Chapter 16 New Prey
NEW PREY
THANE
Iwatched her walk away from where I had left her, and every step she took toward that building felt like a small act of violence against something inside me.
She had no idea what she did to me. But then how could she?
How could she know that simply turning her back to go home would feel like this?
Though I had reminded myself that I had also been the one to say goodbye…
my restraint would only stretch too far around her.
Ridiculous, I told myself. Weak. She was just a girl, just a human girl with soft, fluffy hair and big hazel eyes.
Eyes that had a way of looking at me like I was not already dangerously damaged.
I should have turned and left. I should have melted back into the crowd and forgotten the way her skin had felt against my fingers.
The way her voice had said my name like it was something worthy of being spoken.
Instead, I remained in the shadow of that tree, my hands curled into fists in my pockets as I tracked her retreating form with my eyes like I had been chained to the sight of her.
She glanced back once before going inside, a quick, nervous look over her shoulder that shouldn’t have meant anything. But my demon surged at the small act all the same. Satisfaction rolling through me like a dark tide. She looked for us, and it purred.
I pulled in a breath through my teeth, trying to shake the feeling off, but it clung stubbornly. When the doors to the building slid closed behind her, the city suddenly felt wrong, too quiet, too exposed, as if something essential had been taken away.
“Fucking stupid,” I muttered to myself as I pulled my phone from my pocket. This was precisely what I had tried to avoid. Attachment. Focus. Curiosity. All those human weaknesses that ended in one inevitable thing…
Pain.
I looked down at the screen anyway, at the contact that had not existed an hour ago.
Alora. I had typed her name without thinking, my fingers moving with the certainty of something primal, and now it stared back at me as if it had always belonged there. Just her name. No last name. No title. Nothing formal to keep a distance between us.
My Alora.
The first time I had spoken it aloud, it had tasted strange on my tongue, soft and bright and wrong for a mouth like mine. Yet now my demon curled around the sound of it, possessive. Like it had been waiting all this time for that single word to be given form.
‘Our name.
Our girl.’
It whispered. I closed my eyes briefly, annoyed that the simple act of thinking about her was enough to make the creature in me purr again.
A low, content rumble that I had not heard before, as it had never felt this sated…
this satisfied. But how? It wasn’t like I had fed it with what it craved the most, which was usually pain and suffering.
No, it had simply been content to be around her, and even now, all I felt was a strange kind of peace I had never known before.
“For fuck’s sake, just send the message, you coward,” I scolded myself, deciding to send the message, if not for my sake, then at least for hers. She deserved that much. Because she needed someone in her life that she could call if something happened again.
Yes… that was all this was. A practical step. Nothing more. My thumb hovered over the screen for a moment before the words fell into place as naturally as drawing breath,
Thanks for the date, my little dreamer.
I stared at the sentence for a moment. It was more honest than I liked, a confession that this had been exactly what she had called it. No matter how I had tried to deny it out loud…
A date.
Time I had willingly given to her despite knowing the risks.
Despite trying everything in me to walk away from her.
But in the end, she had set fire to my will and danced in its ashes as I had given her more of myself than I ever had to another.
Answers reluctantly offered, and in return, she had shared pieces of herself she had not meant to give away to someone like me.
I should have deleted the message, rewritten it into something cold and distant. Something that would keep her from thinking any of this had meant anything. I hit send instead… fuck!
The faint chime from her phone reached me even out here, my senses already tuned to everything that belonged to her as she stood in the lobby still, no doubt waiting for an elevator.
The sound brushed against the edges of my awareness like a touch, and for a moment I imagined her expression when she saw it.
The way her lips would curl into a tempting smile, the way her eyes would brighten.
The thought should not have made my chest feel tight.
But it did anyway.
‘You will fall.
You can’t walk away.
She will be ours.
Time is mine.’
My demon murmured, its voice a satisfied growl inside my skull as if it had already won the battle against me. The question now was, why wasn’t I upset by the idea? Or more importantly, why was I still out here when she had already gone inside?
Because something was wrong.
The realization had been creeping up on me ever since she had said the word father with that tightness around her mouth, that thread of fear she tried and failed to hide.
It had sharpened further when she had stopped me from walking her to the door.
At first, I thought it might have been that she had been too ashamed to be seen with me.
That I was some dirty little secret she wanted to hide from rich parents that would definitely not approve.
But then she had spoken of her father in a way that told me this was not the case at all.
That no matter who I was, he would react in the same way.
The proof of this had been when she stepped in front of me like a small shield between me and the building. The way she had told me I couldn’t come any closer. My kind were made for many things. Being told no was not one of them.
It wasn’t just protectiveness. She had been right about that.
Protection was a choice. Control was a need.
I knew the difference better than most. Because I had heard something familiar in her voice, something that had lived inside me for as long as I could remember.
The awareness of chains others could not see.
I lifted my gaze to the tall face of glass and steel before me. I already knew which windows belonged to her family.
‘Go to her.
Find her.
Seek her out.
Find the father and destroy him.’
The demon urged, and for once its desire was not wrapped in blood or violence, but in something far more dangerous.
Need and protection.
The distinction soothed it differently. A new game.
A new hunt. It stretched inside me with a dark, eager ripple.
I crossed the street, my steps eating up the space and doing so with more ease now that I didn’t have to slow my natural stride.
Alora was a lot smaller than I was, so it became apparent quite quickly that she would struggle to keep up.
So, I had slowed to a more leisurely pace and found myself, for once, at ease with it.
But now, I had no such reason to go slow, the opposite in fact, as I was eager to discover exactly how her family treated her. Especially her father.
If I witnessed any physical abuse, then nothing would stop me from turning murderous.
I soon stood on the rooftop, the hum of machinery vibrating through the concrete under my boots, the faint buzz of city life now a distant murmur below.
The sky above Shanghai was never truly dark at night, the light pollution turning it into a dim bruise of color.
But up here, it felt quieter, cleaner somehow, with something peaceful in the sun setting on the horizon.
‘Let me out.’
My demon growled softly, pressing against my skin.
I closed my eyes for a moment and allowed it, just enough.
Bones shifted, muscles thickened, power flared through me in a tidal surge that would have flattened a lesser creature.
It didn’t hurt. It never did anymore. It was simply a return to what I truly was.
The weight of wings unfurled from my back in a rush, each movement sending a sharp, accusing ache through memories I kept buried.
Feathers and darkness, flesh and shadow. A monstrosity by human standards.
A weapon by my father’s kind.
A fall would have killed any mortal man from this height.
As for me, I stepped off the edge without hesitation.
For a heartbeat, gravity claimed me, the city rushing up, a blur of the building in my vision.
Then my wings snapped out, the force of their spread dragging at my shoulders as air caught beneath them.
The drop turned into a glide, my body angling toward the familiar section of the building.
The one that faced the quieter side street.
I kept to the shadows cast by the structure itself, my movements precise, practiced.
I had done this a thousand times in other cities, for other reasons.
To hunt. To kill. But tonight, I did it for a girl who liked poetry and egg drop soup and who spoke about books like they were both sanctuary and rebellion.
“Ridiculous,” I muttered again, yet I slowed as I reached her level, my wings folding close to my body as my boots found purchase on the metal ledge beside the balcony.
The ornate railings were flattering attempts at luxury, polished and cold.
I crouched low, my wings folding tighter and then pulling inward, disappearing into nothing, as I let the human shell fall back into place.
It was always jarring, that sudden compression of power, the way it all tried to fit inside something human, this vessel I had been born with.
My demon was too big, too strong, too unstable to merge fully with my life.
It had never allowed me complete control, fighting me for years, but right now, we felt more like one than ever before.
Before, I had only focused on her room, but as I moved around to take in the rest of the apartment, I found it was exactly what I had expected.
Large. Expensive. Clinical. Beautiful in a way that felt lifeless.
Everything was sharp edges and polished surfaces, as if the air itself had been ironed flat.
Clean lines. Neutral tones. No clutter. No softness. Everything felt like it was purchased for one purpose and one purpose only… expense under the veil of function. A stage set not to be truly lived in but chosen to portray wealth to others in their social circles, no doubt.
I searched instinctively for signs of her…
A misplaced book, a blanket thrown over the back of a sofa, or a mug left on a table.
Even a stack of worn paperbacks half hidden beside a plant.
Little rebellions. Little pieces of Alora, trying to exist in a space that had not been designed with her in mind.
But there were none. It was like she didn’t exist in this world at all.
Speaking of my girl, she walked into view and, like always, my heart raced at the sight of her.
She had changed out of her clothes from the day, slipping into something comfier, an oversized top that fell off one shoulder, loose shorts, bare feet.
She carried her bag clipped against her side like a shield, her fingers tight around the strap.
Her hair was slightly mussed from the day, fluffing around her face in a way that made my demon rumble in approval.
‘Our little fluff.’
It crooned, then corrected itself with a possessive growl.
‘No… our little dreamer.’
Her body language shifted the moment she stepped fully into the open space of the living room.
The easy looseness she had carried with me, the hesitant smiles, the small bursts of laughter, all of it dimmed.
Like someone had turned the brightness down on her soul.
Her shoulders drew inward, her head dipped slightly, her movements more careful as she crossed the room.
Someone else entered from the opposite side.
A man. Mid-fifties. Neatly pressed shirt, expensive watch, a phone in his hand that he did not look up from at first. Everything about him screamed control.
His posture. His clothes. Even the way he stood, back straight, his chin lifted, as if he expected the world to bend around him.
I instantly despised him.
And now it felt like my demon had a new target…
To eradicate.