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It’s been years since I’ve had what Gunter refers to as one of my episodes. Years since I’ve lost control, lethimout of his carefully crafted coma. His drunken stupor of animal blood that keeps him alive but weak, satiated but containable.
What Gunter calls an episode, I call murder.
That’s what I’ve done after all. I murdered that poor woman.
I wonder when her husband will arrive home from his trading venture. If she’ll have begun to rot before he finds her, or if he’ll see her as I left her. Pale and bloodless and tucked into bed as if she simply fell asleep, never to wake.
Blood will stain her neck, her front, but the coroner will be puzzled to find no sign of a wound from which the blood might have originated.
The same venom that paralyzes my victims also serves to knit their wounds, erasing the evidence of my existence.
At least I’m no longer hungry. It won’t save the woman, won’t make up for her life—snuffed out too early. But it will keep me from attacking Blaise.
Gunter leaves chicken blood at my door in the days following my episode. It used to be the blood of a heifer or a lamb. The type that tastes somewhat tolerable. But he’s learned in the years since my Turning that I won’t drink it if it gives me pleasure. Not directly following an attack.
So now he brings me chicken blood, and I’m grateful to him for it. It’s bitter and it scalds my throat on the way down.
But no matter how long I lock myself in my chambers, no matter how often I toss in my rickety bed or stare into the warped mirror on my stone-pebbled wall, no matter how many times I burn the outer layer of my skin away, I cannot adequately punish myself for what I’ve done.
So a few days pass, and I dress in my apprentice robes and return to work.
I scent Blaise well before I reach her cell.
If music had an aroma, it would be hers, and if I let myself, I could drink myself to death on her scent alone. It’s like an opiate, saturating my blood and racing straight to my head, threatening to launch me skyward.
But I don’t let it.
Now that I’ve scented her blood, things can’t be the same. I might have satiated my hunger on Claudia, but the desire for Blaise’s blood will never leave me; the temptation for just a sip will never stop caressing my cheek, whispering in my ear.
I’ll just have to be more careful.
She’s not the first human whose blood I’ve scented and refused to indulge in, and she won’t be the last.
That doesn’t stop the desire from welling as soon as I crack the dungeon door. It doesn’t stop the nerves in my muscles from firing, from begging me to let them run to her.
Fates, she’s beautiful. When I enter her cell, she’s perched on her dais with her ankles crossed, an ancient book spread across her lap. Her brow is furrowed, but as soon as she looks up and finds me standing there, her cheeks flush red with blood and I have to clamp my jaw to keep my extra set of canines from introducing themselves.
She must realize she’s flushed, because she swallows, and I can’t help the way her throat bobbing redirects my attention to her reddening neck. She blinks rapidly and tucks her long raven hair behind her ear, exposing her pulse as she averts her eyes and returns her attention to her book.
The memory washes over me, bathing me in warmth as I relive pressing my chest against her back, allowing my touch to linger at her hands as I tucked the tossed quill into her fingers.
I dig my fingernails into my palms.
Fates, I knew it would be difficult seeing her after my bloodlust was triggered, but it’s never been this intense before. It probably doesn’t help that I was attracted to her before I scented her blood.
I find myself wishing she would say my name, express a sort of excitement that I’ve returned.
It pricks at my pride that she doesn’t—the way she’s ignoring me, but it’s probably for the best. Besides, I don’t know why I’m expecting a prisoner to jump up and down with enthusiasm at the return of her torturer.
Still, I don’t think my desires were playing tricks on me when I sensed her heart race at my nearness, the way her breath went shallow as I whispered into her ear.
“Blaise,” I say, because I can’t seem to help myself.
She looks up from her book again, but she’s clearly steeled herself from blushing this time, which is likely for the best, but also a very specific brand of torture for me.
“You’re back,” she says, though it’s with hesitation that she says it. I suppose that’s sensible of her after the way I behaved.
What if I’d rather keep you?
