I have a severe, uncompromising obsession with emotional exclusivity. Whoever I date has to give me every single first: first handhold, first kiss, first love.

They aren’t allowed to look at anyone else, talk to anyone else, or entertain a passing thought that doesn’t revolve around me. Once they choose me, they are mine forever.

People on the internet used to joke that with standards like mine, I’d have to stake out a hospital maternity ward and wait eighteen years.

Then, one evening, translucent lines of text—like a live video chat stream—began flickering across my field of vision: [Does this disposable side character seriously not realize her new neighbor across the hall is a brooding, damp vampire?] [That unhinged villain’s possessiveness is completely lethal.

Once he sinks his claws into someone, they’re finished!] So when that dark, obscenely gorgeous man knocked on my front door later that night, a quiet thrill coursed through my veins. Unhinged? Possessive? Perfect.

If you step across my threshold and ever try to walk away, darling, you’re dead.

1 Thunder cracked directly overhead, rattling the windowpanes as the sky opened into a torrential downpour. In the dead quiet of my apartment, the doorbell chimed once, then twice. I peeked through the brass peephole.

A face of absolute, breathtaking perfection filled my view.

I tightened my grip on the heavy canvas duffel bag in my hands, quietly calculating the best angle to drop it over his head. [Is this girl braindead?] the floating text scrolled across my vision. [She’s facing the villainous vampire and she brings a canvas sack instead of a crucifix and garlic???] I rolled my eyes in the dark.

Staking him would be a waste of good art; I had every intention of playing the long game of domestic captivity. From the hallway, a low, velvety voice filtered through the wood. "Hello? Is anyone home?

Could you open up?" A pause, carefully laced with vulnerability. "My power blew out... and I’m a little freaked out being alone in the dark." [Do NOT open that door!] the comments panicked. [He’s just starving and looking for a convenient juice box!

If she opens up, she’s getting drained dry on the welcome mat!] I reached out, unlatched the deadbolt, and pulled the door wide open. "Don't be scared," I said softly. "I'll protect you." The man froze. Clearly, he hadn't anticipated zero resistance.

Our eyes locked. Looking into those captivating, slightly upturned dark eyes framed by long lashes, my pulse gave an involuntary kick.

Even toxic obsession requires aesthetic standards, and this man cleared the bar with room to spare. "Hi," he said, regaining his composure. "I'm Damian. Damian Cross. The lightning blew my circuit breaker, and the heat's out.

Could I warm up inside for a minute? It’s freezing out here." Look at that face, I thought. He could read the phone book and I'd listen. "I'm Penny," I replied, stepping aside. "Penny Brooks. You just moved in across the hall, right?

I know who you are. Come on in before you catch a cold." Damian stepped inside, slipping into the guest slippers I offered. His gaze dropped to the heavy sack still clutched in my left hand. "...What's that for?" he asked, tilting his head.

I gave an easy laugh. "For a pet." He glanced around my minimalist, empty living room. "I don't see any pets." "Not yet," I murmured, locking the front door behind him. "But I will soon." Damian settled onto my sofa, his long legs stretched out with feline grace.

I walked into the kitchen to slice some apples, performing the role of the polite, unsuspecting hostess. With deliberate carelessness, I angled the paring knife and nicked the fleshy side of my index finger.

The floating text went ballistic: [What an absolute moron! She’s practically begging for a Darwin Award!] [First she invites the apex predator in, now she cuts herself!] [Doesn't she know he’s a vampire?

The smell of fresh blood is going to send him feral!] Of course I knew.

Letting the crimson droplet bead and drip down my finger, I walked back into the living room and stopped beside the sofa. "The firstaid kit is in the bottom drawer by your knee," I said softly, holding up my hand. "Would you mind grabbing it for me?" Damian's expression shifted instantly.

His pupils dilated, his chest heaving as his breathing turned shallow and ragged. His Adam's apple bobbed. Fighting a losing battle against his predatory instincts, he leaned forward, turning his back to reach for the drawer.

The second his spine curved away from me, I picked up the solid aluminum baseball bat resting behind the armchair. With clean, practiced precision, I swung. Crack. Damian crumpled onto the rug without a sound.

I dragged him down the hallway and into the soundproofed basement I had spent the past week preparing. By the time he stirred awake, four hours had passed.

During that window, I had watched three terribly written horror movies out of sheer boredom, which only made me more restless.

Seeing his eyelids flutter open, a spark of excitement reignited in my chest. "Sorry about earlier," I said pleasantly. "I wanted to stuff you into the sack, but you're too tall.

You wouldn't fit." Damian glared up at me, his handsome features twisting in fury. "Is that supposed to be a regret?! Untie me right now! Do you have any idea what I am?!" I rested my chin in my hands, sitting on a wooden stool. "I know.

You're a vampire." He went rigid. "Which means," I smiled, "I definitely can't let you go." I unknotted the temporary ropes around his wrists and replaced them with heavyduty, industrialgrade steel shackles anchored to the floor.

2 The comments across my vision were a wall of question marks: [???] Damian stared at the heavy iron cuffs around his wrists, completely unmoored: [???] "Hungry?" I asked sweetly. Damian’s gaze locked onto the pale curve of my throat.

He swallowed hard, his dark irises bleeding into a vivid, predatory crimson. He looked like a creature who hadn't fed in weeks. "Yes," he rasped.

Under his expectant stare, I walked over to the minifridge in the corner and pulled out a chilled packet of congealed pig’s blood.

He stared at the plastic pouch in disgust. "You expect me to drink that?" I gave him a placid smile. "Then stay hungry." Damian narrowed his eyes, the menace rolling off him in waves. "Penny Brooks.

I’m going to remember this." [She is so dead,] the comments warned. [Once this villain marks you, you’ll never escape him until your dying breath.] A bond until death? I thought. How wonderfully romantic.

I stepped forward and delivered a sharp slap across his cheek.

Not hard enough to bruise, but precise enough to sting his pride. "Going forward, you don't use my name without permission," I said calmly. "A welltrained pet addresses me as Mistress." Damian let out a low, dangerous growl, the tips of his sharp fangs extending over his lower lip.

He glared up through his dark bangs, his pride warring with his ravenous instincts. "Mistress," he ground out through clenched teeth. "Can I feed now?" I reached down, running my fingers through his silky, thick black hair, then pressed the bag of ironrich animal blood against his lips. "Good boy.

Drink." He gagged through every swallow, his body rejecting the inferior substitute.

I took a linen cloth and gently wiped the stray dark streaks from the corners of his mouth. "Mistress, it’s vile," he whispered, looking up at me with dark, wounded eyes. "Can’t I just taste you?" Looking down at his sculpted, ethereal face, I felt that familiar, intoxicating pull in my chest.

I gave a quiet sigh, silently admitting my utter weakness for a pretty face, and unbuttoned the top two buttons of my linen shirt, tilting my neck toward him. Like a starving wolf, Damian lunged. "Ouch—" A sharp prick tore through my flesh.

Without missing a beat, I slapped his shoulder. "Mind your bite force!" He flinched, his long dark lashes lowering instantly. He looked thoroughly chastised and slightly pathetic, cautiously glancing up at my expression to see if I was truly angry.

Then, he leaned back in with exquisite gentleness. This time, his fangs parted my skin with deliberate, reverent care. I felt the steady, rhythmic pull as my blood was drawn into his mouth. I counted silently in my head.

At sixty seconds, I firmly shoved his shoulder back. "From now on, one minute is your limit." He nodded compliantly, daring not to argue.

The comments in my vision were having a collective breakdown: [Why is the unhinged villain obeying her like a puppy?!] [He’s supposed to be redeemed by our sweet heroine!

How can this crazy woman corrupt him like this?!] [Don't worry, the heroine moves into the building soon. She’ll melt his frozen heart with pure kindness. This psycho should pick out her own headstone while she still can!] My smile only widened.

Over the days that followed, I treated Damian remarkably well. I helped him bathe, washing his hair and smoothing out his clothes. Every time I ran my hands over his skin, his pale ears would turn a furious shade of pink.

When I blowdried his hair, he would instinctively lean his head against my chest, breathing in my scent.

At night, despite being chained, he would consistently wriggle off the floor and silently pull himself onto the mattress beside me. "Don't vampires usually sleep in coffins?" I asked him one night, amused. "The hardwood floor should feel like luxury." His eyes widened in aristocratic indignation. "I come from high nobility!

Even our coffins are fitted with plush pillowtops! That floor was destroying my lower back." I couldn't help laughing, so I let him stay on the bed.

Gradually, I noticed that every time he looked at me, his throat worked more frequently, swallowing back something heavy and unspoken.

Assuming he was simply fighting his biological craving for blood, I ordered a heavyduty leather canine muzzle online. When I held it up, his face twisted in horror. "That's for an attack dog!

I am not wearing that!" Finding his outrage adorable, I leaned down and pressed a soft kiss against his cheek. "Aren't you my good boy?" A deep blush flooded Damian's neck and cheeks.

He sputtered, completely stripped of his words, and quietly sat there, letting me buckle the leather straps securely behind his head.

3 Damian became astonishingly docile. When feeding time came, he was meticulous about his bite force, terrified of causing me pain.

The second I said "stop," his fangs vanished behind his lips instantly. [Don't be fooled!] the text insisted. [He’s secretly disgusted by her! He’s just playing along to lower her defenses!

In three days it’s the full moon—vampires reach peak power under a full moon. Just wait!] Reading the text, I felt only amusement. All my life, people had treated me like a broken, obsessive freak.

I craved an allconsuming, terrifying, suffocating kind of love. Modern psychology called it pathological obsession; the internet called it yandere.

They said an obsessive lover makes you the center of their universe, despises you speaking to another soul, and forbids your eyes from wandering anywhere but to them. Normal people found that claustrophobic and terrifying.

But why did I have to settle for normal? Two obsessives belonged together in their own private asylum. When the comments first told me my neighbor was a dark, possessive creature, I was intrigued.

But now the text claimed it was all an act—that he was destined to love someone else, that someone else would save him. That was fine too.

If I couldn't possess his heart entirely, preserving his corpse in a glass jar of formalin sounded like a reasonable backup plan.

Noticing how long I had been lost in thought, Damian reached out, his long, elegant fingers curving around my waist. "Mistress," he murmured against my sweater. "I haven't fed today." I reached back and unbuckled the leather muzzle, setting it aside.

Damian immediately pulled me against his chest with desperate urgency. His fangs gently grazed my collarbone before sliding beneath the skin.

It felt less like a predator feeding and more like an intimate, feverish kiss against my pulse. "Mistress," he whispered against my throat, his breath cool against my heated skin. "Can we stop using that muzzle?

Sometimes... when I want to kiss you, it’s really hard to fight it." My heart gave an erratic, unexpected thump. [Is she actually buying this line?] the comments sneered. [He just sees her as a cattle feedbag!] [Just wait until the heroine shows up.

Then he’ll realize what genuine love looks like.] I didn't put the muzzle back on him that night. He was unusually clingy, his cool body wrapping around mine like ivy, making me shiver against the sheets.

He buried his face into the hollow of my neck, staring intently at the faint, faded bite marks he had left behind.

He touched them like a conqueror admiring his territory. "Baby," he whispered, a faint smirk tugging at his lips. "Do you know what it means when our kind becomes addicted to a single human’s blood?" My eyelids were heavy with exhaustion.

What else could it mean? I thought. A favorite flavor of juice box. "What does it mean?" I mumbled sleepily. Damian suddenly looked flustered, hesitating for a long moment before whispering a single, quiet sentence into my ear.

My consciousness was already sinking into sleep. I didn't catch a single word. The next morning, sharp, rhythmic knocking at the front door woke me.

I gently peeled Damian's heavy arm off my waist, pulled on a robe, and walked up the basement stairs to open the front door. Standing in the hallway was a girl with delicate, porcelain features and soft, wide eyes.

She offered a gentle, practiced smile and extended a hand. "Hi there! I just moved into the unit downstairs. I'm Hailey. Hailey Reed." The floating comments instantly erupted into wild celebration: [She’s here!

The true heroine has finally arrived!] [Look at that pure, radiant grace! Compared to this psycho side character, Hailey is literally an angel!] [Hang on, Damian!

Your savior is here to rescue you from this nightmare!] I kept my face perfectly neutral, taking her hand in a brief handshake. "Penny Brooks." Before she could speak again, a loud, metallic CLANG echoed from the depths of the basement behind me.

Hailey’s smile faltered, her gaze darting suspiciously toward the interior of my apartment. [He’s crying out for help! He’s trying to get her attention!] the text flashed. [Hailey, go inside right now and expose this crazy woman!]

4 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 midsentence. 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 selfinflicted 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 twominute 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.

5 Across the courtyard, inside Hailey's apartment. Hailey gently dabbed a damp, warm cloth across the man's pale forehead. He was even more breathtaking up close. Even knowing what he was, she felt an irresistible pull toward him.

The mysterious text stream had informed her days ago that a dangerous vampire was being held captive by the unhinged woman upstairs. The comments had begged her to be his savior.

Driven by a righteous sense of purpose, she had staked out the hallway until the chance presented itself. Damian's dark eyelashes fluttered, his eyes opening slowly.

He took in the unfamiliar, pastelcolored living room and instantly went rigid. "Where am I?" Hailey stepped forward, her voice soft and timid. "You're in my apartment.

I saved you." "Saved me?" His voice went dangerously flat. "What kind of garbage are you talking about?" Hailey bit her lip. "I brought you out of that basement! That crazy woman had you chained like an animal!

If it weren't for me—" Before she could finish the sentence, a cold, vicelike grip clamped around her throat.

Damian slammed her against the wall, his crimson eyes blazing with murderous fury. "If it weren't for you, I would still be with my Mistress!" His fingers tightened, cutting off her airway. "You dare call her crazy?

You’re the only lunatic in this room. Tell me—what did you do to make her let me go? She loves me. She would never throw me out!

What filthy trick did you pull?!" Hailey clawed desperately at his iron grip, her face turning purple as she choked out ragged words. "I... I didn't do anything! She left... on her own! The basement door was open... the chains were already unlocked!

I just... carried you here..." Damian’s hand slowly relaxed, letting her slide to the floor. Hailey coughed violently, rubbing her bruised throat.

Through her ragged breaths, she heard him muttering to himself, his voice cracking with a terrifying realization. "No. You're lying." He stared at his own bare wrists, trembling. "Penny let me go voluntarily? No... she didn't let me go.

She abandoned me. She gave me away like an unwanted stray." A chilling, broken laugh escaped his lips. Hailey scrambled backward across the floor, terror freezing her blood. The man in front of her was completely, irrevocably mad.

Outside, another bolt of lightning tore across the sky, striking a nearby oak tree and sending a plume of black smoke into the rain. I woke with a start, glancing out the window at the sky.

I had nearly forgotten: tonight was the night of the full moon. The digital clock on my nightstand read 1:15 AM. It had been more than eight hours since I unlocked his chains. He hadn't come back.

The text floated smugly across the dark room: [What is she waiting for?

The villain has already been redeemed by Hailey’s warmth.] [Now that he’s experienced a pure, kind soul, who would ever choose to stay with a toxic psycho?] I pressed my lips into a thin line, threw off the covers, and headed toward the kitchen to fetch my cleaver.

BAM! The front door was violently kicked off its hinges, crashing against the hallway wall. Heavy, hurried footsteps crossed the living room and tore straight into my bedroom. My heart slammed against my ribs as I froze by the edge of the bed.

The next second, freezing, familiar hands reached out from the shadows, cupping my jaw with bruising possessiveness. "Penny Brooks," Damian whispered, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and desperation. "How dare you throw me away." Click.

The heavy steel shackles locked tightly around my wrists.