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“You stalked me to my flat, then attacked me!” His fingers grabbed the edge of the table, knuckles white. “I thought—” He swallowed hard. “I thought you were going to kill me.”

Kill me. The words ricocheted around my mind, stirring memories from the shadows. Some were screams I couldn’t quite place, faces I couldn’t fully remember, the weight of deaths I knew were by my hand even if the details remained mercifully blurred.

Flynn was right to fear me—I was a killer. Yet for some reason, the thought of this bright young man seeing only the darkness in me twisted like a knife between my ribs.

“You’re very quick to assume my malicious intent, yet you happily followed a strange man into a dark alley after knowing him for all of five seconds.

” I couldn’t stop the sharpness of my tone, but in all honesty, he needed to hear it.

“Is your sense of self-preservation usually so compromised?” What was it about that cambion that made all common sense fly out the window?

A blush bled across his pale cheeks. “Look, I’m not usually that much of an idiot. I… haven’t been thinking straight recently. ”

“Clearly.” I should have stopped, but I could not resist the urge to press the matter. “What was it about him that entranced you so?” The question wasn’t entirely fair—the demon may well have used some level of compulsion.

“I don’t know…”

“He must have done something to get you to follow him so easily.” Surely.

Flynn sighed. “I guess he made me feel… wanted. ‘Special,’ or whatever. God, did you really have to make me say that out loud?” He twisted his hands together, staring down at the table.

Regret flooded through me—I didn’t want to wound him further.

“I guess sometimes when you’re running from everything else, any direction looks like the right one. ”

He lifted his head to hold my gaze, and I caught a glimpse of something raw beneath his carefully constructed smile.

The kind of pain that made people reckless.

Made them run. Made them end up in places they shouldn’t be.

Made them do stupid things like follow strangers into dark alleys. Not that any of this was my business.

“Though to be fair, I did eventually realise something was off with him. If you hadn’t arrived with your gun … ” He hissed the word. “ I would have removed myself from the situation.”

I stared at him, my eyes falling to where his lips pressed into an angry, determined line.

“ Removed yourself? And how would you have done that?”

“Well, a knee to the balls certainly did the trick with you, didn’t it?”

Touché.

I held up my palms. “Fair point. And I apologise for scaring you. I… certainly learned my lesson.” My raised eyebrow hopefully communicated the degree of the damage he’d done. “But I only wished to talk with you.”

Flynn barked out a laugh, harsh and brittle. “Well, talk now then!” He dropped to a fierce whisper to say, “What’s so bloody important? ”

I leaned forward, keeping my movements slow and deliberate. “That man. Before I got there, did he touch you?”

Flynn’s face flushed an even darker scarlet.

His mouth opened and closed several times before he found his voice.

“I— What? I’m not sure how that’s any of your business, pal.

” His volume rose to a worrying level. “It’s hardly your concern!

If anything like that happened, obviously I’d go to the police, not you! Who the fuck are you, anyway?”

What in all hells…?

I studied his flustered face until the penny finally dropped. “ What? I didn’t mean—” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Not in that way. Jesus! Your chest! Did he touch your chest?”

Flynn stared at me as if I’d grown a second head. “Oh.” He sank lower in his chair, clearly mortified. “Right. Yes. Yes, he did.”

Something in the way Flynn held my gaze as he placed his hand on his black shirt over his heart told me everything I needed to know.

“Can you tell me what it felt like?”

Flynn bit his lip again, then shuffled his chair as close to the table as he could.

The movement stirred the air between us, and his scent hit me like a physical force—an intoxicating mix of sea salt and cinnamon sugar.

It was the same combination that had clouded my mind for a moment last night, when I’d had him pressed against me, his pulse thundering beneath my hands.

“I went to the hospital,” he said, as if confessing. “They told me I was mad.”

Something compelled me to reach across the table.

My fingers wrapped around Flynn’s bare forearm, and to my surprise, he didn’t pull away.

His skin blazed beneath my touch, a furnace compared to my chill.

The blood beneath his skin sang to me, a siren’s song that made my gums itch.

That ancient, feral part of me stretched and purred, drawn to his vitality like a moth to flame.

I snatched my hand back, disgusted with myself. Get it together, Sebastián. Twenty straight years of immaculate control meant nothing if I couldn’t keep myself in check around one random human.

But there was something about this Flynn Carter…

“You’re not mad, Flynn. But you are in danger.”

Flynn leaned closer. “What sort of danger?”

His proximity hit me like a slap. That scent—salt and sugar and life —wrapped around me, drawing me in.

My throat burned with sudden, vicious thirst. You fool.

I should have drunk before leaving Killigrew Street.

How long had it been? Twenty-four hours?

More? The hunger clawed at my insides, sharp and insistent.

“Are… are you alright?” Flynn’s face swam into focus. He’d moved even closer, close enough that I could count each individual eyelash, see the subtle variations of blue in his irises. His features held such open concern, such sweet innocence, that my dead heart clenched.

“I am fine.”

“Am I going to die?” The question fell from his lips, soft and frightened.

My fingers twitched with the bizarre urge to cup his face, to promise him everything would be fine.

His question—those exact words—echoed through the centuries, spoken by countless voices I could no longer put faces to.

I gripped the edge of the table, anchoring myself against the wave of protective fury that swept through me.

I couldn’t lie to him. Not when the demon, its master, and god knows how many more monsters were still out there, waiting. “You need to come with me.”

Fear flashed across his face, and I ground my teeth together. Maybe I should have sent someone else to do this job after all. Social graces were not my forte, as Rory was so keen on reminding me.

“Please,” I tried, making my voice feather soft. “The doctors didn’t believe you, but you’re not going mad. There is something inside your chest. They can’t help you, but I can. Let me help you, Flynn.”

He continued to study me, clearly weighing up my words and his remaining choices. I recognised the irony in the situation—I’d lectured him on running off alone with strangers, and now I was demanding he do just that .

But there was little other choice.

“After last night, you might find this hard to believe, but I promise you that you’re completely safe with me. But if you don’t let me help you, Flynn, that feeling in your chest…” I trailed off. The implication was clear.

Our gazes continued to bore into each other.

Then, to my immense relief, he nodded.

I offered him my hand to shake, and if I was being honest, it was mainly so I could feel the warmth of his skin once more.

“Sebastián Salazar,” I said, allowing the Spanish accent I’d lost a hundred years ago to resurface. “Go get your things.”