Page 81 of Dearest Alpha Brothers 1: Vampire Prince

My phone buzzed, making me jump. Ms. Rodriguez’s name flashed on the screen, along with three missed calls and a string of increasingly urgent messages:

Where’s my Beyond Beauty presentation?

Board meeting in two hours.

Don’t embarrass me, Luca.

“But I already…” I stared at my laptop screen in confusion. The Beyond Beauty campaign… something about that nagged at me. Hadn’t I been working on marketing luxury face cream to supernatural beings? To vampires and werewolves and…

A wave of dizziness hit me. The room spun, and for a moment I caught a whiff of something impossible—midnight and starlight, winter storms and lightning, sunshine and warmth. My skin burned, an odd fever making the air feel too thick to breathe.

“Get it together,” I told myself firmly, though my voice sounded strange to my own ears. “Supernatural beings? Really? You’ve been reading too much manga.”

But as I stumbled through my morning routine, the wrongness persisted. The bathroom mirror… I froze, staring at my reflection. Or where my reflection should be. The face looking back at me kept shifting, like a TV with bad reception—sometimes the tired marketing associate with dark circles under his eyes, sometimes a delicate vampire prince with lavender eyes and tiny fangs, sometimes just… blank. Empty. A void where a person should be.

The hot water sputtered and died halfway through my shower, but the cold didn’t bother me. In fact, it barely registered against my oddly burning skin. Everything felt off-kilter, like I was moving through a world slightly out of sync with reality.

“Luca? Is that you, dear?” Mrs. Liu’s voice drifted through my door, but it sounded wrong—distant and hollow, like anecho of an echo. Wasn’t she supposed to be serving dumplings at a formal clan dinner? No, that wasn’t right. She was just my elderly neighbor who fed my cat when I worked late.

“I’m fine!” I called back, though I wasn’t sure if I actually spoke the words or just thought them. “Just running late!”

The hallway outside my apartment stretched impossibly long, the walls gray and indistinct. I could smell something that should have been Mrs. Liu’s famous dumplings, but the scent kept morphing into the metallic sweetness of medical-grade blood bags.

The convenience store on my way to the subway looked abandoned, though I could see Mr. Choi’s silhouette behind the counter. He raised a hand in greeting, but his features were blurred, like a watercolor left in the rain. Hadn’t he just been at the clan meeting, discussing security measures with Great Uncle Johnathan?

No, that wasn’t right either. He was just the kind store owner who saved manga volumes for me and worried I was too skinny.

My skin burned hotter. Through the store’s windows, I caught a glimpse of silver-white hair, but when I turned to look, there was only gray.

The subway station swam in and out of focus as I descended the grimy stairs. Everything looked washed out, colorless, except… was that Sylvie by the ticket machine? No, just another teenage girl in a gray school uniform. But for a moment, her artistic sketchbook had shimmered with designs for supernatural fashion lines, her smile bright with family love.

My skin felt too tight, too hot. The morning crowd pressed around me, their faces indistinct like poorly developed photographs. A businessman’s cologne morphed into the scent of midnight and starlight, making my fangs ache—wait, fangs? I ran my tongue over perfectly normal human teeth, but the phantom sensation persisted.

“Luca!”

I spun around, heart racing. That voice… deep, commanding, laced with alpha power. But there was no silver-haired CEO parting the crowd with his presence. Just the subway conductor making a routine announcement, his voice distorting through ancient speakers.

The train arrived in a rush of stale air. As I stepped inside, a flash of storm-blue eyes caught mine in the window’s reflection. Lightning crackled across my skin—no, just static electricity from the handrail. Wasn’t it?

My phone buzzed again. Ms. Rodriguez’s name blurred.

Need that Beyond Beauty presentation perfect. Board expects luxury appeal.

Luxury appeal. Something about that tickled my memory. Hadn’t I just been in a marketing meeting about supernatural beauty standards? About vampires and their perfect skin, about wolf shifters and their natural grace? About how being a Whitlock meant everything had to be…

The train lurched, and suddenly I was pressed against a broad chest that smelled like sunshine and citrus. “Careful, little bat,” a playful voice teased. But when I looked up, it was just another faceless commuter, already turning away.

Little bat. The nickname echoed in my head, bringing with it a wave of longing so intense I had to grip the handrail to stay upright. My reflection in the window kept shifting—sometimes human, sometimes vampire, sometimes nothing at all.

A group of high school students got on at the next stop. For a moment, I could have sworn Hunter was among them, gaming device in hand, arguing passionately about some new character build inSupernatural Warriors Online. But no, just another gaming-obsessed teenager, his face gray and indistinct like all the others. Though the phantom echo of his voice lingered—something about reaching platinum rank and unlocking legendary skins.

“Next stop, Midtown,” the conductor announced, but his voice sounded like Benedict calling me for breakfast. Benedict? Who was Benedict? My head throbbed as two sets of memories tried to occupy the same space.

The corporate tower where I worked rose before me, but it kept trying to become Whitlock Tower. Glass and steel blurred into ancient power and supernatural majesty, then back to mundane architecture. The security guard’s greeting faded into static—wasn’t this where enforcers were supposed to check for protection marks? Protection marks?

My skin burned hotter as I crossed the lobby, each step feeling like I was moving through honey. The marble floor kept rippling under my feet, sometimes gleaming with supernatural sigils, sometimes just showing the scuff marks of countless commuter shoes.

I stumbled and everything tilted sideways. The massive lobby screen that usually played corporate announcements now showed a luxury watch commercial. But instead of the usual generic male model, I saw Zane. He lounged against a leather chair in an impeccable black suit, his silver-white hair gleaming like starlight. His steel-gray eyes seemed to follow me as I walked past.

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