Valiesse's POV
I hummed softly as I cut through the alley, my usual shortcut home. Twelve hours at the hospital, making sure the new intern wouldn't kill anyone on the night shift, and all I wanted was my bed.
I knew this alley like the back of my hand. The darkness didn't bother me.
The metallic smell did.
I stopped mid-step, keys already in my hand. Copper. Blood. Fresh.
Keep walking.
My eyes adjusted, scanning the shadows until I found the source.
He was propped against the brick wall, posture all wrong—collapsing inward. Left hand pressed to his side. His throat worked with each labored breath, too fast, too shallow. Dark liquid pooled beneath him, spreading slowly across the concrete.
Every true crime documentary I'd ever watched screamed at me to walk away.
I kept my head up and continued down my side of the alley, grip tightening on my keys.
"Hey."
The accent stopped me. European. Definitely not American.
"Help me. Please."
Damn it.
I couldn't ignore those words. No medical professional could. It was like a Pavlovian response—someone asks for help, you help. Even when every instinct tells you this is how people end up on the news.
I'm just helping a patient, I told myself. That's all.
I crossed to his side and crouched down, already reaching into my bag for gloves. His eyes tracked my movements with an intensity that didn't match his condition—sharp, aware, calculating. Even in the dim light, I could see they were striking. Dark, framed by thick lashes that seemed criminal on a man.
I snapped on the gloves and lifted his hand away from the wound.
Gunshot. Clean entry, possibly through-and-through.
My gaze traveled up. His suit was expensive, designer, perfectly tailored despite being soaked in blood. Not a mugging victim's clothes. The streetlight caught his face for the first time and I had to force myself to focus on the wound.
He was beautiful. Devastatingly so. Sharp jawline, high cheekbones, a face that belonged on magazine covers or marble sculptures in museums. Dark hair fell across his forehead, damp with sweat. The kind of beauty that made you forget he was bleeding out.
Focus, Vaelisse.
I lifted his shirt higher.
My breath caught.
This wasn't random. The trajectory, the placement. This was an execution attempt. But that's not what made me freeze.
Scars. Old ones, layered across his abdomen like a history of violence written on skin. A puckered bullet wound near his ribs. What looked like a knife slash across his side. And beneath the blood, creeping up from below his waistband and across his chest—tattoos. Intricate, dark ink that seemed to map something deliberate. Not decorative. Significant.
"I'll stop the bleeding and get you to a hospital. There's one fifteen minutes from here."
His hand shot out, gripping my wrist. Weak, but insistent. "No. No hospital." His jaw clenched, and even that movement was annoyingly graceful. "Somewhere… safe."
Red flag number five in few minutes.
I should call 911. I should walk away. I should do literally anything except what I was about to do.
"Fine. My place. But if you pass out, I'm leaving you in this alley."
The corner of his mouth twitched. Almost a smile. Even half-dead, it was unfairly attractive. "I won't."
"Can you walk?"
He nodded and tried to stand. His legs buckled immediately.
I caught him before he hit the ground again, wedging my shoulder under his arm. He was solid, heavy, and absolutely drenching my scrubs in blood. We staggered forward in an awkward tandem, and I tried very hard not to notice how he towered over me, or the way his body radiated heat despite the blood loss.
That's when I noticed the vehicle.
Black SUV, windows tinted, crawling down the street like a predator. Too expensive for this neighborhood. Too slow for this time of night.
"Don't look back." His voice dropped an octave, suddenly commanding despite the blood loss. "Just keep walking. Don't run."
My heart hammered against my ribs, but I kept my pace steady. The SUV's brake lights flared red as it approached.
It rolled past us just as we reached my building's entrance.
The elevator ride took an eternity. He sagged against the wall, but his eyes never stopped moving—scanning the numbers, the doors, calculating exits even while dying. Under the fluorescent lights, he looked like a fallen angel. Beautiful and dangerous in equal measure.
I fumbled with my keys one-handed, the other still supporting most of his weight. The lock finally gave way and we stumbled inside.
Three steps in, his legs gave out completely.
We went down together in a tangle of limbs. His weight drove the air from my lungs as we hit the floor. I groaned and rolled away, kicking the door shut with my foot.
He was already moving, shifting to prop himself against my couch, his head turning in slow, methodical sweeps of my apartment. Even half-conscious, he was assessing. Threat evaluation. Exit strategies.
Who are you?
"What's your name?" I grabbed my first aid kit from beside the couch. I always kept one in the living room for emergencies. Never thought I'd need it for a gunshot wound.
His eyelids were drooping, fighting to stay open as I cut away his ruined shirt. The antibiotics and adrenaline crash would hit soon. If he was going to die on my floor, I at least needed to know what to call him.
The fabric peeled away and I got my first clear look at his torso.
My hands stilled for a fraction of a second.
The tattoos were extensive. Black ink covered his chest and disappeared down his sides. Geometric patterns interwoven with something that looked like script in a language I didn't recognize. On his left pectoral, a symbol I couldn't place. A crest, maybe. Or a mark of allegiance.
Between the ink, more scars. This man had been cut, shot, and survived things that should have killed him.
"Cassiel." The name left his lips on an exhale.
I pressed gauze to the wound, applying pressure. He didn't even flinch. Up close, even pale from blood loss, his features were arresting—aristocratic nose, full lips now pressed thin with pain, bone structure that seemed almost cruel in its perfection.
"I'm Vaelisse. And you're not dying in my apartment tonight. Understood?"
His eyes found mine, dark and unfocused but still holding that unnerving awareness. Even dying, he looked at me like he was memorizing my face.
"Understood," he whispered.
Then I saw the gun.
It had slipped from inside his jacket when we fell, now lying on the floor beside his hand. Within easy reach. Close enough that even injured, he could grab it in a heartbeat.
My hands didn't stop working, cleaning the wound, packing it, but my mind was racing.
The expensive suit. The calculated way he moved. The SUV prowling the streets. The gun carried with the casual ease of someone who always had one. The tattoos that screamed organized crime. The scars that proved he'd survived this before.
And that face. That unforgettable, dangerous face.
What have I brought into my home?
"Who's after you?" I asked quietly, threading a needle.
His eyes closed, dark lashes fanning against sharp cheekbones. "People you don't want to meet."
"Then let's make sure they don't find you here."
I worked in silence, stitching with the efficiency of someone who'd done this a thousand times in an ER. My fingers traced the edges of his tattoos as I worked, the ink warm beneath my touch. His breathing eventually evened out, but even unconscious, his hand drifted toward where the gun lay.
Even bleeding out on a stranger's floor, Cassiel was ready for war.
I sat back on my heels, staring at the beautiful, dangerous man passed out in my living room. At the tattoos that marked him as someone's soldier. At the scars that proved he'd survived battles I couldn't imagine. At the blood soaking into my carpet. At the weapon that seemed as much a part of him as his own hands.
At the face I knew I'd never forget.
"What have I done?"