Predator POV
The ball ended in whispers and terror disguised as refinement. Guests slipped away before dawn, the beams of their chauffeurs carving ghostly slashes through the fog beyond his estate. Before quiet could fall, the predator's shirt cuffs were already marked with another human's blood. He hadn't changed. He desired the mark to be visible—a beacon announcing that tonight's beauty had fangs.
The victim's body had been removed, but the tide of the act still flowed through the city. Phones ringing in glass towers, favors being called in, vengeance inscribed in ink and gunpowder. He could feel it building.
He was at the balcony again, where he'd ordered the captive earlier to stay. The wind brought the smell of rain and smoke. Quiet footsteps approached from behind him—light, careful.
"Everybody's gone," the captive whispered.
"I know."
The predator turned. The man looked smaller without the crowd's noise around him, yet something in his eyes had hardened since the shooting. Fear and defiance, forged together. The predator almost admired it.
"You've seen what happens when people test me," he said.
The captive met his gaze. "You didn't have to do it in front of all of them."
"I did," replied the predator, voice as smooth as sharpened metal.
"Sharing fear makes it cleaner."
He closed the distance between them.
The captive did not back away this time.
That solidity unsettled him more than any resistance.
"You're shaking," he breathed.
"I should be."
"Then why aren't you in hiding?"
A pause. The captive swallowed.
"Because I finally know what I'm dealing with."
For a moment the predator almost smiled—something snapped, almost human—but the roar of a slammed door below put an end to it. A guard came up the stairs, out of breath. "Sir, the opponent's men are assembling. They're claiming you've violated the treaty."
"Of course they are," he said, eyes still on the captive. "Prepare the cars. No one gets off the grounds until I say so."
The guard vanished. The predator's attention shifted back to the man in front of him. "You see? This is what happens when someone dies in the wrong ballroom."
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Captive POV
He should have been scared, but what took its place was an odd, hollow peace. The world of the predator was shattering outward, and in it somehow he was included at its center. He watched the man issue commands with the precision of a conductor, each gesture measured. Even disorder yielded to him.
When the guards dispersed, he caught himself talking before he had time to think. "They'll come for you."
The predator turned his head slightly. "For us," he corrected. "You were standing beside me when the shot was fired. They'll think you're the reason he lost his composure."
The captive's stomach tightened. "I'm not part of your wars."
"You are now."
The words thudded like a shutting door. He was going to complain, but the eyes of the predator caught him—dark, impenetrable, pulling him as a hurricane pulls the sea.
"You can run," the predator whispered. "But each street in the city belongs to someone I own or someone to whom I owe my death. Either, you'll be back here."
He hated the way it sounded like it was true.
The predator drew nearer, his voice dipping into a whisper that stroked the space between them. "I need to know you won't leave me in the position of having to choose between keeping you alive and saving my empire."
"You want me to trust you?"
"I'm ordering you to survive."
Something unspoken appeared to pass between them—half warning, half strange, reluctant acknowledgment. For the first time, the prisoner sensed fatigue underlying the man's impeccable control, the hint of isolation power always carried. It caused him to hesitate, then inquire before he could stop himself. "Then teach me how."
The predator tensed, eyes hooding as if measuring the gravity. Then, with deliberate slowness, nodded. "At dawn."
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Predator POV
Gray and rainy dawn broke, bleeding light out across the city. He waited in the training hall beneath the estate, where marble gave way to concrete and silence sounded more loudly. The captive had come, in simple attire, still wary but here.
"This is not charity," the predator said. "If you are to stay alive, you learn the game of my world.".
He tossed a small knife onto the table between them. The blade spun, catching the dim light. "Rule one: never show weakness."
The captive looked at the weapon, then at him. "And rule two?"
"Never forget who owns the room you're standing in."
For one heartbeat they did not stir. Then the captive reached for the knife—not in threat, but in acceptance. The action was quiet, but it marked something new between them: a start neither of them desired but both knew.
Somewhere overhead in the mansion, phones rang again. The other faction of the rival was already on the move. The predator's kingdom quaked, but his voice, when he sounded, was unyielding.
"War is coming," he said to me. "Stay near, and you might survive it."
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Captive POV
He met the predator's gaze and for the first time spoke what he had not dared say. "And if I don't?"
"Then you'll see what happens to people who try to escape me."
The answer ought to have paralysed him. It burned instead.
A storm was brewing outside, the initial boom of one that would change everything.