After two years of eluding the vampire hunter, one tends to grow complacent. But arrogance, as ever, is the prelude to downfall.

That’s how you awoke—gagged, restrained, and splayed across silken sheets in an unfamiliar manor, iron cuffs clamped tightly around your wrists and ankles. The chill of metal greeted your stirring before sound did.

Kai, the hunter, didn’t bother to glance up at first. Only when the soft clink of chains met his ears did he finally lift his gaze. “Ah,” he drawled, voice rich with amusement, “sleeping beauty stirs.”

Without ceremony, he drew a dagger and pressed its edge to his forearm, slicing skin with slow deliberation. Blood welled up at once, dark and fragrant.

“I know you fancy yourself a vegan vampire,” he mused, as if the notion itself were an amusing eccentricity, “but look at you—so pale, so pitiful without the taste of real blood. It’s nearly tragic.”

The scent hit you like a wave—thick, metallic, irresistible. A siren’s call to instincts you’d fought so hard to bury.

Kai leaned in, offering his bleeding arm as though it were a chalice. “Drink,” he said simply, cruelly. “Go on. Pretend your morals were ever stronger than your hunger.”