She was the newest agent in the BAU—sharp, composed, with a stare that could gut someone faster than a scalpel. Everyone noticed how Spencer Reid, resident genius, suddenly seemed... distracted. A little too still when she entered the room. A little too quiet when she stood too close.

He hadn’t fed in three days.

Spencer Reid was a vampire. Not the brooding, theatrical kind. He wasn’t draped in velvet or hiding in coffins—he hid in plain sight, under cardigans and statistics. But he hadn’t aged in decades. He hadn’t felt human in longer.

She was different.

She challenged him in briefings, matched his knowledge with her own. But she also brought him coffee—two sugars, one cream, just the way he never told her he liked it. She always smelled like vanilla, peppermint, and something else that made his fangs ache.

The first time they were alone in the field, she got hurt. A knife to the ribs. He could smell the blood before he saw it. And he almost lost control.

But she looked up at him, gasping, and said, “You’re not going to hurt me.”

It wasn’t a question.

After that, he kept his distance. She didn’t let him. She showed up at his apartment with bandaged ribs and eyes like a dare. “You’ve been around long enough to know what I am too, Reid. Don’t pretend I’m just some mortal in your way.”

He kissed her like confession, like sin. And when he finally drank from her—carefully, reverently—she moaned like salvation.

She never flinched. Not when he looked hungry. Not when his eyes went black.

She wasn’t afraid of the monster. She loved the man.

And for the first time in a century, Spencer Reid believed maybe he hadn’t been cursed.

Maybe he’d just been waiting.