CHAPTER 63: CHAPTER 63: THE UNEXPECTED GUEST 2

KIERAN PAUSED, his golden eyes never leaving Mailah’s face. "I would drain her to the very last drop of her essence, consuming her completely while she thanked me for the privilege."

The words hung in the air like a physical threat, making the temperature in the room seem to drop several degrees.

Mailah felt frozen in place, unable to look away from those hypnotic golden eyes that promised both ecstasy and destruction.

"Touch her and I’ll tear you apart," Grayson snarled, moving to place himself protectively between Kieran and Mailah. The casual control he normally maintained had evaporated.

Kieran laughed, the sound echoing off the den’s paneled walls. "Relax, old friend. I’m simply illustrating the practical advantages of a more... flexible moral framework."

"Your practical framework is sociopathy," Grayson shot back, his hands clenched into fists at his sides.

"My practical framework has kept me alive and well-fed for centuries," Kieran corrected without heat. "While your moral purity has brought you to the brink of extinction."

He gestured dismissively, as if the supernatural hunger that tortured Grayson was merely an inconvenience.

"I can overfeed until my victims are nothing but empty husks, or I can sip so delicately they barely notice the encounter. The choice has always been mine to make, and I make it based purely on what serves my business interests."

He settled back into his chair with infuriating calm, apparently unbothered by Grayson’s barely controlled rage.

"But I’m not here to convert you to my philosophy. I’m here to teach you survival techniques that accommodate your... particular sensitivities."

"And what exactly does this training involve?" Mailah asked with a composure that belied the frantic hammering of her heart.

"Practice," Kieran said simply.

His golden eyes shifted between them with calculating precision. "Unfortunately, we don’t have the luxury of time for a gradual learning process. Your deadline, I believe, is tomorrow night, which means he’ll need to practice on the only suitable subject available."

The implication struck Mailah like a fist to the chest, leaving her breathless. "Me," she whispered.

"You," Kieran confirmed with clinical detachment. "There’s no other option if we want him to survive the feeding."

Grayson went rigid beside her, his entire body radiating rejection of the idea. "Absolutely not. I won’t risk her life for practice sessions."

"The alternative is going into tomorrow night’s feeding completely unprepared," Kieran replied with ruthless logic. "Which guarantees her death rather than simply risking it."

"There has to be others," Grayson insisted, but Mailah could hear the desperation creeping into his voice.

"If there were, don’t you think I would have mentioned it?" Kieran’s tone carried the patience of someone explaining basic mathematics to a slow child. "Time is the enemy here, Grayson. We have hours, not days or weeks, to prepare you for what may be your only chance at survival."

The weight of their impossible situation settled over the room like a funeral shroud.

Mailah found herself caught between terror and a strange sense of inevitability. Everything had seemed to have been leading to this moment—Lailah’s letters, the dissolution notices, Mason’s mark, and now Kieran’s proposition.

"It’s too dangerous," Grayson said firmly, though Mailah could see the conflict warring in his eyes. "What if I lose control during practice? What if—"

"That’s precisely why I’ll be there," Kieran interrupted, his voice taking on a note of genuine reassurance. "I’ll be monitoring the entire process, ready to pull you back the moment you go too deep. Think of it as training with a safety net."

He leaned forward, his golden eyes intense with conviction. "I gave you my word that I would teach you to feed without killing her. That promise extends to the practice sessions as well. I have no interest in letting you devour your only chance at survival."

The logical argument hung in the air, seductive in its simplicity.

Mailah found herself studying Kieran’s face, searching for any sign of deception or hidden agenda. His expression remained perfectly calm, almost bored, as if the outcome mattered little to him personally.

"But can you?" she asked quietly. "Can you really pull him back if he goes too far?"

Kieran’s smile was sharp and confident. "My dear, I’ve spent centuries learning to modulate feeding intensity based purely on business considerations. Preventing another incubus from overfeeding is simply a matter of applying the same cost-benefit analysis I use in my daily operations."

He leaned back in his chair with casual arrogance. "The only reason I would allow Grayson to kill you is if your death somehow served my business interests better than your survival. Since keeping you alive ensures his cooperation and my profit, you can trust that my self-interest aligns perfectly with your continued existence."

"And if you’re wrong?" Grayson demanded. "If something goes wrong during the practice session?"

"Then I’ll have misjudged," Kieran replied with chilling pragmatism. "But I didn’t build a successful enterprise by making poor assessments. Your survival—both of you—represents the most profitable outcome for me."

Mailah felt the weight of the decision pressing down on her. Every option carried terrible risks, but doing nothing guaranteed the worst possible outcome.

"How many practice sessions?" she heard herself ask, her voice sounding distant and strange to her own ears.

"As many as it takes," Kieran said simply. "Until Grayson can consistently access the deeper layers without triggering a feeding frenzy."

"Hours," Grayson said, his voice hollow with realization. "We have hours to master something that should take months."

"Then we’d better get started," Kieran said, rising from his chair.

The casual way he spoke about risking her life made Mailah’s stomach clench with fear, but beneath the terror, she felt a strange kind of resolve settling into place.

She’d come this far, survived this much—she wasn’t going to let fear stop her.

"What do we need to do?" she asked, meeting Kieran’s golden eyes with as much courage as she could muster.

"We need to determine whether you’re both brave enough to trust me with your lives," Kieran said, smiling. "Because once we begin, there’s no turning back."

The conflict burned in Grayson’s eyes.

Kieran waited with the patient confidence of someone who held all the cards, knowing that desperation would eventually overcome doubt.

Would Kieran really keep his promise to pull him back from the brink? Or would Mailah become just another casualty?