8

Max stood in my doorway, his silhouette lit silver from the streetlamp behind him, eyes glittering like something feral. His shirt was still stained, drying blood turning brown. But he didn't move. Didn't cross the line between my porch and the welcome mat.

Instead, he cocked his head and asked, casually:

"Will you invite me in?"

My hand tightened around the doorframe.

"Is that thing about vampires needing an invitation... really real then?"

He smiled like it was cute that I didn't know. "Yeah. Apparently I'm an evil entity." He gestured vaguely. "Bound by the mystical bonds of personal property or whatever."

I raised an eyebrow. "Then why should I let you in?"

Max stepped just a fraction closer, still not crossing. His voice softened, not seductive, just calm. Like he was offering the obvious answer to a very simple equation.

"Because you're too curious." A pause. "And you know I'll tell you everything you want to know... if you do."

I swallowed.

"I don't know that," I said, but it came out weaker than I meant. More uncertain.

Max grinned. "Now you do."

He took a slow breath and added:

"Like I said... boyfriends shouldn't lie to each other."

My heart did this weird flip in my chest.

"Who says we're..."

"You'll get there." His smile turned smug. "Eventually."

I looked at the line between him and me. The threshold. The rules. The invisible boundary between sane and not, between human and whatever this was turning into.

I could close the door.

I could walk away.

I could be safe.

But I didn't want safe. Not anymore.

I wanted answers. I wanted chaos.

I wanted someone to look at me the way he looked at me like I was the most fascinating problem he'd ever encountered.

So I stepped back.

And said:

"Come in."

Max stepped over the threshold like he'd done it a hundred times. Effortless. Smooth. Like gravity bent a little differently around him the second I said come in.

I backed up slowly as he entered, trying not to look at the blood on his shirt. It was dried now, crusting the collar. His boots made a soft sound against the hardwood, and something about him felt too quiet for someone so full of teeth.

He looked around the house like it was a museum. Like he already knew everything that had happened here.

"Nice place," he murmured. "Smells like grief and dust. Bit of despair."

"Thanks," I said flatly, folding my arms. "I like to keep it cozy."

He glanced at me, eyes sharp but amused. "You invited me in. You want to talk. So let's talk, Stiles."

The way he said my name made my stomach flip again. Annoying.

"Fine," I said. "You told me I have something inside me. Left over from the demon. What did you mean?"

Max wandered into the living room like he owned it, then flopped down on the couch with the grace of someone who's never been told no. He looked up at me with one arm thrown over the back, like this was just a casual sleepover and not a vampire lounging in my dead dad's house.

"I meant exactly what I said," he replied. "Something's still in there. I can feel it."

"What something?"

He studied me. Really studied me. Like he was trying to see through my skin.

"It's not the demon," he said after a pause. "But it's something touched by it. You absorbed something, Stiles. Not just trauma. Not just bad dreams. Energy. Residue. You carry it."

I swallowed hard. "Then why hasn't anyone else noticed?"

"Because everyone else stopped looking at you." His voice didn't change, but that hit like a slap. "Scott. The pack. Even you."

That hurt more than it should've.

"You're lying," I muttered, but even I didn't believe it.

Max leaned forward slowly, resting his elbows on his knees, fangs no longer visible but still very much there behind his smile.

"Do you ever wonder why you're always just fine, even when you should be falling apart?" he asked. "Why you survived the possession. Why you don't sleep, but you're never tired. Why shadows follow you in mirrors."

I stared at him.

"I don't see shadows."

"Yes, you do. You just don't admit it."

My mouth felt dry.

"You're not entirely human anymore, Stiles. Something inside you shifted. Something stayed."

I dropped into the chair across from him, brain spinning.

"I don't feel different," I whispered.

Max's voice softened. "That's because it's not trying to hurt you anymore. It's trying to belong."

We sat there in the quiet for a long second.

And then I asked the thing I'd been trying not to think about all night:

"So what happens if I let you turn me?"

Max didn't smile this time.

He leaned back, watched me with that same quiet intensity.

"I don't know," he said. "That's the fun part."

"That's not the fun part," I shot back.

He shrugged. "You could die. You could burn from the inside out. Or..."

"Or what?"

"You could become something no one's ever seen before."

Something twisted in my chest. Hope, maybe. Or hunger.

"You want that, don't you?" I asked, quietly.

Max nodded. "I want to see what you become. But more than that" He paused. "I just like being near you. Whatever's inside you... it sings to me."

I didn't move. Didn't speak. I didn't know how to feel.

But I didn't tell him to leave.

And that scared me more than anything.

"If you don't turn me... could this thing inside me turn into something?"

Max blinked slowly, head tilting just a fraction, like he was genuinely considering it.

"I don't know," he said. "Like I told you... I've never seen anything like you before."

That didn't help.

I stared down at my hands, fingers pressed tight together. "I don't want you to turn me."

There was a beat of silence.

Then Max said, "Okay."

I looked up. He wasn't mocking me. He wasn't disappointed, either. He was just... honest.

"But," he added with a crooked grin, "I still find you interesting enough not to leave. And now that you let me in?" He leaned back against the couch lazily. "It's gonna be hard to make me go."

I stood abruptly, pacing. I needed the space. I needed oxygen. "I should tell Scott about you. You've been killing people, Max. This isn't it's not right."

He didn't even flinch.

"But you're not going to," he said simply.

My jaw clenched. "And why is that?"

He stood, slow and graceful like a wolf stretching, and walked toward me not threatening, just sure. Confident. Too close. I didn't back away, but my body tensed instinctively.

"Because you like it," he murmured.

His fingers threaded gently into my hair, like he was testing how far he could go. Not forceful. But intimate in a way that made my skin crawl and burn all at once.

"It excites you... doesn't it?"

"N-No," I said, barely audible.

But Max just smiled.

"You don't have to lie. I can smell it on you."

And before I could react , before I could even breathe,  he kissed me.

Not gentle. Not soft. Possessive. Hungry. Like he already knew he could have me, and he just wanted to prove it.

I gasped, and that was all it took his hands slid under my shirt, cold fingers dragging across my skin like ice and fire at the same time, nails scraping lightly against my stomach.

I let it happen. For too long.

Then 

I pushed him back.

Hard.

Breathless. Shaking.

He just grinned, licking his lower lip, like I was the most fascinating experiment he'd ever touched.

"You're not ready," he said, calm. Not angry. Just patient.

"I'm not a toy," I whispered.

"No," he agreed. "You're not."

He stepped back, hands raised slightly. "But you're not innocent either, Stiles. That thing inside you? It doesn't want to be good."

And with that, Max moved toward the door.

"I'll wait until you ask," he said softly, voice like velvet and smoke.

And then he was gone.

The silence after felt heavier than his presence.

I stood alone in the living room, my shirt half-raised, my chest rising and falling fast, like I'd just outrun something through the woods.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, under all the fear, under all the shame I wanted him to come back.