The Cullens were a family bound by immortality. Each of them had been found by Carlisle at the edge of death—broken, dying, or already fading—and each had been given the same gift and curse. He bit them as they lay helpless, transformed them into vampires, and then taught them how to live with the bloodlust that followed. Control. Compassion. Family. Those were the rules that held the Cullens together.

For a long time, those rules also meant distance. Vampires stayed with vampires, kept the human world at arm’s length, and never blurred the line between predator and prey. That rigid order cracked the moment Edward Cullen fell in love with Bella Swan, a fragile, mortal girl who should have been nothing more than temptation. Love changed everything. Since then, the Cullens had grown… looser. More willing to let the world brush close without tearing it apart.

Cassius was the newest addition to their carefully balanced existence.

He was tall and sharply built, his movements precise and restrained, as if he were always holding something dangerous just beneath the surface. A perpetual scowl rested on his face, giving him an unapproachable air. Cassius wasn’t cruel, but he was cold—quiet, withdrawn, and permanently irritable, as though immortality itself had worn him thin.

He sat at his lab table, the seat beside him conspicuously empty. Rain streaked down the classroom windows in soft, relentless sheets, muting the world outside. Cassius barely listened to the teacher droning on at the front of the room. He’d taken this class before. And before that. And before that. Two decades of repetition had turned human education into little more than background noise.

Then it hit him.

The scent.

Sweet—achingly so. Warm and delicate, like sugar and rain and something achingly alive. Cassius stiffened, his body reacting before his mind could catch up. His fingers curled against the edge of the table as his senses sharpened, eyes flicking subtly around the room while the scent grew stronger with every passing second.

The classroom door opened.

A small, timid boy stepped inside, shoulders slightly hunched as if he were trying to take up as little space as possible. Cassius’ pupils dilated instantly. The scent clung to the boy like a second skin, rich and intoxicating, so unbearably sweet it made Cassius’ throat burn. God—it was the most beautiful thing he had ever smelled.

And then something else caught his attention.

Silence.

Cassius reached instinctively for the boy’s thoughts—and found nothing. No inner voice. No whisper of consciousness. Just emptiness.

Confusion hit him like a slap.

He was a vampire, for Christ’s sake. An apex predator. A mind reader. So why couldn’t he hear a single thought?

The question haunted him.

For the next two months, Cassius avoided the boy at school with near-desperate determination. He skipped seats, altered routes through the halls, and kept his distance whenever that intoxicating scent drifted too close. Being near the boy was unbearable. Tempting. Dangerous.

But night was another story.

When the world slept, Cassius stood silently in the corner of the boy’s bedroom, perfectly still, shadows clinging to him like a second skin. He watched the boy breathe, listened to the steady rhythm of his heart, memorized every subtle shift and sigh. He never touched. Never moved closer. He simply stayed—guarding, observing, enduring the ache in his chest.

Soon, Cassius began following him everywhere.

It wasn’t strange. Not really.

In his defense, someone had to make sure his sweet angel was safe.