Three exits. Window viable. Stakes in left boot, blade at hip.

Ready.

The vampire moved through the crowd like smoke, fluid, predatory, hunting. He'd picked his target: a woman in red, too drunk to notice the attention.

I'd been tracking him for two hours. Patience was a hunter's greatest weapon. Strike too soon, you miss. Strike too late, someone dies.

Tonight, no one dies but him.

He led her toward the alley. Classic move. They all thought dark corners made them safe from human eyes. They forgot: human eyes weren't the ones they needed to fear.

I slipped through the crowd, just another body moving toward the exit. No one looked twice. That was the point.

The alley smelled like rain and garbage. He had the woman against the wall, his mouth at her throat. Not feeding yet, savoring. Some of them liked the fear.

"Hey."

He turned. His fangs caught the streetlight.

"Walk away, little human. This doesn't concern you."

"Actually." I drew the stake from my boot. "It really does."

He moved fast. They always did.

I moved faster.

The stake took him through the shoulder, not the heart, not yet. He screamed, stumbling back from the woman. She ran, too terrified to question her rescue.

"Who..." He clutched the wound. "Who are you?"

"Someone you should have avoided."

I closed the distance before he could recover. Left hand grabbed his collar. Right hand found his heart.

The stake slid home.

His eyes went wide. Then empty.

I caught his body before it hit the ground, dragged it behind a dumpster. By morning, sunlight would handle the rest. Clean. Efficient. Done.

The woman in red was halfway down the block, running on heels she shouldn't have worn.

"Happy birthday to me," I muttered.

My apartment was dark when I got home.

I preferred it that way. Light meant visibility. Visibility meant vulnerability. Darkness and I had an understanding.

I checked the perimeter by habit, door locks, window seals, the thin line of salt along the threshold. All intact. All meaningless against what I actually hunted, but habits kept you alive.

Twenty-five today. A quarter century of breathing.

My father hadn't called. He never did on this day, the anniversary of the night that killed my mother. Birthdays weren't celebrated in the Mercer family. They were endured.

I stripped off my hunting gear, catalogued the night's work in my head. One rogue vampire, eliminated. One human, saved. One hunter, still standing.

The shower ran hot enough to hurt. I liked it that way. Feeling something, even pain, reminded me I was still human.

The mark on my shoulder blade itched.

It always itched, lately. The old scar I'd had since childhood, the one my father said came from the night my mother died. I couldn't remember getting it. Couldn't remember much of that night at all.

Just the blood. The screaming. The cold hands that pulled me from the fire.

Steam filled the bathroom. I turned off the water, reached for the towel,

And felt something wrong.

The air pressure in the apartment had changed. Subtle. The kind of shift only someone trained from birth would notice.

I wasn't alone.

My hand found the knife I kept by the sink. I wrapped the towel around myself, pressed my back to the wall, listened.

Living room. One presence. Too still to be human.

Vampire.

In my home.

I moved without sound, knife ready, heart steady. Fear was useless. Fear got you killed.

The living room was dark, but my eyes had adjusted. And there, in the chair by the window,

A man. Vampire. Sitting like he owned the place, like he'd been waiting.

"Seren." His voice was low, cultured, ancient. "Happy birthday."

I threw the knife.

He caught it. Of course he caught it. His hand moved in a blur, and then he held my blade like I'd handed it to him politely.

"Eighteen years I've waited." He set the knife on the side table. "You've grown up beautifully."

I was already reaching for the stake on the weapons wall. He didn't move to stop me.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Someone who's been watching you for a very long time." He rose from the chair, tall, dark-haired, dressed like old money. His eyes caught the streetlight from outside, reflecting wrong. "Someone who saved your life once. Someone who's come to collect."

The stake was in my hand now. I should throw it. Should end this. Should,

"I've been waiting for you to grow up," he said. "It's time you learned the truth about the night your mother died."

I didn't throw the stake.

I should have.

But he'd said my mother's name like it meant something.

And something deep in my chest, deeper than training, deeper than duty, whispered that this vampire knew things I needed to know.

"Talk fast," I said. "Before I kill you."

He smiled. It wasn't comforting.

"I've waited eighteen years. What's another moment?"