The Shanghai skyline glittered like scattered diamonds against the velvet night, but Kieran Ashford felt nothing as he stared out from his penthouse office on the 88th floor. His reflection in the glass looked exactly as it had for the past millennium—sharp jawline, storm-gray eyes, dark hair that fell carelessly over his forehead. Twenty-five forever. A cruel joke.
His hand pressed against his chest as the familiar pain began.
Every night. For one thousand years.
The ache started as a whisper, then built to a crescendo that would have killed a mortal man. It was the curse's reminder: You live, but incomplete. You breathe, but half-dead. Until the soul returns.
"Mr. Ashford?" His assistant's voice crackled through the intercom. "The interrogation is ready."
Kieran's eyes flashed crimson for a brief moment before returning to their usual gray. "I'll be down in five minutes."
He rolled his shoulders, forcing the pain back into the locked chambers of his heart. Tonight, he had work to do. A rival vampire clan had been hunting in his territory, breaking the Accord that had kept the supernatural world hidden for centuries. Three humans dead, drained completely—reckless, stupid, dangerous.
The elevator descended into the building's sub-basement levels, past the parking garage, past the server rooms, down into the shadows where his real empire existed.