“If you don’t, I die too.”

The girl lets out a howl so shrill, so pained, I’m shocked it doesn’t rip her vocal folds.

But she climbs.

On her bloodied hands and knees, but she climbs.

I can’t help but be impressed with her resilience.

Still, it’s all the same to me.

I don’t believe I’ve feasted on a stairwell yet.

Just for the thrill of it, I wait until I hear her labored breathing reach halfway up the staircase before I erupt.

In half a breath, the goblin iron bars are gone, brittle as burnt parchment in the wake of my bloodlust. In another, I’m striding across the threshold, eager to snap the male’s neck and get on with stalking my prey.

The fool steps in front of me like he thinks he can buy the girl time.

I can scent her now, her blood dripping down the staircase, like a carpet might mark the path of royalty during coronation.

I will take my time with this one.

My mouth waters as I take a step forward, as the thrill of the memory of my teeth digging into her flesh, sipping on the fine wine of her blood rushes through me.

I have not tasted a female so tender, so sweet.

My only regret is that I know I will not have the self-control to keep her. To chain her up and drink on her forever as her blood replenishes itself.

I will mourn her loss when the life fades from her eyes.

But I will erect a shrine to her tonight.

Already, my head is throbbing with desire, and it’s all I can do to maintain control of my limbs, to keep from rushing up the stairs and snapping her neck.

The blood will run cold too quickly if I do that.

I flash a grin at the man who believes he can stand in my way, believes he can fight me.

He holds his ground, sets his feet as if he’s not afraid.

As if I can’t see the way his pulse races in the crook of his neck.

I rip my eyes away as my canines begin to ache. This is not the man I want, the blood I want, but my bloodlust does not know that.

It does not think like I do. It does not know that good things come to those who wait.

The male grabs for his knife, but I’m faster, and in an instant I have him pinned to the wall by his throat.

I will make it quick, not because the man deserves a dignified death, but because his pulse is thrumming and my mouth is watering and I can scent his…

I can scent his blood.

The male flashes me a smile, and then he’s laughing. Quietly so. More of a series of grunts than anything.

My instincts send my gaze down and to the right, where a rivulet of blood runs down the man’s forearm.

I’d thought he was reaching for his knife to slay me.

Instead, he used it to slice his own flesh.

Hunger scrapes at the inside of my throat, setting my insides on fire. Blood trickles from his arm and drips to the floor, wasted on the grout upon which it spills.

But no. This is not the blood I want. The blood of fae, stale with immortality.

These are not my hands that lift his wrist to my mouth.

His flesh is tough.

The man grunts like he’s been struck by a sharp twinge of pain but refuses to let it break him.

His blood is vile, bitter and with a sickly sweetness to its edges, but when it hits my tongue, I find I cannot stop.

I should stop, because it is the girl’s blood I desire, the girl’s blood the muscles in my jaw croon for.

But I am so very hungry.

My body does not know that a better feast awaits.

The man’s voice is feeble now as he mutters nonsense. “If you hurt her, it would break you. I cannot stand to see you broken again, my child.”

I can’t understand why the man still speaks, why he believes I will care.

I can’t understand why he’s not screaming, when he knows he is moments away from perishing.

I do wish he would scream.

“I know I…could never hope to take the…p…place of your father. But you…you, Nox, are a son to me…you always… I just hope one day you might forgive me…”

The man sputters out, the last of his life draining from the two puncture wounds in his arm.

His blood feels dull against my throat. Like it’s been sitting out too long.

I drain him dry before releasing him.

His sallow body makes a cracking noise as his skull hits the corner of the stone stair.

He does not bleed from his wound.