C15 Stay away

ALARIC

I should’ve compelled her harder.

I knew it the moment I saw the suspicion in her eyes this morning—the way she tilted her head, the way her lips curled like she’d uncovered a secret.

Fragments were slipping through. My hypnosis was weakening.

And Sydney Stallone was too damn clever for her own good.

---

At Home

Maya slammed a book onto the table in front of me. “You look like hell.”

I glared at her. “Good morning to you too.”

“You fed?”

“On deer,” I muttered. “Last night.”

She frowned. “Not enough. You’re strung out. That’s when mistakes happen.”

I closed the file I’d been pretending to read—yet another dead-end lead into Stallone Enterprises—and leaned back. “It already happened.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Sydney?”

I didn’t answer.

Maya’s sigh was heavy, like she’d been carrying this weight for both of us since Sophia died. “You can’t keep doing this, Alaric. Playing house with humans. Pretending you can blend in. You know how it always ends.”

I flinched. Sophia’s smile flashed in my mind, quickly followed by the sickening crunch of impact, the blood.

“Don’t,” I growled, my voice low and dangerous.

But Maya pressed on anyway. “She’s not Sophia.”

“I know that.”

“Then why are you looking at her like she is?”

My silence was answer enough.

---

By the time I arrived back at Stallone Enterprises, I’d convinced myself I’d be cold, distant, untouchable.

And then she looked at me.

Sydney. Sitting behind her desk, fire in her eyes, lips parted in challenge. Like she was daring me to unravel.

God, she made me want to.

I avoided her gaze, focused on the files, the schedules, the excuses. Anything but the way her heartbeat skipped when I walked in. Anything but the memory of her lips against mine last night, soft and demanding all at once.

But then she said it.

“You’re hiding something, Alaric.”

The words sliced through my armor.

I turned slowly, pinning her with the kind of look that made lesser people crumble. “Careful, Sydney.”

She didn’t back down. Not an inch. “What happens if I don’t stop asking?”

My jaw clenched. Images of blood, death, Sophia—flashed in my head. And beneath it all, my curse whispered sweetly: Take her. End her. It’s what you do.

I leaned close, every ounce of restraint balanced on a knife’s edge. “Then you’ll regret it.”

But she only smiled, reckless and radiant. “We’ll see.”

---

I slammed my office door shut, my fists shaking.

She was breaking me apart piece by piece. The hunger. The attraction. The damn hope I thought I’d buried with Sophia.

And worse—her persistence was pushing her closer to the truth.

The truth that could kill her.

I pressed my palms against my desk, breathing hard. “Stay away from me,” I whispered, though she wasn’t there to hear it.

Because if she didn’t…

If she kept peeling back the layers…

She’d see the monster underneath.

And then, I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.