticking in the sludge with every step. My head was spinning with old visions – blood on snow, howls in the dark, that silver eyed woman calling my name. Mom, the one I never got to know, the vampire princess who hid me to stop a war. The pain in my gut was getting worse, like my hybrid blood was
I came to with my cheek pressed against cold marble, the taste of copper and ash still thick on my tongue. My body felt like it had been run through a meat grinder—muscles locked tight, collar searing a fresh line of fire down my spine every time I breathed. Shadows flickered at the edges of my vision, thin black tendrils that wouldn’t stay put. Marcus was right there, one arm braced under my shoulders, the other hand gripping my jaw like he could hold me together by sheer force, he was literally scared.“Easy, baby. I got you.” His voice was gravel and smoke, eyes wild in that way that meant he’d been two seconds from tearing the whole cathedral apart. “You stopped breathing for a solid thirty seconds. Scared the hell out of me, and I didn’t give you the permission to die on me, he kissed my forehead.I coughed, spat black onto the dusty floor, and tried to laugh. It came out more like a wheeze. “Tell me I didn’t miss anything good.”Elara hovered a few feet back, arms crossed tight
The power surged one last time, and I knew I couldn't hold it much longer. The shadows ripped from my fingertips like black lightning, cracking the marble floor under my feet. The crowd gasped, some dropping to knees, others roaring so loud that I could barely hear myself and barely fangs. Kris's laugh echoed as he vanished into the chaos he'd started. Marcus's arm locked around my waist, dragging me toward the service stairs Ethan had scoped out. "Move, now!" he screamed, his voice thick with the bond's panic. Elara was right behind, her red-dress friend covering our backs with some witchy shield that shimmered like heat haze.************We burst into the night air, the limo waiting like a getaway car from a bad movie. Ethan floored it the second the doors slammed, tires squealing on wet pavement. I slumped against Marcus in the backseat, the world spinning. My chest was beating so fast I thought I would have a heart attack, like I'd run a marathon in hell. The collar seared my sk
We stepped back into the ballroom like nothing had happened in that hallway, but my body remembered every second of it. Marcus's cock had stretched me open and filled me up, and now every step sent a slick reminder of his cum inside me. The bond between us hummed warm and sated, but underneath the power clawed at the collar like a caged animal trying to break free. I adjusted my tie, forced the CEO smile onto my face, and let the lights from the chandeliers wash over us. The room smelled like expensive perfume, old money, and blood hidden under silk. Elites clustered in groups, their laughter too loud, their eyes too sharp as they watched everyone and everything. Elara stood near the dance floor with that red-dress woman, her posture relaxed but her gaze flicking to me every few seconds like she was checking if I'd cracked yet after the safehouse. Ethan lingered by the bar, swirling a glass of something dark, probably timing our move to the service stairs that led down to the catacomb
We piled into Ethan’s blacked-out SUV like the world was on fire behind us. Ethan took the wheel, Elara riding shotgun, both of them quiet in that loaded way people get when they’re pretending the last hour didn’t just rewrite everything. I slid into the back with Marcus. The second the doors shut, the engine growled and we were cutting through the dark streets toward the city.The gala was happening tonight at the old Grand Meridian—some annual bullshit where the rich and the rotten pretended they weren’t all circling the same carcass. Ethan said the catacombs entrance we needed was sealed under the east wing ballroom. Perfect cover. Walk in like I still owned half the city just the usual CEO human crap, smile at the sharks, and slip downstairs when no one was looking. Easy. Except nothing about tonight felt easy.My ribs still ached from where that wolf had clipped me. The collar sat heavy under my dress shirt, the mark beneath it throbbing in time with my pulse. Marcus’s thigh pr
The door exploded inward like the building itself had given up. A massive werewolf barrelled through first, all fur and fury, his claws tearing chunks out of the frame. More followed, eyes locked on me like I was the prize at the end of a hunt they’d been waiting years for.I didn’t think twice I just moved.Marcus was already in front of me, shoulder wound be damned, swinging a piece of broken pipe like it owed him money. The first wolf caught it across the snout and went down hard, but two more came right behind it. Elara grabbed a chair leg and drove it into the throat of the one closest to her, twisting until something cracked. She wasn’t protecting some random—she was protecting me. Her brother. The words she’d never said out loud but lived like gospel every time she put herself between me and the world.“Stay close!” Marcus shouted his voice rough from the pain in his shoulder. He grabbed my arm and yanked me behind him, but I wasn’t staying behind anybody tonight. Not when t
The boardroom of Vale Tower felt like a cage to Noah. *********** I sat at the head of the table, my fingers steepled under my chin, staring at a PowerPoint presentation about HanTech’s Q3 logistics that looked like a blur of meaningless shapes. My VP of Finance was droning on about "synergy" an
The door of La Marée swung open, letting in a rush of cool evening air. My head snapped up. My heart was already ten steps ahead of my brain, it was hopeful, reckless, and beating so hard I was sure the waiter could hear it. For a split second, the entire restaurant went dead silent. I expected
The handle of the door began to turn. My heart stalled. My brain screamed at me to move, to grab a weapon, to do something, but I was frozen against the cold marble of the kitchen counter. My blood was running hot and fast, a chaotic mix of adrenaline and raw, unresolved arousal, i bit my down lip
My knees hit the hardwood with a thud that vibrated up my spine. I was the CEO of a billion-dollar empire. I fired people before my morning coffee. I ran boardrooms like a small god. But looking up at Marcus Blackwood from the floor, none of that mattered. The power I spent years building felt like







