The room is dark when I wake—no hint of dawn bleeding through the curtains, no sound but the faint creak of old wood settling. The fire's burned down to embers, painting the walls in soft red light. Grayson's side of the bed is empty, the scent of him lingering in the air.
For a long moment, I stay still, disoriented by the silence after everything that happened between us. The bond hums low and steady through me—quiet now, like a heartbeat after sprinting. My body aches from what happened only hours ago, each movement a reminder of the passion that overtook us. I pull the blanket tighter around myself, half hoping he'll walk back in, half terrified that he will.
He doesn't.
The emptiness presses against my chest, heavier with every breath. I push the blanket off and swing my legs over the edge. The stone floor is cold enough to spark goosebumps across my bare skin.
My clothes are scattered where they fell. I gather them in silence, slipping them on quickly, the fabric cold against skin still remembering his touch—and the life I left waiting somewhere beyond these walls. The thought cuts through the lingering haze. I want to go home. To my own bed, my own air—something that belongs only to me.
When I reach for the door, the handle feels frigid in my hand. The hall outside is washed in weak lantern light, empty except for faint echoes drifting from deeper inside the coven. I hesitate for a heartbeat, then step out, the door whispering shut behind me.
I walk what feels like forever, turning corners I don't recognize until I spot a tall vampire waiting near an archway. His eyes flick to me instantly, sharp but not unkind.
"Do you know where Grayson is?" I ask, my voice quieter than I mean it to be. "I need to talk to him."
The vampire tilts his head, eyes narrowing just slightly before he answers.
"Conference chamber," he says, nodding toward a shadowed corridor branching off the main hall. "Down that way, last door on the right."
"Thanks."
The hallway he points to is unfamiliar—narrower, colder, lined with dark portraits whose eyes seem to follow as I pass. The sound of voices sharpens ahead—strategic, clipped, carrying that edge of authority that always belongs to Grayson.
I slow when I reach the open archway, lingering just outside the threshold. The room beyond is vast and heavy with presence. A long table stretches down the center, lit by a chandelier casting fractured reflections across its polished surface. Along the walls, sleek screens glow faintly with scrolling data and live security feeds—flashes of movement, coordinates, faces.
A digital map dominates the center of the table, its surface alive with shifting points of red and blue light marking locations across the city, the soft hum of tech blending with the quiet murmur of voices. Laptops, cables, papers—a mess of tech and blood-stained coffee cups crowd the surface.
Grayson stands at the far end, flanked by half a dozen vampires whose faces look carved from tension. The glow from the monitors cuts sharp lines into his face, half warrior, half ghost. Before him, papers marked with symbols and maps sprawl in organized chaos—a war room masquerading as a boardroom, every inch vibrating with intent.
"…find out who's behind this," he says, voice hard, precise. "If they're watching her, I want their faces, their movements, every address they've touched in the last week. No mistakes."
One of the vampires—tall, with sleek black hair and a faint sneer—shifts his weight and crosses his arms.
"Why are we burning manpower for her?" he asks flatly. "She's human."
Another nods, murmuring his agreement. "We've got rogues to track. This isn't our fight."
The change in Grayson is immediate. Brutal. His head snaps up, eyes flashing. The air shifts—charged, tremoring under the crackle of his fury.
"Human?" he repeats, soft but deadly. "You think this is a waste of manpower?" He moves before anyone can answer. Boots echo hard against stone.
"Do you know what this human was doing before she had to run?" His hand slams against the table. The blow rings out like thunder, making several flinch. "She was doing her undergrad in biology. Wanted to be a pathologist. She had a future."
Every word drips fire. No one breathes.
The weight of his anger fills the room. Heads lower. Eyes shift anywhere but toward him.
The words hit like a jolt. I almost don't recognize the version of me he's defending—the girl with textbooks and late nights, dreaming about labs instead of monsters. That life feels half-dissolved now, blurred like a photograph left too long in the sun.
"She could've helped us. She still could." His voice drops lower—quieter, far more dangerous. "But she had to give up her life to survive."
Silence slides back in, thick enough to cut.
From the doorway, unseen, I don't move. No one notices me—him, furious and unyielding, his rage burning through the coven like a signal fire. Something twists in my chest, fierce and aching all at once.
He isn't just defending me. He's claiming me. And somehow, that terrifies me more than the silence that follows.
Heat blooms low in my stomach, threaded with something heavier, darker than gratitude. Every word he speaks feels like a promise: he will not let this world break me again.
For a terrible, beautiful moment, I realize it's all for me—and I can't decide if I should run or reach for him.
Then, as I start to move, Grayson turns. Our eyes lock. Surprise flickers, then vanishes into composure as he strides toward me.
"I didn't expect you to be up," he says, voice low, layered with concern. "Is everything alright?"
I open my mouth. I want to say I want to go home. But looking at him now, I realize, with a shock that shakes me—I don't. Not anymore.
I nod, forcing a small smile.
"Yeah," I manage, my voice softer than I intend. "Everything's okay. I just... woke up and you weren't there."
He offers his arm without a word, and I take it. The air between us hums, quieter now, but charged. The coven feels muted around him—as if it's waiting.
Every hallway we pass is hung with silence. The scent of him fills the space until I can't tell where he ends and I begin.
A few vampires pass us in the corridor. Each one pauses just long enough to dip their head—first to him, then to me. The tiny acknowledgment sends a shiver through me.
When we reach his chambers, the door shuts softly behind us. A lingering warmth from the fire still presses faintly against the air. He moves to his desk, sits, exhales a quiet sigh that pulls the edges off his anger.
I stand behind him, fingers weaving absently through his short dark hair, tracing calm into the restlessness he hides so well.
"How did you know all that about me?" I ask, barely above a whisper. "That I was doing my undergrad... in my second year…"
He looks up, surprise flickering before something softer—almost regretful—settles in his eyes. He exhales, leaning back as though measuring how much truth I can bear.
After a long pause, he reaches for the drawer beside him and pulls out a thin black folder. The sound of it sliding open is soft, but it ripples through me all the same. Every muscle in my body goes still. He doesn't speak as he flips it open, only turns it toward me with a deliberate care that makes my stomach twist painfully.
My breath catches.
On the first page is a photograph I haven't seen in years—the last one taken before I disappeared. My smile is small and uncertain, frozen in time. My hair is light blonde, cropped to a pixie cut that barely brushed my jaw. The edges blur where someone else once stood—my ex, cropped out but not quite erased. The ghost of him lingers in the frame just enough to make my throat close.
"Where did you get this?" My voice is barely a sound.
"From the database," he says quietly. "Your file's still there—under your old name."
"You… you found me in a national missing persons database?" The words scrape out of me.
He nods, gaze unwavering.
"Your ex and his men tried to bury it—scrubbed most of the local records, but they couldn't erase it completely." His voice shifts, something raw threading through. "Someone kept the report active."
He hesitates, then adds: "Your family never stopped looking for you."
The words land like a blow, knocking the air out of me. My knees give before I even realize what's happening, and suddenly I'm on the floor, the folder half-open in my hands. The photo stares back up—proof of a life suspended while I kept running. My breath comes in ragged bursts, too fast, too shallow.
"My family…" The word feels foreign. Fragile. "They—God, they think I'm dead."
Grayson moves before I can break completely out of his chair, kneeling beside me. His hands hover at first, unsure where to touch without shattering me, then finally rest on my shoulders. His thumbs press small, grounding circles into my skin.
"They didn't give up," he murmurs, voice steady against the tremor in mine. "They're still looking."
I press my palms to my face as the dam gives way. All the years of silence, pretending, deliberate forgetting—it bursts, tidal and unrelenting. The sound that rips out of me isn't pretty or soft. It's the kind of grief that leaves claw marks.
His arms come around me slowly, unhurried, as if afraid to startle me back into breaking. I can feel the tension in him, the instinct to fix, to protect, warring with the understanding that this—this avalanche—is mine alone to survive.
"Hey," he whispers into my hair, the word rough with tenderness. "You're not lost anymore."
The scent of him fills my lungs until it's all I can breathe. And somehow, against the storm still pulling me under, I believe him. Just a little.
But belief is dangerous. His coolness is dangerous. Because the longer I stay in his arms, the more I start to lean into it—the steadiness, the quiet strength that feels inevitable. My cheek presses against the cool line of his throat, the absence of a heartbeat a hollow reminder of what he is, what I've fallen into.
He's solid and unmoving, like stone carved into the shape of safety, and my pulse feels deafening in the silence between us. For a moment, I let it happen. I let myself want the safety he offers.
Then, uninvited, another touch ghosts through me—David's hand in mine, warm and alive. The contrast slices clean through the fog. His world is sunlight and laughter, not this shadowed place built on iron and hunger.
I want that simple world—but Grayson's hand slides up my back, slow and grounding, and the bond pulses hot in answer. I hate that it feels like truth.
I stay there, caught between two worlds: one made of warmth and quiet mornings, another carved from shadow and certainty. And the worst part is, I can't tell which one feels more like home.
Grayson's voice breaks the silence, low and close to my ear.
"Your heart," he murmurs, a hint of wonder in it. "It's racing."
I swallow hard, unable to meet his eyes. "It always does when you're near."
He falls quiet, but his thumb traces one last, slow line down my spine—as if he already knows why my pulse can't decide whether it's from fear, grief, or the pull that neither of us can escape.