Page 32 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)
Chapter Nineteen
Isaac
T he hunger wouldn’t abate, not since the moment Isaac tasted Shan’s blood.
It lingered constantly in the back of his mind, a tickling in the back of his throat that he could not ignore, an endless ache deep in the pit of his stomach.
It had been days since that disastrous meeting, and no matter what he ate, what he drank, he could not find satisfaction.
And that wasn’t even the worst of it. He could handle suffering; he could handle pain.
What he couldn’t handle was the way he had to hold himself at arm’s length from those around him.
Like Anton, who perched on a chair halfway across the room from him, dark eyes shining with something that felt like opportunity, as fearless and casual as ever.
The pages he had brought for Isaac’s review—new pamphlets meant to be shared with Blood Workers like Celeste, those who could potentially be pulled to their side, lay forgotten, something far more intriguing catching the man’s attention.
But it didn’t matter. Isaac could hear every single beat of Anton’s heart, could smell the tang of his sweat on the air, could almost taste the blood that lingered just beneath his skin, just waiting to be taken.
“Something wrong, Isaac?” Anton asked, the question feeling oddly pointed.
“It’s hard to explain,” Isaac began, inching towards the edge of his seat. It was foolish of him, he knew he was putting Anton at risk, despite the man’s cavalier attitude, his self-control hanging on the edge of a knife.
Even that little shift closer brought another surge of hunger as his jaw started aching.
Anton tilted his head to the side, curious as ever, unwittingly exposing the line of his throat and Isaac felt the teeth in his mouth shift, fangs plunging down through his gums as they settled into place, sharper and more gruesome than any claws he had ever worn.
Another new change, another thing to fear, but all rationality was lost behind the overwhelming desire to tear into his ally’s flesh. A growl caught low in his throat, and Anton flinched back at last, the sheer primal force of fear shattering his carefully maintained persona.
Like some hapless woodland beast, realizing they were well and truly fucked.
Isaac clenched his hands over his mouth, turning from Anton so he couldn’t see the fangs he had sprouted. Like he could hide what he had become, if he just turned his face.
The fool that he was, Anton ignored his own safety, coming to stand in front of him. Isaac breathed in heavily through his mouth as Anton wrapped his fingers around his wrist, pulling it to the side, a demand falling from his lips. “Let me see.”
“You don’t want to,” Isaac replied, muffled by his own skin, but Anton just smiled, slow and cruel.
“Oh, but I do. Let me see what we’re working with.” Isaac still didn’t move, and Anton rolled his eyes. “You do not scare me, de la Cruz.”
“I should.” But he let Anton move his hand, opening his mouth as Anton leaned in and stared into his maw with something like curiosity.
“Fascinating,” Anton muttered, finally releasing him and stepping back. The distance wasn’t much, but the extra foot or two of space allowed Isaac a small bit of comfort. “Is that what you saw my sister about?”
“You could say that.” Isaac raked his hand through his hair, twisting his fingers in the locks until pain skittered across his scalp.
Pulling it back, he stared at his own flesh.
Was it a trick of the light or did his nails look sharper, more claw-like, ready to rend flesh apart with a simple press of his fingers?
He blinked and it was gone, a figment of his imagination. There was only him and Anton, who still looked at him like he was the one who was hungry.
“I overheard you,” the man admitted. “At Celeste’s.”
Isaac should have felt betrayed, cut deep by the fact that Anton still didn’t trust him, not fully.
But all he felt was relief, the knowledge that he did not have to carry this burden alone.
And though it pained him to admit it, he told Anton the entire truth—the terrors he had unlocked in his own body, the changes that could not be rolled back, the monster that was yet to come and the hunger that was driving him to madness.
The vampire that waited, deep in his skin, for a chance to break free.
“So, what are you doing, then, for your hunger?” Anton asked with a careless shrug, as if it was something simple. And if he could just go and requisition some blood, buy it as casually as bread from the baker.
“Nothing,” Isaac snarled, his voice twisting into something low and inhuman, reverberating in a way that would have sent anyone with sense scrambling, “and you damn well know why!”
But Anton was not a man with sense, not when there was something to be gained—and oh, how like his sister he was, the bloody fool.
“Because you’re afraid,” Anton challenged.
“I—” Isaac cut himself off, because the asshole was right.
He was afraid. Afraid of what more blood would do to him, of what he would find in the mirror when it was done.
Afraid that this was a path as brutal and dark as the one he had walked at the Eternal King’s side but that would leave him even more destroyed. “Shouldn’t I be afraid?”
Anton stepped closer. “No, you should not be. The Eternal Bastard should be. The Blood Workers who make our lives living hell should be. Cause you, Isaac, are the very thing we’ve been looking for.”
“You cannot—”
“You said you wanted to help the rebellion, you said you wanted to prove yourself,” Anton interrupted, speaking with a fervor that shook Isaac to his core.
This was not the fop he had hated for so many years.
This was something else entirely—the man lit up from within, burning with a righteousness that was breathtaking to behold.
Though he had but an audience of one, Isaac knew that he could bring an entire nation to its knees.
This was a man who could break Aeravin and build it back up again, if only he had the opportunity to. And he was right. Isaac could grant him that opportunity.
All he had to do was feed.
“So,” Anton breathed, “is one little kill really so bad?”
Isaac crept along the shadows of Dameral, head ducked low as he wove through the midnight silence.
The streets were empty of pedestrians, which should have been odd at this hour, when most would be making their way from whatever revelries they indulged in.
Carriages and hacks still rattled by, wheels clattering on cobblestones, carrying the Blood Workers home, leaving behind the Unblooded workers who would spend the next hours cleaning up after their messes.
All of this emptiness could be traced right back to the choices Isaac had made, and the consequences he had never stopped to consider.
He forced himself to not think about it as he slipped deeper into the night, minutes slipping away like grains of sand through his fingers as he crossed the capital, heading to the home of one Miss Arena.
A Blood Worker who had been in the King’s personal cohort, plucked from the Academy upon graduation nearly a decade ago, crueler than all the rest. Resentful that he—an upstart, a child, a nobody, a foreigner—had been elevated over her.
She might not have been a Lady, too far down in the line of inheritance to ever hope to claim a title, but her lineage and her ability to track her heritage back to the founding of the country made her far better than he could ever hope to be.
She had made his life a living hell, undercutting him at every opportunity, whispering harsh little cruelties in his ear as she tried to murder him under the weight of a thousand cuts.
He had always been the monster, only now it was becoming apparent on his skin, in the blood that he needed to quench this endless thirst. But for every bit of his humanity that he shed, he would grow stronger. And with that strength, perhaps he could find atonement.
He just needed to accept it.
Isaac slipped around towards the service entrance at the back, his steps quick and silent.
The household had already turned in for the night, the lights dimmed low through the windows, and if he listened carefully enough, he could hear the steady, unbothered beats of hearts at rest. He pressed the tip of his tongue to the air, looking for the too-familiar taste of magic, but there were no wards to be found.
No, Arena was just as much of a fool as the rest of them, believing their power and privilege were enough to keep them safe. It was time that they learned the truth. Safety was an illusion, and Isaac would prove it to them.
From his position, he could see the balcony above him, a good three stories off the ground. Whether it offered entrance to a bedroom or a study did not matter—what he needed first was to get into the townhouse, and as he traced the growth of ivy over the trellis, he realized that was his way in.
It took nothing to press his tongue against his sharpened teeth, the blood flowing immediately into his waiting mouth. It tasted off, but the power still rushed through him—he was stronger, lighter, faster. He was more than human, more powerful than even a Blood Worker, but not quite a vampire.
Something that he did not know how to contemplate.
But he launched himself at the trellis, fingers hooking in the crisscross of the metal, the crisp, dark smell of the ivy filling his nose as the plants bruised under his grip.
He climbed quickly, hand over hand as he pulled himself up the side of the building, not giving the trellis even a second to buckle under his weight, vaulting up and over the edge of the balcony in a matter of seconds.
He crouched low, his pulse racing in his ears, as his brain caught up with what his body had done.
And he realized the absurdity of his plan, which was only eclipsed by the fact that it had worked.
But there he was, creeping in the shadows on the balcony off Miss Arena’s bedroom, slinking towards the glass door, glancing towards the sleeping form on the bed.
He could hear the steady beat of her heart—she was deeply asleep, and as she shifted in bed, he could feel the hunger rise, his throat clenching and his mouth watering.
Carefully, quietly, he stepped forward, the glass door sliding easily under his touch, letting him enter the home with ease.
It was everything he had expected from one of them—oversized furniture made of dark oak, each piece featuring delicate engraving that must have cost a fortune.
The moonlight illuminated the hand-painted wallpaper and the large mirror that was bolted above the dresser, wrapped in a gold frame.
Arena lay on sheets of silk, curled up on her side and her golden hair spilling around her, looking strangely peaceful.
A bedroom fit for a princess, and here he was, ready to ruin it. To ruin her .
Blood and steel, she really was a fool. A simple ward wouldn’t have stopped him, but it would have been enough to wake her, to allow her to fight back or escape. A lock would have offered similar protection. But there was nothing.
Nothing to stop him from wrapping his hand around her mouth, the tips of fingers pressing into her skin, almost like claws.
Arena woke with a start, twisting under his grip, a scream trapped against his skin.
Her hands flew to scrabble at his wrist, desperately struggling, but he was too strong for that.
With the power of the blood he had absorbed, with the changes he had unwittingly wrought upon himself, there was nothing that Arena could do to fight him.
He just pushed her down, pressing her face into the pillow.
She whimpered against his palm, her eyes wide as recognition ran through her.
But Isaac didn’t give her a chance to speak, didn’t relax his grip on her.
There would be no reasoning, no begging, no chance for her to cry for help.
Just the dark satisfaction that she recognized the man who would kill her and that there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
It seemed almost just, for every little barb she had thrown his way when they moved in the same circles. For the cruelties she had been born to, and then excelled at. For the way she had never, once, been moved to help those she exploited.
Leaning in, he pressed his mouth against the smooth expanse of her throat, almost like a kiss, but he opened his mouth at the last second. His fangs slipped through her flesh, smoother than any cut he had ever made with a claw, and the fresh taste of blood exploded across his tongue.
It rushed through him with all the burn of a good whisky, but instead of muddling his senses, he felt so much sharper. Her very life force flowed into him as he pressed down harder, the force of it causing her very bones to shatter under his grip, but he ignored her whimpers as he drank and drank.
He could see them, in the mirror, the moon illuminating the grisly scene.
Him hunching over her like a beast, Arena struggling valiantly, though her attempts grew weaker with each passing moment.
The clear and stark movement of his own throat with each swallow, the way her body collapsed a little more with each pull, her vitality drained away, leaving her withered and empty.
It was like watching the Eternal King on the Spring Solstice, except that he had become the monster he had always hated. But with his mouth full of blood and his body singing with the power it gave him, he couldn’t bring himself to stop.
Not until he had every drop that Arena could give him, and she lay dead and desecrated on silk sheets.
He wrenched himself away from her corpse, his teeth tearing through her flesh, leaving a gaping wound. Rocking back on his heels, he wiped the last drops of blood from his lips with the back of his hand.
And felt so wonderfully alive.