Ava stepped deeper into the apartment, her heels clicking softly against the wooden floor. She looked so normal in a denim jacket, loose curls, and soft perfume. Nothing like the creatures I now found myself orbiting.
I stared at her throat.
The pulse there.
Fluttering. Innocent. Fragile.
She didn't notice my stare. Or maybe she thought it was a concern.
"You look pale," she said, dropping her purse on the couch. "Like ghostly pale. Have you been eating? Sleeping?"
Yes. Eating him. Sleeping in blood-soaked sheets.
I forced a smile. Rough week.
She came closer. Sat beside me. Her warmth rolled off her in waves, and I bit the inside of my cheek, hard enough to taste copper.
"Your hands are cold," she said, taking them in hers.
I wanted to pull away. But her touch was grounding. Familiar Human.
So I held on tighter.
For a moment, I pretended it was enough. That I could go back to who I was before Kael bit me. Before the hunger.
But then her wrist brushed too close to my mouth.
And the scent hit me.
It was like shoving a match into gasoline.
My head spun. My pupils dilated. My throat screamed.
I could hear her heartbeat faster now. She sensed something. Her fingers twitched in mine.
Seraphina? she whispered.
I tried to speak, but my fangs had begun to descend. My lips parted, and I knew she saw it. Her eyes widened, horror blooming behind her pretty brown lashes.
"What the
I lunged.
But not at her.
At the wall behind her, punching it, cracking plaster, screaming into it until I collapsed to my knees.
Ava screamed too, stumbled back, clutching her purse.
I turned to her fangs out, eyes wild. Go, I growled. "Get out. Now."
She hesitated.
Ava, I snarled. "If you stay I will hurt you."
That did it.
She ran.
And I curled up on the floor, shaking, panting, claws scraping against the wood.
I hadn't fed.
But I was breaking.
Night fell again, and I found myself in the streets. Dressed in black, hood up, lips still wet with a hunger that made me dizzy. Kael's voice echoed in my skull.
You'll need blood. Sex. Pain. And me.
I wanted all of it. Desperately. Shamefully.
And I hated myself for it.
I found him in a club. Not Kael. A man.
He was tall, drunk, grinning with the stupid confidence of someone who thought they were in control. His hand gripped my waist the second I brushed past him.
"Hey, gorgeous," he slurred. "Wanna dance?"
I didn't answer. I pulled him into the dark hallway by the restrooms. He laughed, thinking he was lucky. I pushed him against the wall, kissed him hard, let him taste the predator behind my lips.
"Fuck, you're hot," he breathed.
I smiled.
Then I bit him.
Not gently. Not like Kael had done to me.
I tore into him.
Blood flooded my mouth. Hot. Alive. Electric.
He gasped, choked, sagged but I held him. Drank from him like a starving thing. His heartbeat slowed, and still I didn't stop.
Only when I tasted death on his skin did I pull away.
He slid to the floor, dazed, breathing shallow but alive.
I stood over him, mouth smeared with red, body humming.
The hunger was gone.
And in its place ecstasy.
I stumbled out the back door into the night air, laughing and crying at the same time.
It was done.
I had tasted blood.
I had survived it.
And I wanted more.
When I returned home, Kael was waiting.
Sitting on the edge of my bed like a king on his throne, all in black, eyes smoldering.
"You did it," he said.
I nodded. "I fed."
He rose and crossed the room in two steps, grabbing my chin, tilting my head back. His tongue ran along my lips, licking up the dried blood.
Delicious,he growled. "You're becoming exquisite."
I should have pushed him away.
Instead, I kissed him.
Hard. Desperate. Dominant.
He laughed into my mouth, then lifted me like a doll and threw me onto the bed.
Clothes tore. Skin met skin. I rode him like fire, nails down his back, fangs against his throat.
"You're not my master," I hissed as I thrust down.
"No," he moaned. "You're becoming my equal."
I sank my teeth into him, and he roared.
And together, we burned.
Kael's blood hit my tongue like dark wine, rich, ancient, addictive. It wasn't just sustenance. It was power. And in that moment, I understood why he had craved me. Why he had chosen me? Our bond was no longer tentative. It was fused flesh, blood, and hunger tied in a knot too tight to ever unravel.
He flipped me beneath him, breath ragged, eyes glowing with a fevered light. The room crackled with something supernatural, something sacred and violent all at once.
"You drank from me," he said, voice thick with reverence. "Do you know what that means?"
I arched beneath him, body still pulsing with the aftershock. "Tell me."
Kael lowered his mouth to mine again, slower this time, more deliberate. "It means you belong to me in ways that even death can't sever. You are bound to me and I to you."
His words should've terrified me.
But all I felt was power.
He slid down my body, lips grazing every curve like worship, his mouth finally settling between my thighs. He fed there, too not on blood, but on the slick, desperate ache of me. I cried out his name, again and again, until it was no longer a word but a prayer.
And when he slid back up, licking his lips like a satisfied beast, I pulled him into me again. No more gentleness. No more games.
Just raw, biting need.
"Mark me," I whispered.
Kael's eyes burned brighter than fire. "You want the full bond?"
I nodded.
He bit me once more this time above my heart.
And as the blood flowed, so did the magic.
I saw flashes behind my eyes of Kael's past, his first kill, the centuries of torment, seduction, and blood. I felt everything he had buried. His pain. His lust. His loneliness.
And he saw mine.
The bond sealed in a final thrust. We both shattered, screaming, clawing at each other as the room seemed to ripple with something otherworldly.
When it was over, he h
eld me in silence.
Not tender. Not soft.
But complete.
And I knew, without a doubt, that I would never belong to the world of mortals again.
Only to him.
Only to the hunger.