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My pulse stutters in my chest. He can’t see me. My concealment wards are flawless. But somehow, the clever little human feels me. He senses the heat bleeding off my skin and the scent of ocean spray and crushed cinnamon floating on the draft. He glares at the darkness for one more heartbeat, letting out an annoyed huff, before turning to head toward the west wing.

“Brave little bird,” I murmur under my breath, my voice low enough that only the shadows hear it.

High demons are born with rumors trailing behind them like shadowy cloaks. The old stories say every high demon has a fated mate carved from the stars by the universe itself. I gave up on that fairy tale the second I bound my soul to the hound. Cryptids don’t have mates. They have territory, prey, and bloodlust. So why is my soul screaming? Why does my demon core hum every time Bellamy takes a breath inside these walls?

I melt into the shadows, letting the cold darkness swallow me whole, traveling through the stone veins of the manor until I’m hovering in the upper corner of Bellamy’s bedchamber.

The room is silent save for the soft, steady rhythm of his breathing. An hour has passed since his little outburst at the rose garden doors, and exhaustion has finally claimed him. He’s curled sideways on the massive bed, tangled in dark velvet blankets.

I step out of the shadow wall, keeping my physical form veiled in liquid smoke while I move toward the edge of the mattress. I lean over him, inspecting his face in the moonlight filtering through the high arch windows. The ugly purple bruises on his cheek and throat have completely faded thanks to the shadow magic I poured into him the night I brought him home. His skin is clear, flush with dark warmth, his plush lips parted slightly as he sleeps.

Every soul bleeds an aura. A pulse. A luminous thread stitched into the veil. Most humans are nothing more than a dull, murky brown cocktail of pathetic sins and mundane virtues. They taste like ash on the tongue. At birth, a soul burns with a stark, blinding radiance that’s pristine and fragile, whereas a truly corrupted soul suffocates the air with a hypnotic obsidian shimmer. I might feed on the mundane out of necessity, but a soul doused in pure darkness or desperation? That is a decadent, intoxicating feast worth hunting.

The soul resting beneath me defies every law of the universe. It lacks the dull, sludge-brown stain of ordinary mortals. His aura bleeds a decadent, shimmering obsidian threaded with brilliant tendrils of pure sunlight. It’s an impossible contradiction: total ruin fused with unblemished light, like a midnight star stitched in gold. A starry paradox pulsing right beneath my fingertips.

I’m completely fucking powerless to look away.

Then, movement catches my eye down at his waist, causing me to freeze.

The Devil Dog is not lurking in the room’s corners like it usually does when I am present. It has materialized its shadow form directly onto the mattress. The massive, pitch-black mass of ethereal fur and phantom bone is curled entirely around Bellamy’s torso like an impenetrable shield. Its ghostly head is resting heavily across Bellamy’s thighs, its ears twitching at every small noise outside the estate walls.

For seven nights, I thought the hound was resting down in the scorched containment chambers while I paced my study. I had no idea the bastard was sneaking into Bellamy’s room every single night, acting as a personal guardian angel.

The beast raises its shadowy head, its glowing blue eyes fixing on me through the dark. It utters no sound, but the heat radiating off its form increases, marking its territory against its own host.

‘He is ours,’ the beast’s instinct ripples through my mind.

Ours to keep.

Ours to hide.

Ours to break.

“You’re getting soft,” I whisper back at the hound, crossing my arms over my chest. “He’s a human. He breaks if you press too hard.”

The hound lets out a silent, shadowy huff and buries its snout right back into the silk fabric covering Bellamy’s hip.

I shake my head, rubbing the bridge of my nose where my sweeping horns root into my skull. The human can’t keep wearing my oversized dress shirts forever. He looks stunning in them, that’s for damn sure, but his pride is already battered enough without having to parade around in his captor’s wardrobe. I need to arrange for someone to go into the harbor town tomorrow to procure a proper set of clothes for him. Something soft. Something warm against the bitter coastal dampness.

A sharp, booming knock rattles the massive front doors on the lower level of the estate. The sound echoes through the stone foundation, sharp and violent. Bellamy stirs on the bed, his dark brows knitting together in his sleep as he shifts against the pillows.

Instantly, my temper spikes from a simmering heat to an infernal blaze. Someone is knocking on my front door. Someone dares to make enough noise to disturb my home and wake the human I spent seven days soothing into recovery.

My shadows react before my thoughts can even settle. I drop through the floorboards like a stone into dark water, diving through the darkness at blinding speed until I burst out of the shadows by the foyer’s grand chandelier.

I solidify into my physical form, my broad shoulders filling out my tailored charcoal suit, my crimson eyes flaring with lethal intent as I glide toward the oak doors. I don’t bother unbolting them with my hands. I wave my fingers, and the massive iron bolts slide back with a harsh clang.

I yank the heavy door open, ready to tear the throat out of whatever suicidal local had stepped onto my property. Standing on the porch, bathed in the freezing coastal rain and swirling sea fog, is a tall figure clad in a sharp navy coat with silver hair pushed back cleanly from his face. He has an arrogant, lazy smirk plastered across his pale features.

Fucking hell. Killian.

A high wraith demon, and the only creature in this wretched coastal county I consider a friend.

“Since when do you knock?” I snap, my voice dripping with ice.

Killian laughs, stepping right past me into the warm stone foyer without waiting for an invitation. He shakes the rainwater off his coat like a sleek alley cat. “Since you became obsessed with a pretty little human and pushed your whole household away.”

I slam the heavy oak door shut, the deadbolt sliding into place automatically. I turn on my heel to glare at him, my blue skin darkening with irritation under the sconce lights. “I haven’t pushed anyone away. I ordered the servants to remain in the lower quarters, so they don’t terrify him.”