Chapter 10 Kaleigh
KALEIGH
The first sign that something is wrong is the silence outside my door.
Normally, the street hums all night with mopeds rattling over cobblestones, vendors closing up, couples arguing softly in doorways, and that constant ripple of the city breathing.
Tonight it’s just… quiet. The kind of quiet you feel at the base of your skull before a thunderstorm.
I’m at my desk, glasses perched low on my nose, reading through notes on dissociative states in combat veterans when the knock comes.
It’s soft at first, polite even, like a neighbor might knock if they were returning a package.
I set the pen down, cross the room, and press my palm against the wood, peering through the peephole.
It’s Pilar.
Her makeup is perfect as always, hair pulled back, leather jacket zipped up. But her smile isn’t there. She’s staring at the door instead of the peephole, her hands behind her back like she’s trying to keep them still.
“You’re working too late again,” she says when I open the door a crack. “Boss wants to see you at the club. Says it’s urgent.”
“I wasn’t told about a session tonight.”
“I know,” she says quickly. “Just come with me. Please. Don’t bring anything.”
It’s the please that sets me on edge. Pilar doesn’t do polite.
“I can drive myself.”
Her eyes flicker. “No. We’re taking the van.”
I should have shut the door right then. Should have called someone.
But before the thought even finishes forming, I feel the cold ring of metal at the base of my neck.
Another man, taller, steps into view from the stairwell, his face hidden by a baseball cap pulled low.
His voice is low, Spanish-accented, rough.
“Hands where I can see them, doctor.”
My heart spikes but I raise my hands slowly, palms outward, fingers trembling only a little.
“What is this?” I manage, voice steady because my training lives in my bones even when fear crawls under my skin.
“Just a ride,” Pilar says, eyes flicking away from mine. “Do what they say.”
A black cloth bag goes over my head. A sharp shove between my shoulders.
Hands guide me down the stairs, into the street, the smell of diesel and sweat closing in.
I stumble once but keep moving, counting steps, cataloguing scents, angles, distance.
Always keep a mental map. Always know the exits.
But my mind is already spiraling toward one name.
Rafe.
They push me into a van, the metal floor rattling under my knees as the doors slam. The engine starts. I hear Spanish muttered between the men, something about “la doctora” and “el toro.” The bag stinks of old oil and disinfectant. I slow my breathing, find the rhythm, and force myself to listen.
When they yank the bag off, we’re no longer in the city.
The smell of salt and gasoline is stronger now, mixed with sweat and something older.
The van’s parked inside a cavernous space, a warehouse maybe, but it’s dressed differently tonight.
The ring is back: bigger, lit with harsh white lights that slice across the concrete like blades.
Metal bleachers ring the pit. Figures lean against the railings, smoking, watching.
The air buzzes with anticipation, a predator’s hum.
They march me forward, one hand gripping my arm hard enough to bruise. My shoes scuff against the floor. My mind catalogues faces, tattoos, accents. None of it matters because at the center of the ring, under the lights, is him.
Rafe.
He’s pacing like a caged animal, shoulders hunched, fists flexing and unflexing. His shirt is gone, skin gleaming with sweat, every line of his body tight with a coiled energy that doesn’t feel human. His eyes flick up when he sees me and for a heartbeat the whole room stills.
“Why is she here?” His voice is low but it cuts through the noise like a blade.
“Showtime,” someone answers. A new man steps forward from the crowd, tall and wiry with a snake tattoo winding up his throat. He’s grinning, but it’s the kind of grin that hides a dare. “Boss wants her to see what you really are.”
Rafe’s eyes darken. “Get her out.”
The snake-tattoo man chuckles. “She’s not going anywhere until you give them a show.”
They shove me closer to the ring. My knees scrape against the edge of the mat. The lights are too bright now, bleaching the edges of everything.
“Rafe,” I say, my voice softer than I expect. “Don’t—”
But I don’t know what I’m asking him not to do.
Something shifts in him even as I speak. He’s still standing, but his breathing changes, deeper, faster, like a drumbeat starting under his ribs. The muscles along his back bunch and roll. His hands curl into fists, nails biting into his palms.
“Move back,” he growls, but his voice is already warping, lower, thicker, like it’s being pulled from another chest.
The men around me laugh, jeer, start chanting “Toro” like they’re calling a bull out of a gate.
I take a step back but my feet hit a barrier. One of them’s holding me there, fingers clamped around my arm.
Then it happens.
The shift is not like in the books. It isn’t neat or magical.
It’s violent. Bones crack and stretch under skin that ripples and darkens.
Muscles swell, veins rising like ropes. His jaw elongates slightly, teeth flashing white.
His eyes go fully gold, burning like molten metal.
The sound he makes is a low bellow that vibrates through my bones.
The crowd erupts. Some cheer. Some go silent.
The men holding me freeze.
Rafe moves.
It’s not a charge. It’s a sweep, a flash of motion too fast for his size, and the first man goes flying across the ring, slamming into the barricade with a sound like a door being kicked off its hinges.
Another reaches for a weapon but Rafe’s already there, grabbing him by the collar, lifting him clear off the ground, and throwing him hard enough that the floor shudders under my feet.
I can’t look away. Every part of me wants to.
My training screams at me to find a corner, shield my head, do something, but my eyes stay locked on him.
On the way his body moves—massive now, shoulders broad enough to block the light, horns curving from his skull like they’ve always been there, not new but revealed.
He’s not Rafe. Not entirely. He’s the bull they’ve been chanting for. And yet—when his gaze snaps back to me, there’s a flicker inside it that’s still him.
He clears the ring in seconds. Men scatter, some bolting for the doors, some too stunned to move.
The snake-tattoo man tries to stand his ground, fumbling for a pistol tucked at his waist. Rafe hits him before he can aim.
The gun skitters across the floor. The man drops, groaning, but Rafe doesn’t finish him.
He just stands over him, chest heaving, breath loud and heavy like an engine running hot.
He turns toward me.
The crowd is gone now, a rush of feet and shouts fading into the echoing space beyond the lights. It’s just us.
He steps closer, horns lowering slightly as his breathing slows. The gold in his eyes dims, replaced by something darker, something I’ve seen before when he sits across from me and tries not to say what’s in his head.
“Kay,” he says. Or maybe it’s my name. His voice is ragged but it’s his voice.
I try to move but my knees buckle. The adrenaline hits all at once, a tidal wave that leaves me trembling. My vision narrows. His hand—huge now, rough—reaches for me, not to grab, but to steady.
The last thing I feel is heat radiating off him, a kind of heat that isn’t just body temperature but something older, heavier, something that makes every nerve in my palm flare when it touches mine.
Then the floor tilts.
And everything goes dark.