Chapter 5
Chapter five
Damien
Patience is a curious thing.
For humans, it’s a virtue to aspire to. For vampires, it’s the default state of existence. When you have endless time, waiting becomes as natural as breathing once was.
Yet as I watched the man observing the Repository, the building where Luna lived, from across the street, I found my patience wearing dangerously thin.
He wasn’t particularly remarkable—medium build, nondescript clothing, the practiced stillness of someone accustomed to surveillance work. But the way his gaze remained fixed on the building made something ancient and territorial stir within me. A feeling I hadn’t experienced in…well, a while.
My phone vibrated. Elliot.
“Tell me you have good news,” my maker’s voice rasped through the speaker, weaker than it had been just days ago.
“The preparations are in place,” I replied, keeping my voice low despite the distance between myself and Luna’s watcher. “We’ll be attending Madame Selene’s gala this evening.”
“And the Rookwood woman? Is she cooperating?”
I thought of Luna’s stubborn determination during our etiquette lessons, her quick mind absorbing centuries of supernatural protocols while maintaining that uniquely defiant gleam in her brown eyes.
“She’s…exactly as advertised,” I said. “Resourceful. Tenacious.”
“But can she be trusted, Damien?” The question came with a wet, rattling cough that made my chest tighten.
“She has her own reasons for wanting the Shadow Fang,” I said. “Our interests align for now.”
“For now,” Elliot echoed, his ancient voice tinged with warning. “Remember what happened in your home. Alliances of convenience have a way of dissolving precisely when you need them most.”
My jaw tightened at the memory. “That was different. I was different.”
“Were you? Three centuries is but a moment, my child. The fae prince still lives beneath your skin, no matter how deeply you bury him.”
I didn’t respond. Elliot had always known exactly which wounds to probe—a skill that made him both an excellent maker and, occasionally, an insufferable one.
“The report you requested on Luna’s daughter’s condition has been uploaded to your secure server,” Elliot continued after a moment. “Dr. Felix Morgan’s treatment regimen is innovative, but futile. The girl has perhaps a year. Maybe more, if she’s resilient.”
The familiar weight of foreknowledge settled on my shoulders. Luna was racing against a clock she couldn’t see, pursuing hope with a desperation I recognized all too intimately.
“Thank you,” I said. “I’ll keep you updated on our progress.”
“Damien.” Elliot’s voice softened. “You know what the rest of the Vampire Council will do if they see you tonight at the masquerade with Luna, even if she is a former wolf shifter.”
“I do.”
“And you’re prepared to pay that price?”
The price would likely be instant distrust, a barrage of questions, possible banishment. Or worse.
I didn’t answer as the man across the street checked his watch for the third time in as many minutes.
“Just remember why we need the Shadow Fang,” Elliot said. “Personal entanglements will only complicate matters.”
I opened my mouth to argue that this wasn’t personal, that there would be no entanglements, but I simply said, “Understood.”
After we disconnected, I remained in the shadows, my mind returning to Luna. A complication I hadn’t anticipated despite my exhaustive research.
She wasn’t what I expected. The dossier I’d compiled had painted a clear picture: skilled thief, estranged daughter of a prominent Alpha, woman desperate to save her daughter. The perfect blend of ability and motivation for what needed to be done.
What the dossier hadn’t captured was the way she threw herself into research with complete abandonment, or how her eyes kept darting toward the direction of the patients’ ward while we studied in Felix’s basement library as though waiting for a sound, a signal. A glimmer of hope.
The file hadn’t mentioned her unexpected laughter that somehow sounded both cynical and buoyant. Or the fierce intelligence behind her cavalier facade.
Most troublingly, it hadn’t prepared me for my own response to her presence, the way my carefully maintained walls seemed to fracture whenever she challenged me with those unnervingly perceptive eyes.
For three centuries, I’d cultivated control as meticulously as Renaissance nobles had cultivated their gardens. I’d learned to suppress the wild impulses of my fae heritage beneath the cold calculation of my vampire nature.
Yet within days of meeting Luna, I’d found myself making a joke about dungeons and sex swings, of all things. Utterly undignified. Completely unplanned.
She made me unpredictable to myself. A dangerous development.
Across the street, the man glanced at his phone, then pocketed it and began walking toward the Repository’s side wall with newfound purpose.
I moved before conscious decision formed.
A blur of speed that would have been invisible to human eyes.
In the narrow alley beside the building, I intercepted him, my hand closing around his throat with just enough pressure to communicate the seriousness of his situation without crushing his windpipe.
“You’ve been observing this building for one hour and twenty-three minutes,” I said pleasantly. “I find myself curious as to why.”
Fear bloomed in his eyes—the instinctive recognition of predator by prey. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I smiled, allowing just the barest hint of fang to show. “Let’s try once more, with honesty this time. Who sent you to watch Luna Rookwood?”
His pulse raced beneath my fingers. Fascinating how human bodies betrayed them so consistently.
“I’m just doing a job,” he choked out. “Atlas Security. We were hired to keep tabs on her movements.”
“By whom?” I asked, loosening my grip just enough to allow easier speech.
He sucked in a breath. “I don’t know. I swear. The contract came through standard channels just a few days ago. All I know is I’m supposed to watch both exits and report when she leaves the building.”
I studied him, sorting truth from lies with senses honed over centuries. He wasn’t lying about his ignorance, which was both frustrating and concerning.
A few days ago… That was when we’d both arrived here from Japan and decided to hunt the Shadow Fang.
“You’re going to do something for me,” I said, catching his gaze with mine.
The compulsion slid from me like silk, wrapping around his consciousness.
“You’ll report that Ms. Rookwood remained inside all day.
You’ll request reassignment to a different surveillance target. And you’ll forget this conversation.”
His pupils dilated as the compulsion took hold. “Report…remained inside. Request reassignment. Forget conversation.”
“Excellent.” I released him and straightened his collar. “Now walk away and do not look back.”
As he departed, blank-faced and obedient, I felt the familiar disquiet that accompanied using compulsion. A necessary evil, but one that always left a bitter aftertaste reminiscent of the ash and elm berries my fae mother had used to ward off dark magic in another lifetime.
I checked my watch. In forty-five minutes, Luna and I would attend Selene’s gala, moving one step closer to the Shadow Fang. One step closer to saving Elliot. One step closer to a salvation I wasn’t certain I deserved.
And I still hadn’t told Luna about the price of finding the Shadow Fang. A price that would bind us together far more thoroughly than our fictitious engagement.
The truth was, I’d selected Luna not just for her skills or her access to Dr. Felix’s library, but for a quality rarer than either—her complete disregard for supernatural hierarchies and politics. The very trait that had gotten her exiled from her pack made her uniquely valuable for what lay ahead.
If I’d been completely forthright about everything, Luna might have refused outright. And I couldn’t risk that refusal. Not with Elliot deteriorating so rapidly. Not with the Shadow Fang representing our last, best hope.
So I’d chosen calculation over transparency. Strategy over honesty. The vampire’s path over the fae’s.
I moved toward the Repository’s front door and found my thoughts returning to Luna’s expression when she’d gazed up toward the patients’ ward. The raw determination. The barely concealed fear. The love that defied reason and self-preservation alike.
I recognized that particular combination intimately. I’d worn it myself once, centuries ago, when I’d allowed myself such uncomplicated devotion. Before blood and politics and centuries of calculated decisions had hollowed me into something colder and more efficient.
Tonight, Luna would step into a world where such naked emotion was considered a weakness to be exploited. And I would be responsible for guiding her through it unscathed.
The irony wasn’t lost on me.
I’d spent three centuries avoiding emotional entanglements with beings whose lifespans were mere flickers compared to mine.
I’d buried enough loves, both of my family and otherwise, to populate a small cemetery of the heart.
Each loss had carved away another piece of whatever soul had survived my turning.
Yet here I was, feeling strangely protective of a woman I barely knew, a woman whose usefulness to my plans should have been my only concern.
That troubled me.
At least, that’s what I told myself as I imagined how she might look in the midnight-blue gown I’d picked out for her, with its strategic slit allowing access to concealed weapons.
The thought purged my mind of everything else, pulled me up short, still several feet away from the front door. The thought had also forced me out my door over two hours early.
Come on, Damien. Don’t be a fool.
I gathered my wits enough to finally knock on the door.
Felix himself answered, wearing a fitted tuxedo.
“Ah, Mr. Cross,” he said. “Luna’s just finishing up. Come on in.”
He led me into the Repository’s eclectic interior—part medical facility, part mystical laboratory, part architectural fever dream. The building hummed with the distinctive vibration of active magical wards, layered with a complexity that spoke to Felix’s considerable power.
Luna said he was a shifter, but I sensed so much more about him.
“I still can’t believe you and Luna are going to one of Selene’s balls. How exciting!” he said with a wide smile. “What is it that you two are after there again?”
Before I could respond, a door opened somewhere up the stairs, and the sound of heels clicking against tile flooring approached.
“I don’t understand why these things can’t be flat—“ Luna’s voice cut off abruptly when she saw us down below.
At the sight of her, I found myself rendered completely speechless.
The midnight-blue gown I’d selected clung to her figure like it had been painted onto her skin, the fabric shimmering with subtle enchantments woven into the material. A strategic slit revealed her leg up to mid-thigh—practical for movement but devastatingly elegant.
Her blonde hair was swept up, revealing the graceful line of her neck and shoulders, and her eyes—those perceptive, challenging eyes—were accentuated by smoky makeup that made them appear both more mysterious and more penetrating.
“You’re staring,” she said, a hint of vulnerability beneath her characteristic bravado. “Is something wrong? I’m not used to dressing like this.”
“I…” I struggled to recalibrate my thoughts into something resembling coherence. “Nothing’s wrong. You look…formidable.”
One corner of her mouth quirked upward. “Formidable? That’s your go-to compliment?”
“I meant it as the highest praise,” I said, finally finding my equilibrium. “You look like exactly what you are, someone no one should underestimate.”
Her expression softened. “Good. You don’t look too shabby yourself.”
She floated down the steps, and I held my arm out toward her without even realizing it.
She smiled as she took it and leaned up to whisper in my ear, “Those pretty panties you picked out for me? Awful trip to Wedgie City.”
“I apolo—“
“So I’m not wearing any,” she whispered.
If I’d had a heartbeat, it would have sputtered and died.
Troubling.
Fucking troubling.