Chapter Text
Tristan had been in the bar long enough that the staff had stopped checking on him.
That was usually the sweet spot.
The place was loud without being raucous—music low enough to talk over, high enough to blur the edges of conversations. Warm lighting. Exposed brick. A narrow room that encouraged bodies to lean close together. It had been chosen because it always did good business on Fridays, and because it sat neatly between three Underground lines. People drifted in and out. People vanished without anyone noticing straight away.
He sat at the far end of the bar with his back to the wall, a glass of tonic sweating slowly beneath his hand. No alcohol. Never on a stakeout. He watched the mirror behind the bottles more than he watched the room itself—reflections told him things faces didn’t.
They were already here, then.
The woman stood near the centre of the room, dark hair falling over one shoulder, laughter pitched just a fraction too warmly. The man leaned against the bar a few feet away, long fingers curled loosely around a drink he never seemed to swallow. They weren’t touching, but they didn’t need to be. They moved like they shared a spine.
Incubus. Succubus. Paired feeders.
Tristan had clocked them within five minutes of arriving. Glamour light but effective. Feeding behaviour subtle. No mess. No bodies. Just disappearances that took a few days to be noticed and longer to connect.
He waited.
You didn’t rush these things. You watched. You learned the rhythm. You waited for the moment they slipped.
The bar door opened again.
Tristan noticed before he meant to—and that, too, irritated him.
The man who walked in didn’t look like prey at first glance. Not desperate. Not alone in the way that mattered. Blue eyes, sandy hair, thick enough to fall into his eyes when he laughed—which he did almost immediately—bar staff calling out his name as he crossed the threshold.
“Alex!”
Someone slapped the bar twice in greeting. Someone else raised a glass. The bartender grinned and started pouring before Alex even reached the counter.
A regular, then.
That made Tristan’s jaw tighten.
Alex shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over a stool, smiling as he leaned in to exchange a few words with the bartender. Open posture. Easy charm. Blue eyes bright and unguarded. He thanked her when she slid the drink across, fingers brushing glass like it meant something.
Tristan shifted his gaze to the mirror.
The incubus noticed instantly.
It’s head tilted. The succubus’s laughter faltered, then recalibrated. Their attention narrowed—not sharply, not obviously—but Tristan felt it like pressure behind his eyes, a thought pressing where it didn’t belong. A decision made without words.
Alex turned, scanning the room, and his eyes caught Tristan’s reflection.
Just for a second.
Alex smiled. Not flirtatious. Not calculated. Just a warm, reflexive thing—oh, there’s another human being.
Tristan looked away.
Discipline mattered. Distance mattered. He was here to observe, not interfere unless it became necessary.
He counted breaths instead.
The next twenty minutes unfolded with dreadful precision.
Alex laughed too easily—or rather, he laughed the same amount, but something underneath it softened. His shoulders dropped. His focus narrowed. He accepted a drink he hadn’t ordered, thanked someone he didn’t know. The succubus drifted closer—not touching, never touching—but her presence bent the air around him.
Tristan’s hand tightened on his glass.
The glamour was clean. Old-school. Nothing flashy enough to trip wards or flag cameras. Just enough to encourage compliance. Trust. A sense that everything would be fine if Alex just went along with it.
The incubus leaned in, murmured something. Alex blinked—slowly this time. He swayed, just a fraction, and laughed again, softer.
There.
That was the moment.
Tristan pushed off the wall, already moving, already calculating distance and exits and angles—but the room shifted against him. A surge of bodies pressed between him and the bar. Someone spilled a drink. Someone apologised.
By the time he cleared the knot of people, Alex was already standing.
“Bathroom,” Alex said vaguely, though his eyes weren’t on the door. They were on the succubus, on the promise of her smile.
The incubus slipped an arm around Alex’s back—supportive, casual, invisible to anyone who wasn’t looking for it.
Tristan reached the edge of the bar just in time to see them disappear through the side exit.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
He followed, heart steady even as something colder settled beneath it. Out the door. Into the alley. Past a stack of crates and the stink of old rain.
Too late.
The alley was empty.
No sound. No trace. Just the echo of glamour fading like an afterimage burned into the air.
Tristan stood there for a moment, breathing through his nose until the city noises layered back into place.
Then he pulled his phone from his pocket.
“Locryn,” he said quietly when the line connected. “UIRP field lead.”
A pause. Static.
“Confirmed incubus–succubus pair. Civilian taken. Male. Human. Alive at time of removal.”
Another pause.
“I’m tracking,” Tristan said. “And I’ll recover him.”
He ended the call and slipped the phone away.
As he turned back towards the bar, the image surfaced unbidden: sandy hair, bright blue eyes, that easy smile offered without caution.
He should have looked back.
He hadn’t.
—-
The glamour left a residue.
Tristan followed it through the back streets on instinct alone, boots striking wet pavement as the city narrowed around him. The air tasted wrong—sweet, coppery, like rain hitting old blood. He didn’t run flat-out. That would spook them.
They wanted somewhere quiet.
He cut through a service road and nearly collided with them at the far end of it.
Alex was barely upright now.
The incubus had one arm hooked around Alex’s shoulders, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. The succubus walked just ahead of them, heels clicking softly, voice low and coaxing—nearly there, love, you’re doing great—each word threaded with compulsion.
Alex’s feet dragged. When he stumbled, they didn’t slow.
Tristan didn’t announce himself.
He moved.
The first strike was fast and ugly—his shoulder slamming into the incubus’s side, breaking the hold. Alex collapsed immediately, knees buckling as the glamour faltered. Tristan caught him by the jacket and shoved him behind himself, hand braced against Alex’s chest until he slid bonelessly to the ground.
“Stay,” Tristan said sharply, knowing Alex couldn’t hear him.
The incubus snarled, glamour tearing loose into something feral. The succubus spun, eyes flashing silver-blue as the alley darkened.
“You shouldn’t interfere,” she hissed.
Tristan rolled his shoulders once.
“Funny,” he said. “I was thinking the same.”
He didn’t draw the blade yet.
The incubus lunged. Tristan sidestepped, caught the wrist, twisted. Bone cracked. The creature screamed as Tristan drove him face-first into the brick wall.
The succubus moved behind him.
He felt the pull before he heard it. Let go. He’s not worth it.
Tristan snarled and drove his heel back hard.
She staggered with a sharp cry as his boot connected with her knee, claws flashing where fingers had been.
“Hunter,” she spat.
“Last chance,” Tristan said, hand going to the hilt on his back. Dark leather. Familiar weight. Ebron stayed sheathed a heartbeat longer. “Leave.”
They didn’t.
Steel came free in one smooth motion.
The alley erupted into violence.
The blade caught the incubus across the chest in a clean diagonal, burning where it cut. Smoke curled from the wound as he screamed. The succubus launched herself at Tristan, glamour collapsing fully into something wrong—too many teeth, eyes reflecting light that wasn’t there.
Tristan planted his feet and met her head-on, blade angled not to kill but to keep her back.
“You don’t get him,” he growled. “Not this one.”
He headbutted her.
The glamour shattered.
What remained fled.
Tristan didn’t pursue.
He turned back immediately.
Alex lay crumpled against the brickwork, breathing shallow but steady, hair plastered to his forehead. His pupils were blown wide, lips parted as if he were trying to speak and couldn’t.
Tristan crouched beside him, Ebron already back in its scabbard.
“Alex,” he said, quieter now. “Can you hear me?”
No response.
He swore softly and checked Alex’s pulse. Rapid. Too rapid. Glamour saturation. Deep.
Tristan shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over Alex’s shoulders.
Alex stirred, fingers curling weakly into the fabric of Tristan’s jumper.
“Easy,” Tristan murmured. “I’ve got you.”
He keyed his radio one-handed.
“UIRP. Suspects fled. Civilian recovered. Severe glamour exposure. Consciousness impaired. I’m maintaining field custody.”
A pause.
“Copy. Medical support available if required.”
Tristan looked down at Alex—at the trust written into the slackness of his expression.
“Yeah,” Tristan muttered. “This isn’t great.”
—
He didn’t remember deciding to bring him home.
One moment he was standing in the alley, glamour still buzzing faintly in the air. The next, he was half-carrying Alex toward his car, rain slicking the pavement.
Alex weighed less than he should have.
That bothered Tristan more than the blood.
He buckled Alex into the passenger seat, adjusted the belt so it wouldn’t cut into his chest if he slumped. He stood there a moment longer, scanning the street.
He could call this in properly.
A&E wouldn’t know where to start. Glamour poisoning didn’t show up on scans, and by the time someone realised it wasn’t drugs, Alex would already be restrained and terrified.
UIRP medical at Kings College Hospital would sedate him, catalogue him, file him under exposed civilian. Efficient. Clinical. Necessary.
But they would take him apart to understand what had happened.
Tristan shut the car door.
“No,” he said quietly. “Not tonight.”
The flat was dark and still.
He guided Alex to the sofa and eased him down, checking his breathing, dapping sweat from Alex’s brow. There was a faint mark at the base of Alex’s throat where glamour had sunk its hooks in.
Bastards had been thorough.
Alex leaned into the touch without waking and something tugged in Tristan’s chest — those blue eyes, soft and unfocussed. Vulnerable.
That settled it.
Tristan pulled a blanket over Alex and sat nearby, alert, waiting.
Because this hadn’t been random.
And because whatever had just walked into his life with sandy hair and an easy smile—
— Tristan already knew he wasn’t going to let it be swallowed by the system.