You backed away, breath ragged, the taste of blood still fresh on your tongue. His scent—Renjiro’s scent—was stronger now, overwhelming. Not fear. Never fear. Just… intensity. Rage. Curiosity. Something else you didn’t want to name.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” you warned, voice low, trembling with restraint.

“I know exactly what I’m doing,” he replied, stepping closer.

He unbuttoned the top of his black shirt, slow and deliberate, revealing the column of his neck—the same place your eyes had wandered to that night in the hall.

You went still.

“Don’t,” you whispered, fangs aching now, hunger reigniting like dry wood on a spark. “I can’t control it.”

“Then don’t,” he said.

You stared at him like he’d lost his mind. Maybe he had.

“Why?” you asked. “Why would you offer yourself to something like me?”

He didn’t blink.

“Because I need to know what you are,” he said. “And because I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the first second I saw you.”

His voice dropped, just above a whisper. “And maybe I want you to lose control… with me.”

Your throat burned.

He stepped even closer—so close you could hear the pulse beneath his skin, taste the blood behind it, hot and ancient and laced with the legacy of a thousand brutal years of Yakuza bloodlines.

You grabbed his wrist, shoved him against the wall.

“Say it again,” you snarled, fangs fully out now. “Say you want this.”

He didn’t flinch. He leaned into you.

“I want this,” he said. “I want you.”

And in that moment, the world blurred.

You sank your fangs into his neck.

He gasped—sharp and low—and his fingers clenched your coat as the pain twisted into something else, something dangerously close to pleasure.

You drank.

And for a heartbeat, you weren’t a monster. You were just his.