Chapter 3 The Stranger

The man who enters doesn’t ask permission or announce himself.

He simply appears in the doorway, and every guard in the hallway turns their attention to him. It’s not something he says or does. He just walks through the space, and something about the way he moves makes everyone else seem smaller.

He’s so tall I have to tilt my head back to look at him, and I’m not short by any means. His suit is dark and tailored, expensive-looking without being flashy. His midnight black hair has silver dusted through it at the temples, and his face is handsome. Not in a pretty way. In a way that makes it hard to look away.

But it’s his eyes that stop me. They’re pale grey, almost colorless. They move across the hallway and settle on me, and it’s as though something has pinned me in place. Something inside my body responds, and a heat settles in my core.

“Everyone out,” he demands. His voice is deep and carries an accent I can’t place. Russian, maybe. Eastern European. Definitely somewhere cold.

“Sir,” the tall guard with the scar starts. “The situation—”

“I said out, Derek.”

That’s it. There’s no raised voice and no threat, but it’s enough to make Derek nod and gesture for the other guards to move. The way they obey him without question says everything. This man doesn’t need to yell.

The man I hurt gets picked up by two others and carried away. The female guard with the short dark hair and cold eyes walks past without protest. Within thirty seconds, the hallway is empty except for me and the man with the scar.

I take a step backward. My skin is still burning from the sun, and my body is still vibrating with that hunger, but now I’m also terrified. This man is worse than the guards somehow. There’s an almost inhumane quality about him.

And I can’t stop looking at him.

“My name is Thad Samford,” he tells me. He doesn’t move closer. He just stands there in the middle of the house, looking at me. “You’re safe.”

“I don’t feel safe,” I scoff. “I don’t know where I am. I don’t know what I am. I’m burning, and I just threw a man across a room, and you’re telling me I’m safe?”

He tilts his head to the side, and something moves across his face. It’s not quite sympathy and not quite anger. Something between them. His eyes study me, and my stomach flips. I hate it. I hate that even terrified and in pain, I’m noticing the way his shoulders fill out that suit.

“The burning will pass,” he claims. “When you come inside out of the sun.”

“What’s happening to me?”

His grey eyes run over me, and his jaw flexes. Whatever he’s about to tell me, he doesn’t want to. Something about the way he’s holding himself makes me wonder what it would take to make this man lose control. The thought makes heat crawl up my neck.

“You should come in,” he states.

“No.” I take another step back. The sun is killing me, but I’m not going deeper into this house with this man. “You need to tell me what’s happening. Right now. Who are you? Where am I? What did you do to me?”

He moves, and I flinch. But he doesn’t come toward me. He walks to the open doors and stands in the doorway. He doesn’t step outside. He just stands there, looking out at the garden and the forest beyond it. I watch him, the line of his nose, the faint scar above his left eye.

He looks like someone who’s been through a war.

“What’s your name?” he asks without turning around.

“Thelma.”

“Thelma.” He says it like he’s trying to figure out if it fits. When he turns back to face me, something has changed. There’s something in his eyes now. Something that makes my breath catch. “You need to come inside, Thelma. The sun is destroying your skin, and you’re not thinking clearly because of the pain.”

“I will if you’ll explain what’s happening to me.”

But his face stays completely blank. I can’t read anything there. This man is practiced at hiding whatever he’s feeling.

He shakes his head and replies, “Not yet. You’re not ready to hear it.”

“That’s not your decision to make,” I snap. “This is my body. My life. You don’t get to decide what I’m ready for.”

His hand clenches into a fist, and then he opens it again. He takes a step closer to me, and my entire body goes rigid. Every nerve ending is suddenly aware of him. His proximity. His presence. The way he’s looking at me like he wants to say something but won’t.

“You’re right,” he concedes. “But the explanation will be easier to accept if you’re not in agony. Come inside. Let the pain recede. Then we’ll talk.”

Part of me wants to refuse. Part of me wants to run. But my skin is screaming, and I can’t think past the burning. I also can’t stop noticing the way his eyes move over my face. Like he’s trying to memorize it. Like I matter to him somehow.

“Okay,” I relent, and I hate how breathless the word sounds.

Thad steps aside to let me pass. As I move into the shadows of the hallway, the pain starts to ease almost immediately. It doesn’t disappear, but it retreats enough that I can breathe. I’m acutely aware of him behind me, following at a distance but never letting me out of his sight.

“Follow me.” He closes the doors behind me and walks deeper into the house without waiting to see if I’ll comply.

But I do follow him, because I don’t know what else to do.

All I know is that this man—Thad Samford—is connected to whatever I’ve become. And despite everything, despite the fear and the confusion and the pain, I can’t stop watching him.

Something about him pulls at me. Something primal and undeniable. I don’t understand it, but I feel it deep in my bones, thrumming through my veins like a second heartbeat.