The book sat open on her coffee table like it belonged there. Like it hadn't spent the last several centuries buried under a pile of other things that should have stayed buried.

It was beautiful, in a way. Dark leather binding. Pages yellowed with age. Text written in careful, looping script that seemed to shift slightly when you weren't looking directly at it.

Which was fine. Normal, even. For her.

She'd collected worse. Probably. There was a mirror in the hallway that occasionally showed reflections of people who weren't there. A necklace in her bedroom drawer that hummed when the moon was full. A set of teacups that whispered secrets in ancient Greek if you left them alone long enough.

The book was just another addition to the collection.

Except—and here was the thing—the book wasn't just sitting there. It was open to a specific page. A page with a ritual that was very clearly not meant for anyone to actually perform. The kind of ritual that made you wonder who wrote it, and more importantly, why they were so desperate to find out what would happen.

The instructions were simple enough. Draw the markings. Say the words. A little blood, just a drop or two.

Well. That seemed easy enough.

And so here she was. Standing in her living room. Candlelight flickering from the marks she'd drawn on the floor. The book open in front of her. The words rising from her throat before she could stop and think about what she was doing.

The air changed.

It was sudden and wrong. The temperature in the room dropped several degrees at once, and the candles she'd lit all flickered at the exact same moment, like they were all holding their breath.

Shadows pooled in the corners of the room, stretching and deepening. Darker than they should have been. Darker than ordinary shadows could be.

He moved like he belonged in the dark. Like it was an extension of his own body. The candlelight caught on him slowly, revealing him in pieces. Dark curls. A sharp jaw. Eyes so dark they were nearly black, and somehow, they felt like they were drinking in every detail of the room.

He knew exactly what he was.