Chapter Two
Cillian stood frozen in the alley, the corpse dangling from his hand like a crumpled grocery bag, and watched the small human walk away.
Remarkable.
The word tasted inadequate. Insufficient. Like calling the sun “bright” or the void “dark.”
His shadows writhed against his skin, straining toward the retreating figure with an eagerness that sent alarm bells through Cillian’s ancient consciousness.
They’d never done that before. In four millennia of existence, his darkness had served as a weapon, shield, sustenance, but never this. Never yearning.
The human turned the corner and disappeared from view.
Cillian’s entire being screamed to follow.
His grip tightened on the dead man’s jacket. The fabric ripped, and the body slumped even further, one hand dragging against the pavement. He looked down at it, at the Vane Syndicate tattoo stark against cold flesh, and felt nothing but irritation at the obstacle between himself and…
Julian.
The name blazed across Cillian’s mind like one of those annoying neon signs, even though the human hadn’t offered it.
Cillian had read it from the security badge clipped to the man’s belt, from the library card visible in his wallet tucked deep in Julian’s pocket, and from the name written in neat block letters on the side of the cardboard box - J. PURDY - PERSONAL ITEMS.
Julian Purdy.
Five syllables that rewrote the architecture of Cillian’s existence.
His shadows surged again, tendrils creeping along the ground toward where Julian had stood, as if they could track his footsteps through the concrete. One tendril coiled around the spot where Julian’s shoe had pressed into a shallow puddle, caressing the water as if it held sacred residue.
“No,” Cillian said out loud, his voice rougher than intended.
The shadows retreated, sulking.
He forced himself to focus on the corpse and his job at hand - the reason he’d been in this alley in the first place. He and his brothers had been systematically tracking Marcus Vane’s distribution network, eliminating the rot one piece at a time.
The blue dumpster, three streets over.
Julian’s voice echoed in his mind, calm and precise. Matter of fact. As if he discussed body disposal the way other humans discussed weather patterns or sports scores.
Statistically speaking, this man was involved in activities that caused measurable harm to the community.
No fear. No horror. Just...observation as if he was seeing the truth in his own unique way.
Cillian’s chest constricted around something that felt dangerously close to hunger. Not the hollow ache that came from feeding on corruption and sin. His current urge was different, sharper - a need that had nothing to do with sustenance and everything to do with proximity.
He wanted to crack open Julian’s skull and examine every thought. He was desperate to catalogue each logical conclusion, each blunt assessment, each moment of fearless practicality. In short, he needed to wrap himself around that bright, unflinching mind and never let go.
Mine.
The word resonated through every shadow, every fragment of darkness that comprised Cillian’s form. His shadows trembled with agreement, pressing against the boundaries of his human shape as if they might burst free and hunt Julian down on their own.
“Dismember the body first,” Cillian muttered, dragging his attention back to the task. “Reduce the volume.”
Efficient. Julian had called himself efficient, as if that explained everything. As if standing in an alley with an eldritch horror and offering disposal advice was simply the most logical course of action.
Cillian’s fingers sank into the corpse’s shoulder. Shadows wrapped around limbs, and he pulled.
The work should have grounded him. Violence always did.
There was something familiar about the rhythm of destruction, the satisfying separation of joint from socket, that particular snap when a bone broke.
He’d dismantled hundreds of bodies over the centuries.
Thousands, perhaps. Cillian had stopped counting after the first fifty years.
But as he worked on his current victim, his mind refused to focus.
You’re leaking shadows onto the pavement.
Julian had said those words the same way someone might point out a loose thread or an untied shoelace - a minor imperfection requiring correction.
Cillian looked down. His shadows had spread across the alley again, drawn toward the corner where Julian had vanished. They pooled against the brick wall, climbing upward as if they might scale the building and track Julian’s path from the rooftops.
“Stop it.”
They obeyed, reluctantly. The effort it took to rein them in sent a tremor through his human form. His hands flickered, solid flesh bleeding into smoke and back again.
This is wrong. Dangerous. Cillian had seen others of his kind fall into obsession.
He had watched ancient beings reduce themselves to shadows of shadows, consumed by fixations that burned away rational thought.
The Order had rules about that sort of thing - protocols that were only mentioned in hushed whispers.
I should report this. Cillian paused for a moment, a leg in one hand and an arm in the other.
He could mention it to one of his brothers - Thorn would be the obvious person, as he gave the illusion of having the most authority, although Silas was the fixer of the group.
As for Rook - Cillian considered him for a moment and then dismissed him.
Rook was good at what he did, but his chaotic energy wouldn’t be useful in Cillian’s particular issue.
What would I tell them? Cillian already knew Julian wasn’t a threat. Distracting, yes, but definitely not a threat. Which meant…
Mate.
The word surfaced from some deep, primal part of his consciousness - the part that existed before language, before form, and well before he’d learned to wear human skin like camouflage, followed by another revelation that put everything else into perspective.
Beacon. Julian is a beacon.
That’s what the old texts called them. Souls that burned with unvarnished truth, so rare that most Eldritch beings lived millennia without encountering one. A light so pure it could anchor darkness, give form to formlessness, and make an immortal creature understand the concept of home.
Cillian’s shadows shuddered with recognition. He’d found his beacon, his fated mate. The one bright soul meant for him alone. That same beacon who had walked away, carrying a box of personal items and worrying about a dying plant.
The absurdity should’ve amused him. Instead, it increased his hunger.
Cillian forced himself through the mechanics of disposal, separating the body into manageable pieces and wrapping them in the dead man’s jacket. His shadows moved sluggishly, distracted, half his attention still focused on the lingering warmth where Julian had stood.
Sixty-three hours before collection.
Julian had calculated that in seconds. More than that, he’d processed the town’s waste management schedule and determined the optimal window for body disposal with barely a second thought.
Cillian wanted to know what other information lived in that remarkable brain.
No, that wasn’t enough. He wanted to know everything from what Julian ate for breakfast to how he took his coffee, and perhaps more importantly, why someone had packed his belongings into a cardboard box, because Cillian thought most humans used a bag to carry items of importance.
There was so much Cillian wanted to know about what made Julian smile, what made him angry, whether he lived alone…Alone? Is he safe? Or were there others who noticed how extraordinary and so very special that tiny human was?
The possessiveness that thought triggered should have alarmed him. It didn’t.
Cillian gathered the wrapped remains and moved through the shadows, faster than human sight could track.
He went three streets over, just as Julian had suggested.
The Morrison building loomed ahead, abandoned and falling apart like so many other buildings in Madison.
But there, just as Julian had described it, sat the blue dumpster with a broken lock, and its lid slightly ajar.
After depositing the body parts into the dumpster, Cillian arranged refuse over the top to ensure nothing was visible from street level.
Efficient. It definitely was. Cillian straightened, his human form settled back into place - the expensive suit, his dark hair, and the face he showed the world when he needed to walk among mortals unnoticed. His shadows pulled toward the east, in the direction of wherever Julian had gone.
The body disposal wasn’t the end of his job. Cillian knew he should return to Shadow House. He needed to update his brothers on the kill, and it would be sensible to continue tracking those who were part of Vane’s network.
Instead, Cillian stepped out of the alley and followed the path Julian had taken.
Safety, he told himself. The corpse had been Vane’s man.
If the Syndicate discovered someone had interfered with their operations, they might investigate.
They would definitely be looking for witnesses, and there was a good chance they could connect the death to the strange human who’d walked through the alley at exactly the wrong moment.
He might not know it, because he’d never mentioned it, but Julian needed protection. That’s all this is - professional concern.
And that was a lie with no substance, but Cillian kept walking.
Cillian’s shadows tracked Julian’s scent through the streets.
The scent itself was a unique mixture of citrus soap, dusty papers, a brand of strong coffee, and something indefinably warm.
The trail led through the warehouse district, past shuttered buildings and empty loading docks.
Residential areas appeared ahead, older apartment complexes with cracked sidewalks and flickering streetlights.
He should be better at this. Tracking protocol demanded that guardians maintain a respectable distance and use proper surveillance techniques.
But Cillian’s shadows kept surging forward, as if impatient with the human pace.
They wanted to race ahead, to wrap around Julian’s ankles, to feel the warmth of living flesh against their formless dark.
You are helping me, Cillian had said in the alley.
I’m preventing you from making a logistical error, Julian had replied.
As if there was a difference. As if helping Cillian dispose of a body was simply...problem-solving. There was no moral panic, or existential crisis, just practical analysis of a situation followed by useful advice.
Advice Cillian had followed.
His chest ached as his shadows surged. Cillian had spent centuries hiding what he was.
He’d gone through those same centuries of watching humans scream, run, or fall to the ground in absolute terror when confronted with the truth of his existence.
Cillian had learned to move carefully, to wear humanity like armor, and to never allow anyone to see the void beneath.
And yet Julian had looked directly into that void and simply said, You’re leaking shadows onto the pavement.
The scent trail turned left, leading to a modest apartment building with peeling paint and a broken security camera.
Instinctively Cillian knew which apartment belonged to his mate.
It was on the fourth floor and took up the eastern corner.
Yes, there was a light glowing at one of the windows, but Cillian’s soul was in that building. Of course, he’d know where it was.
He stopped across the street, his shadows pooling at his feet, even as he was telling himself he should leave and go home. He definitely should not be standing on a public sidewalk, staring at his fated mate’s apartment like some obsessed fool.
Through the window, Cillian caught movement. Julian had clearly only just arrived home, setting down the cardboard box, removing his coat, and adjusting his glasses as he looked away from the window.
Safe. Alive. Real.
Cillian’s shadows crept across the street, drawn like moths to flame.
He yanked them back with more force than necessary. They coiled around his legs in protest, sulking again.
“We cannot simply claim him,” Cillian whispered to the darkness. “Humans don’t work that way.”
His shadows didn’t care about human customs. They wanted what they wanted and had already decided that Julian Purdy belonged to them.
To him.
Cillian watched Julian move through the apartment. He was watering the plant that turned out to be a sad-looking succulent. Once that was done, Julian opened a laptop and sat down. Did you bring work home? Is that why you’re typing so late?
I’m efficient, Julian had said. Cillian carved that memory into his consciousness.
So deep in his thoughts, Cillian barely heard a car as it passed behind him, it’s wide headlights cutting lines into the darkness.
Cillian pulled deeper into the surrounding shadows - visible one minute and completely unseen in the next, just another patch of darkness in an alley.
Clearly, Cillian needed a plan - humans had weird ideas about courting. But Cillian knew he needed to make Julian want to be claimed.
Claiming. Yes. Just the thought of it sent heat through Cillian’s form, destabilizing his human shape. He forced it back together with effort.
He’d have to wait until tomorrow. He would determine how to... what? Court him? That felt simultaneously too formal and not nearly formal enough for what Cillian wanted.
He wanted to own and keep his mate. It wouldn’t be enough for Cillian until he could consume every logical thought and blunt observation until Julian’s truth was the only truth that mattered.
In the window, Julian stood and stretched, his glasses catching the light. Cillian’s shadows lunged forward before he could stop them, reaching…
“Tomorrow,” Cillian promised from between gritted teeth as he dragged them back. “We have to plan. That means we wait until tomorrow.”
But he didn’t move from his position across the street. He simply stood in the darkness and watched his beacon through the window, memorizing every movement, every gesture.
Mine, his shadows whispered.
Cillian didn’t argue. He already knew it was true.