Page 37 of Claimed In Darkness

37

NAIRA

I should be tired.

I should feel the ache in my limbs, the sting of battle still fresh in my muscles, the exhaustion dragging me under like it always has.

But I don’t.

I feel nothing.

That is the most terrifying part.

I know it the moment I step away from Zephiran touch.

The moment his fingers leave my wrist, and I feel no cold, no warmth, no fucking difference.

Like my body doesn’t need those things anymore.

It has evolved past them.

I should be afraid. Probably care about what’s happening to me.

But I don’t.

Not in the way I should.

The fear is distant, a dull echo in my brain, a whisper my mind that I can easily ignore.

The relic inside me is stronger.

It does not want me to be afraid.

It wants me to hunger.

There’s a deep, gnawing emptiness inside me.

Not pain.

Not need.

Something worse.

Like I have lost something vital.

There is a missing piece of me that I will never get back.

And yet—I do not want it back.

Whatever I lost—it made me weak.

Whatever I have become—it does not fear.

It does not break.

It does not shatter beneath Zephiran touch or crumble beneath his gaze or tremble under his fucking need.

It devours.

It consumes.

And it never lets itself be owned.

I feel his gaze like a physical thing, burning into my spine, dragging over my skin like a silent accusation.

But he remains silent.

He does not know how to ask me what he already fears.

That I am not the same woman he once chained to him.

That I am not the same girl who once swore to kill him, to hate him, to never let him win.

I am something else entirely.

I turn to him, unhurried, measured, knowing exactly what he is seeing.

Not a woman.

Not a thief.

Definitely not his.

Something beyond him.

His mouth opens, but no words come.

What could he say?

What could he possibly ask?

"Are you still mine?"

"Did I do this to you?"

"Do you still want me?"

No.

He already knows the answer to every single one.

I do not need to explain myself.

I do not need to justify this.

Not anymore.

I leave him standing there in the ruin of our choices, in the blood-soaked dirt where I killed for him, where I changed for him, where I became this.

The wind is cold against my face, the night stretching endlessly before me, my own body too light.

I should sleep.

But I don’t need to anymore.

I should eat.

But I am not hungry.

At least—not for food.

I don’t realize it until I stand at the river’s edge, watching my own reflection.

It should be the same.

The same eyes.

The same face.

The same lips he has kissed, the same throat he has bruised, the same skin he has touched.

But it isn’t.

Because see it now.

The shift.

The small, sharp wrongness in my own body.

My veins are too dark beneath my skin, the color just a shade too deep, like the relic inside me is bleeding into every part of me.

My pupils are too sharp at the edges.

And my mouth—gods, my mouth.

I lift my fingers to my lips, parting them slightly, pressing against my own teeth.

Not fangs.

Not claws.

But sharper.

More defined.

More made for tearing.

Horror should fill me.

But all I can think about is the last time I tasted blood.

And how much I liked it.

Not the men I killed.

Not the High Council’s warriors.

His.

Zephiran.

I see the night he first put his teeth on me, first held me down, first dragged my own body into submission beneath him.

I see the way he looked at me that night, like I was his ruin, his destruction, his fucking demise.

I see the moment he realized he could not live without me.

And now—he doesn’t know if I can live at all.

I press my fingers harder against my lips, breathing slow, careful, as the hunger inside me coils tighter, sharper, heavier.

Not for power.

Not for food.

Not for survival.

For him.

For his ruin.

For his blood, his hands, his voice, his breath.

For the only thing I have left that still makes me feel like I belong to this world.

I’m not sure if I belong here anymore.

But I know that I belong to him.

The water is ice against my fingers, turning pink, turning red, turning everything into something it should not be.

I watch the stains fade, but I know the truth.

The blood is inside me now.

It is in my veins.

It is in my heart.

It is in the way Zephiran looks at me—like he already knows I will never be the same.

I close my eyes, exhaling slow, steady, trying to ignore the pulse of hunger clawing at my ribs, my throat, my fucking soul.

But it is not going away.

I do not want it to.

That is the real fucking horror.

I am not losing myself.

I am choosing this.