Kazimir
There are old stories that say vampires do not feel. If only it were true.
I locked my office door behind me and exhaled, slow and even.
The air here always held a note of sandalwood and secrets, the two things I permitted to linger.
I crossed to the window—a single slab of glass, bulletproof and enchanted, twenty feet long by ten high.
Below, the main floor of Obsidian pulsed and shifted with its purple-lit flesh-market energy, a maze of black leather and bodies, all engaged in transactions of lust or leverage.
The glass let me watch without being seen, though I’d learned centuries ago that true power lay in observation, not surveillance.
I tried to slow my heartbeat, though it had no biological reason to quicken.
Devon Wade. The syllables still vibrated along my spine, unwelcome as fever dreams. She was, by every measure, an impossibility—a woman whose presence ignited in me not only hunger but a fractured recognition I couldn’t place.
For years, I’d survived on the disciplined severing of desire from appetite, the neat partitioning of what I needed from what I wanted.
Now, after a single night, I found myself in pieces.
I paced. Three steps from the desk to the liquor cabinet, pause, finger the bottle.
Glenfarclas, 1972, a gift from Bohdan the day he wrested control of his first club from the demon cartels.
I didn’t drink, but I liked the way the light fractured through the amber, splintering patterns onto the black veneer of my desk.
The furniture here was overkill—imported Bulgarian rosewood, hand-planed to a mirrored shine.
Behind it, my father’s chair, the one piece from my childhood home I’d allowed to survive the passage of centuries.
I ran my hands over its arms; the old carving nearly worn smooth.
She’d sat one floor down in the conference room barely twenty minutes ago, and I could still sense her everywhere, the way you smell rain after a lightning strike.
The pull was more than mate recognition; I was certain.
The stories about true mates were legion in the supernatural community, and every one of them glossed over the blood and agony that actually accompanied it.
Nobody ever described the rage—the kind that stripped centuries of composure down to bare wire.
For me, it arrived as a needle jab at first, an itch beneath the breastbone.
Now it was a steel spike hammered directly into the sternum.
I stared at my reflection: blue eyes gone matte, hair disheveled in a way I would never permit if anyone else were present. I’d spent centuries learning that control was the only true currency—now I looked as if I’d been in a bar fight. Perhaps I had.
A soft knock at the door. I straightened my cuffs and buttoned my jacket. “Enter.”
Yuri slipped inside, as silent as the ghost he was. He brought a chill with him, as if he’d been standing outside for hours rather than seconds.
I didn’t speak. He knew I disliked questions without value.
“She is home,” he said, voice barely more than a vibration. “Apartment is above a coin laundry, Frankford Ave. Three locks on a flimsy door, no security system, window opens to fire escape.”
Yuri had once tracked a traitor through four cities and seven safe houses without being spotted. If he said the security was shit, it was shit.
“Condition?” I asked.
He recited his findings—clinically and without emotion. “Efficiency unit. Spotless. I doubt there is food in the refrigerator. Water heater unreliable. No signs of drug use or visits from others. She sleeps on a discount store futon.”
I pressed thumb and forefinger to my eyes. “Any signs she is watched?”
He shook his head, expression unmoving. “Nobody cares about her there. It is a bad neighborhood, but she is invisible.”
Invisible. I’d thought the word an advantage, once.
“Station men outside?” I said.
“Two. They will rotate every eight hours. I told them not to be seen, but—” His gaze flicked up, for once meeting mine. “If you wish, I can stay there myself.”
The offer was unprecedented. Yuri thrived on the periphery of my world, never at its heart.
“That will not be necessary.” I said it too quickly, and Yuri’s eyebrow ticked upward a fraction. “She must be protected, but not suffocated. Make sure the men understand. Any approach to her window or door, and I want to know before they finish the step.”
He nodded, the movement barely perceptible.
I returned to the glass, this time letting myself look for her ghost among the crowd. Already gone, of course, and yet her presence hung in the air, a gossamer thing that somehow weighted the entire room.
Yuri shifted his weight—another anomaly. “I will see to the men now, sir.”
He paused at the door. “You are…concerned for her,” he said, and if he’d punched me in the chest, it would have been less jarring. I almost told him to get out.
“Her existence creates new variables. That is all.” I let each syllable settle like cooled lead.
He nodded, but the pause was there, longer than etiquette required. “I will not fail you,” he said, softer now, and left.
I stood in silence, listening to the muted throb of music through the glass.
For a moment, I remembered Maksym and Taras’s mother—the one who believed, for a brief and blinding season, that she could redeem my soul with her stubborn love.
She had died with the illusion intact, never knowing how little of me she’d actually reached.
Then there was Nikolay’s mother, a study in cunning—she’d seduced me as a power play, and when it failed, she disappeared into the underworld and never looked back.
Bohdan’s mother, a mistake born of lust and fury; she’d left me with the only child who, despite her bitter manipulation, had brought a needed degree of joy and lightness to my life.
But Lucia’s mother—that wound left a lasting scar.
I’d loved her with a deep and abiding love.
Losing her taught me that even the oldest monsters could break in places that never quite healed.
Even so, she was not my mate. Not the one chosen exclusively for me as the other half of my soul.
I had given up on the idea that a monster such as myself deserved a love such as that.
Until Devon Wade.
I pulled out the chair behind the desk, lowered myself into it, and pressed the heels of my hands against the desktop, holding them there until the urge to shatter glass or bone passed.
This was not a problem. I would make it a variable, like any other.
But alone in that office, the scent of sandalwood and new beginnings thick in the air, I felt—for the first time in centuries—not like a king, but a man.
I barely had time to gather the tatters of my composure before Bohdan arrived, early as always—timeliness being his preferred method of psychological warfare.
He swept into the office with practiced efficiency, a bespoke blazer over an open-collared silk shirt, the cut and the colors both calculated to project the right measure of contemporary predator.
His hair was gelled into glossy submission, jaw clean-shaven, and the scent he wore was some brutalist concoction meant to evoke expensive rebellion.
He looked every inch the mogul-in-training, which is why I kept him out of actual negotiations.
He stopped in front of the desk, arms folded, weight thrown back onto one heel. “You rang, Father?” he said, just enough mockery in the title to let me know he’d been drinking.
I motioned for him to sit; he dropped into the guest chair and sprawled, giving the impression that gravity was something he allowed as a favor.
“Good evening, Bohdan,” I said. “The demonstration with the Shibari binding was…effective.”
He grinned, sharp and sly. “The crowd loved it. Your rules, but my improvisation. Even the witches had to admit it wasn’t boring.”
“People remember the sensation,” I said. “But I care more for the message: Inexperience breeds vulnerability. Show the new blood what happens when they ignore protocol.”
He shrugged. “Somebody has to entertain the masses, no? But yes, showing safety with play is important. It keeps the room watchers free to monitor without incident.”
He was proving to be an intelligent manager. Keeping patrons safe while they were within the walls of my club was as important as ensuring they enjoyed themselves.
He tapped the edge of my desk with a single nail. “So. What happened in the foyer earlier? We had to call in extra security to hold people back. Do I need to worry?”
“No.” I let the word rest between us, heavy. “But there is a new variable. A woman. I have reason to believe may require employment here—if only as a favor to one of our allies. She’s currently working as a waitress.”
He arched a brow. “Human?”
“Unknown.” I let the syllable float. “For now, assume supernatural. I will vet her personally.”
He whistled, low and theatrical. “It’s been a while since you handled onboarding yourself.”
“There is no room for error. Once I have briefed her, I want you to bring her on as a server, preferably starting on a slow night. I want you to monitor her interactions with both the donors and the regulars. Any anomaly, you report directly to me.”
“Of course,” he said. His posture never changed, but I could see the calculations running behind his eyes.
He would want to know what made this woman special enough for my personal attention, but he also knew better than to ask.
Instead, he gave me a slow, deliberate nod.
“You know, Father, sometimes you can just say you’re bored and want new entertainment. ”
I allowed myself the smallest smile. “Noted.”
He stood, straightening his cuffs. “Anything else?”
“That is all.”
He sketched a lazy salute and left, leaving behind only the tang of his cologne and the sound of club music thumping through the ceiling.