Chapter Two
––––––––
Vex
Five o’clock.
The bell chimes, and I push through the door of Betty’s Café, my boots heavy on the worn floorboards. The air inside is warm, thick with the smell of coffee and cinnamon, and underneath it’s all her.
Tessa.
I don’t look at her. Not directly. I’ve perfected the art of pretending indifference, of moving through this routine like it means nothing.
Same booth in the back corner. Same view of the entire café, the front door, the kitchen entrance, every window.
Same newspaper I’ll pretend to read while cataloguing every threat, every exit, every sound.
Every breath she takes.
“Morning,” she calls out, and I hear the slight rasp in her voice that means she’s been up since four-thirty, preparing for the day. There’s the clink of ceramic against the counter as she reaches for a mug without waiting for my order.
Black coffee. No sugar. No cream. She knows.
I give her a nod, nothing more, and settle into the booth, unfolding the newspaper with deliberate slowness.
My eyes scan the headlines, but I’m not reading.
I’m listening. The steady rhythm of her heartbeat.
The soft pad of her feet as she crosses the café.
The whisper of fabric against skin as she moves.
She sets the mug down in front of me, and for just a second, her fingers brush against mine.
Heat. Electric and immediate.
I keep my face neutral, my eyes on the paper, but every nerve in my body lights up at that brief contact. It’s always been like this, has been for two years. This exquisite torture of being close to her, breathing in her scent, feeling the warmth of her presence, and knowing I can never have her.
Don’t touch her.
Don’t feed from her.
Don’t claim her.
These are the rules I set for myself. The only thing keeping me civilized.
“Thanks,” I say, my voice rough.
She moves away, and I force myself to take a drink, letting the bitter liquid ground me. The café is quiet this early, just me and Tessa and the soft hum of the espresso machine. Through the window, the sky is still dark, snow falling in lazy spirals under the streetlights.
I can feel her watching me sometimes. Quick glances when she thinks I’m not paying attention. Tessa is curious about me, maybe even attracted, though she’d never admit it. Not after what she saw.
Six months ago.
The memory surfaces unbidden, sharp and clear.
I was roaming the woods when Scout found me. His words tumbled over themselves as he explained Ranger had lost control in front of humans. But not any human, Tessa. There are rules we don’t break, and one of them is we do not reveal ourselves to them.
While Scout flickered back to the compound, I ran, faster than I’ve ever run before. Tessa’s scent drew me to the hut where she was being held, just as Scout was escorting Kyler outside.
“Did you touch her?” I growled, grabbing him by the back of his cut and hauling him off his feet.
“No!”
I slammed Kyler against the hut’s wall hard enough to hear something inside him crack. “You don’t touch her,” I snarled, my voice barely human. “You don’t even think about her. She’s off-limits.”
“Why?” he gasped, struggling against my grip. “She’s just a human. She smells so—”
I tightened my hold on his throat, cutting off his words. “Because I said so. Because Blade said so. Because if you touch her, I will rip your fucking heart out and feed it to you while you’re still conscious enough to feel it.”
The scent of his fear was immediate, sharp and acrid. Good. He needed to be afraid.
“Understood?”
Kyler nodded frantically, and I released him, letting him slide down the wall.
I entered the hut, and Tessa screamed. Seeing Ranger change made her think we were all werewolves. The smell of her fear was sharp and bitter, almost suffocating. The woman who would flirt with me every morning now saw a monster, just not the right monster.
She sat there, back straight, chin raised in defiance, and her first words to me were, “You’re here,” in a voice that dripped with contempt.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. I could hear her heart hammering, could smell the spike of fear and adrenaline flooding her system. But underneath it, there was something else. Something that should have made her run but didn’t.
Curiosity. Interest. That dangerous, electric pull that had been building between us for months.
“The funny thing is, I was going to tell you. You’re the first woman in a long time who’s caught my attention.”
Her lip curled into a half-smile. “You were going to tell me you’re a, a freak?”
The word wounded me. “I’m not like Ranger.”
“What are you then?”
Silence stretched between us, and I held up a finger, hoping to make this as easy as possible.
“I promise not to hurt you. And please try not to scream.”
It was then I revealed myself, my fangs at their full length, my eyes completely white, the monster who lives inside me.
She stood so quickly, the chair she was sitting on fell to the floor, her hands flew to her mouth and she stumbled backward as her face went pale.
Tessa, smart, brave Tessa, screamed. Not out of fear for herself, I realized later, but out of shock, out of the fundamental wrongness of seeing someone you thought you knew transform into a monster.
“V-vampire?” she whispered.
“Yeah. And I don’t glitter in the sunlight.”
Prophet drove her home. Tessa promised to keep our secrets. Blade asked me to keep an eye on her. With my hearing and senses, I did as he asked, at a distance. I didn’t approach her. Didn’t explain. I’d shown her what I was, and that was that.
Over time, I came back to the café. Took my usual booth. Ordered my usual coffee.
And she served me, hands only slightly shaking, her heart rate elevated but not panicked.
We never spoke about it. We never acknowledged it. But she knew. And I knew she knew.
And somehow, that made everything worse. Because now when I looked at her, I didn’t have to hide what I was. She’d already seen the monster, and she was still here.
The door chimes, pulling me back to the present. Old Walt shuffles in for his breakfast special, and Tessa greets him with the warm smile she gives everyone. Everyone except me. For me, she reserves something different, something more wary, more aware.
I take another drink of coffee and force my attention back to the newspaper. But the words blur together because something is wrong. Has been wrong for days now, and it’s getting worse.
There’s a smell in the air. It has a taste that sets my teeth on edge. Whatever it is, it’s cold, very ancient and feels wrong.
And it’s clinging to Tessa like a second skin.
I noticed it three days ago, a subtle shift in her aura, a distortion in the natural warmth that usually surrounds her.
At first, I thought I was imagining it, that my obsession with her was making me paranoid.
But it’s grown stronger each day, this sense of something brushing against her, marking her.
My fingers tighten on the mug.
The café door opens, and I’m already cataloguing the newcomer before they fully step inside. Not a threat. Just a local, someone I recognize from around town. But he’s nervous, his movements jerky, his scent sour with anxiety.
He orders coffee to go, and while Tessa prepares it, he shifts from foot to foot, glancing around like he expects something to jump out at him.
“Everything okay, Mike?” Tessa asks, handing him the cup.
“Yeah, just...” He trails off, then lowers his voice. “Did you hear about what John found out by his place?”
Tessa frowns. “The elk?”
Mike nods, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows hard. “Frozen solid. Not just dead, but... wrong. My dog won’t even go near the woods anymore. Somethin’s out there, Tessa. Somethin’ that ain’t natural.”
He throws some bills on the counter and hurries out, and I watch Tessa’s face as she processes his words. There’s fear there, she’s smart enough to be afraid, but also that stubborn determination I know so well.
She’s not going to run. Even if she should.
The morning crawls by. I make my coffee last longer than usual, ordering a refill I don’t need, watching as the café fills and empties, fills and empties. Watching Tessa move through her routine, laughing with the regulars, pouring coffee, and clearing tables.
Watching the wrongness cling to her like frost.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Blade: Church. Noon. Get your ass here.
I drain the last of my coffee and stand, dropping a twenty on the table as always.
Tessa glances over, and our eyes meet for just a second.
In that moment, I let myself really look at her, at the curve of her neck, the pulse point I could find in the dark, and the way her hair falls across her shoulders.
I want to tell her to be careful. To warn her something’s coming for her, something that even I might not be able to stop. But I can’t. Not without admitting how closely I’ve been watching her, how deeply I’ve let myself care.
So, I nod and head for the door.
The clubhouse is buzzing when I arrive, bikes lined up out front like a steel army. I park my Harley and head inside, nodding to Rooster and Hollywood as I pass. The scent of leather, oil, and testosterone fills the space, it’s familiar, and comfortable.
Blade is in church already, the moment I step into the room, Blade’s eyes lock onto mine.
“Close the door.”
I do, then take my usual seat at the table. Prophet looks tired, the shadows under his eyes deeper than usual. There’s a tension in his shoulders that tells me he’s been communing with heaven, and whatever they told him, he didn’t like it.
“Talk to me,” Blade says, leaning back in his chair. “What the fuck is going on in my territory?”
Prophet spreads a series of photos across the table.
Dead animals. All of them frozen in unnatural positions, their bodies encased in ice that shouldn’t exist in November, not like this.
There are other photos too, strange patterns in the snow, tracks that start and stop for no reason, clearings where nothing grows anymore.
“It’s getting worse,” Prophet says quietly. “I’ve been tracking reports for two weeks. Whatever this is, it’s spreading. And it’s centered here, around Crystal Creek.”
Blade blows out a stream of smoke. “Theories?”
“Nothing good.” Prophet’s fingers tap against the photo of the frozen elk. “I’ve been praying over these sites, and something... answers. Something old. Something that should still be sleeping.”
“What does heaven say?” I ask, though I already know the answer won’t be helpful.
Prophet’s laugh is bitter. “They say to handle it. They say Alaska has always been a thin place, where the veil between worlds wears threadbare. It’s our problem now.”
“Helpful as always,” Blade mutters.
I pick up one photo, studying the frost patterns. There’s something familiar about them, something that tugs at old memories. Memories from before the Kings, before Alaska, before I learned to pretend I was anything other than a monster.
“I’ve seen something like this before,” I say slowly. “A long time ago. Before I came to America.”
Both of them turn to look at me, and I set the photo down carefully.
“There are stories. Old vampire stories, from when our kind first walked the earth. About things that sleep in the cold places, things that feed on fear and desperation.” I meet Blade’s eyes. “Things that were sealed away for a reason.”
“Sealed where?” Blade asks.
“Wherever the ice never melts. The deep places. The forgotten places.” I lean back, thinking about legends I haven’t considered in centuries. “Alaska’s permafrost would be perfect. And if climate change is melting it...”
“Then we’ve got a fucking problem,” Blade finishes.
Prophet nods slowly. “The question is, why is it acting now? And why here specifically?”
I don’t answer immediately because I know the answer, and I don’t want to say it out loud. Don’t want to admit what my instincts have been screaming at me for days.
But Blade knows me too well. “Vex.”
I meet his gaze. “Tessa.”
“What about her?”
“Something’s marked her. I can smell it on her. Feel it when I’m near her.” The admission costs me, revealing how much attention I pay to her, how closely I monitor her presence. “Whatever’s out there, it’s chosen her. Touched her. Maybe even claimed her.”
The silence that follows is heavy.
“Fuck,” Blade says finally.
Prophet stands and paces. “If something ancient is fixating on a specific person, it’s not random. There’s a connection. A reason.” He stops, turns to face me. “You need to find out what it is. And you need to keep her safe while you do it.”
“I’ve been keeping her safe for two years,” I say, my voice harder than I intend.
“Have you?” Prophet’s eyes are knowing, too knowing. “Or have you just been watching her from the shadows, convincing yourself that’s enough?”
The words hit like a punch to the gut because he’s right. I’ve been hovering at the edges of Tessa’s life, close enough to feel like I’m protecting her, far enough away I can pretend I’m in control.
But control is an illusion. Has been since the moment I first saw her.
“I’ll handle it,” I say, standing.
Blade nods. “Keep me posted. If this thing is as dangerous as you think, we need to know what we’re dealing with.”
I leave church and head back out into the cold. The snow is falling harder now, thick flakes catch in my hair and melt against my skin. I should start researching, should reach out to the other vampires in the area to see if they’ve heard anything.
But instead, I head back toward town. Toward Betty’s Café.
Toward her.
Because the truth is, I’ve already broken the most important rule. I’ve let Tessa become the center of my world, the axis around which everything else rotates. And if something’s coming for her, something old and hungry and terrible, then it’s going to have to go through me first.
Even if that means revealing every dark, monstrous part of myself I’ve kept hidden.
Even if it means she finally sees exactly what I am and runs screaming into the night.
The café is closed when I arrive, the lights off, the sign flipped to “Closed.” But I can hear her inside, humming to herself as she wipes down tables and stacks chairs. I could go in. Could talk to her, warn her.
But I don’t.
Instead, I melt into the shadows and wait. Because it’s what I do. It’s what I’ve always done.
I watch. I wait. I keep the monsters at bay.
And I tell myself that it’s enough, even though I know, deep in the darkest part of my dead heart, it will never be enough.
Not when it comes to her.
Not when something else has already marked her as its own.