Chapter 1
DEZ
Iwoke drenched in sweat, my heart racing past the thunder that bellowed just outside of my window.
Since Morrigan’s disappearance, the sky seemed to cry with the grief that clouded our once-vibrant world.
Most days, the sun remained hidden behind the heavy clouds that drenched the earth with rain almost daily.
Perhaps the gods were angry with us. We had one task.
They created a woman so perfect, so beautiful…
and her birth meant we would never need to feed from anyone else ever again.
All we had to do was keep her safe—keep her happy.
Keep her complacent? My inner conscience argued with me, reminding me of just how wrong all of this was.
It would have been different if she understood what her true purpose had been from the start. But, choosing to play the game of chosen queen, without disclosing the fact that we planned on feeding from her for the rest of our eternal lives… Well… I knew why she hated us.
A sharp twinge of pain in the pit of my stomach pulled me from my own thoughts.
For the past few weeks, the hunger I felt was something my body had never been subjected to before.
No amount of food could satisfy the emptiness that kept me chained to my bed.
It weakened me. And, with Morrigan gone, I had no other substance that could replenish my strength.
Rising from the bed, I threw my legs over the side before another cramp struck in my core—palpable enough to bring me to my knees as I fell from the sheets. Pain pierced me as I landed on the cold, wooden floor. And, almost immediately, the doors to my room flew open.
“I heard a fall,” Lyra called in, turning to find me on my knees as I clutched my stomach. “Are you alright?”
Just the sound of her voice made the ache dig itself deeper inside of me. “I’m fine,” I groaned, pushing myself back up to stand. For a moment, the room around me spun, and I slagged against the wall, waiting for it to still.
“You’re not fine,” she scolded. Within seconds, she stood at my side, placing a hand on my lower back to steady me. “Do you want to try and feed again?”
Whatever had caused this… hunger… spread to the damned curse we bore.
With food unable to satisfy me, I needed blood.
The gods had never actually explained to us exactly what would happen if we failed to feed for too long—and none of us ever dared to test it.
But, with the blood bond now in place, we also hadn’t known what would happen if we fed from another.
Lyra had offered almost immediately.
Our first feeding was… memorable to say the least. When I first tasted her blood, it felt normal and had begun to energize me again. But, as the minutes passed, my stomach began to burn. I emptied almost all of what I had taken from her, hanging onto the mere drops that remained.
“I’d rather not get sick again,” I grumbled, already feeling the phantom nausea rolling through my abdomen.
Pushing off of the wall, I dragged my feet toward the bathing room. Behind me, Lyra’s voice followed closely. “Yeah, well, sickness sounds a lot more manageable than death.”
I quickly dipped my hand into the basin of water on the counter, chilling it as much as I could with what little power I could manage, before splashing it against my face.
“Gods, Dez… You look like shit.”
“Thanks.” I tried my best to avoid her body as I stumbled around her.
Just when I thought my headache couldn’t get any worse, another pair of footsteps entered through the bedroom doors. I rolled my eyes before he even had the chance to speak.
“I heard a bang.” Kaiden’s black eyes met mine as I approached my wardrobe. “Is everything alright?”
“I’m fi—”
“Dez won’t feed again,” Lyra so politely interjected, like a child tattling to a damned parent.
“I can’t feed,” I reminded her with a glare, and lifted my drenched shirt over my head as I searched for a new one.
“You’re just scared of a little tummy ache.” She raised her voice to a condescending, childish pitch. “Do you want me to spoon feed it to you?”
“Shut up,” I growled.
“No. You need to stop pouting. We are all affected by this, and you’re in here acting like a—”
“I am not pouting! I am weak! I am in constant pain and I—”
“Yes. Weak.”
I turned then, facing the cold, brown eyes that had once swam in shimmering honey. Now? They were made of charred oak, littered with cracks that haunted me every time I looked at her.
“Perhaps you should starve, Dez. Maybe then you’ll finally feel what I do, knowing you were the one to take me away from Morrigan that day—”
“Lyra!” Kaiden snapped from the doorway.
There it is, I thought to myself.
“Eowyn is in the gardens,” he said to her in a commanding tone.
With a huff of anger, Lyra turned on her heel and left the room, murmuring something to herself in an indecent tone.
I wished more than anything that I could blame her for her outburst, but, in truth, she was right.
All of this—Cain taking Morrigan, the deaths that occurred that night—was my fault.
I didn’t have nearly as much talent with my fire wielding as Lyra did, and that is why I had asked her to assist me in training the new recruits. But if I hadn’t…
“Dez,” Kaiden said quietly, making me blink away the fuzzy thoughts that my delirious mind continued to send me.
“I’m fine.” I quickly yanked a new shirt over my chest and tried to muster the courage to leave the room. “I have to shadow back to meet with my advisor to make sure things are running smoothly… since someone decided that I needed to be here instead.”
As I took a step toward him to leave, I fumbled over my own foot and almost tripped in the process. Luckily, Kaiden moved faster. His arm shot out, catching me before my face could hit the floor, and he escorted me to a nearby chair.
With a loud sigh filled with frustration—and a tiny pinch of annoyance—Kaiden sat across from me.
He flicked his hand, lighting the logs within the hearth, and quickly filled the room with the heat of the fire.
I didn’t want to admit just how good that warmth felt against the trembling ache that made my bones feel far too cold.
“I have something that might help.” He pulled a small pouch from his pocket, no bigger than the length of my finger. “I don’t know if it will work, but…” He stood, retrieving a chalice from the bedside table that hadn’t been there before.
“What is it?” I asked.
Sitting back down, he set the chalice down in front of us, and I leaned forward, examining the cup.
It seemed to be filled with… blood. The scent of it touched my nose, sending a rolling cramp through my stomach.
Hunger… That was all I felt anymore. Every fiber of my being wanted to snatch the chalice and drain its contents, but I knew what would follow shortly after.
The blood lust twisted into nausea, and I leaned back against the cushion in defeat.
“You know that won’t work,” I reminded him.
“Yeah, well, we didn’t have this before.” He pulled the string, opening the pouch before tipping it over the chalice, and poured out some kind of powder. I couldn’t quite decipher what it was, but it appeared to be a red substance.
“What… What is that?” I asked him just as the scent of it made its way to me. Morrigan. My body instantly perked up, like it could feel her as well. “Morrigan,” I breathed, trying to pull myself to stand. She… she was here… I had to—
“It’s her blood,” Kaiden said, making me freeze. “When Morrigan was born, the priests and priestesses were… wary. They wanted to be sure—without a single doubt—that she was the chosen one. So, they took a tiny vial of her blood and poured it onto the scroll.”
I lowered myself slowly, eyes fixated on the chalice that smelled of everything perfect in a world built in darkness. That was her. Not in the literal sense, but… that was her blood. My Morrigan.
“Slowly, her blood formed a line between each symbol of the gods. Eventually, it created a seven-pointed star.” He let out a gruff laugh.
“I guess that was proof enough.” After swirling the crimson a few times, he handed the chalice to me.
“I don’t know if it will work, but hopefully it will be enough until we find her. ”
I lifted my eyes to his, a small seed of doubt threatening to grow.
“And we will find her, Dez.”
“How did they retrieve her blood from the scroll?” I asked, accepting the cup.
“They scraped it from the scroll after it had dried… carefully.” The corner of his lips twitched into a small smirk before quickly dropping again. “Now, drink up. I don’t have time to babysit you all day.”
I quickly lifted the drink to my lips, shoving aside all trepidation and gulping down the blood. Though it tasted nothing of Morrigan, it left an aftertaste that reminded me of what it felt like to kiss her. As if her essence swirled with the blood, leaving behind a whispered memory of her light.
Once the drink was gone, I braced myself for the sickness that would surely follow. The nausea rose—my stomach battling with whoever had offered themself this time. As it crept up my throat, I tensed and tried to make my body accept it.
“Hold it in, Dez,” Kaiden insisted.
Right, like I’m not already doing that.
After a few agonizing seconds, the nausea subsided. It didn’t offer nearly as much energy as Morrigan’s would have, but I could feel some of my fatigue beginning to fade. It was… enough. Enough for me to stand without falling over my own feet at least.
“Good,” Kaiden sighed, sounding almost as relieved as I felt.
He stood and walked to the door, sliding the pouch back into his pocket, taking the last of Morrigan with him…
again. “I’ll hang on to the powder for now.
We’ll only use it in extreme circumstances.
Hopefully we find her before it begins affecting Cass, or Eris, or—”
“If we find her.” The words slipped from my lips before I could stop them. I didn’t mean it. Or… maybe I did.
As I turned to Kaiden, all of the heat had left the room, quickly swallowed by the coldness in his black eyes.
“We. Will. Find. Her.”