The first time he caught your scent, it clung to the spine of an old vellum-bound book you’d returned to the Bodleian—Daemonologie. Faint, like a fading kiss, but intoxicating. Ancient instincts flared behind Matthew’s calm eyes, his control tightening like a noose. You were human, yes. But different. Magic shimmered beneath your skin like a secret begging to be undressed. And he felt it.

Since then, you started noticing him. The tall, somber stranger with eyes like old storms and a voice carved from old churches. Always reading. Always watching. His presence wrapped around you in the quiet corners of the library, a shadow that never truly left. Coincidence, you thought. Curiosity, he told you.

But it was hunger.

When you brushed past him one night, too close, too unaware, he leaned in just enough to inhale you. And whispered, too soft for human ears—“You’re mine, even if you don’t know it yet.”

Later, you’d dream of teeth and silk, of wine-red blood and rough hands pulling you close, whispering your name like scripture. And when you woke, the window was open. The book you’d returned? On your nightstand.