The hunger didn't arrive as a craving; it arrived as an extinction event.
Inside Ezra, the ancient Creator essence recognized its own work, but the mortal vessel was screaming. Her gums throbbed with a rhythmic, stabbing heat, and the back of her throat felt like it had been coated in scorched earth. Every pulse of the four-fold blood in Lord Valerian's neck sounded like a drum in the silent room—a heavy, rhythmic invitation to survive.
Valerian watched her, his own breathing ragged. He could see the change in her eyes—the soft Fae light was being drowned by a deep, predatory crimson. He knew the Binding made this inevitable, but seeing the Creator reduced to a starving predator sent a thrill of primal terror through his composite soul.
"It is time," Valerian whispered, his voice vibrating with the weight of the moment. He didn't offer his neck—that would be too much surrender for the Abomination. Instead, he slowly peeled back the dark silk of his sleeve, exposing his left wrist.
The skin there was pale, marked by the faint, swirling scars of the elemental rituals that had forged him. The veins beneath were dark, carrying the concentrated power of four races.
Ezra moved before she could think. It wasn't a graceful glide; it was the desperate pounce of a dying creature. She seized his arm, her small, cold hands locking around his forearm with a strength that shouldn't belong to her.
She stared at the skin for a heartbeat, the scent of him—ozone, old parchment, and something metallic—flooding her senses. Then, she bit.
The First Contact was a shockwave. As her fangs pierced the skin, a jagged bolt of Elemental Fire and Ice surged through her jaw. Valerian's blood wasn't just liquid; it was power.
As she began to draw, the room seemed to dissolve.
Valerian gasped, his head snapping back against the stone wall. He didn't just feel the loss of blood; he felt her Creator mind siphoning his history. For Ezra, the taste was a symphony of chaos. She tasted the rage of the Demon, the ancient sorrow of the Fae, the cold logic of the Witch, and the eternal hunger of the Vampire.
It was too much. It was everything.
She drank with a ferocity that made Valerian stagger. He had intended to be the master of this feeding, but as she pulled from him, he felt a terrifying void opening beneath him. She wasn't just eating; she was reclaiming.
"Enough," he choked out, his voice a ghost of itself. He tried to pull away, but the Binding flared, the Nexus Collar glowing a violent, warning white. The souls were locked. He couldn't leave her until the hunger was sated, or they would both fracture.
Finally, Ezra collapsed back, her lips stained with a red so dark it was almost black. The hunger receded, replaced by a heavy, drugged lethargy. She slumped against the velvet, her eyes glazed, the Creator memories receding into a hazy fog.
Valerian looked at his wrist, the puncture wounds closing with unnatural speed, though the ache remained deep in his marrow. He looked at her—his anchor, his creator, his parasite—and for the first time in five hundred years, he felt truly exhausted.
"Sleep," he commanded, his voice trembling. "The transition... it has only just begun."
He lay down beside her, not out of affection, but because the Tether demanded proximity. As their eyes closed and the darkness of Veridia swallowed the room, their shared consciousness drifted into the same forbidden dream.
The White ForestThey are standing in a forest where the trees are made of bone-white glass. There is no sun, only a sky filled with swirling, violet nebulae.
They are not as they are now. Valerian is a young man, dressed in the simple, raw furs of a pre-civilized era. He is wounded, a deep gash across his chest leaking golden light.
He is kneeling at the feet of a woman sitting upon a throne of living roots. The woman is Ezra, but her hair is a river of starlight, and her eyes hold the weight of entire galaxies.
In the dream, the young Valerian reaches out, his hand trembling. He isn't seeking power; he is seeking mercy.
"I cannot hold the light alone," the dream-Valerian whispers, his voice echoing in both their sleeping minds.
The dream-Ezra leans forward, her fingers brushing his brow. She doesn't look like a savior; she looks like a judge.
"Then I shall give you the shadows to balance it," she replies. "But remember, child of earth: the shadows will one day demand to be fed."
She leans down and kisses the wound on his chest, and as she does, the bone-white trees begin to shatter.
Ezra woke with a start in the pitch-black room, her heart racing. The taste of his blood was still on her tongue, but the words from the dream—the shadows will one day demand to be fed—felt like a death sentence. Beside her, Valerian was still asleep, but his hand was gripped tightly around her waist, and he was whispering a name in his sleep—a name that wasn't "Ezra," but a title in a language that hadn't been spoken for ten thousand years.