“Nox?”
Her voice stirs me from my fantasy, but only barely. The lines between what’s real and what’s not are blurred by the red haze that’s encroached upon my vision.
“Nox, are you out there?”
It’s then that I realize I’ve been tapping the iron key against the stone wall. That I’ve been mimicking the beat of her heart.
“Nox?”
I like the way she says my name. No one says my name anymore. Even Gunter just calls me my boy, too fearful of the queen’s wrath should he slip up and call me by my actual name in her presence.
When she runs her hand against the goblin iron bars, leaving a trail of blood behind, I feel it as though she’s tracing the curves of my spine.
But that’s not right. She’s human, and though her skin is slow to heal, it should have clotted by now.
This isn’t real. This isn’t real.
“Nox,” she whispers, and my muscles tense, my body stills. “Nox, I want you. I want you as badly as you want me.”
I dig a cavern into the grout with the tips of my fingers.
“I’m not afraid of you. You saw in my eyes that I wasn’t afraid. You won’t even have to take it from me. My blood, it’s all yours. I know you can stop, Nox.”
When she tugs at her collar and lets it slip down past her shoulder, I feel that too.
And then I’m at the door.
The key is almost in the lock when I glance through the slats and realize Blaise is asleep on the dais.
When enough time passes that I’m sure the sun has set, I sneak out into the Mystrian capital of Ermengarde.
One would think that the further I distanced myself from Blaise and the scent of her blood, the more my craze would settle, but it doesn’t.
Putting distance between my lips and her neck feels like wrenching a tooth from my gums.
Hunger assaults me, clouding my mind and puncturing my stomach until it’s all I can see.
Until the humans settling into their nightly routine are just sacks holding precious food.
I don’t let myself think about how long it’s been since I last ventured here.
I don’t let myself feel the guilt.
I tell myself I’ll stop when I’m no longer hungry, and I don’t even allow my conscience to remind me it isn’t true. That it never is.
I smell the girl before I see her. I don’t even have to knock on her door before she arrives and opens it.
“Can I come in?” I ask, and she doesn’t stop to wonder why a strange male might need into her home after dark. That little siren all humans have programmed into their heads doesn’t sound. Or if it does, she can’t seem to hear it.
It’s a side effect of the bloodlust—I’ve come to realize that over the years. Once it settles in, the longer I allow myself to go without feeding, the more entranced I find my prey.
The more the male who inhabits my body is not me at all, but someone else entirely.
In that way, I understand Blaise.
Except I remember all of it.
The girl’s cottage is homey. A fire dies peacefully in the corner, humming over glowing coals. The furniture is simple and carved poorly—probably by her husband. I wonder if he can’t afford proper furniture or if he thinks it charming to make it for her himself.
There’s a part of me who knows this thought should sting, the evidence of a man who will miss this woman, but it doesn’t.
It never does once I let the hunger get this far.
“Are you waiting for anyone?” There’s no need to ask if anyone else is home currently. I would scent them if they were.
“No one, sir. My husband is traveling to Avelea for business,” she says, batting a set of pretty green eyes at me.
She has a kind face, one that’s round at her cheekbones and flushes a bit, though I can’t tell if it’s from the heat that swells from the fire or if it’s a reaction to the hunger wafting off of me.
“What’s your name, love?” I ask as I close the door behind me. She’s unbothered that I’ve shut her indoors with a stranger, unconcerned as I close the distance between us, cupping her chin in my hands.
“Claudia,” she says, and I repeat the name back to her, relishing the sound of it on my lips. In the morning, I’ll come to regret asking her name, come to regret every second that will occur between now and when my hunger is satiated, but for now I like the taste of her name. I’d like to pair it with the taste of her blood.
Every human tastes so different, and once a human’s blood has run dry, there’s no experiencing it again, not fully.
It wouldn’t seem right to run a well dry without naming it first.
“Claudia, dearest,” I say, and when I slip my fingers underneath her chin where her jaw meets her neck, she shivers. “I promise not to forget your name.”
