Chapter 6 She Returns To Work

• The smell of sweat, smoke, and spilled beer hit Mira like a wave as she stepped back into The Gutter, the grimy bar that had kept her barely afloat through the last few years. The familiar neon “OPEN” sign buzzed faintly above her, flickering with the same uncertainty she carried in her heart.
• Her feet hesitated at the threshold. Just a few days ago, she’d nearly died here. Drugged and dragged into a shadowy alley. And then saved, not by a man, but by something more.
• Cassian.
• The name pressed against her mind like a secret she hadn’t earned. She remembered the dream. His voice and the feel of his arms as if carved into her bones. And yet, none of it felt possible. It had the weight of reality and the texture of fantasy.
• She shook her head and stepped inside.
• The bar was just as she’d left it. Dim lights and sticky floor. A cracked jukebox crooning soft rock in the corner. Slumped shoulders and tired faces crowded the booths. Drunken laughter rolled in waves. Nobody noticed her entrance except for Jared.
• Her manager’s bald head gleamed under the hanging light bulbs as he looked up from his phone.
• “Well, look who finally crawled out of her hole,” he muttered, not looking entirely surprised. “Didn’t think you’d show.”
• “I’m here, aren’t I?” Mira said softly, stepping behind the counter.
• “Try not to get drugged this time,” Jared added, voice low enough to sting but not loud enough for anyone else to hear.
• Mira flinched. She busied herself wiping the bar, eyes scanning the room. Her stomach churned. She didn’t know what was worse, the pity, or the judgment. She wanted to scream. To tell him someone had tried to hurt her. That something more dangerous than any drunk had walked among them that night.
• But what could she say?
• “A vampire saved me.”
• “I dream of a stranger who knows my soul.”
• “I feel like I don’t belong to this world anymore.”
• She kept her mouth shut.
• The hours passed slowly. Her hands moved on autopilot, pouring drinks, taking orders, dodging the occasional wandering hand. But her mind buzzed with unease.
• And then it happened.
• A man walked in dressed all in black.
• Not unusual for this place. But his presence was… wrong. The air became thicker and colder the moment he stepped inside. The lights flickered. Even the jukebox stuttered.
• Mira’s breath caught in her throat.
• He had sharp features, too flawless to be real. Not beautiful like Cassian. This was a cruel kind of symmetry. Like a sculpture made to frighten as much as attract. His eyes scanned the bar slowly.
• Then he saw her.
• A slow smile that didn't seem warm but more like predatory curved his lips.
• Mira tried to keep moving, pretending she hadn’t noticed, but her heart was pounding in her ears.
• She went to serve the next customer when she felt heat blooming along her neck. A strange, pulsing awareness. Her skin tingled like a magnet had brushed past it.
• She turned quickly. The man was still watching her with his nostrils flaring subtly.
• He could smell her.
• He moved through the crowd like smoke, silent and smooth. Every nerve in Mira’s body screamed danger, but she couldn’t run again.
• He sat at the bar, just a few feet from her, and rested his hands on the wood.
• “Something red,” he said, voice a silky rasp. “Strong.”
• Mira swallowed hard. She turned to grab a bottle of the cheapest whiskey they had, pouring it with shaking hands.
• “You’re new,” she murmured, hoping to sound normal.
• “I’ve passed through,” he said. “Didn’t expect to find anything so… sweet in this place.”
• He leaned closer. She could feel his breath on her cheek. Cold. Too cold.
• “Your scent,” he whispered, “it’s not normal. You’ve been touched.”
• Mira froze.
• He smiled again, leaning even closer. “By him. I can smell his mark on you.”
• Her pulse raced. The bottle in her hand trembled.
• Cassian.
• She turned, grabbing the glass too fast and spilling a bit of liquor on the counter.
• The man didn’t blink but his gaze remained locked on her.
• “You should be careful,” he said. “You smell like temptation. The kind that gets little humans like you eaten.”
• He slid the glass toward himself and drank. Mira backed away, nearly bumping into the shelf behind her.
• “I…I need to check the back,” she muttered and rushed out from behind the bar.
• She didn’t look back.
• She burst through the employee door, breathing hard, gripping the wall for support. Her chest rose and fell rapidly. That man—no, that thing—wasn’t human. Just like Cassian but not like him.
• Cassian’s presence had been terrifying, yes, but it never felt evil. This one… this one felt like rot behind silk.
• Her phone vibrated in her pocket.
• She pulled it out.
• No number. Just a single message.
• “Do not speak to him again. Leave now.”
• Her blood ran cold. She stared at the text. It wasn’t signed, but she knew it was Cassian.
• He was watching.
• He was always watching.
• Back in the bar, the man had vanished with a trace of himself or the glass. Just a cold spot where he’d sat. Jared passed her on the way back in, grumbling something about useless girls and broken breaks.
• Mira barely heard him.
• She couldn’t be here anymore because something had shifted.
• Later that night, as she walked the cracked sidewalk home, a familiar wind brushed her neck.
• Moonlight danced in pools across the pavement. The shadows moved in ways they shouldn’t have. And then he was there.
• Cassian.
• Emerging from the fog like a dream pulled into flesh.
• She stopped walking and her breath hitched.
• He didn’t speak immediately. Just stared at her with those impossibly pale blue eyes, full of fire and ice.
• “You returned to the bar,” he said softly.
• “I had to. I have no money. No life or choices.”
• “You should’ve told me.”
• She lifted her chin. “Told you? You disappeared. I woke up in a stranger’s bed. YOUR BED…and you were gone.”
• “I had to make sure you were safe. I left you under protection.”
• “Well, they didn’t do a very good job. One of your kind found me.”
• Cassian stepped forward. “Did he touch you?”
• “No,” she whispered. “But he knew. He knew you touched me.”
• Cassian’s jaw clenched. The moonlight caught the sharp lines of his face, and his fangs glinted just behind his lips.
• “He smelled your change,” he murmured. “It’s begun.”
• Mira blinked. “What has?”
• He moved closer, so close she could feel the cold of his skin and the heat of his stare.
• “The bond,” he said. “You carry part of me now. A mark and a scent. Also a thread of connection.”
• “But I’m not—”
• “Not one of us?” He smiled darkly. “No. Not yet.”
• “Will I be?”
• He looked at her then—not as a vampire or a lord but as something ancient… and afraid.
• “That depends on what you choose.”
• The silence between them pulsed with something unnamed.
• Then, he reached out and brushed a lock of her hair behind her ear. His touch was gentle and reverent but at the same time electric.
• “You’re not safe among them anymore,” he whispered. “Not as you are.”
• “I can’t afford to not be,” she replied. “This is my life, Cassian.”
• His name on her lips made something flash in his eyes.
• He took a slow breath. “Then I’ll change that.”
• “What does that mean?”
• “It means,” he said, “you’ll never go back to that place. You’ll stay where I can protect you.”
• “And if I refuse?”
• His smile was sad. “You won’t. Because deep down, you already feel it. You’ve felt it since the first time I touched you.”
• Mira’s throat tightened.
• The space between them burned.
• “I don’t know who I’m becoming,” she whispered.
• Cassian leaned in. “Then let me show you.”
• And before she could speak again, he vanished leaving only cold air and the faint, haunting echo of his voice in the night.