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The stranger's been watching me for twenty minutes.
I wipe down the bar top, keeping my head down, but I can feel his eyes tracking every move. Cold. Steady. Not the drunk kind of staring I'm used to at Raven's Nest. This is different. This is the kind of attention that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
Rachel leans over the counter, whispering loud enough that I have to bite back a smile. "Lynn, that guy in the corner booth? He hasn't touched his drink. Just keeps looking at you."
"I noticed."
"And you're not creeped out?"
I shrug, tossing the rag into the sink. "Used to worse."
She doesn't know what worse means. Rachel thinks my dad died in a car accident three years ago. She thinks I work double shifts because I've got student loans. She doesn't know about the silver blade strapped to my thigh under these jeans, or the fact that I've been hunting things that go bump in the night since I was sixteen.
She definitely doesn't know that the stranger in the corner booth isn't human.
I caught it the second he walked in. The way he moved—too smooth, too controlled. The way his eyes reflected the dim bar lights wrong, just for a second. And the smell. Most people wouldn't notice, but I grew up around it. Cold stone and old blood. Vampire.
My heartbeat picks up, but I keep my face blank. I've been trained for this my whole life. Three generations of Mu family hunters, and I'm the last one left. My great-grandfather started it. My grandfather continued. My father died finishing a hunt.
And I'm going to find out which bloodsucker killed him.
Rachel touches my arm. "You okay? You zoned out."
"Yeah. Just tired." I glance at the clock. "Fifteen minutes till close. You head out, I'll lock up."
"You sure?"
"I'm sure."
She hesitates, looking between me and the corner booth, then grabs her jacket. "Text me when you get home, okay?"
"Always do."
I don't. But she doesn't need to know that either.
The door swings shut behind her. I flip the sign to Closed and start wiping down tables, working my way toward the corner booth. My pulse is loud in my ears, but my hands are steady. I've done this before. Not often—vampires don't usually show themselves in public—but enough times that I know the drill.
Get close. Confirm the target. Strike fast.
I stop at his table. Up close, he's younger than I expected. Maybe mid-twenties, dark hair pushed back, sharp jawline. Expensive coat. He looks like he stepped out of some corporate boardroom, not a dive bar in the warehouse district.
His drink is still full. Whiskey, untouched.
"We're closed," I say.
He looks up, and I see his eyes clearly for the first time. Gray. Cold. Old.
"I know," he says. His voice is quiet, controlled. "I came to talk to you, Lynn Mu."
My stomach drops, but I don't let it show. "You've got the wrong person."
"I don't think so." He tilts his head slightly. "Daughter of James Mu. Granddaughter of Wei Mu. Last living member of a hunter family that's been killing my kind for seventy years."
Shit.
I take a step back, hand already moving toward my thigh. But he's faster. He's across the table and in front of me before I can blink, one hand catching my wrist, the other pressing against my throat.
Not squeezing. Just holding.
"I'm not here to kill you," he says.
I drive my knee up toward his ribs. He blocks it, barely, and I twist my wrist free, my other hand going for the blade. I get it halfway out before he slams me back against the wall, both my wrists pinned above my head.
His face is inches from mine. I can see the veins darkening under his eyes now, the points of his fangs just visible.
"Listen to me," he says. "There's a traitor inside the Blood Council. Someone's been killing human contacts and framing my unit. If I don't find them in the next month, we're looking at a war."
"Not my problem."
"It will be." His grip tightens. "Because whoever's doing this knows about you. They know you're still hunting. And they're going to use you to destabilize the treaty."
I laugh, sharp and bitter. "What treaty? You think I care about vampire politics? My father died hunting your kind. My family's been dying for three generations because of you."
"I know."
"Then let me go."
"I can't." Something flickers across his face—frustration, maybe, or something close to regret. "You're in danger. Whether you believe me or not, someone's coming for you. And if they get to you first—"
I spit in his face.
He jerks back, just enough, and I get my blade all the way out. Silver, blessed, sharp enough to cut through bone. I drive it straight toward his heart.
He twists. The blade sinks in, but not where I aimed—too far to the left, into his shoulder instead of his chest. He gasps, blood blooming dark against his white shirt, and his hands clamp down on my arms.
His fangs sink into my throat.
Pain explodes through me, white-hot and electric. I try to scream, but nothing comes out. My whole body locks up, every nerve firing at once. I can feel his teeth in my skin, feel the pull as he draws blood, and then—
Something breaks open inside me.
It's like a dam bursting. Heat floods my veins, rushing outward from where his mouth meets my neck, and I feel it—his heartbeat. Not mine. His. Slow and cold and wrong, but there, pulsing in time with the pain.
He pulls back, his eyes wide, blood on his lips.
"No," he says. "No, that's not—"
I drive the blade deeper.
He chokes, his hands spasming on my arms, and we both drop. My knees hit the floor hard, his weight dragging me down. The blade is still in his shoulder, my hand still on the hilt, and I can feel it—the silver burning through his blood, his pulse stuttering.
And mine stuttering with it.
Black veins crawl across my skin, spreading from where he bit me. They move fast, threading up my neck, across my collarbone, reaching toward my heart. I try to pull away, but I can't move. My muscles won't respond.
His hand wraps around my wrist, pulling the blade out with a wet, awful sound. He drops it, and it clatters across the floor.
"What did you do?" I manage to say. My voice comes out strangled.
"I didn't—" He's breathing hard, one hand pressed to his shoulder, blood seeping between his fingers. The black veins are on him too, crawling up from where I stabbed him. "It wasn't supposed to activate. You're human. It shouldn't have—"
"What activated?"
He looks at me, and for the first time, I see fear in his eyes.
"Blood bond," he says. "It's a vampire ritual. Old magic. It ties two lives together."
"Untie it."
"I can't." He's still staring at the black veins spreading across my skin. They've reached my chest now, branching like roots. "Once it activates, it has to complete. Three exchanges. Thirty days."
My heart is pounding so hard I think it might break through my ribs. "Or what?"
He meets my eyes.
"Or both our hearts stop."
I try to stand, but my legs won't hold me. The black veins pulse, tightening around my heart, and I gasp, clutching at my chest. He reaches for me, but I knock his hand away.
"Don't touch me."
"Lynn—"
"Don't say my name." I drag myself backward, putting distance between us. My whole body feels like it's on fire and freezing at the same time. "Who are you?"
He's quiet for a moment, his hand still pressed to his bleeding shoulder. Then he says, "Adrian Kor. Commander of the Blood Council's third unit."
Commander. My stomach twists. That means he's high-ranking. That means he's killed people. That means—
"My father," I say. My voice shakes. "Did you kill him?"
"No." His eyes don't leave mine. "But I know who did."
The black veins pulse again, tighter, and I double over, gasping. He moves toward me, but stops when I glare at him.
"Thirty days," he says again. His voice is flat, but I can hear the edge underneath. "We have thirty days to complete the ritual. Three exchanges of blood, given willingly. If we don't—"
"We die."
"Yes."
I look down at the black veins crawling across my skin, wrapping around my heart. Then I look at him—this vampire, this commander, this thing I was supposed to kill.
And I think about my father. About the hunt he died finishing. About the fact that this man says he knows who killed him.
I push myself to my feet, shaking. "Thirty days."
"Yes."
I pick up my blade, still slick with his blood. "Then we'd better get started."