Rowan

Cold.

That was the first thing. Cold like I'd never felt it, deep, settling into the marrow of me, deeper still.

The second thing was dark. Not the dark of my apartment at night, familiar and soft. This was industrial. Sterile. Wrong.

The third thing was hunger.

God, the hunger.

I sat up. Metal scraped beneath me, a table, stainless steel, the kind you'd see in a morgue.

Oh.

Oh no.

My hands fumbled at my chest. At my feet. Something was wrapped around my toe, a tag. White plastic, black text.

BLACKWOOD, ROWAN. DOB 03/15/1998. DOD,

I couldn't read the rest. My fingers wouldn't hold still.

Someone had found me. Someone had called it in, transported me here, tagged me like any other body. Two days, Kieran would later tell me. Two days I'd lain in this drawer while whatever Ian had put in me finished its work.

Dead. I'm supposed to be dead.

The cold made sense now. The metal table. The drawers lining the walls, each one holding,

I retched. Nothing came up.

Somewhere behind me, a door opened. Footsteps. A heartbeat.

The hunger roared.

I moved before I knew I was moving. Across the room in a blur, slamming into something soft and warm and alive. The heartbeat was all I could hear now, thundering, delicious, calling to something inside me that I didn't recognize.

A scream. Someone screaming. Not me.

My teeth, too sharp, wrong, what's wrong with my teeth, scraped against skin. Blood, warm and copper-sweet, on my lips.

"Stop."

The word cut through the red haze. Not loud, but commanding. Ancient.

I looked up.

A man stood in the doorway. Tall. Dark-haired. A face carved by patience, eyes black as old stone.

"Let him go," he said. "Now."

I looked down. The morgue attendant, young, terrified, blood streaming from his neck where I'd,

I'd bitten him.

I released him so fast he stumbled, hit the wall, slid down. He was whimpering. Crying. Clutching his throat.

What had I done?

"Who..." My voice was wrong. Hoarse. "What's happening to me?"

The dark-haired man moved closer. Slow. Like approaching a wild animal.

"You've been turned." His voice carried the steadiness of someone who'd delivered bad news for centuries. "Someone made you into a vampire. And I've been accused of doing it."

The words didn't make sense. Couldn't make sense.

"That's not, vampires aren't..."

"Real?" He almost smiled. "You just tried to kill that man with your teeth. Do you need more evidence?"

I looked at my hands. Pale. Bloodless. My own blood, I realized, I had no heartbeat anymore. Nothing pumping through me except the stolen blood I could still taste.

I pressed my palm flat against my sternum. Pushed hard. Waited for the thump of something alive underneath.

Nothing.

I moved my hand. Tried the left side. The right. Pressed both palms against my ribs like I could restart it through pressure alone.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

"It's gone," I said. The words came out small. "My heartbeat is gone."

"Yes."

"That's... that's not survivable. You can't just not have a heartbeat."

"You can. You are." He crouched in front of me, keeping distance. "The biology has changed. Everything has changed. I know that's not what you want to hear."

"What I want to hear is that this is a nightmare and I'm about to wake up." My voice cracked on the last word. I hated it. "Who are you? Why are you here? Who did this to me?"

"My name is Kieran Knight. I've been watching over you for seven years, which is why I'm the Tribunal's primary suspect." He paused. Let that settle. "But I didn't do this to you. And the answer to your third question is the one that matters most, because someone targeted you specifically, and I don't yet know why."

"Watching me? For seven years?"

"Protecting you. A debt I owed your grandmother." He glanced at the attendant, still bleeding on the floor. "I'll explain. All of it. But right now we need to stop his bleeding and leave before the authorities arrive. Can you hold yourself still?"

I didn't know. I didn't know anything anymore.

"Try." His voice dropped. "For his sake."

I focused on breathing. In. Out. I didn't need to breathe, I realized, the motion was just habit. But it helped. The red edges of my vision receded.

"Good." He stood, moved to the attendant. Did something, pressure, maybe, to the wound. The man's whimpering quieted.

"He'll live," Kieran said. "He won't remember clearly. The venom has that effect sometimes. Come with me. Now."

I should have questioned. Should have fought. Should have done anything except follow the stranger who claimed someone had turned me into a monster.

But the hunger was coming back. And he was the only thing standing between me and every heartbeat in the building.

I followed.

The city looked different at night.

Every light a blade. Every sound layered on sound. And the heartbeats, dozens of them, all around me. Walking past me, around me, through me. All of them singing the same song.

Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.

"Focus on my voice." Kieran walked beside me, close but not touching. "The first nights are the hardest. Everything is overwhelming. Your body is adjusting to the change."

"I was dead."

"For approximately forty-seven hours, yes."

"That's not possible."

"And yet here you are."

We turned into an alley. Dark. Empty. I sagged against the brick wall. The cold pressed through my clothes, but my body registered it like a fact, not a sensation. Nothing about temperature seemed to matter.

"Who did this to me?"

"That's what we need to find out." He stopped in front of me, studying me with a detached precision. "Whoever it was knew your routines. Knew where you'd be, when you'd be alone. This wasn't random, Rowan. Someone chose you."

A chill that had nothing to do with temperature. "What's the last thing you remember?"

I tried to think back. Walking home from work. The street. Something, someone, behind me. And then...

Nothing.

"I don't know. I was walking. Someone was following me. Then I woke up in the morgue."

"No face? No voice?"

"I can't, it's not there." Panic climbed my ribs. "Why can't I remember?"

"Trauma response. It's common with violent turnings. The memories may return, or they may not." He said it carefully, like he was leaving room for the weight of it. "But if they do, they'll be our best lead."

"Violent turnings." I laughed. Hysterical. Wrong. "Is there a non-violent way to turn someone into a vampire?"

"Consensual turnings with preparation are... gentler. What was done to you was neither consensual nor gentle."

His voice carried a weight I couldn't place.

"You keep saying you didn't do it. Why should I believe you?"

"You shouldn't. Trust is earned, not given." He pulled something from his pocket, a phone. "But consider: if I had turned you, I would have been there when you woke. I would have prepared you. I certainly wouldn't have let you wake up alone in a morgue, terrified and dangerous."

"Then why were you there?"

"Because I knew you'd need help. And because if I don't find the one who actually did this, I'll be executed for it."

Executed.

"So this isn't about helping me. It's about saving yourself."

"It can be both." He watched me, unblinking. "The Tribunal has given us thirty days. I train you, we investigate, we find the truth. If we succeed, I live and you're protected. If we fail..."

"What happens to me?"

His silence was answer enough.

"Great." I pushed off the wall. "So I'm dead but not dead, hungry for blood, and accused of being turned by a guy who definitely has resting murder face. Great. Cool. Normal Tuesday."

The corner of his mouth moved. Not quite a smile.

"Your humor may serve you well."

"It's all I have left."

"No." He turned, started walking. "You have survival instincts. Use them."

I followed him into the night, trying not to think about what I'd become.

Trying not to count the heartbeats.

The hunger didn't care about my doubts. The hunger just wanted to be fed.

And somewhere in this city, the person who had made me this way was still walking around with my old life on their hands.

I was going to find them.