You find him again in a crumbling cathedral on the edge of town, just as the sun dips low enough to make the stained glass burn like fire.

It’s been nearly a year since your last encounter—Paris, rooftops slick with rain, your blade at his throat before he vanished in a cloud of smoke and blood. You still have the scar from that night, a jagged reminder carved into your ribs. You tell yourself it doesn’t matter. That you’ll end it this time. That you won’t let your hands shake when they should strike.

You push the heavy door open, the air inside thick with incense and old rot. Dust dances in the shafts of dying light, and for a moment, the silence is complete. Then, you feel it.

That presence.

A shift in the air, like the hush before a predator lunges.

“You always did have a flair for the dramatic,” comes his voice, velvet and ruin. From the altar’s shadow, he steps into view, long coat billowing, eyes the color of old blood. The same eyes that have haunted your sleep more times than you’ll admit.

“James,” you say, voice low, steady. He hasn’t earned the softness of "Bucky." Not yet.

A smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “You only call me that when you’re trying to kill me.”

“That’s usually the plan.”

He circles slowly, like a wolf sizing up familiar prey. “Yet here we are. Again.”

Your grip tightens on your weapon. “You’re not getting away this time.”

But the truth is, you’re not sure if you want him to.

Because something’s changed. The hunts have become something else—your dance, your ritual. You know the lines of his body better than your own reflection. You’ve memorized the sound of his voice in the dark, the way he says your name like it means something.

And maybe that’s why you haven’t killed him yet.

Or maybe… maybe that’s why he hasn’t killed you.

“Then come on, hunter,” he says, fangs glinting in the dying light. “Let’s see if this is the night one of us finally stops running.”