The bass rumbled low, like a predator's growl beneath silk sheets. Dancers swirled in syncopated waves of light and flesh, while perfumed smoke kissed the air. The Gilded Veil thrived on indulgence—but even indulgence stilled when Baird Throne stepped inside.
He didn't walk so much as glide, each movement a symphony of liquid elegance and bone-deep menace. Clad in an obsidian longcoat lined with crimson embroidery, Baird Throne was everything the rumors warned of. A creature carved from shadow and decadence. Timeless. Cruel. Seductive.
His eyes—twin garnets glowing faintly in the dim—cut through the haze and locked on a single figure near the platform: Chelsee.
She hadn't seen him yet.
But he had already chosen her.
And he remembered...
Flashback – Weeks Ago
Private Room – The Gilded Veil
"She's not ready, Baird," Arq had said, jaw clenched tighter than his sequin collar. His voice trembled between fear and fury. "She's holding the hunger back now, but it's still there. It waits. And you? You're the kind of mistake that'll wake it up."
Baird's smirk had been slow, surgical. "Isn't that the point?"
"She's not a game to be lost."
"She's not losing," Baird countered. "She's becoming. You see danger. I see evolution."
Then, like smoke curling away from fire, Baird had vanished—before Arq could finish warning him.
Now – Present
The memory vanished like mist off stone. Baird Throne's gaze lingered on Chelsee with that same impossible focus—lust braided with something colder. Possession. Hunger. Certainty.
Her movements were tighter tonight. Controlled. Measured. But she still danced like a creature that didn't yet know the cage inside her chest had a lock that was already rusting.
She would know soon.
He turned, heading toward the mirrored bar, where the Nautolan bartender—skin tinted rose-gold, hands steady with professional fear—noticed him with a visible flinch.
Baird didn't speak.
He didn't have to.
The bartender thumbed the data node inlaid beside the register. It pinged once—elegant, ominous.
"Mr. Throne… you've been granted VIP access for the evening," the bartender said with forced calm. "A personal request by the club's owner herself."
Baird's lips moved into something that might have been a smile, if smiles had fangs.
"Miss Dai…" he whispered, savoring the syllables. "What a fascinating change of tone."
The bartender hesitated. "Can I… get you anything, sir?"
Baird's gaze didn't move from Chelsee, who had paused to laugh at something a fellow dancer said.
"Yes," he said at last, voice low, velvet-wrapped steel. "Tell your staff to stay away from Chelsee tonight."
A beat.
"She and I have… unfinished business."
He accepted the offered glass—crystal cut, filled with a blood-colored liquor—but didn't drink. He never drank in public. Not that kind of drink.
Turning back to the crowd, he studied her again.
Tonight, he would prove Arq wrong.
He would show Chelsee what it meant to surrender to the dark.
And maybe…
Just maybe…
She'd show him something older.
Something no man—no monster—had ever truly survived.
The hunger. Set free.