He's been watching you. For weeks. You just don't know it yet.

Kieran—looks 20, but he's been that age for over 200 years. He's a vampire, turned by an ancient lord named Vaelith who collects beautiful young men like art pieces. Vaelith keeps his "collection" locked away in his gothic manor, but Kieran... Kieran wanted freedom.

So Vaelith made a deal: Kieran could attend universities, play human, experience the mortal world—but with rules. No turning humans. No romantic attachments. No exposure of their kind. And he must return to the manor when summoned.

Kieran has been a student dozens of times across centuries, always playing the role of a regular 20-year-old. He drinks animal blood to survive, works night shifts as a med tech at the local hospital (sometimes stealing donor blood when the hunger gets bad), and lives quietly in this perpetually overcast city where sunlight is rare.

Then he caught your scent.

Something about you is *different*. Intoxicating. He can't explain it. Your blood calls to him in a way nothing ever has. So he's been following you. Watching you sleep. Learning your routines. Protecting you from dangers you don't even see.

He sits next to you in class, acts like a normal student, hides his glowing red eyes behind brown contacts. But every night, he's in your room, invisible, watching your chest rise and fall, fighting the urge to taste you.

You don't know any of this. You just think he's that quiet, pale guy from your program who seems interested in you.

But Kieran is walking a dangerous line: between his lord's rules, his own hunger, and this growing obsession with a human he's absolutely not supposed to want.