My throat goes dry when he says my name—Cassidy. The sound of it from his mouth is both ordinary and intimate, scraping at something raw and aching.
I blink, fumbling for the deadbolt with hands that feel clumsy and too small.
"Why are you here?" I manage, my voice shakier than I'd like.
The hallway light spills through the peephole, painting his face in thin, pale lines. He's close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his eyes, the curve of his lips as he speaks.
"Please, I need to explain," he says, his voice low and urgent. His eyes catch mine through the peephole and, absurdly, I can feel it—an ache, a low, familiar tug that makes my knees weak.
A dozen sensible things race through my head: call Sasha, call the cops, run. Instead, I find myself unlatching the chain and opening the door a sliver. The corridor smells like old carpet and perfume. When he leans forward, the scent that reaches me is different—cool, metallic, and for a second it's all I can think about.
"You saved me," I say, the words tumbling out before I can stop them. My voice sounds small in the space between us.
He shuts his mouth around something—relief, maybe, or a plan—and then he presses his palm to the doorframe so close to mine that the cold of him blooms through the wood.
"I did," he replies. His voice is a low rasp, steady.
"And there are things you need to know. Please—may I come in?"
"Yes," I say, without thinking. My body moves before my brain can catch up, stepping aside so he can pass me.
He strides in with quiet certainty, not a hesitation in his movements. The shift from the dim, flickering hallway light to the warm glow of my apartment makes him look almost unreal.
And God, he's gorgeous.
Short, dark brown hair cut close, a chiseled face with edges sharp enough to belong on marble, lips full and soft-looking in stark contrast to the rest of him. But it's his eyes that make my stomach twist—hazel, bright yet stormy, as if they're holding something restless just beneath the surface.
My pulse refuses to calm. The overwhelming energy that's been haunting me all evening only sharpens in his presence, as though he carries the key to it.
I close the door behind him, pressing my back to it for a second longer than I need to.
"You're real," I whisper, still not entirely believing it.
He turns to me, expression unreadable but focused, as if he's taking in every detail of me just as carefully.
"I am," he says simply.
"I told myself it was a dream," I blurt out as he walks around my living room, fingering the blanket on the back of the couch.
He looks up at me. "I wish it had been."
"You mean..." I stop, coming to the realization. "You're a vampire?"
He watches me for a long moment, like he's measuring which of my reactions is the truest. When he speaks, his voice is low and careful.
"Yes. I am."
My stomach drops out from under me.
"You—so that thing in the alley—" I point toward the window like that will make it real. "—was one of you."
"It was," he says. He moves slowly back to the couch, folding himself into the armchair like he's been given permission to sit. He's still as stone in the chair, while everything inside me rushes like water against glass, straining to crack.
"He's what we call a rogue. He doesn't answer to the coven. He feeds without restraint." His jaw tightens. "I stopped him."
"You… bit me." The memory of teeth, of heat and tearing, flashes through me, and I have to blink it away. "Why did you bite me after? To save me?" My voice is thin at the edges, like it could splinter.
He nods. "You were dying. You were losing too much blood, and the rogue made the wounds worse. I gave you what I could to stabilize you—pulled what you needed back into rhythm. It hurt. I'm sorry." The apology is quiet, full of a culpable gentleness.
As he talks, the ache under my skin flares again—an insistence that threads through every sentence. It isn't only memory anymore; it's a living pressure, a heat between my legs that makes my breaths come shallow.
"For the human—" he searches for words as if he hates how blunt they are "—it causes waves. Desire, need, an almost physical ache whenever I'm awake. It overrides things. For me, it becomes a gnawing hunger. Not just for blood, sometimes for touch, for… other forms of intimacy. It wants to be satisfied by you."
When he says the word "bond," it lands like a touch. My palms go damp. My fingers curl against my thighs as if to hide the tremor that isn't entirely fear.
The explanation should calm me. Instead, it sharpens the ache into something nearly unbearable. I can feel it in the small of my back, a hot pulse that traces down my legs. My mouth is dry. Every time he moves his hand—adjusting his sleeve, leaning forward to emphasize a point—the motion sends a jolt through me that makes my knees go weak.
"So you—" I start, then stop. "So you're telling me I'm bonded to you?"
"I don't like the word 'telling,'" he says. "It's… true. When I bit you, something tied to you and me. I didn't mean for that to happen." He leans forward, fingers steepled.
"I'm sorry. I never would have put you in this position on purpose."
A thousand questions rise and fall in my chest—anger, fear, a ridiculous, traitorous flicker of something else when he looks at me as if he can see my insides.
"Can it be undone?" I ask because I need options. I need control.
He exhales slowly.
"There are ways to minimize it—distance, rituals. But bonds are stubborn." He inclines his head, eyes locking on mine. "I can try to stay away, leave, keep you safe without asking anything of you. Or I can stay, help you learn to live with it, and promise not to force anything."
The words should be relief, but my body interprets them differently. The part of me that is merely human imagines David's warm hand in mine, a normal, ordinary touch; the part that's coiled and raw imagines the stranger's palm instead—cool, insistent, already a map of where he has touched me. My breath catches whenever he inclines his head toward me; the air between us thrums. Even when he promises restraint, the promise tastes of invitation.
"Promise?" My laugh is humorless.
He nods once, grave. "I promise I will not take what is not given. I will not make you anything you are not. But I'm telling you the honest cost, Cassidy—because you deserve the truth."
Silence presses between us. The apartment seems smaller, the light dimmer. Outside, someone laughs on the street, and the sound cuts off like a snip. The hunger inside me thrums again, louder now that we've named it, and I realize with a jolt how much control I just handed over by opening my door.
"Why my name?" I ask finally, softer. "How do you know it?"
He lets out a breath that might be amusement, might be relief. "I looked for an ID in your bag to bring you home." He studies my face as if committing it to memory.
"So you brought me home?" I mutter. "I woke up...There was no blood anywhere. No marks."
The ache pulses between my legs again, sudden and hot, as if whatever tether binds us has tightened a fraction. When I look at him, the man who saved me and broke whatever boundary now sits between us, the hunger under my skin coaxes my limbs into a treacherous stillness. The room seems to hold its breath.
His mouth quirks, half-apologetic, half-ashamed. "I had to. You were… bleeding out. I couldn't leave you like that." He hesitates, eyes flicking away for a moment before back to mine. "I wrapped you up, brought you home, bathed you. You were unconscious. I didn't… I didn't look for anything I didn't need to see."
Heat floods my face despite the chill that still lives under my skin. The image of him bent over me, hands intimate and indifferent both, sits between us like a live coal.
"You bathed me?" I force the words out, ridiculous and small.
He nods once.
"You were covered in blood." He watches me closely, gauging each reaction. "I thought it was better you wake somewhere clean, somewhere that wouldn't terrify you more than what already happened."
The ache between my legs pulses at that—part gratitude, part something raw and traitorous.
"You saw me," I whisper. The word tastes like accusation and confession.
"I saw you," he says softly, and there's no cruelty in it. Only an odd, careful reverence.
"And I remember. But not in the way you're imagining. I remember the way your breath caught, the color of your skin. I didn't take pleasure in it. I vowed to do no harm."
My knees want to give out. The pull that's been humming all day tightens into a near-physical pull, answering the memory of his hands on my skin like an echo reaching back. My voice is barely there.
"Why tell me this now?" I sink down onto the couch, my legs feeling unsteady.
"Because you deserve to know everything I did," he replies, blunt and honest. "Because you deserve the truth, and the choice. I will not make a decision for you, Cassidy."
He stands, closing the small distance between the armchair and where I'm frozen on the couch.
"If you want me gone, I will leave. If you want answers, I will give them. If you—" his hand rises, palm open, not touching, an offered space between us "—want me to stay while we figure this out, I will stay. I won't take what isn't given."
The hunger in me thrums like a second heart. Every rational option lines up and blinks away beneath it. My hand finds the hem of my shirt and twists the fabric until my knuckles whiten. Shame, fear, desire—none of it sorts itself into order.
He waits, patient and somehow enormous in his stillness. The room seems to listen with us. Outside, a siren wafts past and fades. Inside, my pulse is thunder and the weight of a choice.
He watches me for another long, patient moment, then steps closer until the space between us is charged like the air before a storm.
"You can tell me to leave," he repeats, voice small in the silence.
I close my eyes. The ache between my legs is relentless—hot, insistent, a need that makes my thoughts shallow and single-pointed. Rational choices line up like distant shorelines I can't swim to. All I can hear is the thudding pressure and the memory of his hands on me in the alley. All I want is for it to stop.
"Stay," I hear myself say, and the single syllable is both plea and command.
He tilts his head as if surprised by the permission, relief softening his features for the briefest moment.
"Are you sure?" he asks. There's no push in the question—only care, and the weight of what he's about to do.
I nod. "Yes. Please." My voice is small. I can feel heat crawling across my skin, the way every nerve wants something he could give. The ache between my legs throbs with need.
He kneels in front of me, not a single motion clumsy or frantic. He keeps his hands where I can see them—palms open on his knees—so I know nothing is hidden.
"Tell me if you want me to stop," he murmurs. "At any time."
"I will," I promise, though I'm not sure which of us will be testing the word first.
He leans up and brushes his mouth along my jaw, a light contact that sends a white line of electricity through me. His fingers lift to cup my face, thumb ghosting over my lower lip. The touch is deliberate, respectful, and it grounds me in a way I didn't expect. The sexual ache in me roars in response like a beast relieved to be acknowledged.
His mouth finds mine, slow and patient at first. The kiss is not the violent yank of the rogue's feeding; it's measured—long, searching, and somehow sanctifying. He tastes faintly of copper and rain, and the scent knocks the breath out of me. I lean into him, needing more than the kiss, needing contact that feels like an answer. My hands move of their own accord, tangling in the back of his shirt, pulling him closer, anchoring him to me.
He sighs against my mouth, a sound that vibrates through my chest. His hands slide down my sides, the heat of him careful and controlled. When his palm finds the small of my back, the ache in me eases by the barest degree—as if his touch is already drawing some of the pressure away.
We come apart long enough for him to look at me, eyes dark and wet with something like hunger tempered by restraint.
"Are you absolutely certain?" he asks again.
"Yes," I whisper, fierce now. "Do it."
He doesn't bite like the rogue. He takes instead with such gentleness that it feels like a sacrament. His lips part against the soft hollow at the base of my throat; his teeth press, precise and controlled. There's a sharp sting—brief, exquisite—and then a warmth that spreads, not like a wound gouged open but like a cup being filled. The sensation that had been tearing at me is replaced by something nearer to relief: a slow, settling warmth that floods through my limbs.
I moan, not from pain but from the release. Every muscle loosens as the pressure that had been gnawing at me eases, tide pulling back a little. His mouth moves, and his breath is low and ragged; I can feel the hunger answering something in him, but it is contained—tended, not devoured. His hands anchor me, steadying; one cradles the back of my head, the other presses gentle, firm at the small of my back.
He draws back after a few slow, necessary moments. There's a smear of warmth at his lips, and for an instant, he looks almost ashamed.
"Are you okay?" he asks, voice hoarse.
I laugh, ragged and disbelieving. The ache that had devoured me all night is finally quiet, an echo instead of a scream.
"Yes," I breathe.
His relief is palpable. He presses his forehead to mine in a quick, almost reverent gesture.
"I didn't take more than you gave," he murmurs. "I won't hurt you."
All of a sudden, his phone starts to ring, sharp and jarring in the quiet of the room.
His expression flicks—alert, guarded—before he answers.
"Hello?" he says, voice low. He props the phone against his shoulder, listening, brows knitting tighter with each second. His free hand presses flat against the arm of the couch, the easy stillness he carried moments ago sharpening into something harder, like steel.
"…Understood." He lowers the phone a notch so I can't hear, but the tightness in his jaw tells me whatever's being said isn't good. He presses his lips together, then looks back at me with an apologetic curl tugging his mouth.
"I'm sorry. I have to go." The words are almost clipped, professional.
"That… now?" The question comes out small. My body, still fuzzy with aftershock, wants him to linger—wants proof the world outside can wait. The ache in me flares reflexively at the suggestion of him leaving.
He swallows.
"There's a problem. A rogue sighting—near the east side. I have to check it out. I couldn't in good conscience ignore it." He catches my hand before I can pull away, thumb brushing the pad of my palm in a quick, grounding rhythm.
"Okay," I say, the word barely there. He leans forward to press a soft kiss to my forehead—more apology than promise—then steps back.
The phone stops glowing in his hand as he shoves it back into his pocket, already moving toward the door. My chest tightens. The words slip out before I can stop them.
"I don't even know your name…"
He pauses mid-step, then turns back. He pauses, then reaches back for my hand, curling his warm fingers around mine like an anchor. His hazel eyes lock on me with a gravity that makes my breath trip.
"Grayson," he says softly, as if offering me something precious.
The name sinks into me, grounding and dangerous all at once.
And then, before I can say anything more, he's at the door again—slipping into the hall, leaving me with his name echoing through the silence of my apartment like a promise.
The door clicks shut. My apartment feels hollow, the silence pressing in like a weight.
I sink onto the couch, pulling the blanket he touched into my lap. My whole body is still humming, restless, alive with the phantom press of his hands, the heat of his mouth. It should terrify me, what just happened—what almost happened—but instead I'm shivering with want.
God, what's wrong with me?
Six years. Six years of walls, of pushing people away, of saying I didn't need anyone. Then one blind date, one easy smile from David, and I'd let myself think—maybe. Maybe I could start again. He was normal. Safe. Kind. The kind of man who'd text good morning, who'd hold my hand across a café table, who'd never leave bruises on my arms from holding too tight.
That's what I should want. That's what I told Sasha I wanted.
But Grayson…
The memory of his voice saying my name ripples through me. The pull in my chest is unbearable, like some invisible tether has been stitched between us. I don't even know him, not really. Just his name. Just the way he looks at me like I already belong to him. And yet—David. David is the kind of simple I should be reaching for. A normal life. Dates, laughter, maybe even love that doesn't come with blood and shadows.
My stomach knots with guilt. I bury my face in my hands, my chest tight. I just want easy.