Trigger Warning: This chapter may include explicit sexual content. Please read at your own risk. Clara Everything felt so cold and blurry. My eyes only saw misty shapes in the room. I felt his powerful body pushing up against me, and I greedily drank in that heat of life and desire. Deanneth pushed my legs apart, and then he pressed his tongue up against my thighs. I wanted him more than anything. I wanted him to extinguish that horrible vamp’s scent and skin from memory, and I wanted him to replace it with his sweat and blood. Anything would do. Even this. I pushed his head down harder, and I heard him chuckle. “You little whore,” he whispered, and goosebumps trickled all over my skin. “Very well. I’ll give you what you want. All you have to do is say ‘please.’” I don’t know why my heart raced. I don’t even know why I was allowing this to happen. I wanted to breathe and feel alive. I wondered if despair was a part of it too. I gasped as his tongue pierced deep inside me, and I

Mateo I sat on the castle walls made of ancient gray bricks. The winter storm had abated, and snowflakes flurried down harmlessly onto the ground. The Wilds were a far cry from my homeland – back home I had never even seen snow before. That was almost two hundred years ago, but the memories of my youth were still fresh in my mind. Maybe it was because I was relatively young, compared to the others. I still remember the taste and scent of fresh oranges. I remembered what a rare treat it was to rip their thick skins off and devour them like a barbarian. It was a pleasant memory that I still smile at. It wasn’t like that with the Elder Ones, but so it goes. All good and bad things pass away with time. I had a vellum notebook in my hand and a charcoal pencil to sketch out the castle battlements. Supposedly, I was to mark any problems with our castle’s defenses, but wasn’t that a bit of a joke? Torieux employed several human magicians to create a barrier that obscured the appearance of th

Deanneth I shut my eyes, and let myself soak for several more minutes in the bath. Clara was asleep. I must have pushed her to her natural limits, and now she slept more deeply than ever. If I had my way, I would have tied her up, tossed her over my shoulder, and disappeared in some anonymous inn where I could take her in every way I liked. Unfortunately, being the leader of the Dark Shade would not allow me to do so. Let the girl rest, I thought. She’ll be much more fascinating once she gets her spark back. Hot water burned the open wounds in my back, and I shivered. I played with the silver ends of my hair and noticed that the dye was fading. I needed to have it dyed once more. It was only a casual observance. My mind chewed on other matters. She called me a liar. I was glad that she wasn’t an idiot – I wouldn’t have even looked at her if she was. For some reason, she instinctively knew I wasn’t who I claimed to be. But she still didn’t know everything, and being one step ahead o

MateoI stepped up to the bleeding werewolf, and I slowly pushed the barrel of the gun against her forehead. “No,” she whimpered. “Don’t. Please.”“Stop,” I said, trying to make my voice as hardened as possible. Instead, my words wavered in the air, and I was shocked at how nauseous I sounded. “I’ll make this quick, all right? You won’t feel any more pain.”“Please,” she said, and I wanted to vomit.My hands trembled, and I begged myself to just pull the damn trigger. I reasoned that letting it go on like this was crueler. Kill her. What’s the matter with you? Werewolves are worse than animals. They maim and murder us; they enjoy doing it. They killed Tor’s daughter. They killed so many of the Elder Ones in horrible ways. They burned us alive. They tortured us. All I’m doing is what Tor asks. “I don’t want to die,” she sobbed softly.I turned away, and I clicked the safety lock back on. I spat out excess saliva on the floor and wiped my mouth. I stared at her mangled body, and then I

Hazel When the leader of the Greater Vampires caught me, I had given myself up for dead. I only hoped that I wouldn’t blurt out the location of the other members of the Moonstone Pack. Alpha Andelle had warned me to only leave the stone dens in dire emergency. I considered that the mewling cries of the starving children of the pack were emergency enough to risk going out to find food. There were barely any adults left who would come with me. They were terrified of the vampires, and I didn’t blame them one bit. After the Dark Shade prince had taken Clara with him, the Moonstone Pack had suffered several other attacks throughout the course of a single month. We once had around ninety werewolves remaining; now our numbers dwindled to twenty-five. Most of them were pups. Prince Griffin, Lady Sisley, the Lieutenant, and the Alpha had gone out in twos or threes to desperately seek out any other packs around Bragne, but they found no one. We tried to move all at once as a pack at the begin