Chapter 2 – The Hunger Awakens
Pain dragged Alex back to consciousness. Not gentle pain the kind that gnaws through the marrow, twisting joints until they scream. His chest heaved as his bones ground against themselves, cracking, remolding. Every shift sent fire crawling under his skin like molten metal trying to burn its way out.
He clutched his ribs, but his fingers only trembled ceaselessly.
Why does it feel like my body isn't mine anymore?
The night pressed heavy around him. Yet when he blinked, the darkness shifted. Shadows breathed, edges sharpened, outlines drew themselves into impossible clarity. The veil of night no longer belonged to the night, it belonged to him.
But the clarity brought no comfort.
The drip-drip of blood striking stone echoed in his skull, louder than it should. His stomach clenched. The air itself reeked—rich, metallic, suffocating. The stench of blood.
His throat burned. His stomach growled. Hunger swelled, raw and feral.
"No… no, I'm not—" His voice cracked, thin in the emptiness. "What's happening to me?"
He staggered forward, pulled not by will but by that intoxicating scent. His body crawled toward it, dragging him deeper into the alleys as if something had hooked his very soul.
---
In the Shadows
Helen watched.
Hidden in the folds of shadow, she has been there from the very beginning she had followed the twitch of his fingers, the rattle of his breath, and when his body finally moved again, she had almost sighed in relief. He survived.
Her heart tightened. She had come far too close to killing him. Her fangs still remembered the taste of his blood, the feel of his warm body against hers, his smell all of it was so enticing . That one mistake could have ended everything their bond, their future, her very soul.
And yet… when she inhaled, his scent tangled with her senses. Not human. Not vampire. Something more—something she couldn't name. It unsettled her, confused her.
She masked it under a clam visage , but inside, fear gnawed. She had nearly destroyed her mate.
---
Alex stumbled into a courtyard and froze.
Five bodies sprawled across the cobblestones. Torn open. Ribs cracked wide like splintered cages, organs glistening under the sickly flicker of a lamp. Entrails smeared like paint across the walls. One man's leg dangled by nothing but tendon.
Bile burned his throat. His knees threatened to give.
"What… what did this?"
---
Clara
She lay among the dead. A girl.
Her silver hair spilled across the blood-soaked stone like moonlight drowned in crimson. Even broken, with her neck bent at a cruel angle, her beauty cut sharp enough to make the air heavy. Clara—Alex knew her face. A quiet scholarship student from his university, the kind admired in silence, always at the edges of crowds.
His chest tightened as he gazed on the cruel sight before him, a gentle flower wearing an impossible mask of danger. Suddenly, the atmosphere shifted. The girl he believed dead drew a deep, ragged breath, gulping air like a drowning victim. Her bones creaked as if an old machine had awakened after a long sleep. Her neck twitched. Her nails scraped the stone, lengthening. Her lifeless eyes rolled white. Then, with a snarl, she lunged at him with a speed and ferocity beyond human reach. Before Alex could react, her jaws clamped onto his arm.
Agony flared white-hot. He screamed as her teeth sank deep, drinking, sucking with desperate greed. His body convulsed, blood draining as if she were ripping his very soul out with each pull.
"Stop—!" He tried to tear free, but she clung tighter, feeding like a starved beast.
And then—collapse. She fell limp against him, unconscious, blood painting her lips.
Alex trembled, clutching her, his chest heaving. His heart thundered, fear warring with the strange, soul-deep pull binding him to her.
any pretty girl i come across end up going after my blood
---
A shadow shifted.
Alex looked up—he froze.
Helen stepped forward. Not the gentle teacher he knew, but something else entirely. Taller. Fiercer. Six feet of raw divinity. Her hair, now burning crimson, cascaded like blood. Her body—a sculpted weapon of curves and strength, E-cup breasts rising defiantly against the night, waist thick with power, thighs like the pillars of a warrior queen.
She carried death in her presence. Seduction draped in fire. Men would desire her—and bow in terror at the same time.
In her hand dangled a wolf's severed head, its sickly brown fur matted with gore, its eyes glassy in eternal fear.
Alex's breath hitched.
Instinctively, he pulled Clara closer, shielding her with his battered frame. "Stay back!" His voice cracked, but he forced it out. "Don't come closer."
Helen's crimson eyes glowed, lips curling in something between amusement and fury. His mate—protecting another woman from her. The urge to rip Clara apart burned hot, but she forced her expression into a mask.
She crouched, fingers brushing Clara's temple. Her voice slipped low, taunting but edged with venom.
"She'll live. For now."
Alex's body shook, but his glare held. Confusion and hunger warred in his soul, yet when his eyes met hers, something deeper stirred like he had known her forever, like part of him already belonged to her.
Helen straightened, tossing the wolf's head onto the cobblestones with a wet thud. A spoil of war, proof of her innocence, proof of her dominance.
Her silhouette burned against the dying lamplight.
"We will meet again, Alex. When it matters."
And then shadows swallowed her whole, leaving him kneeling in the gore, clutching Clara, heart racing with fear, hunger… and an ache he couldn't name.