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He made us him.

P aul doesn’t wait for Ryet , or me, to give him permission to leave. He simply disappears.

Ryet lets out a breath, his eyes lingering on the empty space that once contained Paul. It takes a few seconds for that spell to be broken and for him to redirect his gaze and attention to me. “Are you all right?”

I scoff. “Am I all right?” But it doesn’t come out mean. Because… actually, I think I am all right. “I… feel hungry, but other than that?” I shrug. “I don’t know Ryet. Some crazy shit just happened to us and I don’t even remember it all.”

“Right?” He scoffs too, then takes my hand and pulls me down to the ground, our backs resting against a library stack. He guides me into his lap. We’re naked, and sweaty, and bloody.

Also, not real?

“Ryet?”

“Hmm?” He’s looking up at me with a blank expression.

“What’s it all mean?”

He chuckles a little. “Well, my guess is…” He nods his head. “We’re…”

“Fucked?” We both laugh. It’s not funny, not even a little bit, but it’s more of a hysterical laugh than anything amusing.

“Yeah, Syrsee. I think ‘fucked’ is the right word.”

“So what do we do?”

He blows out a breath. “I’m not sure we have much of a choice. I don’t understand what this is, either.” He motions to the library. It’s not real. It’s in the magic… whatever the purple and gold is. “But here’s my takeaway from that whole word salad Paul just spewed at us—we’re something between alive and dead, but with powers to act like we’re alive.”

“Yeah. I caught that too. It just doesn’t make sense.”

“I don’t think we need to worry about that. Yet. I think we just go to the Guild and bide our time. Read the books.” I smile at him when he says this. “You’ll read the books, at least. Remember? This was our plan before everything went sideways with the blood. I’ll give myself to them, you’ll get the books, and we’ll… figure it out. It’s really the only choice we have.”

I lean into him and rest my head on his shoulder. I don’t do this to get closer to the blood flowing through his jugular, but I’m, actually, very close. So close I can smell the blood. And suddenly I am so hungry, I have an urge to bite him.

Ryet pulls away, like he senses this. “Are you OK, Syrsee?”

“I don’t know. I’m hungry again. For you.”

“You need a drink?”

“I think so.” He raises his palm to his mouth, but I grab it. “No. Not the palm.”

“My neck?” He doesn’t even try to hide his surprise. “But you don’t have fangs, Syrsee.”

I know this. What I’m asking is gross. I want to bite his neck with blunt human teeth. But I don’t say anything. I just… let him try the idea out.

So it’s his decision when he says, “Fine. If that’s what you need, then do it.”

I’m already leaning in, ready to take that bite out of his neck, when I hear, “No.”

And when I look up Paul is back. I meet his gaze, embarrassed for some reason. And then pull back, away from Ryet, ashamed.

Paul bends down to us. But he’s only looking at me, not Ryet. I’m about to start apologizing for being a sick, disgusting monster when he says, “I’ll do it.” We stare at each other for a moment. Then he directs his gaze to Ryet. “If that’s OK with you.”

Ryet goes tense beneath me. Paul made his feelings for Ryet pretty clear in that little speech of his before he left us alone, but I’m not sure what Ryet’s feelings actually are for Paul. It’s not hate, even though I think Ryet wishes it were. But it’s not love, either. At least, he doesn’t look at Paul the way he looks at me. There is a difference between us.

But I know he feels something for Paul. Something he probably can’t quite explain, either.

“She needs it,” Paul says, still looking at Ryet. “She’s addicted. She’s going to keep needing it.” His eyes shift over to mine. “At least for a while.” Which implies that there will come a day when I won’t.

And even though I’m in the midst of a blood-addiction craving that makes me feel dirty, and sinful, and vile—I’m already missing the future me who will never want this blood again. Which makes me feel even more wicked.

The weird thing, though, is that I don’t care. It doesn’t bother me in the least if I’m a vile, sinful, dirty blood whore. I. Just. Want more blood.

“Fine,” Ryet says. “Do it.”

Paul sits down on the ground next to Ryet, turning his body in to him. Ryet tilts his head towards Paul, exposing his neck, just as Paul lowers his mouth down. Teeth appear, sharp and pointy, and then, in one quick motion, so fast I barely see it, he bites Ryet. Leaving two puncture marks behind, dripping blood.

I’m just staring at this blood, craving it so hard, but lost in the beauty of just looking at it. Paul’s hand is on my head, guiding my mouth down to Ryet’s neck. And the moment his blood touches my lips, I lose myself. With eyes open I watch as the purple swirls up and the gold mist falls down like rain.

The three of us are somewhere else. All tangled up on a bed. Naked.

Ryet’s bleeding, I’m drinking, and Paul is leaning to me, whispering. “Set me free, Syrsee. Let me go so I can save him for you. Release me.”

I don’t want to pull back from my drink. I don’t know when I’ll get another one. I don’t even know how to release Paul. I don’t even know how I trapped him in the first place.

But then Paul’s whispers are there, his mouth right up next to my ear. “Let me drink you while you drink him. That’s how you release me.”

It doesn’t really add up, but I barely know where I am, so maybe it’s OK to be confused?

Even if I objected, it probably wouldn’t stop him. Because he doesn’t wait for my understanding and I don’t even give him verbal permission, but since when did Paul ever need words? He’s inside me. He’s inside Ryet. This much I know.

And then he’s pulling blood from me and I’m back in that bliss, the blood lust growing stronger and more insistent even though I’m in the middle of getting my hit. Ryet’s hand is on my breast, and every time I take a pull from him, he squeezes it, sending a flood of sensations that get all mixed up with the feeling of Paul taking his own pull from me.

Then Ryet leans to Paul, practically ripping his neck open. Blood suddenly pours down Paul’s neck. I slip my fingers into it, dragging it over to my lips. And then I stop drinking from the meager puncture wounds, and join Ryet as we both drink Paul’s blood from the gaping wound.

Paul pulls off me, digging his fangs into Ryet. But only long enough to get a taste. Not long enough for me to protest. Because before I can object, he’s drinking me again. And we’re drinking him. And then we’re drinking Ryet. And then they’re drinking me.

It’s a blood orgy. Ryet, me, and Paul.

And there’s something inside me that knows… this is exactly how Paul planned it.

He made us for this.

He made us him .

And even though, in the back of my head, all those painful feelings of shame are still there and I know, even if I know nothing else, that this is evil—I don’t want him to ever stop.

I want to stay here and get lost in the blood lust.

Which is, of course, the moment when Paul pulls back and starts whispering again. “Release me, Syrsee. Right now.”

I don’t want to. I want to keep him in this moment forever. And for sure, I do not want to move forward into the dark, depressing, empty future in front of me.

But since when did what I want ever matter to Paul?

“I release you.” I don’t even mean to say it, it just comes out.

And then he’s gone.

And the moment he leaves, the mist begins to fade…