Snowflakes drifted lazily through the air, soft and harmless…nothing like the sharp, electric tension tightening around Luka's shoulders. Talia could feel it radiating from him, pulsing against the night like a warning she didn't know how to interpret.
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
The last thing she'd seen was the flicker.. no, the shift…in his eyes. A glow that wasn't human. A depth that wasn't pretend. And the way he had stepped in front of her, posture dropping almost instinctively into a defensive stance…
This wasn't a game anymore.
"Luka?" she whispered, trying to catch his face again. "What's happening?"
He didn't answer.
He was listening.
Not with human ears.
His head tilted slightly, just enough for the streetlamp to illuminate the sharp line of his jaw, the flare in his nostrils as he inhaled the wind-slow, deliberate, predatory.
"Talia," he murmured, voice vibrating with something feral. "Stay behind me."
Her heart punched her ribs. "Why? Luka, you're scaring"
A snap echoed through the trees. Not a footstep. Not a branch. Something… skittering. Quick. Wrong.
Luka exhaled one word, low and lethal.
"Vampires."
Talia stared at him, a confused laugh trembling out of her. "Luka… don't joke like that"
He turned his head slightly.
Just enough for her to see his smile bare a hint of teeth that weren't human-shaped anymore.
"I'm not joking."
The world stopped.
***
The air thinned around her, freezing her breath in her lungs. She shook her head, stumbling back a step.
"Luka, this is still role-play, right? Just a"
A blur of movement shot between the trees.
Too fast.
Too sharp.
Too wrong.
Luka shoved her behind him with one arm, the other raised as though preparing for a fight she couldn't even see.
A hiss tore through the silence.
Talia screamed.
From behind a snow-heavy pine, a figure stepped out-pale, eyes black as ink, body thin and curved like a creature not meant to walk upright. Its skin glistened like ice. Its lips were red. Too red.
And its gaze locked on Talia like she was dessert.
Luka growled.
The sound wasn't human.
"Back away, Alpha," the creature crooned. Its voice was brittle and sharp, like shattered crystal. "We smelled her before you did."
Alpha.
Alpha.
The word punched through her panic.
This wasn't acting.
This wasn't a game.
Luka wasn't human.
And whatever this thing was…it wasn't pretending either.
"Talia," Luka warned without turning, "run if I tell you. Not before."
Her throat closed. "II can't"
"You will."
Another shape dropped from above… landing in the snow with a soft, horrible thud. Its eyes gleamed.
"Prey-girl," the second vampire hissed. "Pretty little prey."
Luka snapped.
Not metaphorically.
Not emotionally.
Physically.
His bones cracked sharply beneath his skin…his shoulders broadening, his back arching, his fingers curling like claws. He didn't fully shift, but the partial transformation ripped through him like fire.
His eyes glowed gold-bright, burning, terrifying.
"Mine," he snarled.
***
The vampires lunged.
Luka moved faster than sound.
Snow exploded around him as he launched forward, slamming into the first creature with a force that shook the ground. Claws actual… claw-store through the vampire's chest, sending a spray of dark blood across the snow.
Talia screamed again, stumbling backwards
A hand clamped around her ankle.
The second vampire.
Its grip was ice-cold, burning through her boot like frostbite. She fell hard into the snow as it dragged her toward the shadowed trees, Its mouth stretching wide, revealing fangs
"LUKA!"
Luka turned so fast the snow swirled upward from the force. He sprinted toward her, launching himself in a perfect, terrifying arc
He hit the vampire mid-lunge.
They rolled across the snow in a blur of limbs and claws, snarls echoing through the silent park.
Talia scrambled backward, shaking, sobbing, the cold slicing her palms as she crawled.
This couldn't be real.
This couldn't be happening.
She didn't sign up for this.
She didn't want this.
But she'd seen his eyes.
She'd seen him fight.
And nothing about Luka had ever been human.
***
The fight was brutal.
It was nothing like movies.
Claws ripped.
Teeth slashed.
Bodies collided with bone-breaking force.
Dark blood splattered across the pristine white snow in wide arcs, staining it black-red. Talia stumbled back until her spine hit a tree trunk, breath shaking violently in her chest.
"Stop…stop…stop" she whispered into her trembling hands.
Luka didn't hear her.
He was lost in instinct, lost in the heat of violence, the fury of protection. His eyes glowed fiercely, his teeth bared in a half-shifted snarl as he tore into the vampire's shoulder.
The vampire shrieked, something like smoke curling from its wound.
Another shadow darted between the trees.
Another vampire.
Oh God.
There were more.
"TALIA, DOWN!"
She dropped as Luka shoved the new attacker away with brute force, his body moving with the precision of a predator that had spent centuries perfecting its kill.
Her fear broke open inside her, blooming into something overwhelming.
This wasn't the man she had flirted with online.
This wasn't the sexy, confident stranger who teased her for staring.
This was something ancient.
Something deadly.
Something wild.
And for some impossible reason
He was fighting to keep her alive.
***
The first vampire, weakened and wheezing, tried to crawl toward her again, its black eyes fixated on her like she was the sun after a hundred years of darkness.
Luka roared.
He descended on it with a final, devastating strike
Then silence.
Only the soft fall of snow returning.
Only the sound of Luka's ragged breathing.
Only the faint rustle of Christmas lights swaying.
Talia pressed a shaking hand over her mouth.
Luka's back rose and fell with violent breaths as he stood over the corpses. His muscles trembled under torn clothes, claws retracting, eyes dimming back to human… slowly, painfully.
He turned to her.
And her heart stopped.
His face was still partly wolf-touched… eyes glowing faint gold, teeth sharper, posture predatory.
But when he looked at her…
His expression softened.
His voice broke.
"Talia."
She flinched.
His jaw tightened with something like regret.
He stepped toward her.
She scrambled away.
Luka froze, pain flickering across his features.
"You're hurt," he said quietly.
She shook her head violently. "D-don't come closer."
He swallowed hard. "I would never hurt you."
"You just… just" Her voice cracked. "You ripped them apart!"
"They were going to take you."
Her chest hitched.
"Talia," Luka whispered, taking one slow step forward, "listen to me."
She tried to breathe but everything inside her trembled.
He approached…not as a monster, not as a man, but something in between, something trying desperately to turn human again.
He knelt in the snow beside her not touching, not even close… just kneeling, hands open, eyes lowered.
"Talia," he said softly, brokenly, "I need you to trust me for five minutes."
"Wh-why?"
"Because more are coming."
Her breath died.
"Can you walk?" he asked.
She didn't answer.
Without waiting, Luka leaned closer…very… slowly lifting her hood and brushing snow gently from her cheek with the back of one trembling knuckle.
"Talia," he murmured, voice dark velvet, "please. Let me take you somewhere safe."
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
His eyes… still glowing faintly met hers.
Raw.
Feral.
Worried.
And for the first time, she saw past the monster.
She saw the man who had thrown himself between her and death.
Her voice broke. "I… I want to go home."
Luka exhaled sharply. "You can't. They've marked your scent."
She shuddered.
"They'll follow you," he whispered. "Anywhere."
Her heart sank.
"Come with me," Luka said. "Just for tonight."
"T-to your place?"
"Yes."
She hesitated
He leaned in, breath warm against her ear, voice low and sinful despite the blood on his hands:
"I swear, little bunny… the only thing I'll do is keep you alive."
She closed her eyes, trembling.
And nodded.
He picked her up careful, gentle, strong and carried her through the falling snow.
Behind them, the blood stained the ground like a warning.
Ahead of them lay the Alpha's den.