AURORA I always figured my biggest problem at nineteen would be surviving an internship at some massive corporation, packed wall to wall with the suit-and-tie crowd who talked like they'd swallowed an accounting textbook whole. But life has this ironic little streak — kind of mean, honestly — where just when you think you've hit rock bottom, it finds a secret trapdoor and proves you wrong. Things can always get worse. Or better. Depends on how you look at it.
My name is Aurora Bennett. Born and raised in Seattle, currently transplanted to Newport Beach, California, doing an administrative internship at Thorne Enterprises — one of those companies so obscenely wealthy and futuristic that you're half afraid to touch the walls in case they bill you for it later. I'd been there a month. Exactly one month since the CEO vanished on some supposed business trip to England. Nobody talked about him much, only that he was brilliant, cold, demanding, and avoided public appearances like he was allergic to cameras.
Maybe he was.
Maybe he was… something else, too.
But I was never great at picking up on those kinds of signals.
That April morning, I was locked in an epic standoff with the department printer — a machine so enormous it practically deserved its own zip code. The thing had already eaten three pages, spat out two mangled ones, and was blinking a red light that, I swear, was mocking me on purpose.
"Come on, you spawn of Satan…" I muttered, yanking open the side panel.
And that's when it happened. That's exactly when my life took a turn I never saw coming.
The ambient light got… heavier. Not darker. Just — heavy. Strange. Like the air grew heavy in the span of a single second. The kind of feeling that makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up and your gut scream *run, girl.*
But I didn't run.
Because when I turned my head, he was already there.
Leaning against the concrete column, silent, like he'd simply materialized out of the wall itself — tall, absurdly tall, maybe six-two or a perfect six-three; broad shoulders wrapped in an immaculate black blazer; hair so blond it was almost silver, swept back with the kind of careless precision that takes effort; eyes so blue they looked like they'd been stolen straight from the Alaskan ice.
He didn't smile. Didn't blink. Just watched me with an intensity that made my heart trip over itself — three times, at least.
And there I was, half my body shoved inside a printer, looking like a complete idiot.
"Miss Bennett." His voice was deep, refined — a British accent, light… almost imperceptible… but absolutely impossible to ignore.
My brain went offline for a full three seconds before I remembered that yes, I did breathe, and yes, I was supposed to respond.
"S-sir…?" I blinked fast. "Sorry, who—?"
"Adrian Thorne." He tilted his head, just slightly. "CEO of the company. I returned this morning."
Right. Great. Wonderful. The first time I laid eyes on my ultimate boss, and I was literally hugging a printer.
"Oh." Brilliant as ever. "Welcome back."
He didn't respond. Just kept watching me, like he was running some kind of quiet analysis. He had that elegant predator quality about him — not in the clichéd romantic sense, but in the real sense: there was something about him that wasn't… normal. A silence that wrapped around you, a presence that pressed down on the room like the air itself belonged to him.
Then he took a step forward.
Not a normal step. A movement so fast and fluid that I felt my heart scrape against my ribs.
The surprise made me yank my hand back without thinking, and the inner edge of the printer — son of a— — sliced a thin line across my skin. A small cut. Ridiculous, really.
But it was enough.
I felt the dull, throbbing sting.
And I felt his gaze change.
He saw the blood before I'd even registered that I'd hurt myself. And his breath — that wasn't normal. Adrian inhaled like a man breaking the surface after days underwater. His eyes dilated — subtle, but noticeable enough to make my stomach freeze solid.
He took another step.
"You're bleeding," he said, his voice too low, like he was fighting something from the inside.
"Oh, it's — tiny." I tried to laugh it off. "The printer has a genuinely evil soul, I swear—"
He didn't laugh.
Didn't look away.
Didn't breathe.
Or — he did breathe, but wrong.
The wrong kind of breathing.
The… controlled kind.
And for the first time in my life, I felt real fear. Not the kind you get when a cockroach flies at your face. Something else. Something primal, ancient — like a very old part of me, buried somewhere deep in my cells, was whispering:
*Don't turn your back on him.*
*Don't run.*
*He would hunt you down like the little field mouse you clearly are.*
Adrian took another step, close enough now that it was too close, and his blue eyes looked like two worlds about to swallow me whole.
"Your blood…" he murmured, barely a sound at all. "It's running."
My heart slammed so hard I almost heard the echo.
Then he closed his eyes — like he was bracing against something painful.
Disgust? Some kind of blood aversion?
When he opened them again, his expression had reset. Neutral. Human. Polished.
"I apologize," he said, stepping back with precise, measured distance. "I shouldn't have… approached like that. Allow me to call someone from the medical office."
I swallowed hard.
Because he didn't look like a CEO who'd been rattled by a little blood. He looked like a predator who had just caught the scent of prey for the first time in three centuries.
And worse — he looked like he'd loved it.
As he turned to leave, my hand was trembling slightly. And I had the feeling — almost a certainty — that that tiny little cut had just changed my fate.
And his.
Because at the doorway, Adrian stopped. He turned only his face. And he looked at me again, with that glint — sweet and dangerous all at once.
"Be more careful, Aurora," he said my name like he'd said it a thousand times before. "HR would hate to see you get hurt."
And he disappeared down the hallway before I could say a single word.
I just couldn't have known, standing there in that pathetic moment with my hand still bleeding, that the man who'd seemed merely mysterious for being so rarely mentioned around the office was, in reality…
…a very sinister man.