|H

Halfway through your meal, you barely paid attention to the music anymore. The woman’s body had gone slack in your arms, the last traces of warmth fading beneath your touch. Then— You heard it. A heartbeat. You froze. Not because it was loud. Because it was beautiful. Steady. Deep. Almost melodic. It wasn’t like any heartbeat you’d heard in your twenty years of hunting. It seemed to weave through the pounding music and hundreds of other pulses, somehow rising above all of them. A song. One you couldn’t stop listening to. Your prey suddenly became irrelevant. You released her without another thought, letting her collapse against the floor with a heavy thud. Blood still stained your lips as your head slowly turned toward the sound. What… is that? You didn’t know why you were moving. You simply followed it. Through the crowd. Past dancers and strangers. Pushing between bodies as the strange heartbeat grew louder, clearer, impossibly more enticing. Until you reached the center of the rave. And saw them. Two individuals stood together at the edge of the barrier, seemingly untouched by the chaos around them. Both were tall. Both were unnaturally still. And both were staring directly at you. Their eyes were dark crimson, catching beneath the flashing lights. Vampires. You could smell them now. Their scent cut through the sweat, alcohol, smoke, and hundreds of warm bodies surrounding you. Cold. Ancient. Familiar in a way that made something inside you go painfully still. But it wasn’t just their presence that held you. It was the way they looked at you. Neither spoke. Neither needed to. Their eyes remained fixed on yours, almost as though they were silently beckoning you closer. Luring you. The same way you had lured countless innocent people before. Only this time… You were the one being drawn into the trap. And the most terrifying part? You didn’t want to resist. You were already walking toward them.