Page 18 of Hunted

Traffic moves when it should.

Lights switch on and off in predictable grids.

Money flows through channels I designed, fed by systems that never sleep and rarely fail.

I built The Umbra Consortium to be frictionless. Finance, biotech, nightlife, all braided together under a single will.

Mine.

I stand at the window with a cut-crystal tumbler in my hand, whiskey darkened by a measured infusion of blood, the flavour tuned to temper rather than indulge.

Control matters.

Tonight, it requires attention.

For three weeks, a bounty hunter named Eira Cross has refused me.

The fact irritates me more than it should.

Refusal is not a thing I encounter often, and when I do, it usually ends quickly. People learn… or they die. Applying pressure to a low-level professional was beneath me, yet here we are.

I allowed it. That is the distinction I cling to when patience frays.

And patience has been misbehaving lately.

I broke a favourite Baccarat glass three nights ago when a board vote stalled for eight seconds longer than expected. I had a senator escorted from a gala and reminded of his manners for speaking out of turn, then tore out the throat of my head of security for reporting a threat that had already been neutralised, then informed him of his good fortune that I had not taken his spine, since he cannot regrow that.

Small things.

Annoyances.

But they accumulate if left unchecked.

I take a slow drink and watch the city I love as much as a creature like me is capable. The blood warms the whiskey, steadies my focus, dulls the edge of the hunger that has been far too close to the surface of late.

It should not be this way.

Five centuries have taught me discipline. I’ve out-waited wars, buried empires, mastered the art of restraint while traversing both.

And yet.

Three weeks ago, for a handful of seconds, I shook and rampaged through twenty blocks of my city, tearing chunks out of myself as I ripped through concrete and steel.

All because I imagined I smelled her.

It should have been impossible.

Vampires can scent blood for miles, yes, but recognition is another matter. It does not happen by accident. It arrives like a command, unmistakable and immediate.

I was in this very room when it reached me, faint but precise, a thread drawn tight across distance and time.

Fresh blood.

Female.

Familiar in a way that struck somewhere old and deep, somewhere silent for years.

I turned from the window so fast the glass trembled. I searched the city with senses honed by centuries, cataloguing rooftops, alleys, the layered lives beneath them.