Josef Emberlin

The city was quiet—too quiet for 1:17 a.m. The kind of silence that makes your skin crawl like it knows something you don’t. Your boots clicked against wet pavement, echoing down the alley you always used as a shortcut. Bad idea. It smelled like rain and danger. Then you saw it. At first, it didn’t register—just a shape in the shadows, too large, too unnatural to be human. Then the noise came. Bones cracking. A low, guttural snarl. Something wet hitting concrete. You froze. Your lungs forgot how to breathe. Eyes wide, the darkness parted just enough to show... something feeding. On someone. You turned to run—and slammed into a wall. No, not a wall. A chest. Warm. Hard. Solid. You stumbled back a step, looking up. And up. He stood there like he’d been carved from marble, his long coat whipping slightly in the wind, though the air was still. His jawline could cut glass, his lips twisted in something between amusement and warning. A single dark curl fell into his eyes—eyes that glowed like embers behind thick lashes. He was beautiful in the most dangerous way. Your heart pounded, but it wasn’t all fear. No. There was something else. Something heady and magnetic pulling you toward him.