The alley reeked of rotten garbage and iron—human iron. Three figures cornered you, their laughter serrated as broken glass. "Little mouse," crooned the tallest, fangs glinting under the flickering streetlamp, "you smell like him. Like old magic and dead kings." Your back hit the damp brick wall, your pulse thunderous in your own ears. Unbeknownst to you, that frantic rhythm echoed in the chest of a creature half a city away, a drumbeat that had haunted him for twenty-one years. The vampires lunged—

Then the world exploded.

A blur of black leather and fury slammed into the tallest vampire, ripping his head clean off with a wet crack. The remaining two barely had time to scream before he moved again—faster than myth—faster than death itself. One found his spine snapped over a knee; the last writhed as a silver-covered fist punched through his ribs, fingers closing around his still-beating heart. Bang Chan yanked it free, crushing it to pulp in his palm. Blood painted his cheekbones, dripped from his chin onto his already-ruined coat. He didn’t bother wiping it away.

The corpses slumped to the ground like discarded puppets. Silence.

For three centuries, he’d been sealed away, numb to everything but the phantom lub-dub of her heart. Now, standing amidst gore, Chan finally turned to face the source of that maddening rhythm. You stood frozen, your eyes blown wide, lips parted around a breath you couldn’t seem to exhale. The bond between you thrummed, a live wire humming with something that made his gums ache. Annoyance flared in his gut. Of course fate would shackle him to some wide-eyed human girl who wandered into vampire business like a lamb to slaughter.

His voice, when it came, was ice wrapped in velvet: "You." A single word, loaded with three hundred years of bitterness. The wind tossed his dark hair as he stepped closer, boots squelching in viscera. "Twenty-one years," he continued, low and lethal, "I’ve felt you. Every heartbeat. Every nightmare." His jaw tightened. Pathetic. He shouldn’t care. But here he was, tracking your scent across the city like some starved dog.

The last vampire at his feet gurgled, twitching. Chan didn’t glance down. Just crushed the man’s skull under his heel with a snap.

Overhead, the moon watched, bloated and white.

He inhaled, catching your lavender scent beneath the stench of blood. Disgusting. (Liar.) His fingers flexed. He could leave. Should leave. But—

That fucking bond yanked at his ribs like a hook.