Chapter 15: Luciefiel's POV

He came to my office to talk about his grades.

What I was thinking when I saw him was something else entirely.

The corridor outside had gone quiet, and I was still at my desk with the course outline still sitting on the desk, and the ghost of a conversation that had been about two things at once while we both pretended otherwise.

Behavioral conditioning. Subjects respond to stimuli they haven't consciously registered yet.

He had asked that question in a way that was not academics at all. And the way he had closed his notebook immediately after, like he was closing a door before I could step through it, told me he already suspected the answer had personal implications.

He was starting to connect things.

Not the right things yet. Not the things that would actually explain what was happening to him. But the instinct was there, working underneath the surface the way it always had been, reaching toward conclusions his conscious mind wasn't ready to receive.

His Hunter blood was dormant, but starting to wake. How did I even think to doubt he wasn't the one

I stood and moved to the far wall of the office. Behind the painting that had hung there for thirty years was a safe. I opened it with the combination I hadn't changed in over a decade and removed what I needed.

A blood bag.

I poured it slowly into the crystal glass I kept in the bottom drawer. Heavy, old, older than most of the furniture in the room. I had carried it across four countries and three centuries and it had never broken.

I settled back into my chair and took the first slow sip.

The warmth moved through me the way it always did. Not hunger satisfied exactly. More like a frequency returning to its correct pitch. The room became more itself.

I was mid-second sip when my phone rang.

Rahul.

I answered without putting the glass down.

“Talk.”

“We have a problem.”

His voice had the particular flatness it got when something was serious enough that he didn’t want to dramatize it. I straightened slightly in my chair.

“Kael caught a feral,” he said.

I set the glass down. “Where.”

“East side. Near the old warehouse district. He picked up the trail about two hours ago and contained it before it could go further.” he stopped sir a second. “It was bad.”

“How serious.”

“Three casualties. Two at the scene. One died at the hospital.” He paused again, heavier this time. “There’s a survivor.”

“whats the Condition.”

“Stable. At least physically.” His voice dropped slightly. “But she’s talking. Telling anyone who will listen that what attacked them wasn’t human. That it moved too fast. That it was too strong. That its eyes weren’t right and it had fangs.”

I was quiet for a moment.

“Hiw did they take it?” I asked.

“Nobody believes her of course,” he said. “She’s being treated for shock and blood loss. The working theory from the human authorities is trauma and confusion. Which is fortunate.”

“For now.”

“For now,” he agreed. “

I picked up the glass again and took another slow sip.

“Where is the Feral now?”

“Kael has him secured at the east property. He’s not coherent. Hasn’t been since containment. Just the hunger and nothing else. No reasoning, recognition and nothing functioning above base instinct.”

I turned the glass slowly in my hand.

“That’s not standard deterioration.”

“No,” Rahul said. “It isn’t. Which is why I’m calling.”

I waited.

“A Feral vampire exists for reasons,” I said. “Isolation, starvation, prolonged psychological fracture. All of those leave specific markers. Did Kael identify any of them?”

“That’s the problem,” Rahul said carefully. “None of them fit. This vampire wasn’t starved. Wasn’t isolated as far as we can tell. By all physical indicators, he should have been functioning normally. There’s no obvious reason for what he became.”

“Then what caused it?”

Silence on the line for a moment.

“We don’t know yet,” Rahul said. “Kael is still with him. Trying to understand it. But whatever happened to this vampire, it wasn’t natural deterioration. Something pushed him into this state.”

“Something or someone.”

“That’s what we’re trying to establish.”

I finished what was left in the glass and set it down quietly. The warmth had settled into something steadier now. The edges of the room remained sharp.

“Keep him contained,” I said. “I want to understand what happened to him before any decisions are made. And the survivor—monitor the situation. If her story starts gaining traction, you handle it quietly. We don't know what will happen if someone believes her.”

“Already in motion,” Rahul said.

“Good.” I stood and moved to the window. “Keep me informed of anything Kael finds. Anything at all.”

“Of course.” He paused one more time. “Lucifiel. If something pushed a vampire into that state...”

“Then we have a different kind of problem,” I said. “Yes. I’m aware.”

The call ended.

I stood at the window with the empty glass in my hand and looked out at the city settling into night.

We don't want the police sniffing about our business. Things could get messy,and right now wasn't the time for all of that kind of mess.

I set the glass on the desk and was about to sit back down when my phone buzzed again.

A message from Kael.

Finished preliminary checks on the rogue. You need to hear this.

I called him back immediately.

He answered on the first ring.

“We found something in his blood.”

“What kind of something?”

“A compound,” Kael said. “Synthetic. Nothing that occurs naturally in our physiology. It’s concentrated in the bloodstream and it’s targeting specific regulatory functions. The parts that control hunger and restraint.” he sighed “Whatever this is, it was designed with knowledge of how we work. This wasn’t guesswork.”

I said nothing for a moment.

“Someone made this,” I said.

“Yes.”

“And got it into his system somehow.”

“That’s what the evidence suggests. We don’t know the delivery method yet. But the compound itself...” Kael’s voice shifted slightly, just enough to register unease. “Whoever made it understood our biology at a level most of our kind don’t. This was done by someone who has studied us for years.”

The room felt different after that.

A synthetic compound, designed to shut down control and leave only hunger.

That wasn’t a Feral vampire.

It was a weapon. And the attack had been a test.

“Keep running analysis,” I said. “I want everything. Composition, concentration, how long it’s been in his system, whether it degrades or holds.” I paused. “And keep this between the three of us.”

“Understood.” He hesitated. “What do you think this is?”

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “But I intend to find out.”

I ended the call and stood in the quiet office.

Someone out there has enough information to crate a drug that could weaponize a vampire. And that Someone had tested that weapon and sent it into the world to see what it would do.

Three people were dead because of that test.

I moved back to the desk and sat down. Poured the last of the blood into the glass and held it without drinking.

Whoever this was, they were patient enough to hold out till now.

I didn’t like that.

I picked up my phone and sent a message to Levi.

Wednesday. Seven o’clock. Don’t eat beforehand.

His reply came a few minutes later.

That’s a weird instruction.

Follow it.

I watched the message deliver and took a slow final sip from the glass.

Two problems now. Both serious. Both require attention. And underneath both of them, the same question.

No matter how I think about it and trying to push the thought away, the only ones who could have done this were Hunters, but I refused to believe that . No.

I killed them all.