Bryce flees as Cortney stays

Bryce grabs Cortney's arm, pulling her back. "We should go. Now." But Cortney doesn't move. Her feet feel rooted to the forest floor, her eyes locked on the scene before her. The man in the leather jacket finally turns, and his face is... ordinary. Unremarkable. But his eyes—those eyes are the same glowing amber she saw earlier. They hold her gaze, and something warm spreads through her chest. "Cortney?" Bryce's voice sounds distant, muffled, as if coming from underwater. "What are you doing?" Tara extends a hand, her fingers beckoning. "You can join us if you wo want instead," she says, her voice honeyed and strange. "Just for a little while. It feels so good, Cortney. You have no idea." Cortney's breath catches. The pull is undeniable—a magnetic force that tugs at her very core, urging her forward. The air around her seems to thicken, warm and fragrant with something like jasmine and smoke. Every instinct tells her to run, but her body refuses to obey. Instead, she takes a step forward. Then another. "Cortney, stop!" Bryce shouts, but his voice is fading, the world narrowing to the clearing, to Tara's outstretched hand, to the man's glowing eyes. "I'll just... stay for a minute," Cortney hears herself say, her voice foreign and dreamy. "Just to see..." Bryce hesitates, his face a mask of fear and confusion. Then he turns and runs, his footsteps crashing through the underbrush, growing quieter until they disappear entirely. Cortney doesn't watch him go. She can't look away from the clearing, from Tara's knowing smile, from the man who rises to his feet and extends a hand toward her. "Welcome," he says, and his voice resonates deep in her bones. Cortney takes his hand. The forest around her seems to breathe, the stars wheeling overhead, and she feels the strange pull tighten into something like destiny.

Bryce doesn't stop running until he bursts through the treeline and stumbles back into the clearing where the bonfire should be. But the fire is out. The party is still going on in The house . Only one figure remains, sitting on a fallen log near the dead fire pit, long blonde hair catching the moonlight. "Stephanie?" She turns, and there are those glasses, pushed up her nose, her face pale in the silver light. She smiles—a small, knowing smile. "Bryce. I was wondering when you'd come back." He doubles over, hands on his knees, gasping for air. "Did you see—did you see what's happening in the woods? Tara and Cortney, they're—" "I know," Stephanie says softly. "I know." Bryce straightens up, staring at her. "What do you mean you know? What the hell is going on?" Stephanie takes off her glasses, cleaning them on the hem of her shirt. Without them, her eyes catch the moonlight—and for just a moment, they flicker amber.

Bryce stumbles back a step, his breath catching. "Your eyes—they're like his. Like the man in the woods." Stephanie slides her glasses back on, and the amber vanishes, replaced by a calm, intelligent blue. "I'm glad you resisted," she says softly. "Now we can talk." "What are you?" Bryce's voice cracks. "What the hell is happening to my friends?" Stephanie pats the log beside her. "Sit. Please. I promise I won't bite...yet." A ghost of a smile crosses her lips. He doesn't sit. Can't. His legs are trembling too much. "Talk. Now." She sighs, folding her hands in her lap. "The man in the leather jacket—his name is Asher. He's been here fora few years now. He finds people who are... receptive. Lost. Hungry for something they can't name. And he offers them a doorway." "A doorway to what?" Stephanie's eyes glitter behind her glasses. " To pleasure without limits. To a life that doesn't end." She pauses. "Tara was ready. Cortney was ready. They chose." "And you?" Bryce's voice is barely a whisper. "Did you choose?" "I chose differently." She rises, stepping toward him. "I chose to watch. To wait. To find someone who could resist the call." She stops inches from him, close enough that he can smell jasmine and smoke clinging to her clothes. "Someone like you., but yeah i chose" Bryce's heart hammers. "Why?" "Because everyone who enters the woods comes out the same. Some are taken. Some follow of their own will like you and Cortney did, bit all come out the same" She reaches up, her fingers brushing his cheek. "Sexpires, a vampire that craves sex and turning those they fuck with their venom, a bite of their fangs, all it can take"

Because everyone who enters the woods comes out the same. Some are taken. Some follow of their own will like you and Cortney did, but all come out the same." She reaches up, her fingers brushing his cheek. "Sexpires, a vampire that craves sex and turning those they fuck with their venom, a bite of their fangs, all it can take." Bryce's blood runs cold, but his body burns where her fingers touch him. "You're telling me they're going to become... monsters?" "Not monsters," Stephanie whispers, her hand sliding down to his chest, feeling his heart pound beneath her palm. "Something more. Something eternal. And you could be too." "I don't want—" "Your body says otherwise." She presses closer, and he can feel the heat radiating from her, the same magnetic pull that Cortney felt in the woods. "You ran from the woods, Bryce. You resisted Asher's call. But you can't resist me., like i could not resist him earlier tonight." Her glasses slip off, falling to the grass. Her eyes are fully amber now, glowing in the moonlight. Her lips part, and he sees them—fangs, delicate and sharp, glistening with something that shimmers like liquid starlight. "Fuck me, Bryce," she breathes, her voice a command and a plea woven together. "Let me turn you into a sexpire, like Tara and Cortney soon will be." He should run. Every rational part of his brain screams at him to flee, to get in his car and drive until the forest is a distant memory. But his hands rise of their own accord, cupping her face. She's beautiful in the moonlight—terrible and beautiful, like something out of an old myth. "Stephanie..." Her name comes out broken, a question he's afraid to ask. "Don't think," she murmurs, pressing her lips to his. Her mouth is warm, sweet with the taste of jasmine, and when her tongue slides against his, he tastes something electric—the venom, he realizes dimly, already working its way into his bloodstream. His knees buckle, but she catches him, lowering him to the grass beside the dead fire pit. Her clothes fall away like they were never there, moonlight painting her body in silver and shadow. She straddles him, and he's hard already, his jeans straining, his mind fogging with desire that isn't entirely his own. "Let go," she whispers, working his belt open, freeing him. "Let me show you what you've been missing." She sinks onto him slowly, and the sensation is overwhelming—heat and pressure and something more, something that pulses through him like a second heartbeat. Her fangs graze his neck, not breaking skin yet, just teasing. "When I bite you," she gasps, riding him, "you'll feel everything. Every pleasure you've ever imagined, amplified a thousand times. And then you'll be one of us." Bryce's hands find her hips, gripping hard as she moves above him, her pace quickening. The venom is in his blood now, heightening every sensation, his lust—the cool grass against his back, the warmth of her skin, the slick friction of their bodies joining. He's losing himself, the world narrowing to the rhythm of her movements, the soft sounds she makes, the glow of her amber eyes. "Now," she breathes, and her fangs sink into his throat. Pleasure explodes through him, white-hot and blinding. He arches beneath her, crying out as she drinks from him, as the venom floods his system in earnest. His vision blurs, the stars wheeling overhead, and he feels himself changing—something ancient waking in his blood, remaking him from the inside out. When she releases him, licking the wound closed with a tongue that leaves no scar, he's gasping, trembling, utterly undone. She collapses against his chest, her breath warm against his skin. "Welcome," she whispers, "to eternity." In the woods, he hears distant laughter—Tara's, Cortney's, and a deeper voice that must be Asher's. They're coming back. They're all coming back. And Bryce realizes, with a thrill that is equal parts terror and ecstasy, that he'll never be the same again., and cant what to see how beautiful Cortney is as a lustful sexpire.