Chapter 4Taming the Obsessive Vampire Next Door

I drew a slow, steady breath, pushing down the sharp spike of annoyance in my chest.

"Probably just a stray mouse in the pipes," I said smoothly. "I'll go check on it. Let's catch up another time."

Hailey opened her mouth to protest, but I shut the door firmly in her face, cutting her off mid-sentence.

Walking down the basement stairs, I mentally cycled through a hundred different creative ways to discipline him.

Yet, when I reached the bottom step, the scene before me stopped me in my tracks.

Damian was tearing at the heavy iron shackles around his wrists with his bare fangs. His pale, beautiful face was smeared with dark crimson—his own blood, torn from his own flesh.

I rushed over. His left wrist was shredded, raw muscle and skin exposed.

Yet he seemed entirely numb to the agony, his bloodshot eyes boring directly into mine with unhinged intensity.

"Where were you?" he demanded, his voice trembling with manic fury. "I heard you talking to someone. Who was it? If I didn't make noise, were you ever going to come back down to me?!"

I didn't answer. I pulled out the medical kit and silently began cleaning his self-inflicted wounds.

A vampire's cellular regeneration was remarkably fast; by the time I finished wrapping the gauze, the deepest tears were already knitting together.

He leaned in, refusing to let me look away. "Are you seeing someone else behind my back?"

I met his frantic gaze. "That was just the new girl downstairs."

"A neighbor isn't an excuse!" he snapped, his chest heaving. "Didn't I start out as your neighbor before I came to you?! Strictly speaking, you locked me up—which means I am the only person you are permitted to keep! Penny, if you dare look at anyone else, I swear to God I will—"

"Be quiet," I cut in, my temples throbbing.

Trying to apply rational logic to a dangerously obsessive creature was an exercise in futility. In his twisted mind, a two-minute conversation at the door was undeniable proof of impending betrayal.

What he didn't realize was that Hailey hadn't come for me. She had come for him.

And if anyone was destined to leave, it was him.

After that morning, Damian's insecurity spiraled completely out of control. He refused to sleep, keeping his eyes wide open around the clock simply to ensure I remained within his field of vision. Even a vampire's superior physiology had limits; after three straight days without rest, thin red veins spiderwebbed across the whites of his eyes.

Meanwhile, Hailey found excuses to come up to my floor with alarming frequency, her eyes always probing the hallway, trying to catch a glimpse inside.

She knew something was wrong.

Which made it the perfect opportunity for an experiment.

If Damian truly belonged to the scripted destiny the floating comments kept promising, I would go into the kitchen and sharpen my knives.

That evening, I mixed a heavy dose of liquid sedatives into a cup of animal blood.

Damian looked at the ceramic mug, surprised. "Why in a cup tonight?"

"My neck is sore," I lied effortlessly. "No biting for a few days."

He believed me instantly. He drank every last drop.

The moment the sedative pulled him under into a dead sleep, I unlocked the iron shackles from his wrists. Then, I left the basement door wide open.

When I stepped out of my apartment, I slipped a spare key beneath the doormat.

At the end of the corridor, near the emergency stairwell, a flash of white fabric caught my eye. Hailey was watching. I pretended not to see her and kept walking.

I spent the next three hours sitting in a quiet, dark theater watching another forgettable movie. By my calculations, three hours was more than enough time for Hailey to stage her daring rescue.

When I finally returned home and walked down the stairs, the basement was completely empty.

The shackles lay open on the rug. Damian was gone.