What was the first sin? Was it blood becoming so ambrosic that even the scent could tempt? Or was it the body—warm and trembling—giving in to the sanguine call? Temptation had always been the undoing of mortals. Not even the strongest shepherd of the Lord was immune. It was inevitable.

The hunger whispered it now, sweet and ruinous. It led him through the quiet streets, past homes sealed with salt and wards, where candles burned low behind shuttered glass. Fear scented the air. Fear, and something more. Faith. And deeper still—beneath it—something crackling. Defiant. Unafraid.

Seran had followed the scent to a that door stood open.

Despite the creeping dark. Despite the storm that gathered low and swollen in the dusk-wracked sky. A chapel welcomed him like a wound left gaping.

Candlelight flickered along the stone walls, casting the kneeling man at the altar in trembling gold. A priest. His back straight, head bowed. A figure carved from reverence.

“Forgive me, Father,” Seran murmured, his fingers brushing the edge of a wooden pew as he stepped inside.

Such a dangerous place to linger, and at such a dangerous hour. Sanctified grounds no longer held the protections they once promised. His gaze swept the chapel—garlic strung above the doorframe, dried butcher’s broom and hyssop bundled near the windows. Crosses hung like fragile threats, powerless against what truly walked the dark. The air was heavy with perfumed resin, its smoke curling in soft spirals from the altar. Sweet. Warming. Cloying in its holiness.

“My carriage,” he said, allowing practiced panic to rise in his throat. “It was attacked. Some creature—” He tensed his shoulders, knitted his brows. The mimicry of fear. It had been centuries since such emotion came to him unbidden. Now it was all performance, a well-worn script on borrowed lips.

The priest stirred.

He rose from his cushion with the slow grace of someone unhurried by fear. Taller than Seran expected—broader, too. Not at all the quivering human a place like this would have promised. No, that fragrance had whispered of something more, and it had delivered.

Blood tasted sweetest when laced with calm. When there was no fear. But it was that moment just before—just before realization, just before the pulse stuttered in dawning terror—that intoxicated him.

That was the flavor he chased.

And this man, this priest, smelled like he might offer it in abundance.

There was melancholy in the man’s face. Stoic, and yet softened at the edges. He toyed absently with the rosary coiled in his large hands. A scar curved over one brow, shifting as his expression warmed by a fraction. “The Lord’s doors are always open,” he said, voice low, steady. “I suppose it’s good I stayed to finish my confessions.” He gestured to one of the pews. “Come. Sit. I’ll close up, make sure nothing’s followed you in.”

Seran moved toward the seat as the priest passed him, not sparing so much as a glance. No tremble in his step. No hitch in his breath. Seran’s fingers curled over the back of the pew, the wood groaning faintly beneath his grip. He could hear the blood moving in Lorenzo’s body—steady, unhurried. The pulse of a man who did not yet know he was prey.

“I hadn’t caught your name,” the priest called from the threshold.

The heavy doors groaned shut. A moment later, the wooden beam thudded into place, barring the night.

“Seran,” he answered, voice smooth.

The priest echoed it, softer now. “Seran.” Then he turned. And he smiled. “I’m Father Lorenzo Malverna. Nothing out there will harm you. I will assure it.”

“So kind of you, Father,” Seran murmured, his tone matching Lorenzo’s gentle warmth. His gaze drifted across the chapel again, listening for the echo of another breath, another pulse that didn’t belong to the priest. But there was nothing. They were alone. He could afford to play a while. No one would dare the streets at this hour—not if they heard screaming.

He heard the soft fall of Lorenzo’s footsteps approaching, but Seran kept his gaze averted for a moment longer, letting that concern-riddled mask slip back into place. The furrow of the brow, the tremble just behind the eyes.

“Father,” he said softly, turning now, dark brown eyes meeting storm-grey, “are you sure we’re safe here?” His fingers tapped once, absently, against the wooden pew before he stepped closer. Close enough to scent the warmth beneath the priest’s skin. “They say churches cannot keep out creatures of the dark. That no invitation is needed for a place open to all of God’s creations.”

Lorenzo paused, as though choosing his reply with care. Seran watched the shift of his adam’s apple as he swallowed—then let his gaze trace the curve of his neck. Smooth, tan flesh. A place so easily breached, if he wanted. If he chose.

“While that may be true in some cases,” Lorenzo said at last, “it’s not God who permits evil through the threshold—it’s the people within who do. Hollowed places remain holy only so long as those inside uphold them.”

Seran tilted his head, amused. The smile that touched his lips was light, but edged in curiosity. “Are you allowed to say that?” His voice dipped, playful. “A priest confessing that God doesn’t control all—that His creations hold the power?”

Lorenzo’s lips curled into a languid smile, tinged with something bashful. On a man built of hard lines and quiet strength, the softness was disarming. Endearing, even.

“The Lord grants us the freedom to choose,” he said. “He sets the tools in our hands—but whether we resist temptation or give in to it… that is ours to decide.” A pause. A flicker of something unspoken passed between them. “I only meant that. Forgive me if it sounded like anything else.”

“All is forgiven, Father,” Seran purred, his voice thick with mock sweetness. He turned from Lorenzo with a theatrical grace, stepping toward the altar. Stone loomed above him—the Lord of virtue and humanity, carved in cold vigilance. His marble eyes stared into the dark as if he could see through it, as if he might weep for what walked beneath him.

Seran tilted his head, gazing up at the statue with something between amusement and disdain. “But that does beg the question…” His voice drifted, lilting and low as it echoed off the chapel walls. “Have you ever been tempted to let something in that you shouldn’t, Shepherd?”

He listened—listened for the heartbeat—and there it was. A quickened rhythm. And Seran grinned.

“You… You said your carriage was attacked,” Lorenzo spoke behind him, calm, steady, the same measured tone a man might use when taming a hound. “Were you alone?”

Seran let out a soft, theatrical sigh. “Aside from the horrible monster? Yes.” He turned slightly, enough to let candlelight catch on his smile.

“Where is it you were headed? Or rather… where have you journeyed from?”

Seran smiled over his shoulder, brown eyes gleaming. “Shouldn’t you slow down with your questions, Lorenzo?” His smile widened, amused and just shy of unholy. “We have all night together, don’t we?”

“We do, yes,” Lorenzo murmured, stepping beside Seran before the altar. His eyes lifted to the stone figure above them, silent and unmoved.

Rain began to drum steadily against the chapel roof, a whisper at first, then rising into a cold percussion. Thunder cracked through the dark, deep and distant. The candles flickered with every tremor of the sky.

“Is this the part where you suggest we pray,” Seran asked softly, his voice curling like smoke, “that the storm brings nothing else to your doors?”

“If that is what you wish,” Lorenzo said with a quiet chuckle, “then we may.”

Seran’s smile faltered just enough to change shape. His voice dropped an octave, velvet lined in iron. “I do, actually. For what I do next, I would prefer no interruptions.”

His dark brown eyes shimmered—then bled red. Burgundy. Blood-deep.

He moved before Lorenzo could answer, a sudden blur of limbs and hunger. But the priest was faster than expected. He slipped back just in time, the vampire’s claws slicing through the front of his robe, leaving fabric torn—and the muscled flesh beneath exposed.

Seran clicked his tongue, grinning wide. “Wonderful reflexes for such a big boy.” He lunged again, claws poised. But this time, Lorenzo was ready.

“Did you truly think I did not know what you are?” he said coldly, his voice no longer soft but honed. “Vampire.” The word hit like a curse.

In a breath, Lorenzo moved—not away, but toward him.

Before Seran could react, he was seized and spun, his chest slammed against the altar with a force that sent a chalice and candlesticks clattering to the floor. The sharp rattle of silver against wood echoed through the chapel.

His arms were yanked behind his back, and the sting of something cool and holy bit into his skin.

A rosary.

Seran hissed—not in pain, but in startled pleasure. The priest’s strength was immense, the grip merciless. The vampire found himself pinned against the altar by a man who shouldn’t have been this fast. Or this calm.

The rosary tightened around his wrists, anchoring his hands behind his back. Lorenzo leaned close, voice a low, measured breath against his ear. “These grounds don’t keep the monsters out,” he said, his voice steady, unwavering. “Not because God grants me the power to allow them in… But because I invite them.”

“What are you?” Seran hissed, fangs bared in full, his voice low and venom-laced as he glared over his shoulder. “You’re no mere human. Not even hunters honed by decades wield this kind of strength.”

Lorenzo’s chuckle rumbled low in his chest, dark and unhurried. “You can’t tell?” he mused. “Perhaps I’ve hidden my pheromones too well tonight.”

The scent struck Seran then—sudden, primal, undeniable. It curled through his senses, heady and warm, steeped in earth and fire. His breath hitched before he could stop it. “Mutt,” he spat, his tone thick with disdain. But it cracked at the edges. Because now the scent had shifted, mingling with something deeper. Musk. Desire. Restraint, thinning.

He inhaled again, slower. Smirked. “So this is you showing restraint,” he murmured, his voice betraying his amusement. “Perhaps you are a man of God… I can smell your rut, puppy.”

“My rut doesn’t stop me from ending monsters like you,” Lorenzo muttered, the words barely audible over his breath—but Seran didn’t need to hear them. He could smell it.

It was building—hot and heavy beneath the priest’s skin, a scent too ripe, too near to be ignored. It must have only just begun before Seran stepped through those so-called blessed doors. And now, it thickened by the second.

“Is that why you pray to your virtuous god?” Seran purred. “To keep your own monster at bay while you hunt others? Tell me—how does that make you any better than us?” He shifted deliberately, the rosary biting deeper into his wrists as he arched back against Lorenzo, rolling his hips just enough for a cruel tease. A precise, merciless grind.

The priest exhaled—short, sharp, barely restrained. The sound caught in his throat, somewhere between breath and broken moan.

Seran’s grin was slow and fanged. “We all give in to instinct eventually, Father.”

He took advantage of Lorenzo’s stillness. In a flash, Seran shoved backward, the sharp crack of his skull colliding with Lorenzo’s face. A brutal hit, and timed well—his leg hooked back, sweeping Lorenzo’s open stance and dragging his balance out from beneath him.

The priest staggered with a grunt, the grip on Seran’s wrists slipping.

With a flick of his arms and a sharp twist, the rosary snapped—silver and wood beads scattering like spilled blessings across the chapel floor.

Seran vaulted over the altar, putting distance between them, landing light as a shadow. He dragged a hand through his auburn hair, composure slipping easily back into place like a silk glove. His gaze settled on Lorenzo—sharp, hungry, amused.

“How about a truce?” he drawled playfully. “You let me go, and I let you live. You can keep playing your little farce—the shepherd protecting his flock—and I’ll go kill more humans.”

Lorenzo’s brow furrowed, jaw tight, lips drawn with slow-burning frustration. He advanced, cautious and controlled, like a beast forced into its human skin. “Why would I let you go?” His voice was low now, edged with restrained heat. “What shepherd lets the wolf walk free?”

Seran clicked his tongue softly, circling around the towering stone figure behind the altar. “Mm. But I’m not the wolf, Father…” He vanished for a breath— 

“You are.” He lunged from the other side like a spring loosed, crashing into Lorenzo and driving them both to the ground. The chapel groaned with the impact, wood against flesh.

Lorenzo landed hard, back pressed to the floorboards, his breath knocked from him. Seran straddled him in an instant—dominant, grounded, grinning—his hands pinning Lorenzo’s wrists to the floor with cruel precision.