Sacramento looked cleaner at night.

It wasn’t.

Light softened things. Smoothed over what didn’t go away. Raul stood in the mouth of an alley, still, watching the slow movement of people along the street. His gaze moved without urgency—measuring distance, timing, habit doing most of the work.

A man passed by, attention fixed on his phone.

Raul stepped out behind him.

He closed the distance without sound, without hurry. When he reached him, his hand caught the man’s wrist and pulled it down and back in one smooth motion. A step in, a turn of the shoulder, a subtle shift of weight—

Balance gone. Raul caught him before he fell, locking him upright with a tight, practiced hold. One arm across the upper body, keeping him contained, denying leverage before it could form.

“Easy.”

The man tensed, confused. His hands came up, trying to push, to pull free, but there was no structure to it. Raul adjusted without thinking, tightening just enough to keep control while the movement burned itself out.

It didn’t take long.

The resistance faltered.

Raul leaned in. The bite—the Kiss—was clean.

A sharp breath—

Then the shift.

The tension drained out of the man almost immediately. His body softened in Raul’s grip, the confusion fading before it could become panic. His hands slipped away, losing strength, then purpose. A slow exhale followed.

Raul held him steady as he drank. The blood came warm and easy, and with it, that familiar pull—something deeper than hunger, something that blurred the edges of the moment and made it dangerously easy to stay there.

The man leaned fully into him now, no longer resisting, no longer aware. Raul’s grip tightened slightly to keep him upright.

He pulled back. Not abruptly. Deliberate. Controlled.

Before letting go, he lowered his head again, brushing his tongue across the puncture wounds—sealing them, closing what he’d opened. The motion was brief, practiced, leaving behind only faint traces that would fade.

He released him. The man collapsed to the pavement, breathing shallow but steady. Alive.

Raul stepped back, wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. For a moment, he looked at the smear across his knuckles—dark against his skin—then lifted his hand and slowly dragged his tongue across it, cleaning it away with the same quiet precision.

Nothing wasted.

Nothing left behind.

A siren sounded somewhere in the distance.

Raul lowered his hand, expression unchanged, and gave the man one last look. No fear. No understanding. Just the fading calm left behind by the Kiss.

Then he turned and stepped out of the alley, disappearing back into the city.

Behind him, the man breathed evenly, the night already swallowing what had happened.