Hellfire

Chapter Forty-Four

I dreamt I was hungry. My teeth hurt. My stomach coiled with nothingness. My tongue ashen. I was so hungry.

I was hunkered in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't see. I couldn't smell anything. It was all empty. But something was coming for me. I knew it. Something from inside me that was goaded by the dark. It was going to wither my soul.

I tried to run. Hide. Darkness surrounded me, cold and unforgiving, until I saw a light drawing me to it, heard the soft laughter of a little girl. I ran forward and found myself before a door I knew so well. Lucius' office. I stared with a closed throat, knowing whatever was inside would give me safety from what was chasing me, but I couldn't budge. I couldn't reach for it. I couldn't rely on Lucius when he was so lost himself.

The golden light peeking beneath the cracks and the hum of a child drifting from within abruptly vanished. It went from my sight, from my touch, and I screamed as that hunger finally fell upon me, consuming me whole.

I hunted, scraping through the dark, my claws flexing and my teeth growing bigger. Something glowing flickered. Blood. I smelt warmth. Heat. The scent of flesh. I found it. It made my stomach scream with need. It tried to run in the dark, but it couldn't escape me. I fell on it, ripped and tore, sinking my teeth in and letting blood swell up into my mouth and down my throat.

But I couldn't be filled. The more I ate, the hungrier I became. I lapped at the blood, tore at the flesh, devoured everything, and that pit in my stomach spread wider and wider, threatening to swallow me whole.

More meat moved. More in the dark. Warm.

I hunted again.

And again.

Nothing filled me.

Nothing could.

And, as I gazed at a mirror glimmering in the dark, unveiling I was little more than bones, eyes building, hook needle teeth splitting my gums and bared by my lipless mouth, and my hands clutched at the partly devoured face of Ella, her cheek shredded and her spine dangling from her torn head, I realised why.

I wasn't human.

I was a monster.

I woke violently then. A strange jolt tore through me, like my heart had stopped working for hours and suddenly remembered it should be. Air rushed into my lungs and my pulse fluttered like a butterfly, flooding my senses awake. The nightmare lingered, splintered and shivering with fear, but it was passing fast. I couldn't remember much in my dreams, I never could since I lost my humanity, but I could remember the impact it had. My stomach twisted with bile and self-hatred, my heart hammering with terror, my hands humming from the blood, the warm flesh.

I hurriedly touched my teeth, closing my eyes in relief when I felt they were only slightly pointed. They weren't a row of pointed needles curving inwards, there to shred and tear. Instead, they were human shaped with a slight swell to my incisors. I breathed out and turned my face into my pillow, trying to control the fear bubbling in me. I hated feeling more than just anger, hated being so scared. Raging and burning was me. I calmed as I breathed in the pillow. Lucius' heady scent clung to it, making my body relax and my heart to stop its frantic beating. Safety nestled over me at that scent, the fear of the nightmare melting away enough that I stirred and opened my eyes, finding black silk surrounding me, not my leaf patterning.

I flinched upwards, my eyes flying open and shivering with silver as I stared at Lucius' room, not my own. Anger blossomed, a spark of hellfire rattling free from the lock, and my attention snapped to Lucius. He was striding out of his bathroom, his dark wet hair oddly ruffled and wild, the muscle beneath his frosted skin dancing as he slid on his shirt, his eyes watching me with deep interest and an edge of concern. I didn't like the velvet heat or purring pleasure I felt at the sight. I didn't like how I remembered how he told me he loved with me a thrill, my chest lightening with such joy and heat burned in my cheeks. I swallowed thickly. His love wasn't real. Someone who loved me wouldn't do this to me.