The rain fell with purpose—slow, deliberate, like it wanted to be touched. In a city where everything bled under neon, it was the kind of night built for secrets, for shadows slipping between cracks in the pavement, and for bodies that ached to forget.
Ariella Black stood under the glass awning of her gallery, arms crossed beneath her black silk coat. The last guests from her private exhibition were filtering out, laughing too loudly, drenched in perfume and sin. She watched them with practiced detachment. She'd already fed off their attention, their envy, their hunger. Now they were just noise.
What held her attention wasn't inside.
He was across the street.
Still. Watching. Like he belonged there, and yet… didn't.
Tall. Sharp in a black coat that billowed with the breeze, hair swept back like it couldn't decide between chaos and control. His features were obscured by the low mist rolling from the subway grates. But even from a distance, Ariella felt it—him.
A heat behind her ribs. A pulse that didn't belong to her.
She licked her lips.
Mara, her assistant, slid up beside her, clutching a clipboard. "You want security to deal with that guy? He's been out there for half an hour."
"No," Ariella said, voice soft but final. "Let him stay."
Mara hesitated, then nodded and left.
Alone again, Ariella tilted her head, studying the figure through the glass. He didn't move. Didn't flinch when a car passed or when a streetlight flickered overhead. Unnatural stillness. That should have unnerved her. It didn't.
The gallery lights dimmed as the system switched to night mode. Paintings of dark bodies, half-formed wings, writhing limbs and mouths open in ecstasy—her own twisted visions—now bathed in blood-red LED. She walked among them, heels echoing, pulse rising.
She felt it then.
Him.
Inside.
Behind her.
No sound. No footsteps. Just pressure—thick as smoke curling around her throat. Her skin tightened, goosebumps rising, breath catching low in her chest.
"You followed me," she said without turning.
A pause. Then: "No, Ariella. I've always been here."
Her name in his mouth made her bones hum.
She turned.
And met his eyes.
Storm gray. Depthless. Older than memory. They pinned her in place, not like a predator, but like a judge—and she was already guilty.
He was beautiful, but not in any human way. Too precise. Too perfect. A body sculpted in war and sin, dressed like a man but vibrating with something far older. Something not of this world.
She stepped toward him. "Who are you?"
"I'm what the night promised you in your dreams," he said, voice a mix of velvet and flame. "I'm the reason mirrors lie. I am the shadow behind your eyes."
She should've run. Should've called security. Should've laughed.
Instead, she asked, "Why now?"
"Because you've started to remember. And they don't like that."
The gallery seemed to narrow, walls closing in. Her pulse thudded between her thighs. She hated herself for wanting this—this strange pull, this heat like she was standing too close to a fire she'd begged to be burned by.
He stepped forward, crowding her space. Close enough to touch. He didn't.
"You've been marked," he said, voice low. "Born not quite human. Raised among sheep. But you're something else. Something they feared. Something they tried to bury."
She swallowed hard. "And you? What do you want from me?"
His smile was slow. Dangerous. "Everything."
Ariella's breath caught.
He lifted a hand, fingers grazing the air just beside her cheek without contact. Still, she felt it—like silk sliding over skin, like the promise of pain wrapped in pleasure.
"I dream of you," she whispered, surprised at her own admission.
"I know," he said. "I made those dreams."
Her knees weakened. She hated him for that. Wanted more.
He leaned close, lips just brushing the shell of her ear. "Tell me to stop."
She didn't.
He kissed her.
Not soft. Not slow.
It was a claiming. His mouth crushed hers, full of teeth and heat and hunger. She met him with equal fury, fisting his coat, pulling him in like her body had waited its whole life for this very collapse.
The gallery lights flickered, and the world went dark.
In the void, she saw them—not memories, but visions. A burning altar. A woman with black eyes screaming her name. Wings made of smoke. Blood on marble. Chains snapping.
She gasped, breaking the kiss, stumbling back.
"What… what did you show me?"
"Only what's already inside you." He reached for her hand. "You just forgot how to look."
She stared at him, chest heaving, lips bruised, skin burning. "Are you real?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he vanished.
Melted into the shadows like he'd never been there.
But her skin still burned. Her mouth still tingled. And deep beneath her ribs, something old had begun to wake.
.