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Of course, it would be here—this husk of holy ambition, this temple that once promised salvation. The irony isn’t lost on me. I’ve chased a devil across continents only to corner him beneath broken martyrs and shattered glass, where the wind snakes through the shattered windows and catches on the remnants of what used to be an altar. Candles flicker weakly in ancient iron sconces, their light barely touching the rot that’s taken root in the stone. For a moment, I wonder who lit them.
But it doesn’t matter. There’s no sanctuary left here.
Only silence, shadow, and the echo of a god too tired to intervene in our forsaken world.
His blood stains the marble at my feet, dark ruby stains slowly creeping along, smoking from my blade piercing him. The air still hisses with the last breath of lightning that burned through his body, and he slumps against the base of the altar like some fallen saint, divine only in his ruin.
He’s not dead. Not yet.
But I have him.
Xaden Riorson. Vampire. Monster. Legend. And mine.
He leans against the altar, lips split, his body desperately trying to dispel the energy of my daggers any way it can, shadows curling like devoted snakes around his boots. He should look broken. Instead, he looks patient and stunning.
I loathe that about him.
"Say something," I snap. “You don’t get to die with all your secrets.”
He lifts his head slowly, eyes black as obsidian, gold flecks dancing under the dim light. “You think you’ve won.”
I tighten my grip on the hilts. The daggers thrum in my palms like they’re alive and remember what they were made for. Said to be forged by Malek, the blades are ancient, older than anything I hunt. Older, even than Xaden, much older than me, but once I touched them, it was my responsibility to wield them. They don’t just pierce—they channel me. My lightning. My fury. My need to end what should have died long ago.
It doesn’t matter how fast vampires heal. It’s not the blood they lose that kills them. It’s what the storm does to them. The lightning sears straight through their nerves—frays them, scorches them, leaves them twitching and hollow and ruined from the inside out. Slowly.
No vampire survives three strikes from this blade.
I got him once, two years ago, across the ribs. Left a jagged scar he still wears.
Tonight was the second.
And he knows it. One more. One more cut, and the legendary Xaden Riorson becomes ash.
“I have won,” I snarl.
“I’m still breathing.”
“Not for long.”
He smiles. Gods, that smile. Like he knows things I don’t. Like he always has. “Then ask.”
I blink. “What?”
“You said I don’t get to die with all my secrets. So… Ask me something.”
I should walk away. End it. But my heart is thudding in my throat, and I can’t tell if it’s because I’m about to kill a myth and the chase is finally over, or because I’ve never been this close to him while we’re both still and silent. I should lunge while he’s weak. Drive my daggers into his chest, swift and practiced. End it like I’ve done so many times before in my life as a vampire hunter. Merciless, final.
I can’t move, even still, our eyes never waver in their gaze. “Tell me a truth. One you’ve never told anyone.”
He laughs more wickedly and wrecked than I expect. “You want a truth, hunter?”
I nod.. And raise my daggers, I’m close enough, I can and will do this.
His eyes flicker at the movement, suddenly filled with hunger, and I try not to gasp. Then he leans forward, teeth visible between his parted lips, and says, “I’ve waited three hundred years for you.”
The words cut sharper than my blades. The implications of that are… “Liar,” I growl.
“I wish I were.”
My hands falter, the blades jerk. He sees it. Of course, he sees it.
“You chased me across continents,” he murmurs. “Across wars. Through storms. You dreamed of killing me. I dreamed of this.”
“Of me killing you?”
“Of you finally touching me.”
I move before I can stop myself—pinning him to the altar, practically straddling his lap, blades now crossed at his throat instead of his heart. His skin is hot, far too hot for a vampire. But I know he can feel their power and what will happen if he moves. “You’re repulsive.”
“And you’re shaking.”
I hate him. I hate him so much I can barely breathe.
He leans in again, close enough for his breath to kiss my cheek. “You won’t do it,” he whispers, his arms wrap around my waist. “Because deep down, you want the same truth I do.” His voice dark velvet. Not a plea, it’s a fact, and gods, why do I know it?.
My blades press harder to his throat, white sparks arc in tiny tendrils against his skin in warning. One flick and I could cut deep. Watch him bleed all over the altar and writhe in agony as the lightning does its work. The heat of him radiates into my thighs, into my spine, into the ache I’ve spent years ignoring. I grit my teeth. “You’re trying to manipulate me. Trying to seduce your way out of death.”
“I’m telling you the truth.” His grip tightens, as if he wants to help ground me. “And you feel it. Don’t lie to me now, Violence. I’m a vampire. I can scent how much you want me… I can hear your heart every time you’re close to me.”
His mouth is so close I can taste the promise of it. And his eyes, gods, those eyes, they're watching me like I’m not holding a weapon at all. Like I’m the one laid bare.
And that’s the real truth, isn’t it?
I’ve been tethered to him for as long as I can remember. My pulse is thunder in my ears. My breath stutters. And when his hand brushes the small of my back, I don’t flinch. I lean in. “I hate you,” I whisper, but even I can hear the crack in it.
“I know.”
I don’t know if I kiss him first, or if he devours me. But when it happens, our mouths crash together, there’s nothing gentle in it, we kiss like enemies, who can tear each other apart, and thank each other for the privilege. The world…everything else…ruined altar, broken glass, the gods, the blood still smoking beneath us? It all fades away. His lips are hot, desperate, frantic with restraint finally destroyed. It’s a kiss with teeth, with groans of pleasure buried under every breath. I taste the bitterness of venom, copper, something like the steamy mist on hot earth in his mouth, and something older than I’ve ever known. My fingers slide into his black hair, gripping hard, pulling him closer, like I’m afraid he’ll vanish if I let go.
He growls against my mouth. It’s ragged, primal, his need undulating through us before he bites my lower lip just enough to make me gasp. My blades clatter to the floor—forgotten, finally, as I twist in his lap, straddling him fully now, my legs wrapped around his waist, and his hands are everywhere—one on my hip, the other tangled in my shirt, hauling me in until our bodies are impossibly closer.
I break the kiss only because I have to breathe. His mouth follows, trailing down to my jaw, my throat, the space just beneath my ear where his breath burns desire through me like I’ve never experienced.
“You taste like lightning,” he rasps. “Like the tempest that’s been chasing me for years.”
I moan into the feel of his sharp teeth and tongue dancing against my throat. “And you—” I tug his face back up to mine, eyes locked, lips a breath from his. “Taste like shadows,” I whisper. Not cold, empty ones—his shadows. The ones I’ve hunted through alleys and across rooftops. The ones that slipped beneath my skin in dreams I’ve never admitted having. They melt on my tongue, dark and intoxicating, and I realize too late, I’ve spent years chasing him because I wanted to consume him. “Now I just want those shadows all over me.”
His mouth is back on mine in an instant—rougher this time, like the truth I just gave him broke something loose inside him. His hands tighten on my waist, pulling me against him like we’re still in battle, but now the battlefield is skin, breath, nerve.
And then I feel it. The shadows. They rise around us, slow and sinuous, curling around my thighs, slipping up my spine like smoke given shape. I shiver as one wraps gently—almost teasingly—around my wrist. Exploring. He breaks the kiss just long enough to look at me, fangs now visible.
“Do you want me to stop?
“Don’t you dare.” I thread my fingers through his hair, dragging his mouth back to mine.
His growl is nothing short of feral. The shadows obey him but worship me; they move across my body like gliding fingertips made of night. They dip beneath my clothes, dance over the curve of my stomach, wrapping around the backs of my knees, already knowing the places I’m weakest. I moan into his mouth, and he swallows the sound as if it’s what he’s been starving for. The kiss turns ravishing. And I can feel him hard against the heat of my body, we’re both holding back only barely.
As if he could hear my thoughts, his shadows slide beneath my hips, lifting me just enough to grind into him, our fingertips digging deeply into each other.
“Gods,” I whisper. “I’ve dreamed of this—”
“So have I,” he breathes. “Every night you hunted me, I dreamed of this instead.”
“Xaden!” I call his name, and it echoes through the temple as his hands slide up my ribs and his thumbs brush over my breasts. “Xaden, please.”
He palms them, maddeningly tender, rubbing circles over my peaked nipples, I can’t bear it all, his shadows still gripping my thighs, keeping me pressed right where he wants me as More shadows follow his movements, a second set of hands worshiping me, his mouth trails down my throat turning every brush of skin into a cry, every stroke into fire.
And still, he hasn’t taken me in the way only a vampire can. His fangs scrape my skin, just enough to promise.
“One more truth. Say it, Violet.”
I breathe hard, fingers still tangled in his hair, hips rocking against the hold he refuses to loosen.
He presses a kiss to the spot just below my jaw. “Say you want this. Ask me. I won’t unless you ask me!” He presses a kiss to that vein that pulses with everything he wants, and somehow everything I crave.
“Xaden,” My voice is barely a thread. “I want you to taste me. I want to be inside you!”
The air splits, as he growls, from his chest. I can feel his desire burn through him; there’s no way he can hold back anymore. Not with my permission ringing in his ears. His hand slides up, firm behind my neck, bracing me, licking over the vein, numbing it with the now overabundant venom dripping on his tongue.
“That feels…” I’m lost for words, or maybe there isn’t a word to describe this kind of painful pleasure.
He inhales my scent deeply, along with a scrape of his teeth, and finally, gods, finally, his fangs sink into me in a single, devastatingly smooth motion.
I gasp and shudder as singeing heat floods my veins, and euphoria. Fire laced with bliss, the sharp pull of something more profound than desire. I’m still grinding into him when my back arches against him, lips parted in a cry I don’t even recognize as mine as I shake from the orgasm that undulates through by body like some sort of benediction that this is exactly where I was always supposed to be, in this temple with his arms wrapped around me and his teeth in my neck.
His arms wrap tighter, trying to pull me into him completely. I can feel my warm blood leave my body to slide over his tongue, as he drinks from me like I’m the only thing that’s ever mattered. The shadows surge, cradling my spine, stroking down my ribs, matching the pull of his mouth with a rhythm that builds, builds, burns, and I hear him moan against my throat and his hips thrust up. Oh gods, he’s coming, I can feel the heat seeping through his pants, and I press against him with dedicated purpose, grinding my hips until I’m screaming his name once more. I let it wash over me, soaking in the rapture.
I surrender to him completely. Because this isn’t the end of the hunt, it’s the beginning of something far more dangerous.
When he finally pulls back, his lips are stained with me. My blood, slick and glistening at the corners of his mouth. His breath comes hard, his chest rising against mine, eyes glowing like embers banked too long. His tongue swipes slowly across his lower lip, savoring it.
I can’t breathe. Can’t move. Mesmerized by him.
He presses a kiss to the puncture mark—soft, reverent, possessive. Then licks it. The wound seals beneath his lips with a warmth that makes me tremble all over again. And then he’s kissing me. I taste it—me—the scorched lightning soaked adrenaline of my own blood, and wonder if that’s what he tastes too.
“You taste like mine,” he says against my lips, almost an answer to my silent question. The shadows coil tighter around my ribs, trying to hold me together while I fall apart.
I realize now that he has my blood in him, he’ll feel my emotions. The kiss deepens, slower now, but no less intense—more dangerous, somehow, because the edge is gone. This isn’t about taking anymore. It’s about having. We’re not being driven by lust; we’re choosing to stay where we are.
My fingers skim his jaw, my thighs tightening around him. His hands roam again, slower, more purposeful. The other drags over my ribs, my hip, the curve of my thigh like he’s memorizing me now that I’ve said yes. And I don’t stop him. I kiss him harder because I want to be remembered. I can feel every ragged breath struggling in my lungs, every tremor in his muscles still trying to contain himself. But he’s already had me—blood and body—and I’ve never felt more seen, or more wrecked.
My head drops to his shoulder, as my lungs work for air, cheek resting against his cool skin that’s still somehow fever-hot. His hands stroke lazy circles on my lower back, and it’s comforting.
The silence crackles.
“I should… destroy…you,” I murmur, but there’s no sting in it.
He tilts his head slightly, brushing his cheek against my hair, and I can hear his smile. “Then do it. I won’t stop you, Violence. Another truth? I don’t want to survive tonight, unless I get to keep you.”
“You’ve ruined me,” I whisper. “I used to be... focused and lethal.”
“You still are.”
“No. I’ve been chasing your shadow for years and—” I falter as my throat tightens around the truth I’ve never dared speak. Until now. “I loved it. Hunting you. The tension. The way you always made me work for it, but never too far out of my reach, the trail never going cold. I lived for the close calls.”
“The obsession was mutual, Vi.”
“So we lived for the game then?” I ask, kissing over his chest where I can hear his heart beat only once, maybe every minute.
“Game?” Xaden says, surprised, and kisses my head, then places three fingers under my chin and turns my head to look at him. “Oh no, love. It wasn’t a game.”
“Then what was it?”
His grin is nothing short of wicked, his eyes filling with something that takes my breath away. “Foreplay.”
I laugh once, shaking my head. “Damn you.” I close my eyes and exhale through clenched teeth, trying not to smile. “How did I not know?”
“Oh, I think you did, Vi, you’re just not ready to admit it to yourself, yet.”
“Hmmm…” I hum and kiss his neck. “So if that was foreplay…” I murmur, kissing the skin below his jaw, dragging my teeth along his Adam’s apple and biting down as hard as I can, sucking layers of flesh into his mouth, with every intention of leaving a mark.
He snarls, low and deep, a warning, or more than likely a promise. He lets me lave my tongue over him until I’m gasping for breath, and he flips us, he’s lying on top of me, shadows lashing tight around my wrists before I can blink. I inhale, and his mouth is already on mine, claiming, his body grinding against mine with no pretense, no patience. “Then you’d better hold on, Vi,” he says, voice rough enough to scrape across my spine. “Because I’m fucking done playing.”
“So am I!” I shout, dragging my fingers down his back under his shirt. “You’re mine! Xaden! Mine!”
“Yours! Always, yours!” He kisses me like he’s furious we’ve never been here before. “That single taste of you!” He says against my lips slicked with his venom, “Has ruined me forever!”
Tongues clash, teeth catch, and it’s wild, there’s no rhythm, just want. Raw, hot… real, and it feels instinctual. How is it that I feel so safe with him? My pulse is racing so loud I can’t hear anything but him.
“You’re shaking,” he says, voice ravaged.
“You bit me.”
“You asked.”
“I’d ask again. I don’t regret it.”
His free hand trails down my side, over the curve of my ribs, the dip of my waist. Somewhere in our heated kisses, my shirt’s already undone, when he pushes it aside and sees the matching twin scars just below my collarbone, I feel his breath catch.
“You survived so much,” he mutters angrily as if he wants to search for whoever dared leave those scars on my body and avenge me, his lips brushing the space between the marks. “And still you chased me.”
“Maybe I wanted to see if I’d survive you.”
He growls like a man who's just been told the one truth he didn’t want to hear: that we’ve surrendered our lives to each other. He can drink me dry, but my blades can still take his life. He kisses me again, and this time it’s even filthier as we undress each other, our bodies naked against the marble. His hips grind down, and I gasp, arching to meet him. The tension that’s lived in my body for years shatters under the weight of his body against mine.
My legs wrap around his waist again, dragging him closer. I feel him—all of him—his thick, rigid erection, brushing against me, before he pushes in, both moaning as we watch between us as he disappears into my body. Every inch of him feels divine against my velvet heat.
His mouth drags down my neck, across my chest, his fangs ghosting over my skin like a threat he doesn’t intend to carry out yet. “I could ravage you,” he breathes, tongue flicking over the spot he bit earlier. “I could make you beg.”
“I’m already begging,” I gasp. “I thought…!” I heave another breath as his shadows wrap around my body, cradling me. “I thought we were done with foreplay!”
“Vi!” His hands and shadows are everywhere—palming my thighs, my breasts, my throat, curling around my wrists, my waist. I don’t know where he ends and I begin. All I know is that I’ve never felt more alive than I do beneath this vampire, naked in every sense of the word.
He fills me like nothing ever has, not just physical, but eternal. My hands find their way into his hair again and tug, he bites down on my shoulder to muffle a groan. We move hard and fast at first, his hips thrusting against my body with beautiful, brutal force, but then slow, when our bodies decide in tandem that we don’t want to miss a single second of this—the first time we aren’t fighting.
The first time we let ourselves have it. Have us as we truly are.
When I come with his fingers rubbing over me, it’s with a cry into his mouth and a burn behind my ribs. “Xaden! Xaden!” I chant.
He follows moments later, jaw clenched, eyes locked on mine, hips grinding so deep I wonder how we’ll ever be able to satiate this need to be even closer. I watch him, breath held as he succumbs, it’s beautiful. His whole body shudders like the truth of what we are is too much to bear.
He collapses against me, braced on his arms, so that I can get enough air, and presses his forehead to mine.
We lie there. Ruined. Quiet. Breath slowing. Blood cooling. Shadows meandering gently around us, like they, too, have made peace with what they are.
“Is it always like this for you?” I whisper, still breathless.
“No,” he says, barely there, “only with you.”
I look at the cracked ceiling, the ruined altar, the candlelight flickering against the stained-glass shards on the floor. This place was built for worship, and tonight, we turned it into an entirely different kind.
I don’t remember falling asleep. But as I wake up somewhere new, blinking into the soft light to get my bearings, I remember snippets of being tangled up in him, the marble beneath me, our bodies a mess, we’d gone once more, needing each other, and my limbs were boneless, my body humming like the aftermath of a squall. He redressed me carefully, sheathed my daggers back against my hips, as I was in and out of awareness, lifted me easily, and carried me.
I should feel vulnerable. I don’t because I can sense him nearby; somehow, I know that means I’m safe. I can see him approach me now, moving slowly as if he’s afraid he might startle me. Like I’m not the hunter who’d nearly killed him just hours ago. He spoons behind me, pulling me into his arms.
“Where are we?”
“My house… Well, one of them.”
I attempt to look around. It's ancient stone, softened by candlelight, much like the temple—but warmer, less hollow. Arched ceilings stretch high overhead, ribs of old architecture hidden in shadow. A massive fireplace flickers low across the room, throwing light over shelves crowded with old books and older weapons.
The bed we’re on is enormous, with pillars carved with symbols I don’t recognize, and the mattress is wrapped in silky black sheets that smell faintly of cedar and something spicier like clove or cinnamon. A velvet throw spills off the edge in a deep, blood-red hue. There are no windows, but there’s stunning art on the walls that captures the way the world once was.
“I didn’t think you had a home,” I whisper, still dazed.
“Home?” He says as if that’s an interesting notion he’d never considered. He smiles against my neck and leaves a kiss under my ear. “That’s because I didn’t. Not until you were here.”
“Xaden…” Emotion constricts my voice because I know he means it.
“I drew you a bath, if you’d like one.”
I look to the corner of the room and see a claw-footed bathtub already steaming, tucked into an alcove framed by thick carvings of thorny vines. “Yes, please.”
*
He sets me on the edge of the tub and starts to peel what’s left of my clothes away—so gently I want to cry. This isn’t about seduction; he’s truly touching me like he cares. I can’t help my independence bubbling up, though, and I reply, “I can do that.”
“I know you can, love. But please, let me?”
I nod. He’s so sincere, I can’t refuse for fear it will shatter his heart. Vampires are devoted lovers, and I cannot find it within me to deny him his need to serve. “Thank you,” I whisper, lifting my arms over my head as he removes my shirt. “Please…”
“Anything you want,” he says before I can get the words out.
“Get in with me?”
He smiles and kisses my nose. “I would love to.”
*
The bathwater smells like rose petals in a garden I remember from childhood, and honeysuckle maybe. The warm water soothes my bones, and I sigh in contentment when he slips in behind me, arms around my waist, and pulls me back against his chest. I sink into the moment, and I can’t help but feel wonder at being here in this moment. My head rests on his shoulder, eyes fluttering closed.
He uses a soft cloth to wash my body, leaving my hair in its braid for now. I turn my head to kiss his jaw. “Again,” I whisper. “I want you to drink from me again.”
His hands still. “You’re… You’re still trembling, Vi.”
“Maybe, but… I need it, Xaden. I can feel it, and I trust you.”
That undoes him. His mouth finds my neck, no fangs yet, his lips and breath simply glide over the flesh with reverence. When he bites, it’s softer this time. It’s no longer about survival or hunger. It’s the softness and feeling of the words: Please, stay.
My pulse stutters, and I tense for only a moment as the venom spreads like an intricate spider’s web across my skin, and then I relax, letting go of something I didn’t realize I was still holding.
His mouth sucks gently at my throat as his fangs retract, and the sensation is everything. It's not pain—not really. It’s pressure and pull, an ache for pleasure that blooms outward from where he drinks. My breath catches as bliss spikes through me, radiating down my spine and pooling low, where everything still yearns for him. Every drag of his mouth pulls me deeper, into him, into this, like I’m unraveling at the edges just to feel more.
When he lifts his head again, I twist to face him, still held in his lap, still warm and raw from everything we’ve done and everything we’re still doing just by being here. “I’m never chasing another vampire,” I tell him. “Never hunting like that again.”
He searches my face, shadows twisting around us, and I can see the twitch in the hollow of his throat.
“I didn’t know it,” I continue, “but I was always looking for you.”
His expression softens, relieved, and maybe a little amused. He cups my face, thumb brushing my cheekbone. “Do you understand, truly understand, Violet, that once a vampire loves,” he says, and his voice is as rich as he is centuries old, “it’s for life.”
“I know.“ I kiss him like all the promises I want to make, and I can faintly taste my blood on his tongue. His lips are a strange sensation of warm and cool, and blessedly pliant as he kisses me back. And for the first few heartbeats, it’s just a simple kiss, gentle and grounding. My fingers trail down his jaw, the bathwater lapping gently around us, steam curling up like mist in a dream.
But then, it shifts. The world tilts. Suddenly, I’m not in his lap anymore, I’m somewhere else.
No… My mind is somewhere else.
Stone floor. Crimson silk. The scent of lavender and smoke from the fire. I’m older than I am now, by maybe a few years, my hair falling soft to my shoulders, lying down—no, reclining—draped in something sheer and silk. My chest rises slowly, evenly, but my heart is thundering in my ears.
Xaden is above me. Dressed in black. His eyes black as night. It’s not hunger, it’s more… a need, and fear, and so much love that he’s vibrating with it. It shakes his limbs. His fangs are extended; they catch the candlelight. His thumb strokes the hollow of my throat, right where my pulse jumps beneath the skin.
“You’re still sure?” he asks, his voice frayed, raspy.
“I love you. I’m yours,” I whisper. “And I always want you to be mine.”
He closes his eyes like the words are precisely what he needs to hear. When he opens them again, he leans down, so slowly, still waiting, giving me a chance to stop him if I want to. I don’t.
“I love you, too, Vi.” His exhale grazes my neck, then he wraps his body around mine, already hard and wanting, and when his fangs sink in, it isn’t the pain I feel the most, which is excruciating, it’s ecstasy at the promise of eternity with him. A rush that lights my nerves like wildfire, steals my breath, makes the world drop out from under me. I arch as I moan and my body shakes in his arms. My fingers curl into his hair.
And when he pulls back, eyes glowing, lips stained—I feel it, power blooming beneath my skin. Fire and forever. The turn. The claiming. The rebirth. With his whispered promises of love carved into my skin.
And then—I gasp. I’m back in the present moment. In the bath. In his arms. My lips still on his. My breath caught in my chest.
Xaden stills. “Violet?”
I blink, dazed, and try to swallow down my tears, and then I smile at him. “I saw it.” I rub my fingers over his heart. “You turning me.”
He doesn't flinch or question me, and that’s when I realize from the look in his eyes that maybe—just maybe—he saw it too. His hand slips under my chin, and our eyes search deeply into our souls. “I’ll wait,” he says, pressing a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “Until you ask me for it.”
I lean into him, my heartbeat echoing a rhythm I know I'll ask to give up one day to be his in immortality.