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Her exes were becoming a problem. She normally didn't like to call something a problem-- a situation had to be pretty dire these days to acquire the label-- but she couldn't deny it any longer.

Finally, after hundreds of years, she couldn't find a single country on earth that didn't harbor at least one of her past lovers.

"Soraya," Mateo purrs, lounging on her couch, all long lines and dark eyes. "Imagine my surprise to find you in my territory after how we...parted."

Her keys threaten to warp under her grip. "Mateo. I wasn't aware you left Italy."

His shoulders roll as he stands, lean muscle straining the silky fabric of his button down. He's barely two inches taller than her, but he's always taken up more space than his body needed. His power brushes past her cheek, heady and intoxicating and familiar.

Her key ring snaps and her apartment keys gently thump on the carpet at her feet.

His lips quirk, eyes straying to the bits of metal, before capturing her eyes with his again. "Keeping tabs on me, darling? Careful or I might be convinced you still care."

His voice is still satin but there's a bitter edge lying just underneath the teasing facade. She'd left him in the middle of the night, leaving nothing of herself behind for him to track her with. Worse, she'd left him after a decade of love and intimacy with nothing but a hole in his household to show for it.

She wonders if it would help him to hear the words locked in her throat. She wonders if he'd take comfort in the fact that he was the only one she still dreamed about after decades of insomnia. That, after him, she never told another of their kind that she loved them. Or maybe he'd like to know that she didn't ever want to leave him. That their love wasn't the problem. It never was.

No, she decides after a tense moment of silence. That wouldn't help at all.

"I keep an eye on all our kind," she says, voice painfully level. "Or try to. I''l admit that I've been...distracted lately."

Mateo hums, hands sliding into the pockets of his slacks. "The murders. I'll confess they've pulled my attention from my duties more than once. Which is why I find it interesting that you're here now, Soraya."

There's a roaring in her ears at the mention of the murders. Her heartbeat, normally so much slower than a human's, accelerates until it feels like a bird in her chest, trapped and panicking. She licks her lips, mouth suddenly dry. "What do you mean you find it interesting?"

He moves at last, eyes cold and narrow on her face as he stalks towards her. He's not the man she loved in this moment, but she knows him all the same. She's seen him before, on battlefields soaked in blood and snarling into lightning's harsh flare as the world crumbled around him. He's colder and more lethal. A monster.

She holds herself very still and keeps her eyes on the opposite wall as he comes closer. Closer. Close enough that she can feel his heat sinking into her skin from inches away.

"I find your presence here interesting, Soraya," he repeats, lips barely moving, "considering that my territory was peaceful before your name ended up on the lease of this apartment."

Her stomach drops and her hands curl into clammy fists. "Has something happened?"

He laughs but there's no humor in it. He slides past her, shoulder nearly touching hers, and she thinks that he's leaving. Instead, with his next words, she can feel his breath on the back of her neck. "I think you know what happened."

Her eyes flutter shut, wishing for a mad moment that this wasn't happening. Wishing that they were still happy together in his house, happy in each other's arms, and violence hadn't so thoroughly found its way back into her life. Back then the heat of him at her back had been seductive. Protective. Comforting.

Now she feels like she's about to come undone.

"Tell me what happened, Soraya," he says. It's not a request.

Her lips tremble. "Another murder." It's not a guess. She can't hide the way her breath hitches. She hugs herself, trying to chase away the permanent cold that's settled in her bones. "When?"

"You know when."

She's spinning before she can think better of it, teeth bared. He doesn't so much as stumble when she twists her hands in the front of his button-down, bringing her face perilously close to his. "When?" she snarls. She has to know. She needs to know.

His face doesn't show anything, but his eyes do. She's surprised him. "Eight hours ago." He doesn't move to touch her, hands held rigidly at his side even when she releases him. She feels like the floor is moving underneath her, soft and waving like the tides. He watches her, jaw tense. "Soraya?"

"I--" she takes a steadying breath and wraps her arms around herself again. "I'm too late." The admission burns her on its way out, scorching her with ice fire. "Again."