"Already did." I move to my desk and pull up the file I compiled over the last three days. " Celeste Moreau. Twenty-seven when turned. Underground fighter in Atlanta for three years, forty-three fights, forty-three wins. Made enough money to support herself and send funds to a sister in Savannah. Mother died of an overdose five years prior. Father unknown/absent. Turned eight months ago by Valentina Russo. No contact with her maker since."
Marcellus leans over my shoulder to read the screen. "Valentina Russo. I know that name."
"You should. She's part of Konstantin's circle."
That gets his attention. Konstantin, older than me, ambitious, and my primary rival for control of Atlanta's blood supply. We've been playing a careful game of power for the last century, neither strong enough to destroy the other, both too proud to negotiate peace.
"You think the turning was deliberate?" Marcellus asks.
"Unknown. Could be spite, could be strategy. Valentina is known for holding grudges." I pull up another file, surveillance footage from an underground fighting venue. "But look at this."
The video shows Celeste in a makeshift ring, facing off againstan opponent twice her size. The fight is brutal, efficient. She moves with the kind of precision that comes from years of training, reading her opponent's tells, exploiting openings. The fight lasts less than three minutes before her opponent is on the ground.
"She's good," Marcellus observes.
"She's exceptional. And according to my sources, she was scheduled for one more fight, a big payout, when she disappeared. That's when she was turned."
"Valentina took that from her."
"Everything. The fight, the money, her human life. All of it." I close the video. "If Konstantin is involved, it complicates things."
"Then throw the girl out. Don't let her become leverage."
He's right, of course. The logical move is to heal Celeste enough to survive and send her away before she becomes entangled in politics she doesn't understand.
But I don't want to.
The realization unsettles me more than I care to admit.
"She stays until she's stable," I say. "After that, we'll assess."
Marcellus knows better than to argue further. "I'll set up monitoring. What about Elena?"
Elena. My human donor coordinator, responsible for vetting and managing the clean blood supply. She'll have questions about an unfamiliar vampire in the facility.
“Go brief her. Let Celeste rest."
"And the girl's diet? Beyond emergency bags?"
"Standard protocol. Clean sources only. I want her fully recovered before we determine what to do with her."
Marcellus nods and turns to leave, but pauses at the door. "You know this will spread. You brought someone into the sanctuary. People will talk."
"Let them."
After he leaves, I sink into the chair behind my desk and close my eyes.
What am I doing?
Six hundred years of careful control, of keeping everyone at arm's length, of building walls so high no one can reach me. And I'm compromising it for a woman I met an hour ago.
But when she looked at me in that alley, when she saw me as just a man instead of a monster or a myth, something shifted. Something I thought had died centuries ago stirred back to life.
I open my eyes and pull up the security feed from the medical room. Celeste is still sitting on the table where I left her, looking around the space with obvious assessment. Cataloging exits, I'd guess. Analyzing potential threats. Fighter's instincts even when recovering from near-death.
Even through the camera, I can see her details clearly. Long dark hair falls past her shoulders. Pale skin that makes the fading black veins more visible. Brown eyes that move with focused intensity as she assesses the room. Athletic build beneath the torn clothes. A fighter’s body, lean and purposeful. She's beautiful, I realize with detachment. Not the fragile, decorative beauty that bored me centuries ago, but something sharper. More dangerous.
She shifts slightly, testing her movement, flexing her hands. I can see the black veins have receded significantly from this angle. Her vampire healing is working now that she has clean blood in her system.
