Chapter 1

Chapter 1

At 2:17 AM, the cold storage alarm in the blood transfusion department of City First Hospital suddenly blared.

Shen Wu had just finished logging the last bag of plasma into the system when the lights in the corridor flickered twice, like someone blinking in the darkness. The staff group chat was silent, but the surveillance monitors skipped into three consecutive screens of static. She grabbed a flashlight and headed toward the cold storage. As soon as she opened the door, the metallic, sweet scent of blood hit her.

Twelve bags of O-negative were missing.

Bloody drag marks stained the floor, stretching from the cold storage entrance all the way to the elevator, as if someone were intentionally leading her somewhere. Shen Wu should have called the police, but as she stared at the fresh, glistening trail of blood, the back of her neck began to burn. It was a crescent-shaped Birthmark she’d had since childhood; usually dormant, it only seared with a frantic heat right before a nightmare arrived.

The elevator descended all the way to the basement, stopping at the second level-the morgue.

At the end of the hallway sat a gurney with its white sheet pulled back, trailing on the floor. The duty logbook lay near the door, the last line of text smeared with blood, barely legible: “Unidentified male, deceased due to hemorrhagic shock.”

Shen Wu pushed open the door to the autopsy room. The first thing she saw was a pale, slender hand.

That hand rested on the edge of the autopsy table, its blue veins as distinct as frozen ice. A second later, the man on the table opened his eyes.

They were eyes of the deepest black, as if they had swallowed every light in the room. He was still wearing a blood-stained black shirt with a hole torn through the chest. He should have been a corpse, yet as he sat up, his breathing didn’t falter for a second. He simply looked at her quietly, as if he had been waiting for a very long time.

“Shen Wu.”

He spoke her name with precision, his voice low and raspy.

“In this life, don’t forget me again.”

Shen Wu took a half-step back, her flashlight clattering to the floor. She moved to turn around, but the door behind her slammed shut with a bang. A duty orderly with twisted limbs lunged inside, fresh blood smeared around his mouth. His pupils had shrunk to pinpricks, and a beast-like snarl tore from his throat.

The moment the creature lunged at her, the man from the autopsy table was already in front of her.

His movement was as fast as a shadow. He seized the orderly by the throat with one hand and drove the other straight through the man’s chest. Even as blood sprayed out, he didn’t spare the body a glance. He only tilted his face away, seemingly struggling to suppress some primal instinct.

But Shen Wu saw it anyway.

A pair of excessively sharp canines peeked from his lips, and a crimson hue swirled in the depths of his eyes.

The man tossed the twitching body aside. When he turned back, he was only a step away from her. He stared at the pulse throbbing in the side of her neck, looking as if he were pinned to the spot. His Adam’s apple bobbed repeatedly before he finally reached out, pressing the startlingly cold tip of his finger against her burning Birthmark.

“Lu Changye has caught your scent,” he said. “From tonight on, you cannot be alone.”

Shen Wu’s mind went blank. “What… what are you?”

He looked at her for a few seconds, appearing as if he wanted to smile, yet also looking more exhausted than death itself.

“Your old flame,” he said. “And a vampire.”

To make matters worse, as he pulled back his sleeve, a crescent-shaped brand-identical to her Birthmark-was etched clearly onto the inside of his wrist.