Page 40 of Lord of Ruin (The Age of Blood #2)

He leaned forward, bent at the waist so that his forehead touched the floor, his nose pressed into the curtains as he took deep, steadying breaths. As he swallowed down every instinct that commanded him to find another, then, if Anton wouldn’t suit for a snack.

But he had fed enough for one night, had wandered far enough down this path. This was power, yes, but he wouldn’t let it control him. He was still a man, and if he had to fight his own existence to stay that way, he would.

He remained hunched over as the nightmarish appendages receded—wings sinking back into his back with a sickening crunch, jaw snapping back in place as the tongue and fangs withdrew, blunt fingertips pressed against the wounds he had made in his own skin.

As he was—blissfully, finally—mostly mortal again.

But the monster still lingered under his skin. He could feel it waiting, lurking, and it wouldn’t take much of anything to call it back to the surface. And, with just a little more power, another Blood Worker or two, he would transform again.

And Isaac didn’t know if he would be able to come back from it.

Anton knelt down beside him, his hand brushing through Isaac’s hair in a soothing motion. Isaac melted into it, turning his face towards the man, only to realize that he was crying.

Mourning the man he had been, the man he hadn’t intended to lose.

“What did you call me?” Isaac managed to ask, his voice low and rasping in his throat. Not a vampire—no, something else. Something different.

Something… worse?

Anton didn’t hesitate, didn’t flinch, and Isaac was thankful for it. It wouldn’t be a kindness to hide it from him. “Manananggal.”

Isaac tested the word on his lips, shaping over the syllables. He had heard it before, years ago, but it hovered just out of reach, a dream dissipating upon waking. “What does that mean?”

“It’s a myth, not too different from Aeravin’s vampires,” Anton said, rocking back on his heels.

Isaac rolled on his back, still hurting in ways that he didn’t have words for, wrapping the curtain across his chest to cover his nudity—blood and steel, he’d need to get another binder. But that was tomorrow’s problem.

Today, he had to reckon with whatever truths Anton was able to share with him.

“Tell me more about this myth,” Isaac breathed. “Please.”

Anton looked away, unable to meet Isaac’s eyes, but that was fine.

Isaac didn’t need to see the pity written in his expression, or the fear that coursed through him.

“My mother, before she left, used to tell us myths from her homeland, and I always loved hearing about the monsters, the nightmares, the things in the dark that mothers used to scare their children into behaving.”

Anton laughed, softly. “It never worked on me, you know. Perhaps it was because I already lived with a monster in our home, haunting our hallways.”

A rush of sympathy ran through him. Despite the antagonism they once shared, Isaac had seen the horrors that the late Lord LeClaire had inflicted on them with the quiet way Shan would withdraw, disappearing for days at a time to handle family affairs before returning to the Academy, drained and exhausted.

At the time, he had cursed her father for it, had done all that he could to help her keep up with her classes. But looking back on it now, he wondered how much of it was the beginnings of her network, the birth of a Sparrow.

Another secret between them.

But this moment was about Anton, and for whatever reason, the man was helping him now. Offering him explanations for horrors it would have been easier to turn away from. “I didn’t realize you knew so much of the Tagalan Islands.”

“I don’t know that much,” Anton said, with a derisive little laugh. “Only what I’ve been able to teach myself with books, the bits and pieces of the language that I am sure I am butchering.” Tilting his head to the side, he looked at Isaac for confirmation.

As if he would know. “I don’t know much more about the language than you do,” Isaac admitted, though it felt a little like plucking at scar tissue, a dull ache that wasn’t quite pain.

He never blamed his parents for it. At a certain level, he even understood it.

They had done it with all the best of intentions, but it still was a loss he could never recover from.

“And probably less of the history and myths. My parents never spoke about it around me, they feared it would hamper my success, make me more…”

Saying it out loud was somehow more painful than his monstrous transformation had been, but he needed Anton to understand. “They did not want me isolated more than I already would be.”

“Ah.” Anton rubbed his eyes. “You don’t need to say more. And maybe they were right. You did manage to make it to Royal Blood Worker, after all.”

It was Isaac’s turn to huff. “For a little while, for what little good it was worth. And now, I’m becoming a monster out of their myths. My parents would be so proud.”

He could almost see it, the worried way they would take this news. The way his mother would stare at him, not in fear of what he had become, but in fear of how Aeravin would treat him for it. They had given so much for his future, had sacrificed everything, and this was how he repaid them.

“The manananggal is a monster,” Anton confirmed, “that feeds on the blood of the innocent.”

“A vampire,” Isaac muttered, closing his eyes. “It doesn’t seem so different then.”

“Yes,” Anton admitted, “and no. Both the vampire and the manananggal feed on humans, yes. But there…” He gestured. “The wings, the claws, the tongue—the manananggal feeds on viscera and flesh as well as the blood. And…”

Anton’s hand dropped to his stomach, pressed hard against it, like he was trying to keep himself from being sick. “That’s not all.”

“Oh,” Isaac said, in a poor attempt at levity. “It gets worse?”

Anton’s grim frown was a terrible thing, and it made Isaac swallow any future quips. “What makes the manananggal unique among the vampiric myths can be found in the name itself. It translates, basically, to one who separates itself .”

Anton reached out, pulling back the curtain that Isaac shrouded himself in.

Drew shockingly warm fingers across Isaac’s stomach, pressing through the pelt of dark hair to the skin beneath.

“I’m not even sure you noticed it, the tear here, the way your…

” Anton choked out the next word, “ innards were slipping through.”

Acid rose in the back of Isaac’s throat as comprehension hit.

Anton was right, with all the other things that happened to his body, he hadn’t even noticed it, didn’t think to look down and check when he was grappling with wings and claws and tongue, driven by a hunger that he did not want to acknowledge. “I did not notice.”

“Well,” Anton pulled his hand away. “It was the start of it, but you’re not fully there yet.

The manananggal can split itself in two.

” He pressed his hands together, fists stacked on top of each other, then pulled them apart.

“The legs remain behind, a vulnerability, but the top half flies free, entrails trailing behind it, as it hunts through the night for its food. Strong, near indestructible, as long as it can be rejoined with its bottom half.”

Isaac wet his lips, sat up as he thought it through, as the possibilities opened dark and tempting. He shouldn’t be considering it, this coolly calculated brand of terror, but the option was too sweet to resist. “We can use this.”

Anton flicked his gaze to Isaac, a quick look of pleased surprise, and Isaac wondered if this had been his game all along, if he had been played.

It didn’t matter, this was excellent, actually, if they were going to find a way to bring the Eternal King and his entire rotten system crashing to the ground.

“I would not have asked it of you,” Anton demurred, carefully, and Isaac bit back the knowing smile that threatened.

“I am volunteering,” Isaac stressed, because that is what he would have said to Shan, the kind of game he was used to playing, but this time, it would be the Blood Workers that suffered. “If I am going to be a monster, I might as well be a useful one.”

Something strange flickered across Anton’s expression, there and gone again before Isaac could comment on it. Anton rose to his feet, held out a hand to help pull Isaac up. “There is much to plan then. Strategic strikes we can make.”

Isaac nodded. “But I think I’ll need a few more shirts and binders.”

Anton shrugged, that easy affability back. “I can get you those, as well as some books on Tagalan history, if you would like it.”

It was a bit of a distraction at this stage, Isaac knew that, but he couldn’t resist the temptation. The gaps in his own history were too painful to ignore, and besides, if there was anything there that could help him master this new gift, he couldn’t ignore it. “I’ll take whatever you can find.”

Anton took him by the hand, gave it a quick squeeze. “Then I’ll get them. I’ve got you, Isaac.”