POV: Eliza
The storm came without warning.
Eliza Ashbourne woke to thunder that shook the windows of the Mayfair townhouse, a rolling percussion that seemed to originate from the earth itself rather than the sky. Rain lashed against the glass in horizontal sheets, and somewhere in the distance, a car alarm wailed before cutting off abruptly.
She sat up in the darkness of the guest bedroom, disoriented.
Sebastian was in Brussels. Three days of EU policy meetings that couldn't be avoided, not with his position in the Home Office. She'd offered to come with him, but he'd kissed her forehead and told her to stay, to rest, to spend time with her mother while he navigated the tedium of bureaucratic dinners.
So she was here. In her childhood home. In a room she'd slept in a thousand times.
Why did it feel wrong?
Lightning flashed, stark and white, illuminating the room in snapshot clarity. The antique furniture. The portraits on the walls. The bay window that overlooked the private garden.
And something else.
Eliza's breath caught.
A figure. Outside the window. Tall and impossibly still against the storm.
Thunder followed immediately, a crack so loud she flinched. When her eyes adjusted again, the window was empty. Just rain and darkness and the skeletal shapes of trees bending in the wind.
"You're being ridiculous," she whispered to herself.
But her heart was racing now, her palms damp. She reached for her phone on the nightstand, the screen brightness making her squint. 2:47 AM. No messages from Sebastian. He'd be asleep by now, eight hundred miles away in a hotel room that smelled of air conditioning and complimentary soap.
She should go back to sleep.
She couldn't.
The storm intensified. Hail began to fall, a machine-gun rattle against the roof tiles and windows. The sound was almost deafening, drowning out even the thunder. Eliza pulled the duvet higher, suddenly cold despite the central heating that kept the house at a constant twenty degrees.
Another flash of lightning.
The figure was back.
This time she saw it clearly. A man. Standing on the narrow ledge outside the bay window, three stories above the garden. Too tall. Too still. Backlit by the lightning so she couldn't see his face.
Just the shape of him. Wrong somehow. The proportions slightly off.
Watching her.
Eliza opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out. Her throat had closed. Her body had gone rigid with a fear so primal it bypassed thought entirely.
The lightning faded. Darkness returned.
But she could still hear it. A scratching sound against the window. Deliberate. Rhythmic. Like claws on glass, barely audible beneath the hail.
This isn't real. This isn't happening.
But it was.
She forced herself to move, to slide across the bed away from the window. Her legs tangled in the sheets. Her breathing came in short, panicked gasps. The rational part of her brain was screaming that this was impossible, that no one could stand on that ledge, that the wind alone would blow them off, that she should turn on the light, call for help, do something—
Glass shattered.
Not the whole window breaking. Just one small pane, punched through from outside. The sound was lost in the storm, but she saw it happen. Saw the hand reach through the gap.
Not a hand.
Something wrong. The fingers too long, the joints at odd angles. And were those claws? No, they had to be fingernails, just overgrown, just—
The latch turned.
The window swung open.
Wind and rain exploded into the room. Papers on the desk went flying. The curtains whipped like flags. And through it all, impossibly, the figure stepped inside.
He was soaked. Water streamed from dark hair, from clothes that might once have been expensive. But he moved wrong. Too fluid. Too predatory. His posture hunched forward as though something in his spine had shifted, as though standing fully upright caused him pain.
Eliza finally found her voice.
"Help," she whispered. Then louder: "Help! HELP!"
But the house was large. Her parents' bedroom was two floors up. The staff quarters were in the converted mews behind the property. And the storm was so loud, drowning everything, making the world small and airless and contained to just this room, just this moment.
The figure straightened slowly.
Lightning flashed again.
Eliza's mind tried to process what she was seeing and failed. A man—yes, still a man—but wrong in every way that mattered. His face was too pale, bloodless, stretched tight over sharp bones. His eyes caught the light and reflected it back, metallic gold, like an animal's eyes in headlights.
And his mouth.
His lips were pulled back, exposing teeth that were far too white, far too sharp, elongated canines that looked more like fangs. Not vampire fangs—she'd seen enough Halloween costumes to know the difference. These were wider, more brutal, designed for tearing rather than piercing.
Wolf teeth.
The thought came unbidden and nonsensical. Wolves didn't look like this. Wolves didn't stand on two legs and wear Tom Ford suits and break into homes in Mayfair.
But those were wolf teeth.
He didn't speak. Didn't explain. Just stood there in the darkness, water pooling beneath him, those terrible eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made her feel naked, exposed, hunted.
Eliza scrambled backward, her shoulders hitting the headboard.
"Get out," she said. Her voice shook. "GET OUT!"
He took a step forward.
She grabbed the lamp from the nightstand and threw it. Her aim was wild, panicked. It missed him entirely, smashing against the wall. He didn't even flinch. Just kept moving with that horrible fluid grace, closing the distance between them.
"Please," she whispered. "Please, I don't—who are you? What do you want?"
No answer. Just another step. And another.
His hands were wrong too. She could see that now. The fingers too long, ending in what looked like actual claws where fingernails should be. Not filed to points—grown that way. Thick and curved and yellowed, like something that had never been trimmed, never been human.
He was close enough now that she could smell him. Rain and something else. Something animal. Musk and fur and copper.
Eliza's hand found her phone. She swiped desperately at the screen, trying to pull up the emergency call, but her hands were shaking too badly. The phone slipped from her grip and clattered to the floor.
The figure's head tilted. Watching her fumble. Studying her with those reflective eyes.
And then he moved.
Not human movement. Too fast. One moment he was three feet away, the next his hand was tangled in her hair, yanking her head back with brutal efficiency. The pain was immediate and blinding. She felt herself dragged across the bed, felt the sheets twist around her legs, felt clawed fingers grip her shoulder and pin her down with inhuman strength.
She screamed. A real scream this time, full-throated and raw.
His face was inches from her throat. She could see every detail now in the dim light. The way his jaw seemed too long, too pronounced. The way his breathing came in short, harsh pants that showed too much of those terrible teeth. The way his pupils had dilated until there was almost no gold left, just black hunger.
"No, no, no—"
His head lowered toward her neck. Not a bite. Not yet. Just breathing her in, his nose pressed against her jugular. She felt him inhale deeply, felt a sound rumble through his chest that was too low, too animal.
A growl.
Eliza tried to fight. Tried to push him off. But it was like trying to move a marble statue. He didn't budge. Didn't even seem to notice her resistance.
His fingers tightened in her hair, forcing her head further to the side, exposing more of her throat.
And then she felt them. Those teeth. Grazing her skin. Testing. The points sharp enough that even that light contact drew blood.
"Please," she sobbed. "Please don't—"
He bit down.
Not the neat puncture wounds of folklore. This was savage. Brutal. She felt teeth sink into the junction of her neck and shoulder, felt them tear through skin and muscle, felt hot blood pour down her collarbone.
The pain was extraordinary. White-hot and all-consuming. She couldn't scream anymore. Couldn't do anything except feel the agony and the pressure of his mouth against her flesh and the horrible wet sounds as he—
What was he doing?
Not drinking. Not feeding in any way that made sense. Just biting. Holding. Like a dog with prey, clamping down and refusing to let go.
Marking.
The word came from somewhere deep in her brain, from some ancestral memory that predated language.
He was marking her.
Eliza's vision began to gray at the edges. Shock, blood loss, sheer terror—she didn't know which. Her struggles weakened. Her body went limp beneath him.
And still he didn't let go.
She heard that growl again, felt it vibrate through his chest into hers. Felt his clawed hand slide from her shoulder to her ribs, holding her down, keeping her still.
The last thing she was aware of before consciousness fled was the wrongness of it all. The absolute impossibility.
This wasn't a robbery. Wasn't a sexual assault. Wasn't anything her mind had categories for.
This was something else entirely.
Something ancient and terrible that had walked into her bedroom wearing a man's shape.
Then darkness took her.