The night was thick with the scent of burning wood and blood.
Smoke slithered through the broken halls of the mansion, curling around shattered glass and fallen chandeliers, choking the dying grandeur of a once-great sanctuary.
Noah stumbled through the wreckage, heart hammering against his ribs like a caged beast.
Every step closer to Elias felt like walking a knife's edge — thrilling, devastating, inevitable.
He found Elias standing amidst the ruin, his silhouette framed by the moon's mournful glow.
Blood dripped from his knuckles. His golden eyes blazed with something raw, something unnameable — a desperate hunger, a grief so ancient it had no language.
When Elias turned to face him, it was as if the world held its breath.
"Noah," he rasped, voice scraping against the stillness.
His fangs gleamed, sharp and cruel against the fragile beauty of his mouth.
There was violence in him, coiled and trembling.
There was love, too — fierce, unbearable.
And there was a battle raging inside him, a war between the beast and the man.
Noah crossed the room without thinking, weaving between debris and shadows, until he stood before him.
He could feel the heat radiating off Elias' body, the barely restrained power in every trembling line of him.
He reached out, fingertips brushing the bloodstained collar of Elias' shirt.
"You're losing yourself," Noah whispered.
Elias flinched. His hands — those hands that had both destroyed and saved Noah — curled into fists at his sides.
"I don't want to hurt you," he said, voice hoarse with the weight of the truth. "But I will. I can feel it… clawing inside me."
His fangs caught the moonlight again, dangerously beautiful. "I won't be able to stop myself next time."
Noah swallowed hard, heart slamming against his ribs.
He could see the monster Elias feared he would become.
But he also saw the man.
The protector.
The broken, bleeding soul who had fought for him when no one else had.
"I'm not afraid of you," Noah said, his voice steady even as his blood raced.
"You should be," Elias growled, stepping closer — a dark, towering force of need and terror.
"I'm not," Noah insisted, reaching up to cup his cheek.
The touch was featherlight, reverent, fearless.
And it shattered whatever fragile restraint Elias had been clinging to.
In one savage motion, Elias seized Noah by the waist and yanked him against his chest.
Their mouths crashed together — a brutal, hungry kiss that tasted of blood, tears, and promises too dangerous to speak aloud.
Noah moaned into him, clinging to his shoulders, surrendering to the feral passion that devoured them both.
It was violent.
It was sacred.
It was everything.
When Elias finally tore himself away, his eyes were black pits of starvation.
His chest heaved.
His claws had shredded the back of Noah's shirt without realizing it.
"I can't," Elias gasped. "I can't… Noah, if I claim you, you'll lose everything. Your humanity. Your light."
Noah tilted his chin up, fierce and stubborn, the boy who had walked willingly into a monster's den — and stayed.
"I don't care," he said, voice shaking. "I'd rather lose everything than lose you."
Elias stared at him, as if trying to memorize every freckle, every scar, every defiant, precious heartbeat.
"You don't understand what you're asking," Elias said, trembling.
Noah stepped closer until their foreheads touched.
"I understand perfectly," he whispered. "I'm asking for forever."
A sound escaped Elias half-growl, half-sob.
He sank to his knees before Noah, burying his face against his stomach, hands clutching his hips with bruising force.
It was a surrender.
A plea.
A prayer.
Noah carded his fingers through Elias' hair, soothing, anchoring, loving him the only way he knew how — completely.
"Turn me," Noah said, soft and unyielding.
"Make me yours."
The words tore something inside Elias, something sacred and terrible.
Slowly, Elias rose to his feet, his movements reverent, agonized.
He cradled Noah's face between his hands, thumbs brushing tears from his cheeks he hadn't realized he was crying.
"Once I start," Elias said, "there's no going back."
"I know," Noah said, voice breaking.
"And you still choose this?"
"I choose you."
Elias closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of Noah — the heady, addictive smell of life, of love, of salvation and damnation entwined.
When he opened his eyes again, they were pure black.
The last shred of his humanity hung by a thread.
And Noah held the scissors.
Elias leaned down, mouth brushing the curve of Noah's neck.
His fangs grazed the pulse fluttering there so alive, so fragile.
Noah tilted his head, offering himself without hesitation.
Elias growled low in his throat, the sound vibrating through Noah's bones.
His hands tightened on Noah's waist.
He opened his mouth wider.
And then ....
BOOM.
The world erupted into chaos.
The floor beneath them shook violently.
A deafening roar filled the air as an explosion ripped through the mansion, tearing stone and steel apart like paper.
Elias threw himself over Noah, shielding him with his own body as debris rained down around them.
The walls split and crumbled.
Ancient timber beams crashed to the ground.
The chandelier — once a glittering masterpiece — shattered into a thousand lethal shards.
Noah coughed, choking on dust and smoke, his ears ringing.
He tried to move, but Elias held him down, shielding him, protecting him even now.
Another explosion rocked the ground, closer this time.
The mansion groaned — a dying animal — and began to collapse inward, swallowing itself.
Through the smoke and the chaos, Noah caught a glimpse of figures moving — shadows against the firelight.
Enemies.
Hunters.
Something worse.
But he couldn't focus.
Couldn't breathe.
All he could do was cling to Elias, the only constant in a world that had just gone to hell.
"Don't let go," Noah gasped, tears streaming down his face.
"Never," Elias growled into his hair.
And then
A final, blinding flash of light.
A deafening roar of sound.
And silence.