CHAPTER NINE —
DAMIEN — POV
By ten p.m., CrownWave is mostly dead.
Not literally, unfortunately.
Just quiet.
The kind of quiet that makes every small sound stand out — the distant whirr of cleaning machines on the lower floors, the hum of the central AC pushing cold air through steel veins, the faint buzz of emergency lights that never turn off.
I stand in my office, staring out at the city.
From up here, the streets look like rivers of light. Cars slide through them like pulses under skin. Neon signs blink in colors that mean nothing — red for hunger, blue for regret, white for lies.
My reflection stares back at me in the window.
Eyes too dark.
Jaw too tight.
Hunger too loud.
Ever since she walked out of here, it hasn't shut up.
Ashley Dean.
Her name is like a bruise in my mind. I don't have to prod it — it throbs on its own.
The way her spirit recoiled from me. The way she glared and still signed. The way she walked out with her spine straight even though I could hear her pulse racing.
She shouldn't matter.
She's just a woman. Just an employee. A new PA with a sharp tongue and a trembling soul that somehow refuses to bow.
She shouldn't matter.
But the hunger inside me will not let it go.
It curls around her memory like smoke.
Taste her.
Break her.
Take that light and make it yours.
"No," I mutter.
My reflection doesn't argue. It just frowns back.
I drag in a breath and try to focus on the stack of work on my desk — projections for the next quarter, a risk analysis report, a list of redundant positions I plan to erase.
None of it holds my attention.
The ache in my chest climbs, crawls up my throat, wraps around my skull.
I haven't fed in days.
I've gone longer before — testing limits, proving to myself that I am not just what she made me. Not just the creature the woman in the bar turned me into all those years ago.
But that was before Ashley.
Before her presence dragged something inside me awake and made the hunger mutate.
Now it doesn't just want.
It rages.
I slam the folder closed so hard the pen on my desk rolls and falls.
The sharp sound snaps across the room.
"Enough," I say to nobody.
The hunger doesn't listen.
Of course it doesn't.
I grab my jacket from the back of my chair but don't put it on. I just sling it over my shoulder and walk out of the office, letting the door shut behind me with a quiet click.
The hallway on the executive floor is dimmed — motion sensors waiting to wake fully if someone walks by. An emergency strip glows along the baseboards, lighting my path in a cold, unnatural blue.
I press the elevator button.
My reflection in the chrome doors looks better than I feel — crisp shirt, tie loosened, hair only slightly disordered.
Monster in a suit.
The doors slide open; I step in and hit 35.
Not the ground floor.
Not the exit.
A hunting floor.
Marketing. Client strategy. Overflow offices. Lounge spaces.
Lots of corners.
Lots of shadows.
Less security presence.
Perfect.
---
The thirty-fifth floor greets me with darkness. Motion lights blink on as I step out, blooming in a slow wave down the corridor like they're reluctant to wake.
The air here feels different.
Cooler. Thinner.
I walk slowly, listening.
Silence.
For a moment, I think maybe everyone actually went home.
Then—
Footsteps.
Soft. Hesitant. Coming from the right.
I stop at the intersection of two hallways and wait.
And she appears.
Emma Hart.
Blonde hair in a neat tail that's starting to fall apart. Jacket unbuttoned. Heels slightly scuffed from too much walking on corporate carpets. A folder held to her chest like armor.
Her eyes widen when she sees me.
"Oh," she breathes. "Sir."
Of course.
Some nights, they come like this. Drawn without knowing. Like moths with resumes.
"Emma," I say.
Her face lights up at the sound of her own name on my tongue.
"You… remember?" she asks, hopeful.
"I read your file this morning," I say.
Her smile falters, then returns — smaller, but still bright. "Right. Of course."
She clears her throat and stands a little straighter.
"I didn't know anyone was still up here," she says. "I was just finishing a client deck for tomorrow and then I saw the elevator log show Level 35 again and I thought maybe—"
She cuts herself off, cheeks flushing.
Maybe you could 'run into' me.
The hunger inside me perks up.
She's tired. She's eager. She wants recognition. Wants to matter.
It reads like perfume to the incubus.
I should send her away.
Go home, Emma.
Sleep.
Let me starve.
Instead, I hear myself ask, "Why are you really still here?"
She licks her lips. "I wanted… to be seen. Maybe. By you."
Direct.
Interesting.
"Dangerous wish," I say.
She laughs nervously. "You say that like you're a villain."
"Some people would agree with you."
Her gaze flicks over my face, searching. She doesn't see anything she recognizes as danger; people like her rarely do.
"Mr. Axford," she says, "I know you're busy, but I've followed your work for years. When I heard you bought CrownWave, I thought… maybe this is my chance. To grow. To get out of being just 'the girl who schedules posts.' To be on the radar of someone who actually shapes things."
Her voice breaks slightly on that last bit.
"On the radar," I repeat.
"Yes," she whispers.
Anger spikes in me — not at her.
At myself.
At the fact that even now, even with a willing target right in front of me, my mind darts back to someone else.
To a girl in a cheap blouse whose spirit flared like a shield when she saw me.
Ashley, who refused to flatter me.
Ashley, who didn't want to be on my radar.
Ashley, whose energy called to the darkness in me in a way no one else's has in years.
The hunger twists violently.
Pain pulses behind my eyes.
I look at Emma again and know with perfect clarity:
She isn't what I want.
She'll never be what I want.
But she can quiet the monster for a while.
And tonight, I need quiet.
My jaw hardens.
I step toward her.
She sucks in a breath but doesn't back away.
"You're playing a dangerous game, Emma," I say softly.
"If I don't play," she replies, voice barely above a whisper, "I stay invisible forever."
"I'm not a prize," I say. "You shouldn't be trying to catch my attention."
Her eyes shine. "Maybe I already did."
Bold.
Predictable.
Useful.
The hunger surges like a wave, slamming against my ribs.
Take her.
Forget the other one.
Drown the ache.
"All right," I murmur. "You have my attention."
Her lips part.
The lighting on this floor is low, dim strips along the walls. It throws shadows over her face, leaving her eyes in pools of darkness and her mouth a soft, uncertain line.
I lift my hand and trail my knuckles lightly up her arm.
She shivers.
"Tell me," I say, "do you have any idea what you're asking for?"
"I'm not naive," she says, though her voice wobbles. "I know men like you don't… do anything for free."
A humorless smile tugs at my mouth.
"No," I say. "We don't."
I step closer until the gap between us is a single breath.
I can smell her perfume now — floral, sweet, a cheap attempt at confidence. Underneath it is her real scent: warm, full of life, full of lonely yearning.
I feel her aura reach for me, unaware of what it's touching.
"Last chance," I murmur. "Walk away."
She looks up at me like she's standing on the edge of a cliff and hasn't decided if she's falling or flying.
She doesn't move.
So I do.
---
THE FEEDING
I cup her jaw gently — too gently, considering what I'm about to do.
Her skin is hot under my fingertips. Her pulse flutters wildly against my thumb.
Her eyes flutter half-closed.
"Breathe," I say.
She obeys.
The incubus inside me digs its claws into my control.
Now.
I lower my head.
The first brush of my mouth against hers is soft — not because I mean to be kind, but because that's all it takes.
Contact.
Her aura flares open.
The taste of her floods into me — like warm honey cut with sharp edges. Fear. Need. Ambition. A desperate craving to belong.
I deepen the kiss.
Her hands clutch at my shirt, pulling me closer, pressing herself against me. Her body reacts as if this is everything she's wanted, the culmination of all her late nights and hopeful glances.
She has no idea that something much larger and colder moves beneath the surface.
The darkness inside me opens its mouth.
Her essence pours in.
Heat shoots through my veins, filling the aching hollow that's been gnawing at me all day. My hands grip harder — one tangled in her hair, the other at the small of her back, anchoring her.
She gasps into my mouth, a sound half-shock, half-pleasure.
"Oh…"
Her knees buckle. I hold her up easily.
Light leaks from her like water from a cracked glass.
She doesn't see it, but I do. I feel it.
The Allo effect begins to coil.
First, it's subtle. A tiny shift in the quality of her energy, the way her pleasure stutters and frays at the edges. Her body chases something — and just as she's about to catch it, I rip it away.
She whimpers — a thin, broken sound.
"What… what is that…" she whispers against my lips.
"