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The first thing I do when I get home is lock the door. Twice. Then I twist the deadbolt for good measure, testing it to make sure it’s solid. It clicks into place with a finality that should make me feel safe.

It doesn’t.

The house is warm and bright, every light I own glowing like a fortress of artificial sunlight. I kick off my boots near the door, leaving them in a messy pile, and toss my bag in the corner. My muscles ache from hours of decorating cakes and hauling trays, but the worst ache is in my chest.

Hudson’s strained smile flashes across my mind. In the span of a day his entire life has changed, shattering everything he thought he believed in and replacing it with monsters and nightmares.

The kettle hisses on the stove as I change into a hoodie and flannel pajama pants. It’s part of my routine: tea, pajamas, lights. Always the lights. Even during the daytime I keep them on, usually. It used to work, and sunlight used to be enough of a deterrent, but now… I’m not sure my monster is playing by the same rules anymore. He’s stronger somehow, more insistent, and he wants something… more. More than before.

By the time I settle on the couch, a steaming mug in hand, I should feel calm. Comfortable. But the weight pressing down on my chest hasn’t lifted.

I set the mug down and reach for the remote, flipping through channels until the soft drone of an old sitcom fills the room. Background noise. That’s all it is. The laughter track feels forced, fake, but it’s better than silence. Anything is better than silence.

Except the noise isn’t enough. There’s a prickle at the back of my neck, an itch I can’t reach. My eyes dart to the corners of the room, searching the edges of the light for anything out of place. Shadows that move when they shouldn’t. Darkness where there’s supposed to be none.

When the lights in the kitchen and living room flicker, I freeze. My breath catches, my pulse quickening as I stare at the bulb in the table lamp closest to me. It steadies, the glow returning to normal, and I let out a shaky laugh. Just a power surge. That’s all.

Then it bursts.

Glass shatters, a pop echoing through the house, leaving me in the dim, shifting light of early morning, shadows stretching across the room. My tea spills as I scramble to my feet, heart pounding.

“Shit,” I whisper, backing away from the darkened doorway. “Not now. Not today.”

But I know better. The air shifts, growing colder, and heavier. My monster is here.

The darkness pools in the kitchen, spreading like ink across the floor, slithering into the edges of the light. A pair of glowing orange eyes emerge from the void and they seem to glare directly into my soul.

“Leave,” I choke out. “You can’t have what you want from me.”

The shadows ripple, and a low growl resonates through the room, vibrating through my bones. The orange eyes burn brighter, locking onto me with an intensity that freezes me in place. My chest tightens, but there’s something else—a pulse of heat that races through me. A dangerous thrill that feels horribly, intoxicatingly wrong.

The shadows inch closer, tendrils of darkness reaching toward me. My heart thunders as I remember the way they felt on my skin in the shower. Something I don’t want to name mixes with my fear, coiling tightly together. He inches closer, and yet, I don’t move.

“Hello, my Snow Pea,” he rasps, voice gravelly and inhuman. “You’re almost ready…” He inhales deeply, like he’s savoring something only he can scent. “And it will be… exquisite.”

The words slither around me like a vice, but there’s something hypnotic in the way he speaks, in the way his presence pulls at me. My instincts scream to run, to fight, to do anything but stand here as he closes the distance. But my feet are rooted to the floor.

The light in the living room flickers again, dimming as his shadowy tendrils coil tighter, wrapping around my ankles and creeping upward.

My breath catches—because it’s not just cold this time.

It’s heat, too.

Sharp, electric pulses skitter across my skin like static, waking up nerves I didn’t even know existed. My legs tremble. My thighs clench. My stomach twists, not in fear, but something like it.

I’ve never felt this before. Not when I was younger. Not in all the years he haunted my dreams. Back then, his touch was nothing but dread—pure, bone-deep terror that left me paralyzed.

But now?

Now it drags a gasp from my lips that’s too breathless, too eager. And I hate how easily it comes.

His burning orange eyes narrow, sensing it—the shift in me. The way my body reacts before I can even think to stop it.

I still can’t see a face, or hands, or any human shape. Just a towering outline. Smoke and darkness with eyes that see everything. Usually, he’s a wisp—suggestion, shadow. But tonight, he’s dense. Heavy. Real. And his presence presses in around me like a storm cloud ready to break.

“No,” I whisper, trying to breathe, trying to fight—but the word barely leaves my mouth.

The shadows crawl higher, squeezing my thighs, curling around my ribs, inching up between my breasts until it feels like my body might shatter under the pressure. My heart races, and my fear twists into… something else. Something hotter. Something worse.

A tendril strokes between my legs.

It moves over my pajama pants, but the fabric doesn’t matter. It feels like the shadows are beneath it—beneath my skin—stroking, claiming, fervid. Hot and cold, deep and consuming, each brush more intense than the last. I want to scream. I want to stay . I want it to stop. I want more . All at once. All at the same time.

Then the shadow finds the wetness it caused.

His orange eyes burn brighter.

He doesn’t hesitate. The shadows pulse in approval, like they’re savoring the proof of my reaction. One moves higher, toward my throat, curling with a slow, terrifying grace.

“Parker,” he rasps, voice low and dark and final .

But underneath it… there’s something else.

And then?—

Light. Blinding, sudden light.

The other lamp in the corner flares to life, brighter than it should be. The shadows reel back. And from the hallway, a voice cuts through the room.

“That’s enough.”

It’s not loud. But it crackles .

Standing in the doorway is... something out of a fever dream.

A creature leans casually against the doorframe between the living room and kitchen. He’s tall, his head almost touching the ceiling, his broad-shouldered frame covered in shadowy fur that ripples with every movement. Frost-blue eyes, the exact shade of mine, glint from beneath two curling horns that emerge from his head like jagged crowns.

His grin curls up, sharp and dangerous, revealing teeth too pointed to be human. His ears swivel towards me, as if listening to sounds I cannot hear. His clawed hands rest at his sides with deceptive ease, while his wolf-like feet grip the wood floor lightly, his tail flicking lazily behind him, completing the aura of predatory calm.

Where did he come from? How did I not notice someone, something that big walk into my house?

“What… who—what the hell is happening?” I stammer, glancing between him and the glowing eyes still lurking in the kitchen. The air crackles with tension, the two presences clashing like storm fronts.

The creature lifts one clawed hand in a mock greeting. “I go by many names. But let’s keep it simple. Call me Rad.”

Rad?

I almost laugh, but I don’t.

Those glowing orange eyes in the kitchen narrow. The presence behind them seethes.

The creature—Rad—grins wider. “Oh, come now. I told you already,” he purrs, speaking to the shadow. “She’s mine now.”

My pulse skips.

His gaze snaps back to me, his smile widening. “Beholden,” he adds softly, almost like a lullaby. “You summoned me. Your blood. Your fear. It called me to you.”

“What—what does that even mean?”

Rad steps closer, his grin sharpening, predatory. “It means you’re tethered to me now. You feed me. And in return…” His smile turns dark, knowing. “I protect you. From him.”

He jerks his chin toward the kitchen in a strangely human-like gesture. Which should look ridiculous considering he does not look human at all, but it doesn’t. Instead it makes him appear less… dangerous.

And I’m delusional.

“You don’t know what he is yet. But you will . And when you do, you’ll thank me for this.”

The shadows hiss. The eyes pulse once, then vanish.

Gone.

Rad watches for a moment longer, then exhales through his nose, like a predator who just chased off a rival.

Okay. It’s official. I’ve fucking lost it. The stress finally got to me and broke my mind. That’s the only thing that can explain this. Honestly, it’s surprising it hadn’t happened already. Now I’m actually the crazy lady everyone thinks I am.

Rad turns his frosty gaze toward me, his expression softening slightly like he’s reading the panic bubbling up inside me.

His voice lowers as he steps closer, slow and deliberate. “You’re not crazy,” he says, his voice steady, almost soothing. “But you need to breathe, Parker. Breathe.”

“I don’t… I can’t…How do you know my name?” I finally ask, breath catching.

He taps his chest. “Tethered, remember?”

He crouches beside me. “Sleep,” he murmurs, his voice like a lullaby threaded with command. I try to fight it, but my knees buckle, the room tilts, but his clawed hand catches me before I hit the floor.

The last thing I see is his sharp grin softening further, his tail flicking behind him lazily as he gently lays me on the couch. “You’ll think this is all a dream,” he whispers, his words curling around me like a warm blanket. “For now.”

The world slips away, and the tension gripping my chest fades into nothingness.