Chapter 4
The Way of the Beast; I Will Be Perfectly Monstrous
Bloodlust.
For hour upon pitch-black, endless hour, it was my sole salient thought, the one notion to crystallize from the madness doing its damnedest to keep me its prisoner forever.
It was the hunger that gnawed at my insides with big, sharp teeth that carved out bloody, gurgling gashes.
It was the reason I struggled to draw full breaths.
When even once I did, they felt incomplete.
Why I felt incomplete.
For the entirety of my rebirthed life, even as I’d had no choice but to conform to a s?nglure’s unnatural ways, I’d resisted it.
Bloodlust was where I’d drawn my line. I would never allow myself to become a monster like the s?nglure who had sunk his fangs into my little sister, Isolina’s, Majora and drained her dry, then discarded her shriveled body in the streets of Montressón as if she’d never meant anything to anyone at all.
On one side, there was I, a newly rebirthed s?nglure with beastly needs, but who could still choose to behave like a regular, rational fae.
I could still be somewhat impulsive, driven by some of my cravings.
I could indulge my desires, even the secret sensual ones.
I could play, dance, fuck, and—yes—murder, and still remain civilized enough to not be a monster.
Only monsters killed indiscriminately.
On the opposite side of the line, crouched in wait, was bloodlust’s profound darkness.
If I let it sink its claws into me, I’d cease being the person I was.
Forever. Gone would be the person I wanted to be first for my brother and sister, then just for my brother …
and now … now just for me—Teo had been murdered while I was held captive for centuries under the sea. Isi gone a century before that.
Now, for the second time since my rebirth, bloodlust held me in its thrall.
I was trapped again. My bastard of a captor refused to allow me to drink blood from anyone but him, and since he’d also locked a power-dampening collar around my neck—as if I were his motherfucking pet—I couldn’t direct his blood to exit his body and come to me.
The asshole had left me only two choices: drink from his vein—like a fucking monster—or starve and fall prey to my beastly ways—like the fucking monster I’d fought so hard never to become.
Bloodlust waited and waited and waited, hunched in unnatural stillness, for the one who’d unleashed the monster.
When the heavy door to my prison finally swung open, I uncoiled myself from the bed in the corner, the sole piece of furniture in my prison. I stretched the length of the chain that shackled my ankle toward my visitor.
It would be him. Lately, it was only ever him: Alobaz Hawxley, prince of the Rubor Dynasty, commander of the emperor’s armies, and all-around prick extraordinaire who had made me this monster.
He would be the one to reckon with its demands, and I would be perfectly monstrous.
I’d fuck my enemy again and again and again, until I satisfied the need to be stuffed full by him—highly regrettable and equally undeniable.
Then I would finally feed—resistance was futile at this point.
And if Justice decided to shine her righteousness my way …
soon I would murder the man who had cost me my brother.
I’d make sure his death stuck this time.
Alobaz was a filthy liar. He claimed he hadn’t killed my brother.
But he had, he absolutely had. My parents were certain of it, and the former king and queen of Zaraga employed the finest spies, those who didn’t risk mistakes because they knew what sort of bloody fate awaited them if they did.
One of their spies had witnessed Alobaz sucking my brother dry before removing his head.
No matter what he said, Alobaz Hawxley was Teo’s killer—and the target of my sworn vendetta.
Yet it wasn’t Alobaz who entered my cell.
The footfalls that padded hurriedly toward me were too floppy to be his.
The approaching fae smelled of fallen leaves and loam.
The heartbeat, steady though accelerated—pumping beautiful, delicious blood—was so wonderfully familiar, soothing, like a warm, happy memory.
I reached for that warmth, but the monster within swatted it away, gripping me harder.
“Sora?”
For an instant, my name upon her lips sliced through the haze. Then the bloodlust took me again.
Lumoons flared to life, a glowing orb floating above gnarled, four-fingered hands. I blinked against the soft lights, which felt stark after so much darkness, fixating on those hands that had run through my hair countless times.
“By the Ethers and all the Fuerin,” the creature breathed, allowing the lumoons to drift around her so she could clutch both hands to her frock, directly above her beating heart. “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.”
I definitely knew her. More so, beneath the monster, I … loved her. What? Who?
Marina.
My attending goblin servant and, secretly, my dear friend.
Marina, Marina, Marina… She could be my guide back to myself.
I opened my mouth to speak but only a croak emerged.
Dark, furious eyes examined me. Her thin lips pursed before parting to bare sharp, spindly teeth.
“I’m going to kill him.” She flexed her fingers. “I don’t care that he’s the commander and the prince of the entire scorching empire, nor do I give a trufy’s feathery ass about the rules that say goblins can’t be violent. Psh, violent I’ll be! No one imprisons my Princesa!”
Even the monster chortled at that. I’d been a prisoner longer than I’d been a princess.
With soft pads of her dragon-feet, Marina edged closer. The lumoonlight warmed the wariness in her pupil-less eyes. Her heartbeat was as loud as a war drum. Marina had always seen through the masks worn at D’Arco Palace to the monsters behind them.
She stopped just beyond my arms’ reach and huffed. “He’s been starving you, hasn’t he? You look like you haven’t fed since I last saw you.”
The monster’s hold on me allowed only a grunt.
Her bare brow hiked up her forehead as her eyes grew larger. “You haven’t fed in eleven days?”
As if I were in a gripping dream and had to remind myself to act, it took several moments before I got my head to shake.
She gasped, her hands back at her chest. “Eleven days without feeding… Good Fuerin, what was he thinking? He obviously wasn’t thinking. He’s lucky to still be alive! He knows who you are now. He should know better.”
The familiarity of my long-time friend was dispelling the worst of the haze, but the bloodlust hadn’t released me. It wouldn’t yet, not until it got what it wanted. That was the way of the beast.
“Did he torture you in other ways too?”
One of her lumoons flew toward me, drawing slowly across every major part of my body. “Is that a…” She growled, a sound I’d never heard from her, not even when our friendship grew too close. “Did he put a collar on you?”
I hummed and eked out, “Power.”
Her eyelids stuttered. “Are you telling me that collar dampens your power?”
Another hum from me.
“By the Ethers, that’s not possible.” She stared at my collar for several beats. “It shouldn’t be possible. That’s … no one should be able to take our power! It’s our unique gift from the very Ethers. No one living is to interfere with that. Our power is sacred.”
“Not sacred.”
“I very much disagree, Sora. Our power is as sacred to us as our very essence.”
I meant that I hadn’t experienced my power as sacred, not that it wasn’t supposed to be. Not much about my life had ever felt sacred, and what little ever had—Teo, Isi, or my love for them, anyway—had been ripped from me.
“I’m getting that collar and chain off you.” Marina took a step toward me, then stopped before she entered my range of attack. “You need to feed first.” She sucked in angry breaths. “Feed off me.”
I shook my head so hard that my collar rattled.
“Sora, this isn’t the time for arguments. You must.”
I shook my head again.
“I’m here to help you escape. I don’t know how long we have, maybe not more than another few minutes. The emperor and empress are here.”
I growled.
“Alobaz is occupied for now. The Fuerin must be guiding our way. It’s the first time he’s left your door unguarded. Everyone’s with the emperor.
“You need to feed or you’ll never be able to focus. It’s not easy, getting in and out of the castle. She’s every bit as vicious as Rafaela said she was.”
Once more, I shook my head, my long, loose hair lashing against my shoulders and face.
Marina pressed her palms together in entreaty but didn’t draw nearer. “Sora … you have no choice.”
Maybe. Maybe the bloodlust had robbed me of my decision: whether or not I embodied the monster that would always be a part of me.
But if I was going to lose control when I fed—and after so many days of starvation, I would, it was guaranteed—then I wasn’t going to drain dead the very last creature in the entire Opalese who really, truly, loved me—no matter what I did or didn’t do.
Alonso and Rafaela loved me too, I knew they did. But they’d been bred and raised to rule; and royalty never loved as wholly as normal fae did.
“I can’t.” My voice was deep and rough—not yet my own.
“You have to.”
“I won’t.”
“You’re chained up. I’ll only let you drink so much before I stop you.”
I barked a hoarse laugh. Not even with the full range of her impressive goblin magic would she be able to halt me when I was in the throes of bloodlust-driven consumption.
My fae power was dampened, but it wasn’t my only strength.
I’d trained since my rebirth to harness every advantage of my s?nglure nature.
I was faster, stronger, and many times more lethal.
“I can stop you,” Marina insisted.
“You can’t.” My monster called for blood, blood, blood—hers, Baz’s, everyone’s … anyone’s.
“Then I’ll bust open your ankle shackle, zoom away before you can catch me, and you can drain everyone you come across on our way out of the castle. Cosette’s here. You can kill her.”
I listened to Marina’s heart—ba-ba-bum, ba-ba-bum, ba-ba-bum—the goblin triple beat different from every other fae’s.
I’d never tasted goblin blood. A deep, rich, forest green, it probably tasted like trees and dirt, just how Marina smelled.
“I can get away from you before you hurt me. I’ll hide until you’re sated and the bloodlust passes.”
The monster would never be sated.
“Sora, please. This is my chance to break you out. I don’t know if I’ll get another. Alobaz is too astute.”
“Alobaz is mine.” My voice was barely my own.
I sensed him close. The monster wrested back what little control I’d taken.
My body tensed, anticipating the arrival of what was mine. Baz dropped through the darkened ceiling and landed in a crouch at my feet, hands up and ready for anything.
He still wasn’t ready for me…