Frank’s rat-rod truck rumbled away, its exhaust growling low as it disappeared down the last few miles of road toward Carter’s house. I stepped out before he got there, giving him the space to meet with his family without me hanging over it; without me complicating things on more levels than I cared to admit.

  We had to compartmentalize if we were going to make it through this. I told Frank to keep quiet about the investigation, to bury whatever he had uncovered. The thing he had stumbled into bled more into my world than theirs, and they couldn’t fight it, not without me. His role was simpler: focus on Autumn, return to his family, and keep the rest of them safe from truths they couldn’t bear. When I came back, we’d talk about what I had felt, but not before.

  Carter had already warned me… just the sound of my name sent Autumn into a spiraling rage. I didn’t know what would happen if I appeared in person. Part of me dreaded facing her… facing Eleanor… facing the situation itself. I wanted it over. I wanted her back to who she had been, so that maybe then I could go to her. But the thought that my presence might be the very thing driving her deeper into the curse… that I could make it worse was a bitter weight in my chest. It fought against every instinct I had, the instinct to run to her side, to help, to protect.

  That guilt bled into other thoughts… memories of things I had been doing with a certain redhead. Thoughts of Alex surfaced. That whole other storm was waiting for me, as if my role as Death’s hand in this world wasn’t enough. I had two worlds pulling at me, two fronts burning at once. On one hand, I had my relationship with Autumn and the curse bearing down on her; on the other hand, I had Alex, our budding relationship bound by the Primeval powers of this world. Not to mention that we both were monsters beyond the normal tier. We were both killers of killers, and there was an attraction in that reality that drew us both to each other in a way I had never felt with any other soul in this world.

  I forced the emotions down, clamped them tight, and turned back toward the city. My path angled for Alex’s apartment. The cold afternoon stretched around me, but I moved through it like a shadow, keeping low, unseen, drifting between the living without belonging to them. I couldn’t play at being human the way I just had. Not anymore. I had to move back into the shadows of the supernatural world.

  This was my descent into the Primeval truth, back into the monstrous current that ran beneath my skin. I was bound to Annihilation. And there was work waiting for me.

  In an uncertain amount of time, I found myself outside Alex’s apartment building. The late afternoon light gleamed off the glass panes and steel frames, throwing fractured shadows across the slushy street. I didn’t bother with the front entrance. Instead, I crouched low near the side of the building, muscles coiling as I leapt up to the second-floor balcony. The air rushed around me, the sound of traffic in the distance muffled under the steady beat of my pulse sense stretching outward, scanning for onlookers.

  That was when I caught it, her scent, drifting down from above, riding the warm draft that slid between the structures. She wasn’t inside. She was higher.

  I clung to the railing, checking quickly to make sure no eyes were turned upward. Then I pushed off, flipping my body with an ease that felt inhuman, fingers finding the narrow brick ridges like claws. I climbed fast, not methodical like a man, but swift and reckless like some urban predator. My boots found purchase where there was none, pressing off cracked mortar and narrow ledges as I moved up the building’s face. Each bound launched me higher: from balcony to fire escape, fire escape to window frame, window frame to rooftop ledge. The world below shrank in seconds, the street noises thinning into a low, meaningless hum.

  A final burst carried me over the lip, my feet striking the loose gravel with a muted crunch. My body sank low on instinct, shoulders rolling, ready for confrontation. Instead, my eyes fell on her.

  Alex sat at ease against the skyline, her crimson hair blazing in the sunlight as if the sun itself bent to light her specifically. Legs stretched out in front of her, back braced on her arms, she looked like she belonged there; queen of her little rooftop kingdom as she sat along the edge, looking down upon the street below. Snug denim hugged her long legs, and the burgundy shirt she wore dipped low enough to show off her more… generous assets. She looked… human in a way I rarely saw her. Peaceful… almost unguarded.

  “I really don’t think I’ll ever get used to this,” Alex murmured, eyes still closed, her voice carrying a lazy drawl.

  I knew what she meant… the sunlight.

  Her lids lifted then, green eyes fixing on me as if she’d known the exact second my feet touched the gravel. The look she gave me wasn’t casual. It carried weight… a hunger; and not just the gnawing thirst she’d wrestled with every day of her existence. This was something more complex, something human. The kind of hunger that ached for closeness, for warmth, for the repetition of what we had done, tangled in her sheets with nothing separating us. Her tongue slipped along the inside of her teeth as her gaze tracked me along the roof, anticipation glinting sharply in her expression.

  “How are you feeling?” I asked, my voice quieter than I’d meant. I hesitated before finishing. “When I left, you were…” The words clung to the back of my throat. She’d been staring at that picture on her bedside table, her face twisted with something that looked too close to regret.

  Alex straightened, shaking her head as if clearing cobwebs, and some of that vulnerability hardened into steel. “It’s… a lot to acclimate to,” she said carefully, then her tone shifted, heavier.

  I don’t think she wanted to talk about that… about him; Jerry.

  “I hear her talking. Whispering. I’m starting to understand her. She can reach into me, but I can… block her. Shut her out. The way her children did,” Alex began speaking quickly as she recounted things from her memories. Images Hunger had shown her just like she had shown me.

  “You can already do that?” The words came out sharper than I intended. My surprise was genuine, but so was the undercurrent of worry. If the Primeval of Hunger was already whispering, already trying to steer her… what then? What if those whispers were lies?

  “Yeah.” She nodded, meeting my eyes steadily. “And before you even say it, I know what you’re thinking. That she’s trying to twist me. To lie to me. And you’re right...” Alex shifted, swinging her body around on the ledge until she faced me square on. Her hair fell across her shoulders, catching the light differently now, and her voice lowered. “That’s why I shut her out. She’s telling me things you’d never expect; secrets… promises. But I don’t believe her. I don’t trust her.”

  I moved a step closer, letting the tension between us settle like heat in the air. Her face was caught between hunger and defiance, a woman standing against the tide of something monstrous pressing in from the inside. And yet, in the little silence that lingered after her words, I couldn’t help but feel it again… the small, quiet relief of being here, of seeing her, of sharing this fractured space between desire and something else.

  But her words stoked something else in me. A primeval rage swelled within me. Myordrakien raged inside as Alex unveiled the truth. The truth was that Hunger was indeed plotting behind closed doors… even after betraying her eldest brother once before… she was at it again.

  His anger reflected over into my own, only adding to the annoyance and rage that grew in me about this whole situation. We had made a deal, and I thought the way it had worked was pretty binding. It felt binding for my Primeval. What could she possibly be trying to do, especially now that she had given us our power back? That portion of power she had retained for so long was now ours, and we were even more formidable. How could she possibly hope to beat us? To beat just me?

  Alex could sense the growing friction building inside of me and said, “Don’t worry, though. I can tell where her thoughts bleed into lies. I’m in control just like I’ve always been. She’s just another urge to resist…” Alex smirked. “I’ve been pretty good at doing that since this life was forced on me,” Alex said, with a cocky grin, happy that she could deny the whims of some ancient being.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “We need to go back down into the pits… keep killing them. I feel like it’s been long enough… long enough to have them not suspect we’d be coming back there soon. Once we’re down in the pits, do you think you can control that thing?” I asked, motioning toward her chest, talking about the relic. “I don’t know if you being down there will change anything about your control. Maybe the other elders we’ll be able to do something… affect you in some way?” I asked her like she would somehow know. But she was as new to this as I was.

  “No, I don’t think so. But I do think they’ll be able to feel me when I enter the pits again. I can vaguely feel the presence of others… others attached to Hunger. I feel two of them further off get clearer somehow when we came out.” Alex spoke with a strange look on her face, like she was speaking in time with her understanding as she struggled to figure out what she was sensing. “I think the elders that I feel, blurred, but closer, are the ones in the pits. But the other two…” she shook her head as she felt out for them with her mind. “They feel far off… like not in St. Louis at all.”

  “So, when we go down there, do you think they’ll sense you coming and bum rush us?”

  Alex nodded, “I think they’ll try. But I think I can do something to hide us. I think if I reach out to Hunger with my mind, act like I’ll help her with whatever she’s scheming with, she’ll hide us… think she’s got the upper hand. She’ll be playing us, not knowing we’re playing her.”

  “You think we can pull that off?” I asked hesitantly.

  Did Alex really have that kind of control already, to block out the Primeval of Hunger, and play her like one of these college boys that fell all over her at Martin’s bar?

  “Yeah,” Alex answered with confidence, her fangs slipping out a little more from her gums. “It’ll be… easy.” She was ready for the challenge.

  I felt no twinge of doubt or warning from Death… so fuck it.

  “Then let's go,” I said, reaching out a hand.

  Alex grabbed my hand and pulled herself off the ledge and to her feet. She stepped one foot closer to me as she rose, getting inside my personal space. She had a look on her face, like she wanted to say something.

  I watched her for what was probably only two seconds, but it felt like longer. There was something in her green eyes that wanted to be vulnerable, but her hard nature fought her. She wanted to talk about what happened between us… maybe even her reaction that morning when she was staring into her picture of her and Jerry. But, she steeled herself.

  “Let's go,” and then she turned and slipped down the side of the building.

  I followed instantly, surprised at her sudden urge to just move and not talk about anything else. There was a familiar look in her eye, though, one I recognized in her previous words, and one I knew from my own past. She was still looking for death… still hoping for a way out of this life. It hurt me to think about that for her.

  Even after everything she had gained, the ability to walk in the sun, the increased power, the transformation, all of it. She didn’t want it. Even our time together… the physical and emotional closeness… the connection, she didn’t want that… not forever. She wanted something that was already passed away from this world. She wanted Jerry.

  I felt weird about it… I wasn't sure how I was supposed to feel. I knew everything I felt for Autumn, and how much I wanted to have her back in my life, especially now that I knew she had been taken from me… cursed. But I also knew what was growing in me for Alex… someone I never saw coming. Then there was Vicky…

  I shook my head. I felt like an asshole… too many connections going out of me in a way that should only be for one person. But… life is complicated, I guess.

  I shoved the thoughts away and chased after Alex as she rushed towards a manhole cover. I trailed after her sweet scent, aiming to get as close to it as possible as I shadowed her back into the depths of the city.

  The jagged maw of fanglike stones closed behind us, and we were in… back in the depths of the pits. The marks that Hunger had given me and Alex worked like a charm, allowing us unfettered access to the monstrous underworld.

  We moved silently, like specters in the reddish-hued haze of the pits. We descended deeper than before, blowing well past the graveyard of slaughter I created while trying to protect Alex and the relic. I noticed Alex looking around the area as we passed, obviously feeling vague recollections about what had happened there. Her green eyes darted across all the chaos and carnage as we moved through the slaughter.

  She glanced at me a few times, that same look in her eyes from before. It was like she wanted to broach the subject of the connection growing between us, and the depths of what we had done together. I think even she didn't fully understand what she felt, just like me. She stopped herself short every time, returning to the perpetual onward drive to run deeper into the corpse of Hunger.

  I kept sending out pulses of my pulse sense, mapping out the underground world in a series of blasts. I didn’t feel a single beating heart in the vicinity of this downward path. It was like the place had been abandoned. The deeper we got, the more ominous it was becoming. Why weren’t we seeing anything? Nothing was coming for us.

  “Is it working?” I asked Alex, who already knew what I was talking about.

  Alex glanced over at me as we walked in the red haze and darkness, slowing to a stop. Her face looked sullen, but resolved somehow; what had her twisted in knots leading up to this point had vanished.

  When Alex spoke, I could tell she was choosing her words carefully. “Hunger is with us. She’ll shield us until we get down to the next elder. That’s why it’s so dead here. Nobody else knows we’re here.” Alex took a step forward, reaching her right arm up and barely placed a finger tip on my arm.

  Feeling her touch me felt like a spark that reignited everything that was charged between us in the small confines of her bedroom. After only one second, she slowly wrapped around me like melting butter. Her arms wrapped around me fully, barely grasping my full form as she pressed her whole body into my chest. I could smell her fragrance filling my nose and flooding my senses. The extremely potent blood concentration that was unique to only her surged through my mind, but it was laced with other things; a softer and sweeter sense that I only noticed after hours spent intertwined in her bed. It was her scent… the thing that was hidden beneath the vampiric details. This was her true scent.

  “I don’t talk about it…” Alex’s voice was barely more than breath in the cavern’s dark, a fragile thread that didn’t sound like it belonged to her. It lacked the cold steadiness she always carried, the sharp edge honed from years of hunting her own kind. This was something else entirely… something stripped raw. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not important to me.”

  The words didn’t sound like they came from the Alex I had known; the relentless one who never faltered, who never fed on humans and carried that monstrous restraint like armor to keep any attachments at bay. This wasn’t the predator or the survivor. For the first time, I felt like I was hearing Alex herself… the human. The part of her she had buried beneath decades of exile.

  I loved it. It made me feel closer to her than I ever expected.

  Her body pressed closer, and I could feel the unspoken plea in the way she leaned against me. She wasn’t just standing near me, she was clinging, as though letting go might unravel something vital inside her that she had only now dared to show someone. I didn’t answer her with words. Instead, I slid my arms around her, holding her with a certainty I hoped she could feel. I wouldn’t let anyone hurt her as she let her walls down around me.

  Her frame melted into mine, her head against my chest, and I realized how desperately she needed this contact. Not out of hunger. Not out of lust from years of physical denial that built to the carnal moments in her bed. It was out of fear… fear of losing the only tether she had left to something human. The thing she felt so conflicted about having after so many years of staying true to the memory of Jerry.

  The contours of her body pressed into me. The softness of her shirt ground beneath my palms. The strength in her shoulders was firm despite the trembling she tried to hide. Then there was the warmth of her thigh as it brushed against mine and stayed there, wrapping herself around me with her extremities. She was holding me with a feverish strength that betrayed the truth: Alex was terrified. Not of the darkness around us, not of the monsters we’d face beneath these tunnels. She was terrified of what it meant if something happened to me… to us… to the hope she had stumbled into within this unexpected relationship that was burning brighter with each day.

  It struck me then that she wasn’t afraid for herself at all. Her fear was bound entirely in what she stood to lose. She had lived too long in a silence no one else could touch, and now she had found something she didn’t want to let go of… me, and it shook her. She never tried to find anything outside the memory of Jerry, and it had conflicted her. Now she was in too deep and couldn’t let go.

  I tilted her chin gently until her pale face turned up toward mine. My hands slid into her crimson hair, cradling her as though she might break. She leaned in and slowly put her mouth on mine in a way that was so softer than she had ever done in her bedroom. Her kiss was nothing like the devouring hunger I had braced for. It wasn’t the frenzy of a starving soul finally tasting release. It was gentle, searching, and… human.

  For that moment, she wasn’t the ancient vampire who stalked her own kind through the night. She wasn’t the bearer of the relic of Hunger. She was Alex… whoever she had been before all of this, before loneliness stretched on into decades. She was the girl who met a guy her family didn’t approve of; the girl getting tattoos in a bar with friends, the one making a family out of people who accepted her. This was her… the true Alex.

  We stayed like that in the dark, holding onto one another in a silence that was more sacred than anything I felt in this second life. Neither of us wanted to move, not yet. Because we knew that when we pulled away, when we let the world back in, we’d have to put our masks back on. We’d have to be monsters again.

  But for now, she was mine. And I was hers.