Blood Lust

Lucian:

Blood calls louder than the control tonight.

The moon hangs low and swollen, a lantern of bone behind black clouds. Its light spills silver across the forest floor, sharpening every root and stone until the world looks carved from knives. I slip between the trees like smoke, boots soundless on damp earth, hunger curling hot and angry through my veins.

It’s been too long since I’ve fed.

Not in the casual way the others indulge, a polite sip from willing veins, from chalices filled from the reserve in the cellar. No—my hunger is older, uglier. It whispers in a voice that belongs to grave soil and forgotten gods. It tells me to take.

I let it.

The night answers, a pulse beneath the ground, a thousand small hearts quickening as I pass. A fox freezes mid-step, senses me, bolts. The echo of its terror sharpens the ache in my teeth.

But none of it satisfies.

Because what I crave isn’t out here.

I drag air into my lungs, tasting every thread of scent—wet moss, iron-rich rain, the sweet metallic tang of distant prey. Still wrong. Still empty.

Her absence scrapes against me like a dull blade.

Isadora.

Even her name is a wound. I told myself I would forget her. I told myself that last time was the end—that cornering her in the hallway, driving her to tears, would buy me distance. Cruelty as a shield.

And yet she lingers.

Her scent lives in me: honey darkened by storm, a note of something ancient that no mortal should carry. I close my eyes and it’s there, sliding over my senses until the forest itself tastes of her.

I should hunt. Drain something until the noise in my skull goes quiet.

Instead I picture her pulse—steady, defiant—beating beneath porcelain skin. The memory of it is a metronome, daring me closer. I can almost feel the warmth of her throat against my mouth, the soft tremor of breath when she realizes I’m near.

The beast in me bares its teeth.

I move faster, branches clawing at my coat. The trees blur into streaks of shadow. I’m not running from hunger anymore. I’m running toward it.

The town on the far edge of the wards still sleeps. Lanterns gutter behind shuttered windows, the scent of hearth smoke clinging to the air. I prowl the alleys, but every heartbeat I pass tastes thin, flavorless. Their fear is predictable. Their lives, forgettable.

I drink, but only enough to dull the edge—one startled drunk in a cobblestone lane, a quick press of fang and breath, the taste of copper and stale wine. The blood slides down my throat warm and bright and wrong.

Because it isn’t hers.

I lean against the stone wall, head tipped back, eyes closed. The night should settle inside me now, but the craving only deepens, twisting until it’s more than hunger.

It’s obsession.

She’s back at the Academy. I can feel it—a pull like a tether knotted around my ribs. No matter how far I run, the cord tightens, dragging me toward her.

I curse under my breath and shove away from the wall.

I tell myself I’ll just watch. Make sure she’s safe. Nothing more.

Ashwyck’s gates rise from the mist like the fangs of some slumbering beast. Wards hum against my skin as I cross, a vibration that would snap mortal bones. They let me through anyway. They always do.

The courtyard lies drowned in shadow, moonlight breaking across wet stone. I breathe deep.

And there it is.

Her scent.

Faint, but unmistakable. A trail leading toward the old scriptorium. I follow without thought, steps soundless, breath a slow, deliberate drum.

The closer I draw, the more the bloodlust shifts—less a roar, more a low, thrumming need. My mind fills with fragments: the way she tilts her head when she’s curious, the quick flash of defiance in her eyes, the tremor in her breath when danger edges too near.

I find myself outside her window before I realize I’ve moved.

Curtains stir against a draft, pale fabric glowing in moonlight. Behind them, I can hear the slow rhythm of her sleep. Each heartbeat lands against my senses like a spark.

I could climb the stone. It would be nothing to slip inside, to stand at the foot of her bed and breathe her in until the craving breaks.

I brace my hands against the cold wall instead, nails biting stone.

No.

Not like this.

I drag in a breath sharp enough to hurt. The air tastes of rain and iron and her—always her—and it scalds all the way down.

I am the darkness she should fear. I have built centuries of distance on that truth. But she makes me want what I swore I’d never touch: warmth, closeness, the reckless ache of being known.

The hunger twists again, demanding a living thing. The one mortal I know if I secumb to, it would be worse than the curse I am already plagued with.

I let it burn.

A whisper stirs behind me. Footsteps, soft as falling ash.

I turn, every muscle ready to strike.

No one. Only the rustle of leaves and the hum of wards.

But the night feels different now—charged, watching. As if the shadows themselves know the secret I choke on.

I glance back to her window.

Her heartbeat hasn’t changed. She sleeps, unaware, a small flame against the endless dark.

I step away before the beast in me decides for us both.

The forest swallows me once more, but her scent follows, threaded through every breath. The blood in my veins sings her name, and no amount of feeding will silence it.

Tonight I hunted.

Tonight I fed.

And still, she is the only hunger I can’t kill.