The rain hammered the high gothic windows of Blackthorne University hard enough to blur the distant city skyline into jagged, weeping streaks of silver and gold.

Claire walked too fast anyway.

Her backpack hung heavily from one shoulder, her fingers buried deep into the oversized sleeves of her coat while the cold October wind knifed through the narrow concrete streets surrounding the campus. Midnight traffic hissed across the wet pavement like a warning. Above, neon signs from shuttered storefronts bled onto the puddles below, fracturing the dark into chaotic pools of artificial color.

Behind her, the footsteps remained perfectly measured. Unhurried. Constant.

Claire stopped abruptly beneath a flickering streetlamp and spun around, her patience snapping.

"Are you serious right now?"

Killian stood several feet away. His dark wool coat was dampened by the downpour, his hands tucked casually into his pockets as if being accused of stalking someone at one o'clock in the morning was merely a minor inconvenience.

"Yes," he said calmly.

"You cannot follow me home, Killian."

"I'm not following you." His gaze swept slowly, clinically down the nearly deserted street, mapping the exit routes before returning to her. "I'm making sure you arrive alive."

Claire stared at him in utter disbelief.

God, it was entirely unfair how he looked standing there. Rain caught in the dark strands of his hair, glittering like diamonds under the streetlamps. His black shirt was open slightly at the throat, revealing the sharp column of his neck, and his aristocratic cheekbones were half-shadowed beneath the amber glow. Every lone woman passing by glanced at him instinctively, drawn by the sheer magnetism of his presence, before quickly hurrying away.

Predator.

The word surfaced in Claire's mind before she could suppress it. It wasn't because he looked cruel. It was because the very atmosphere around him felt dangerous in an ancient, instinctive way—a frequency her nervous system recognized far faster than her logic could process.

Claire crossed her arms tighter over her chest, trying to shield herself from the cold and from him. "Nothing is going to happen to me."

Killian's expression didn't even flicker. "Don't say that," he said quietly, his voice cutting through the sound of the rain, "is usually spoken exactly five minutes before something catastrophic happens."

"You're impossible."

An annoying, traitorous heat rose beneath her skin. Claire turned sharply on her heel and resumed walking, her boots splashing through the water.

He followed.

The rhythmic, maddeningly controlled sound of his footsteps stayed right behind her, tracking her pace precisely while taxis cut through the slick intersections nearby.

"You can't just forcefully insert yourself into my life because we slept together once," she snapped over her shoulder.

Silence followed. Then, a low vibration: "It's not about sleeping together."

She ignored it, pressing forward. "Killian, I mean it."

"So do I."

"You don't even know me."

"I know enough."

That answer irritated her more than it should have, mostly because of the terrifying certainty in his tone.

Claire picked up her pace, her heels clicking sharply against the wet concrete. Her apartment building sat another fifteen minutes from campus, located through a neighborhood that transformed after midnight into something much rougher, emptier, and darker.

Usually, she handled it alone. 

Killian's focus sharpened visibly—like a wolf noticing an abrupt, vulnerable movement in its prey.

The sudden realization that he was tracking her every micro-expression unsettled her so badly her foot caught on a uneven patch of concrete. She stumbled.

Killian caught her by the elbow instantly.

The grip was gentle, perfectly controlled, yet utterly devastating to her composure.

He held her steady for just a second before releasing her, though his jaw tightened instantly afterward, as if the physical act of letting her go cost him an enormous amount of willpower.

Claire's pulse betrayed her, hammering wildly against her ribs.

God. This was exactly the problem. Everything about him felt too intense, too quickly. This wasn't normal attraction, nor standard chemistry.

"You need to stop doing that," she muttered, her voice breathless.

Killian glanced down at her, his expression unreadable. "Doing what?"

"Being so…" Claire struggled, searching for a word that wouldn't make her sound insane. "Aggressive."

"I'm trying very hard not to, Claire." he said.

Claire: ... nevermaid...

Suddenly, Killian turned. Every single instinct inside Claire sharpened into hyper-awareness. "What is it?"

His gaze didn't return to her. Instead, it shifted toward the dark mouth of the alleyway just ahead of them.

Three men were loitering near the rusted awning of a corner liquor store beneath flickering, buzzy fluorescent lights. They were clearly drunk, their posture aggressive, watching the street too carefully. Claire recognized the look instantly. The predatory calculation. One girl, alone at night, in a dark neighborhood.

Except tonight, she wasn't alone.

The profound difference became obvious the exact millisecond Killian shifted his weight, stepping slightly in front of her. The movement wasn't dramatic or overtly threatening. It was just an alpha positioning himself between his mate and a threat.

Yet the entire atmosphere of the street changed instantly, dropping into a suffocating sub-zero freeze.

The men noticed it, too. Claire watched their expressions shift almost comically fast from malicious interest to pure, unadulterated unease. Killian looked at them with a pair of cold, predatory eyes.

The tallest man muttered something panicked under his breath, nudging his friends, before all three suddenly decided that crossing the street was an urgent necessity. Within seconds, they disappeared into the shadows of the rain.

Claire stared at their retreating forms, bewildered. "What the hell was that?"

Killian kept walking as if nothing had happened. "Nothing."

"They looked terrified of you."

He glanced down at her. "You are not safe." His eyes lingered on her face a bit too long. "I'm here for this purpose."

Somewhere beneath Claire's irritation, beneath her fear, and beneath her common sense—a small part of Claire felt entirely protected.

She liked it. And that terrified her most of all.

---

By the time they finally reached the entrance of her apartment building, the heavy rain had softened into a thick, silver mist. Claire stopped beneath the buzzing, insect-covered hallway light of the vestibule and turned toward him.

"You can go now. Thank you for walking me home."

Killian looked up, his gaze scanning the ancient, neglected building.

He noted the peeling exterior paint, the broken security camera dangling by a wire, and the single flickering bulb illuminating the dark stairwell. His expression darkened into pure corporate fury.

"Are you thinking about changing your place."

Claire let out a sharp, breathless laugh. "You sound like a billionaire filing a real estate complaint."

"I am a billionaire filing a real estate complaint."

She blinked, caught off guard.

Suddenly, Killian reached past her. Claire stiffened, her heart leaping, but instead of touching her, his large hand grabbed the metal frame of the apartment entrance door. He pulled it closed with a sharp, heavy tug until the broken latch finally clicked and caught properly.

"…Oh," she murmured.

"It wasn't locking," he said flatly, his voice tight.

Claire frowned slowly, staring at the mechanism. Actually… it hadn't locked properly for weeks. Her landlord had ignored every single text message she'd sent about it.

Killian's gaze moved back upward, locking onto the shattered hallway camera. "That will also be replaced and fixed by tomorrow morning."

Claire stared harder at him. "Killian, we are not whatever you think it is. Stop trying to rearrange my life—"

"Claire, you live alone," the words landed differently this time. It wasn't a judgment on her lifestyle. It was wrapped in raw, unadulterated concern.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke.

"Killian, why are you doing this?" she asked softly.

Killian went perfectly still.

"If you don't believe I fell for you the second I saw you…"he said quietly, his voice dangerously rough. "Then think of it as me taking care of a friend."

"You should go upstairs, Claire."

Claire swallowed hard.

---

Across the street, half-hidden beneath the deep shadows of a parked delivery van, another pair of eyes watched the exchange with absolute precision.

Adrian Keller stood motionless beneath a black umbrella, his silver-gray gaze fixed entirely on Killian Virel.

Not on Claire. On him.

On the powerful Alpha who was trying—and failing—to hide the terrifying depth of what he felt.

A sharp, academic fascination bloomed across Adrian's elegant features.

Predators always recognized predators.

Suddenly, across the street, Killian lifted his head slightly. His entire body went rigid.

Sensing a phantom shift in the wind, his predatory instincts flared. Adrian immediately stepped backward, melting into the pitch-black shadows of the alleyway a second before their eyes could meet.

In front of the apartment building, Killian's expression darkened with immediate, quiet violence. Claire noticed the sudden shift instantly, her hand dropping from the door. "What is it? What's wrong?"

Killian kept his eyes fixed on the darkness where Adrian had been standing just moments earlier, his nostrils flaring as he memorized the faint, lingering scent of a rival.

Then, his voice dropped to a terrifyingly soft whisper: "There's a monster watching you."