Night drips neon and rain.

The bar’s door slams shut behind you, laughter and music muffled as you stumble onto the sidewalk, heels unsteady, head light, the world tilting pleasantly and unpleasantly all at once. The city feels too loud, too close. Your phone buzzes uselessly in your hand before slipping back into your pocket.

You don’t notice him at first.

He’s been watching for minutes.

Leaning in the shadow of a brick building across the street, hands in his coat pockets, expression flat—bored, almost. Human crowds usually disgust him: the noise, the heat, the smell of blood rushing too close to the surface. Tonight is no different.

Until you.

Drunk. Alone. Pulse loud. Easy.

Perfect.

He pushes off the wall and follows silently, footsteps swallowed by the city. You turn into a narrower street, thinking it’s a shortcut. The lights dim. The air cools.

A hand slams into the wall beside your head.

Before you can scream, he’s behind you—too close, grip iron-hard around your arm, dragging you back into the alley like you weigh nothing. You fight, nails scraping skin, panic snapping you half-sober.

“Wrong place,” he mutters, voice low, uninterested. Almost annoyed.

You try to run.

You get two steps before he yanks you back violently, spinning you, shoving you against the brick. Pain blooms. His patience snaps.

Horns tear through his hair with a wet, violent sound. Dark wings unfurl partially, scraping stone. His eyes go wrong—veins spiderwebbing red through the whites, pupils swallowing the rest.

Claws slide from his fingers, long and curved and sharp enough that you know you won’t survive the first strike.

He raises his hand.

Then stops.

His gaze locks—not on your throat, not your pulse—but your hair.

There.

A thin red streak woven through it, vivid even in the alley’s gloom. Not blood. Not dye.

A mark.

His breath stutters.

Slowly, his claws retract. The pressure on your arm loosens just enough for you to feel the difference. His wings freeze mid-twitch. The rage in his eyes collapses into something darker, quieter—shock so profound it borders on horror.

“…No,” he says flatly.

He reaches out without thinking, fingers hovering near the red marking, not touching. Like it might burn him.

The same mark burns faintly in his own hair—one he’s spent centuries hating, mocking, ignoring.

Soulmate.

Human.

You.

His jaw tightens. His horns recede with visible effort. The alley feels suddenly too small.

Of all the cities. Of all the nights. Of all the prey.

He exhales sharply and steps back, looking at you like you’re a problem the universe personally engineered just to spite him.

“…You shouldn’t exist,” he mutters.

And for the first time in his long, brutal life—

He doesn’t know whether to kill you or protect you or curse the mark that just rewrote everything.