The forest had been a disappointment.
The hunt, an insult to her.
The mortal had collapsed to his knees and begged before she'd even tasted him. His blood had gone thin with terror, cheap wine instead of the vintage she craved. It left her restless, vicious, prowling.
Yvonne Arne ghosted through the pre-dawn mist like living smoke, boots silent on the gravel vein that led from the ancient woods to the only place she was ever allowed to call home. Castle Ventrue rose ahead of her, blacker than the sky, a jagged crown of stone and malice. It wasn't a house. It was a warning.
The sensor gate recognized the rhythm of her heartbeat and sighed open. She didn't slow.
Restlessness clawed at her ribs. She needed height, needed distance from the ground that felt too small tonight. Fingers and toes found purchase in stone older than nations; she climbed the main keep the way a thought climbs a skull, swift, inevitable. She landed on the lead-lined mansard roof, her private altar to the dying night.
From up here the world and sky was a beauty, stretched out across the horizon was darkness so pure. The horizon was amazing until the blurry yellow light, dawn, began pushing the darkness away from the top of the sea
She hated it.
She watched it anyway.
And, as always when the dark began to lose, her thoughts turned to the only creature stronger than the dark.
Father.
Arne Anton had been… wrong since the police took her. Wrong in ways that frightened even her. He left the castle for nights at a time, returning with sunrise in his hair and storms in his eyes. He spoke less, touched her more, brief, fierce brushes of knuckles across her cheek, as if reassuring himself she was still real, still his.
When he had started talking about bodyguards, she had laughed in his face.
The growl of an electric engine, almost silent, pulled her from her brooding. She leaned over the edge.
A black Porsche Macan 4S slid up the drive like oil poured over glass. Father's favorite when he wanted to pretend he was merely another rich monster among humans.
Henry unfolded from the passenger side, mountain in a suit, and opened the rear door with the reverence of a priest.
Arne stepped out first, moonlight in his hair, victory in the set of his shoulders.
Then the other door opened.
And everything inside Yvonne went very, very still.
The man who climbed out was not beautiful the way vampires were . He was something rougher, rawer. Six-foot-eight of coiled, predatory muscle wrapped in matte-black tactical fabric. Shoulders that could carry coffins. Arms corded like bridge cables. Hair the color of spilled ink pulled into a severe tail that did nothing to soften the strong, almost harsh lines of his face.
Light brown eyes, warm, almost gentle, swept the courtyard with lazy precision.
Then they lifted.
And found her.
He didn't search. He simply knew exactly where she perched in the dark, as if some invisible thread had tugged his gaze straight to her heart. A slow smile curved his mouth, white, even, and completely devoid of fear.
It was the single most unsettling thing anyone had ever aimed at her.
A shiver, cold and electric, licked down her spine and pooled low in her belly. Not fear. Couldn't be fear. She was Yvonne Arne. She did not fear prey.
And yet.
She dropped from the roof in a controlled fall, landing between her father and the stranger with deliberate grace.
"You're early," she said, moving to hug Arne. The embrace felt different tonight, stiff, like she was hugging a statue that had learned to flinch.
Arne's arms closed around her, too tight, too brief. When he pulled back his smile was sharp and triumphant and just a little bit cruel.
"Yvonne," he said, voice velvet over broken glass, "meet Matthew Garrett. Your new shadow."
The world narrowed to a single, impossible point.
Matthew Garrett stepped forward. Silent. Scentless. The absence of odor hit her harder than any stench ever could. No blood, no sweat, no lie, no life. Just… nothing. Like standing beside a void wearing muscle and menace.
She couldn't smell him.
And he was still smiling.
"No," she heard herself say, the word a hiss of pure venom. "Absolutely not."
Arne's hand settled on her nape, thumb stroking once, soothing and warning at once. "Sun's almost up, princess. Inside."
She snarled but obeyed, because even she wasn't stupid enough to challenge him when dawn was clawing at the sky.
The grand sitting room swallowed them in tapestries and old blood and the weight of a thousand years. She rounded on her father the instant the doors closed.
"This is an insult," she spat
"Fifty-two incidents? Fifty-two times you've enjoyed the drama of rescuing me. Don't dress it up as concern now."
Arne's eyes flashed winter-gray. "I will not lose you."
The plea beneath the command cracked something in her chest, but she bared her fangs anyway. "I am not a child to be leashed. And I do not need some babysitter on my trail"
"Oh come on now... Honestly you'd love him, he's such a professional " Arne cut in softly. "G-5 sent him. I tested him myself. It took me four minutes and thirty-seven seconds to land a single blow. Four minutes, Yvonne. Against me."
That shut her up long enough for the horror to sink in.
She spun toward Matthew, who had taken up position by the door, arms loose at his sides, expression unreadable.
He didn't look like a man waiting for a train.
He looked like a man who already knew which car she'd be on and was just there ready to stop her.
"Clan?" she demanded, voice dripping acid.
Arne's smile turned almost fond. "None. He's human. Mostly."
The laugh that tore out of her was half-hysterical. "You brought a human into our home. To guard me. Does he even know what I am?"
"Matthew?" Arne said gesturing to him.
Matthew spoke for the first time.
Low. Calm. A voice like whiskey poured over midnight.
"I know exactly what you are, Miss Arne." His gaze never wavered from hers. "And I'm still here."
Something hot and dangerous flared behind her ribs. Not fear. Never fear.
Curiosity. Hunger. Challenge.
She took one deliberate step toward him, letting her fangs slide free, long and ivory and hungry.
"Then you should know," she whispered, "that the last man who tried to put a leash on me lost his throat."
Matthew didn't flinch. Didn't step back. Just tilted his head, exposing the strong column of his throat in a gesture that was either suicidal or deliberate provocation.
"I'm not here to leash you," he said quietly. "I'm here to make sure nothing else ever does."
The words landed between them like a live wire.
Yvonne felt them spark against every inch of her skin.
Arne watched the exchange with the satisfied air of a man who had just thrown gasoline on a fire he intended to warm his hands over.
"One week," he said. "Give him one week. If he bores you, I'll let you eat him myself."
She flicked a glance at her father, saw the steel beneath the indulgence, and knew she'd lost this round.
"Fine," she snarled, spinning on her heel. "Seven days. Then he's breakfast."
But as she swept from the room, heels ringing against stone like gunshots, she felt those light-brown eyes track her every step.
Scentless. Silent. Unafraid.
And already under her skin.
Outside her bedroom door, Matthew took up post, shoulder against the wall, hands clasped loosely in front of him.
He waited until her door slammed, until the lock clicked, until he heard the muffled thud of something expensive hitting the opposite wall.
Only then did he allow the faintest curve of a smile.
Inside the room, Yvonne pressed her back to the door, fangs still elongated, heart racing for reasons she refused to name.
She couldn't smell him.
But she could feel him.
Like a storm front rolling in, slow, inexorable, and electric.
Seven days, she told herself.
Seven days to break him.
Or be broken.
She wasn't sure which prospect thrilled her the most.