The office feels like a cage when I walk in.
Fluorescent lights drill into my skull, amplifying the guilt still churning from Emily's discovery. I almost killed someone in her club. In her sanctuary. The place she built from nothing, and I contaminated it with my loss of control.
But underneath the guilt runs something darker—satisfaction. That man was a predator. He got exactly what he deserved. And if I had to do it again, I would.
The cognitive dissonance makes my hands shake as I set down my bag.
James isn't here. His office sits dark and empty, and I feel his absence like a missing limb.
"Well, well." Whitney's voice cuts across the empty cubicles. "Knight actually showed up. I'm shocked."
I don't respond. Just power on my computer and try to focus on anything other than the hunger still humming beneath my skin.
She doesn't take the hint. Approaches my desk with that particular stride that means she's looking for blood. "You've been making a lot of mistakes lately. Distracted. Breaking things." She leans against my cubicle wall. "Everything okay at home?
The mention of family makes something vicious coil in my chest. "Everything is fine."
"Is it?" Her smile sharpens.
She's fishing. Doesn't know anything concrete, just senses weakness and wants to exploit it. It's what she's always done—find the soft spots and press until something breaks.
Tonight, I'm what breaks.
"Stay out of my business, Whitney." The words come out colder than intended, and I watch her expression shift from smug to surprised.
"Or what?" She straightens, and I can smell the adrenaline starting to spike in her bloodstream. She's enjoying this. "You'll what, exactly? Break another keyboard? Storm out early again?"
"I'll make you regret it." The threat is quiet, certain, and carries weight I've never let her hear before.
Her cold blue eyes narrow. "Is that a threat? Because I can go to HR right now—"
"Go ahead." I stand, and the movement is too fast, too fluid. Vampire grace that makes her take an involuntary step back.
"You don't scare me." But her voice wavers, and her heartbeat—God, her heartbeat—hammers so loud I can count the individual beats. Fear-scent rolls off her in waves.
I step closer. She backs up. The dynamic reverses completely, predator and prey switching roles, and the dark satisfaction of it floods through me like heat.
"Don't I?" I tilt my head, watching her pulse jump in her throat. "You've been watching me, Whitney. Cataloging every moment where I didn't quite fit the mold anymore."
"Because something's wrong with you—"
"Yes." The admission stops her cold. "Something is very wrong with me. And you should have stopped pushing when you had the chance."
The rage that's been building—over Vincent, over the murders I barely remember, over Emily's fear, over a lifetime of being made to feel small—surges up my throat. My control, already frayed from earlier, snaps like a cord pulled too tight.
My fangs descend.
Just for a second. Just a flash. But in the fluorescent light, there's no mistaking what she sees.
Whitney's eyes go wide. Her face drains of color so fast I can track the blood retreating. And the sound she makes—a choked, terrified gasp—feeds something dark inside me that shouldn't exist.
"What—" She backs against the wall, hands up like I might strike. "What the fuck—"
I catch myself. But the damage is done. She saw. She knows something is fundamentally wrong with me, even if her brain can't process what.
"You're—you're not—" She's shaking now, and the terror in her eyes makes me feel powerful.
"Theresa."
James's voice cuts through the moment like a blade. I turn to find him in the doorway, expression carefully neutral, but I see the tension in his shoulders. He knows exactly what just happened. Knows I've exposed myself in the worst possible way.
"Whitney, go home." His tone brooks no argument. "You look ill. Take the night off."
She tears her gaze from me to him, and relief floods her features. He's normal. Safe. Human enough to trust. "Mr. Bloxham, she—"
"Is having a difficult night." He doesn't look at me, keeps his attention on Whitney. "As are you, apparently. Go home. We'll discuss this tomorrow."
She hesitates, then practically runs for the door. I hear her footsteps echoing down the hallway, too fast, panicked, and I know this won't end here. She'll talk. She'll tell someone. She'll—
"My office." James's voice is calm, but I hear the command underneath. "Now."
I follow him into the dark office, and he closes the door with careful precision before turning to face me.
"You showed her." Not a question. An observation.
"She pushed—"
"I don't care what she did." His voice is harder now. "You lost control. In a public space. With witnesses."
The reprimand lands, and shame floods through me. Not for what I wanted to do to Whitney, but for the sloppiness of it. The exposure. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry doesn't fix this." He moves to his desk, bracing his hands against it. "She's going to talk. Tell people you're not right. And if enough people start looking—"
"They won't find anything." I step closer. "Because I'm quitting anyway. Tonight. This is my last shift."
He goes still. Doesn't turn around. "Theresa—"
"I can't keep pretending to be human here." The truth pours out. "Can't keep making myself small to fit in a cage I've outgrown. I'm done, James."
Silence stretches between us. Then he turns, and the expression on his face is complex—loss and acceptance and something that might be pride.
"You're sure?"
"Yes." I close the distance between us, and suddenly the lecture doesn't matter. The exposure doesn't matter. All that matters is that he's here, solid and real, and I need to feel something other than guilt and rage.
"Then we should discuss—"
I kiss him.
He makes a sound of surprise that dissolves into something darker as I press against him, trap him between my body and the desk. His hands come up to my hips, but I can feel the restraint in his touch.
"Theresa, we need to—"
"We need to stop talking." I bite his lower lip gently, feel his control waver.
"This is reckless—"
"Everything about me is reckless now." I slide my hands under his shirt, feel the cold marble of his skin.
His resistance crumbles. He kisses me with the desperation of centuries of loneliness meeting someone who finally matches him, who isn't afraid, who wants the monster as much as the man.
We move with inhuman speed. He lifts me onto the desk and I wrap my legs around him, needing him inside me.
When he enters me, the world narrows to sensation and need and the dark satisfaction of claiming each other in a space that represents everything I'm leaving behind.
We don't make love gently. We fuck with the intensity of two predators who've finally stopped pretending to be anything else. The desk creaks. Something crashes to the floor. And I don't care. Don't care who might hear or see or know. Because this—this raw, honest, dangerous thing between us—is the only truth that matters.
When we finish, tangled together on his desk with the office lights still blazing beyond the door, I feel complete in a way I never have before.
"Stay with me tonight," he says quietly. "Don't go back to your apartment."
"I won't." I trace his jawline. "I'm yours now."
And for the first time since turning, the words feel like choice.