Val - The Man in the Suit

His deep and buttery soft when it finally comes. Somehow louder than it should be.

I blink. "It didn't."

Technically a lie. But I'll be damned before I let him think I needed saving. He takes a single step forward, apparently trying his hardest to just be really creepy.

He very much looks like he got dropped here by accident. The universe meant to put him in a penthouse, but someone fat-fingered the coordinates.

He's tall, so tall and absolutely stacked, muscle on muscle on muscle. In a black suit that had to cost more than my entire life. Shirt crisp, tie straight, shoes somehow untouched by the grime of the Ring. This is the kind of man who should be yelling at someone for getting his order wrong, not walking into my murder alley at midnight on the way to pick up dry cleaning.

Everything about him feels… wrong. Not the same as the thing that attacked me. This one's contained. And that's way more dangerous.

There's not even a flicker of acknowledgment in my direction. I'm part of the scenery. Never mind me still bleeding into my jeans and holding a deadly weapon. His eyes are on the thing in the alley. A heat-seeking missile that's already picked its target and isn't interested in detours.

The creature senses it too. Whatever it is, it shifts, just barely. Tilts its head trying to make sense of this new variable. Its mouth opens, lips twitching, trying to speak. Or snarl. Or beg. Hard to tell, if I’m being honest.

Doesn't matter. Because Mr Beautiful moves.

A single step forward and a lift of his hand. The fingers don't even curl into a fist, they just hover for a breath, then come down. Touching the thing's forehead, a priest delivering the last rites.

The body seizes once, and dissolves. Disintegrating, piece by piece. Whatever that thing was, whatever monster just tried to kill me, whatever nightmare just oozed its way into this alley, he ends it with a single touch.

Time for me to bolt. But I'm pinned in place by my own survival instinct. Just as I've built the courage and strength to finally shift. Now he decides to really notice me.

Mr Beautiful angles his head toward me and our eyes meet.

I finally understand what people mean when they say "looked through me." Because that's what he does. I'm transparent. Everything I am, everything I've been, everything I'm trying so damn hard to hold together is right there in front of him, and it's just not that interesting.

People aren't still like that. Not in the Ring, stillness is a luxury here. It means you're not afraid of what's coming around the corner, you're the thing coming.

Just before I can tell him to go to hell, he sure shocks the hell out of me.

"You're not human."

"I’m pretty sure I am my man." I rasp, dragging in a breath that tastes like rust. "Got any other fun non facts, Sherlock?"

I'm trying to sound casual. Unbothered. But my hands are still shaking, my ribs still hurt like hell, and the blood soaking through my shirt is getting warm in all the wrong places. He just stands there, watching me like he can see every tick, every pulse, every hairline fracture in the wall I'm holding up.

The bastard doesn't even blink. So I do what anyone with half a brain and a fully functional fear response would do.

I take a step back.

And another.

Because I don't know what he is, not really, but I know enough. He didn't flinch at the creature. Didn't sweat, didn't breathe heavy, didn't try. He just touched it, and it died. And now he's looking at me like I might be next.

My heart's pounding in my throat as I edge toward the mouth of the alley. Every instinct I've got is screaming leave, but something about him, the stillness, the way the shadows around his feet aren't moving quite right, tells me it won't be that easy.

I'm two steps from bolting when it happens.

I start to run. More of a stagger. My legs don't want to play nice after the fight, and my ribs make a convincing argument against movement in general, but I've survived worse. I know how to run when it counts. And this counts.

I pivot, boots scraping against cracked concrete, adrenaline rushing in to fill the space where logic used to be. One stride…

Nothing.

I don't fall, just stop. Mid-step. Mid-breath. Someone hit pause on me and forgot to press play again. My limbs don't respond. My muscles don't fire, I'm upright and aware and pinned. A pressure on the soul, if that's a thing people still have around here.

Worse than a choke hold, more of a polite embrace, forcing the panic from my bones. And, because I'm me, I take it.

"What the fuck?" I whisper, my voice barely more than air.

My jaw moves, but the rest of me is a statue. My body belongs to someone else now, and he's standing behind me like he has just found a toy he wasn't expecting to enjoy this much.

I feel him before I hear him. That hum again, crawling over my skin, turning every hair on my neck into a radar dish.

"You're not very grateful," he says, tone dry. "I saved your life."

"You erased a freak I was handling just fine."

He chuckles. A low, slow thing that vibrates through the air and slides down my spine like oil.

"Handled it right into a collapsed lung and a concussion, I'm sure."

I clench my teeth and will my feet to move. They don't. Rage flares up in my chest, bright and hot and useless.

He steps closer, a predator moving through tall grass.

"You're different," he murmurs, his voice dipping low. "I felt it the moment you screamed."

"I didn't scream," I snap.

Now he laughs. "No. You didn't. That's what caught my attention."

He's unhurried, all the time in the world.

I can move now. Barely. It's like trying to wade through syrup. My arms obey, sluggish and stiff, and my knees threaten mutiny with every shift of weight. But my mouth? That's always been the sharpest blade I've got. And right now, it's the only one not stuck in its sheath.

"You gonna let me go," I growl, "or are we still playing the mysterious stalker hits on bloody women in alleys game?"

He stops directly beside me. Leans in.

I catch a whiff of something that shouldn't exist in this slum. Clean linen, aged smoke, something dark and spiced and ancient. Whatever cologne he's wearing, it's expensive and probably harvested from the souls of extinct beasts.

His voice drops to a near-whisper. "You should've bled out ten minutes ago."

"Sorry to disappoint."

A hum escapes him as he circles me, the way rich men circle expensive cars they plan to crVal. Every step is deliberate. Calculated. Hands clasped behind his back like this is a viewing, and I'm the art. I hate how straight I stand. How aware I suddenly am of the torn hem of my shirt and the blood sticking it to my skin.

"You shouldn't smell this good," he says finally.

I roll my eyes. "You're a walking war crime in a three-piece suit and that's your opening line?"

"You smell like death," he says, ignoring me. “Like something marked but unfinished. Unclaimed."

"Wow. Romantic."

He stops in front of me again. Smiles.

"Maybe I should keep you Pet." he murmurs. Dig around inside and figure out what you really are. Feed you. Fix you. Teach you some respect."

My spine locks up. "Or maybe I'll stab you in the eye with my bottle and limp off into the sunset."

He chuckles. "There she is." Then his heavy gaze drops, and lingers.

My pulse betrays me, the heat crawling up my neck betrays me. And the bastard notices. His eyes flick up to mine. They're still that impossible violet, glowing violet.

I tighten my jaw. "You done eye-fucking me, or is this just foreplay before the ritual sacrifice?"

He laughs, quiet and genuine this time. The sound cuts sharper than any threat, like it's been a while since anyone talked back to him and lived.

"Oh, I like you."

"Feelings are very much not mutual."

His smile widens. I hate it.

He leans in, every inch of my body is on red alert, and I'm pretty sure if I breathe wrong, he'll notice the way my thighs are trembling. Not from fear. I wish it was fear.

"You don't know what you are, do you?" he murmurs, reaching up, just to hover a hand near my throat. Not threatening. Not quite. "All that power, leaking out of you like a busted fuse box, and you have no idea."

I slap his hand away. "Touch me and I'll bite harder than the last guy."

His head tilts, pleased. "That one was cursed. Nothing compared to what's in you."

"I'm a girl with sharp objects and no gag reflex for bullshit. That's it."

He exhales like I amuse him. Or maybe, like I've just confirmed something he already suspected.

His gaze trails down again. "You're shaking," he says.

"Because I'm injured."

He arches his brow. "And your pulse?"

"Adrenaline."

"And the scent of you?"

"I will set you on fire." I growl.

He's close enough that I can feel the heat off him. Close enough that my instincts scream danger while something deeper, something primal, pulls taut inside me like a string being tuned too far.

His voice is silk when he says it.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Val. Not until you beg me."