Chapter 5: Nocturnal Revelation
The metallic whisper of the elevator was still in her ears, a ghost sound underscoring the real-world hum of Sera’s sedan. The drive back to Ravenswood was silent. Sera didn’t ask what happened, and Liana didn’t offer. The aasimar’s profile was sharp in the dashboard glow, her eyes periodically scanning the night rooftops, her knuckles white on the wheel.
“Did he take it?” Sera finally asked, the words cutting through the radio’s soft static.
“Two vials,” Liana said, staring at the passing streetlights. “It was very clinical.”
A soft, derisive sound escaped Sera. “I’m sure it was.”
They pulled up to her building. Sera put the car in park but left it running. “The wards are holding. You’re safe inside. Try to get some sleep. Your shift starts at seven tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. The word was absurd. It was already tomorrow. The concept of a night shift at a normal hospital, dealing with mundane human ailments, felt like remembering a play she’d once acted in years ago.
Her apartment welcomed her with a silent, weighted hum. The wards. She could feel them now, a subtle pressure against her eardrums, like the air before a thunderstorm. She dropped her purse, toes off her shoes, and fell face-first onto the couch without turning on the light. The city’s orange glow painted the ceiling.
Sleep didn’t come so much as it ambushed her.
One moment she was sinking into the couch cushions, and the next she was standing in a room she’d never seen. It was all deep, pulsating crimson, draped in velvet that swallowed sound. The air was warm and thick, carrying the faint, familiar scent of cold stone and aged parchment from his penthouse, but underneath it was something else, metallic and wild.
She looked down. Her practical clothes were gone. Instead, she wore something black and sheer, lace tracing lines against her skin she’d never shown to anyone. A flush of heat, half-shame and half-thrill, crawled up her throat. This wasn't her. This wasn't her dream.
Shadow coalesced in the corner of the room, pulling itself from the darkness like ink from water. Matthias stepped forward, but not the Matthias in the tailored suit. This one wore only dark trousers, his pale chest bare and smooth as alabaster. His eyes weren’t just red; they were lit from within, casting twin embers on his sharp cheekbones. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
His gaze was a physical touch, traveling over the lace, the curve of her waist, the frantic pulse at the base of her neck. She should have been terrified. She was. But a deeper, older part of her arched toward that look like a plant seeking sun. He closed the distance without seeming to move, his cool presence washing over her.
A hand, so pale it seemed to glow, came up to cradle her jaw. His thumb brushed her lower lip. The chill of him was a shock against the dream’s warmth, a jarring reality that somehow made everything more intense. Her breath hitched. He leaned in, and she met him halfway.
The kiss wasn’t gentle. It was claiming. It tasted like winter and wine and a dark, impossible sweetness. A moan escaped her, a sound she barely recognized, vibrating against his mouth. Her hands found the hard planes of his back, the skin cool and perfect under her fingertips. The logic of the waking world—the warnings, the vials of blood, Sera’s suspicion—dissolved into ash.
He guided her back, and she went willingly. The satin cover of a bed she hadn’t seen met her shoulders, a slick coldness through the sheer fabric. He hovered above her, a sculpture of night and desire, his eyes drinking her in. His lips trailed from her mouth, down the line of her jaw, to the frantic beat in her throat. She felt the shift before she saw it, a subtle tightening of his posture.
The graze of his fangs against her skin was a lightning bolt of pure sensation. It wasn’t pain. It was a bright, terrifying pleasure, so acute it bordered on agony. Her back arched off the bed, a silent cry on her lips. He paused there, a breath away from breaking skin, and the anticipation was a torture all its own.
“Please,” she heard herself beg, the word finally finding sound in the dream.
He bit down.
Pleasure exploded in her. It was a supernova under her skin, a wave of white-hot ecstasy that tore through every nerve ending. Her moans, raw and unfiltered, filled the draped room, echoing back as if the shadows themselves were consuming the sound. She writhed in his embrace, her fingers digging into his back, her body bowing against the cold satin as the dream-fangs sank deeper, a perfect, piercing rhythm synced with the frantic hammer of her heart.
Dark, unintelligible voices whispered at the edges of the pleasure, a chorus of ancient sighs and promises. They didn’t speak in words but in feelings—power, surrender, a forever kind of night. The dual sensations, the exquisite draw at her neck and the building pressure low in her belly, coiled her tighter and tighter. She felt herself teetering on a blinding edge, every muscle taut, a scream of release gathering in her throat.
The dream shattered in a bright, soundless flash.
Liana bolted upright in bed, panting. Her heart was a frantic, trapped bird against her ribs. The sheets were tangled around her legs, the memory of cool satin still whispering against her skin. Her nipples, hard and sensitive, pressed against the thin silk of her pajama top, and a damp, aching heat soaked the shorts between her thighs.
“God,” she gasped into the dark room.
Her hand flew to her neck, fingers searching, probing. The skin was smooth, unbroken. No punctures. No tender bruises. Just the frantic drumbeat of her own pulse under her fingertips. A dream. Just a spectacularly, unbearably vivid dream. She threw the covers back, the cool air a shock on her sweat-dampened skin.
She stumbled into the bathroom, flipping the switch. The fluorescent light was a brutal indictment. Her reflection was wild-eyed, hair a chaotic mess, lips still looking swollen. She turned the faucet and splashed handfuls of cold water on her face, again and again, until the chill bit into her bones.
“Get a grip, Carter,” she muttered to the dripping face in the mirror. “He’s a centuries-old vampire who collects blood and weird artifacts. You’re a nurse with student debt.” The juvenile lust felt like a betrayal of her own common sense, a stupid schoolgirl crush.
She shook her head hard, as if she could physically dislodge the lingering image of his bare chest, the phantom feel of his mouth. The latent attraction, a low hum in her veins, was a problem to be boxed up and shelved. It was a biological glitch, a magical side effect, anything but real.
With a final towel-swipe at her face, she marched back to bed. She yanked the sheets straight and lay down, staring at the ceiling where the ward’s hum was now the only sound. She focused on it, on the mundane ache in her feet from her last shift, on the grocery list she needed to make. The dream’s intensity faded, leaving behind a hollow, restless shame.
Sleep, when it finally crept back in, was a blank and silent mercy.