Darkness tasted like blood.
That was the first thing I knew when I woke.
Not warmth, not breath — just the copper tang of it on my tongue. My throat burned. My body felt wrong, heavy and hollow at once. The sound of rushing water surrounded me, echoing inside my skull like a second heartbeat.
I opened my eyes.
The sky above was ash-colored, the clouds bruised and low. I lay sprawled on wet stones, half-submerged in the river's edge. The current still tugged at me, whispering promises of sleep.
But I couldn't sleep. Not anymore.
I sat up slowly, every muscle protesting. My shirt was torn, my skin pale as frost. When I raised a trembling hand, I noticed the veins — dark, almost black, threading up my wrist.
And my nails — longer. Sharper.
"What—" My voice cracked. It didn't sound like me. Rougher. Deeper. The echo of something other inside it.
Memory struck me in flashes: the fortress burning, Aria's face streaked with ash, her hands glowing with impossible power. The scream of the Nightwalkers as fire devoured them. The river. Her reaching for me—
Then nothing.
My chest tightened. "Aria…"
No answer. Only the river.
I tried to stand, but pain ripped through my side — a wound I didn't remember getting. My fingers brushed my ribs and came away wet. But when I looked, the gash was already knitting shut. The skin crawled and sealed before my eyes.
Panic clawed at me. "What the hell—"
The hunger hit me before I could finish the thought.
It wasn't just in my stomach — it was everywhere. It crawled under my skin, throbbed in my gums, coiled tight around my heart. It wasn't hunger for food. It was hunger for something warm. Something alive.
I smelled it before I heard it — the faint musk of fur, the iron scent of blood pulsing under skin. A deer, maybe twenty paces away, hidden by reeds.
The moment my head turned toward it, instinct drowned out everything else.
I moved.
One heartbeat I was standing on the rocks — the next, I was on it.
The world blurred. I hit the ground with the animal beneath me, my hand already at its throat. It kicked once, twice. I didn't think. I didn't breathe. I sank my teeth into its neck.
The taste.
Gods, the taste.
Heat flooded my mouth — thick, metallic, divine. The pulse slowed beneath my tongue. I drank until the body stilled, until the world stopped shaking.
When I came back to myself, I was kneeling in the mud, covered in blood that wasn't mine. My reflection rippled in the river beside me — crimson eyes, sharp teeth, a stranger's face.
I staggered back.
"No. No—no—no." I wiped my mouth with my sleeve, but the blood only smeared. "Aria, what did you—"
Her name cracked something inside me.
She had saved me. I remembered that much — her scream as she pulled me from the fire, the shadows that wrapped around us both. The forbidden technique she swore never to use.
She'd done it anyway.
To save me.
And now I understood what she'd traded for my life.
I wasn't human anymore. I wasn't even what I'd been before — a halfbreed, cursed but restrained. This was worse. The thirst roared inside me like wildfire, insatiable, merciless.
She made me this.
No. Not her. She saved me.
The thought tangled, then broke. There was no sense, only need.
The deer's body twitched beside me, drained white. Its blood had already cooled. The hunger began to stir again.
I looked toward the forest. The scents there were thicker — human. Sweet. Terrifyingly sweet.
I didn't want to. Gods, I didn't.
But I moved anyway.
...
It happened at dusk.
I followed the scent like an animal, moving through the trees on silent feet. My mind tried to form words — stop, wait, think — but my body ignored them. I was a passenger in my own skin.
Voices drifted through the trees — laughter, the crackle of fire. A camp.
Two men, maybe three. Travelers, judging by the smell of smoke and leather. Their heartbeat was the loudest sound in the world.
I crouched behind a fallen log, breath shallow. The hunger clawed at me, tearing logic to ribbons.
One of the men turned, muttering something about fetching water. He stepped away from the fire, toward the stream.
I followed.
He never saw me.
My hand clamped over his mouth before he could cry out. I sank my teeth into his neck, and everything went red.
The blood hit like lightning. Every nerve lit up. My heart pounded so fast it blurred. I drank until he went limp, until the hunger dulled to a hum.
When I dropped him, his face was slack, his throat a ruin.
The other two noticed his absence after a moment. I heard their confusion turn to fear.
I should have run.
But fear smelled too good.
When they came looking, I was already behind them.
The fight was short. Brutal. I barely remembered it — just the heat, the tearing, the screams cut off halfway.
When it was done, the clearing was silent except for the crackling of fire. Three bodies lay cooling in the dirt. My hands shook, drenched in blood up to the wrist.
I stumbled backward, breathing hard.
"What have I done…"
The hunger purred in satisfaction. Somewhere deep in me, something darker smiled.
I fell to my knees beside the fire, my reflection staring back at me in a pool of spilled blood.
Crimson eyes.
The prophecy echoed faintly in my mind — Selene's voice, soft as the moon:
When the moon turns red, he will find you.
Her prophecy. Aria's curse. My fate.
I pressed my hands over my ears, as if that could drown her out. "Stop it! I didn't ask for this!"
The forest didn't answer. The bodies at my feet didn't move.
I was shaking, teeth chattering despite the warmth of blood. The hunger was still there, quiet but watchful, coiled deep inside my bones like a serpent. Waiting for the next pulse of prey.
And beneath it — a voice.
Not Selene's. Not mine.
Aria.
Faint. Distant.
The bond. It was still there.
I could feel her — grief, exhaustion, the dull throb of her heartbeat. She was alive. And afraid.
The awareness cut through the haze like a blade.
I stumbled to my feet, turning toward the river. My body trembled, torn between the pull of hunger and the pull of her.
She had risked everything to save me. And now, if she saw me like this—
No. She couldn't.
Not like this.
I looked back at the blood on my hands, at the ruin around me, and knew there was no going back.
The hunger wasn't just inside me. It was me.
The forest air shifted — cold, carrying a new scent: strangers approaching, drawn by the screams.
I should have fled. But the hunger uncoiled again, whispering: Feed.
And I did.
...
By the time the moon climbed high, the camp was gone — nothing left but fire and ash and silence.
I stood among the ruins, bare-chested, the last traces of blood drying on my skin. The night wind stung my wounds, but they healed before I could feel them.
Somewhere above, a lone wolf howled. I almost answered.
The world smelled sharper now — alive, intoxicating. I could hear the heartbeat of every living thing within a mile. The rhythm of the forest. The pulse of the night.
I tilted my head back and laughed — a broken, hollow sound.
I wasn't human. I wasn't a Nightwalker.
I was something new.
Something born of her love and my death.
The hunger throbbed, but no longer ruled me. I had fed enough for now. My body buzzed with strength. The pain was gone. The weakness, the fear — gone too.
Only purpose remained.
Find her.
The thought cut through the haze like a star through fog. She was out there, somewhere down the river. Her scent still lingered faintly on the wind — shadow and steel and sorrow.
I could find her.
But then Selene's voice whispered again, unbidden:
You will love her, chase her, fear her. But when your story ends, it will be your teeth that close the final page.
I clenched my fists. "I won't hurt her."
The night said nothing.
A low growl escaped me, unbidden — the sound of something primal struggling against a cage.
The hunger smiled within me, a voice of silk and venom: You already have.
I stumbled back, shaking my head. "No. No!"
But deep down, I remembered the taste of blood — the warmth, the power, the ecstasy. And I knew: if it was her blood, I would never stop.
The thought terrified me.
I turned and ran.
The forest opened before me, the shadows stretching long under the moon. My body moved faster than it ever had. Every step was a blur. The air split around me.
Somewhere behind me, the fire I'd left behind began to die.
And ahead, far beyond the river, a faint heartbeat called to me through the dark — slow, steady, familiar.
Aria.
I ran toward it.
Toward her.
Toward the prophecy I could no longer escape.