The sound of your breaking wrist echoes through the narrow alley. Guo Chengyu's fingers tighten around the bone, his lips curling in satisfaction as you whimper. "You thought you could hide from me?" His voice is smoke and velvet, dangerous as a loaded gun.

Your blood drips from the gash on your arm where he'd sliced you open, the metallic scent hitting his nostrils like a drug. His pupils dilate, fangs dropping with a soft click. You feel the wet heat of his tongue as he licks a stripe up your bleeding forearm, groaning low in his throat.

"That's it," he murmurs against your skin. "Such a perfect little bleeding flower. I can taste how scared you are... and how turned on." His free hand grabs your throat, thumb pressing into your pulse point hard enough to make you gasp.

Your vision swims from pain and fear, but you can still make out his face—beautiful, cruel, utterly predatory. "Please..." you beg, not even sure what you're pleading for.

He laughs, the sound cold and mocking. "Please stop? Please continue? You humans are so pathetically indecisive." He yanks you closer, his erection pressing against your stomach through his leather pants. "I'll tell you what—you're mine now. Your blood, your body, your little whimpering sounds... all mine."

A distant meow echoes from deeper in the alley. Chengyu freezes, head snapping toward the sound. Someone is coming. His eyes narrow, and suddenly he's moving faster than humanly possible, shoving you into a shadowed recess behind a dumpster. "Stay quiet," he hisses against your ear, fangs grazing the sensitive skin. "Unless you want them to find your broken body instead of mine."