Undress Me
Him
The light behind the curtains changed just enough to shift the tone of the room.
It’s morning.
I don’t sleep anymore. I rest, eyes closed while my mind gnaws on itself.
Her blood still clung to my tongue.
I sat up slowly. The sheets slipped from my chest, pooling at my hips. My body ached from hunger. A deeper kind of need, rooted in something old and foul and laced with her scent.
I frowned, looking down at my skin. I had never been this hungry again so fast. Usually a feeding every few days would have enough.
My limbs were stiff from lying too long in the dark. The moment I stood, pain spiked behind my eyes. My mouth filled with the taste of ash and blood, my fangs sliding out with a quiet click.
I braced myself on the side table, jaw clenched as I forced myself to hold on to conciousness. My body had gone taut. My gums throbbed. The craving was unbearable. Not for food and not just for blood.
Her.
She had broken something in me. That weak little thing, so fragile I could crush her with one hand, and still, I could think of no one else. Her blood was a curse
I’d chosen to drink. Now it pulsed through me like the heartbeat I had lost all those years ago.
The pain sharpened. My tongue felt thick. My skin itched from the inside out.
I reached for the brass bell on the table, rang it once and threw it across the room. It shattered with a satisfying crash. Loxer arrived a second later, unnervingly silent. His eyes went to the broken bell, then to me.
“Bring her,” I said, my voice hoarse with restraint. “Now.”
He bowed and vanished, as he always did.
I moved toward the bath, every step a calculated decision and incredibly difficult. I felt as if I could no longer trust my body. It was too reactive, too consumed.
The bath was already full and steam curled off the surface.
The mirror caught me in its glass and I looked like death. Like something barely held together. My skin was pale and cracked around the mouth.
I started to undress, but my hands shook. The buttons refused to cooperate, and I gripped the edge of the counter hard enough to crack the marble beneath my fingers.
I would have to get it replaced. Again.
The pain was getting worse, and if I didn’t have her soon, I was going to break something, or someone.
The door opened.
I turned, slowly, body thrumming with tension. Loxer stepped in, dragging her beside him. She looked smaller than I remembered. Pale, trembling, eyes darting around the room like she was already searching for an exit.
Her scent hit me like fire. I barely resisted the urge to lunge.
Her pulse jumped. I could see it, feel it, in the line of her throat. Her fear was a delicate wine, and I was dying of thirst.
I stepped forward. She stepped back.
Smart girl.
Loxer raised an eyebrow. “Your Majesty, would you—”
“Leave us.”
He hesitated. I glared.
He bowed and as the door closed, she turned toward it, mouth open like she meant to call for help. No sound came because she knew it was pointless.
I let the silence stretch before speaking. “Undress me.”
Her eyes shot to mine, then to the floor.
I tilted my head. “Now.”
She approached with that trembling grace, hands hovering before they found the hem of my shirt. Her fingers brushed the fabric and my breath caught.
She worked through the buttons, one by one. I could hear her heartbeat in every motion. She slid the shirt off my shoulders. Her knuckles dragged over my skin, and my vision blackened at the edges.
Her eyes dropped, lingering.
I watched the flicker of hesitation in her eyes as she took in my chest. As she took in each jagged scar, every old wound etched like a map of wars survived.
She didn’t flinch. She stared, almost transfixed, her gaze trailing the line of a claw mark that slashed across my ribs, then down to the bite near my hip.
She was curious, fascinated. I hated how much I wanted her to touch them.
I bent forward, my mouth near hers, listening to the way her breath hitched.
She smelled like surrender and the control I’d clung to all night frayed like old rope. “Keep going.”
She hesitated. “You want me to—”
“Yes.”
Her fingers found my waistband. I growled deep in my chest, reached for her, pulled her against me. Her face turned to the side to avoid my fangs, but that was a mistake.
It exposed her neck.
I pressed my mouth to her pulse, breathing in the scent I could no longer resist. Her skin was warm, her blood just beneath the surface.
She squealed when my fangs grazed her and shoved against me with her tiny hands. I wanted her more than she wanted my touch, and that had never happened to me before.
I had never craved a single human so much. That would be a weakness, and if I fed from her now, I would drain her completely.
I shoved her hard.
She let out a sharp scream as her body hit the floor and slid across the stone, her thin shift dragging with her until her spine slammed against the cabinet. Her breath left her in a wheeze. She looked up at me with wide, stunned eyes, one hand cradling the back of her head.
I wanted her gone in that moment and yet I couldn’t stop looking at her. Couldn’t stop thinking about her blood and the way her scent had ruined me. I didn’t know why I thought I could be near her. I was unraveling.
She stared at me from the floor, cheeks flushing a violent red. Her eyes dropped, then snapped back up as if scorched, and she scrambled to her feet with a muttered gasp, fleeing the bathroom without a word.
I let out a short, humorless laugh.
I stepped into the tub, lowering myself into the scalding water. My hands steadied. My breath evened. The edge of my madness blurred, but it didn’t vanish. This relief was temporary.
I had tasted thousands, but none like her.
I stayed there, gripping the sides of the porcelain until the worst of the hunger passed. Just enough to keep from killing her.
Eventually, I rose, water dripping from my skin in rivulets. I stepped into the chamber, hair still damp and plastered to my neck, skin still dripping. She was there, standing with hands clenched at her sides.
Her eyes widened the moment she saw me; naked, wet. The sound she made was barely audible, but it tightened something in my chest. She looked away, flushing furiously.
I stalked forward.
She retreated, step by step, heart racing. I tilted my head, watching the blood rise in her cheeks, crawling down her chest.
“What’s your name?” I asked, the words coming out before I even cared to think them through.
She didn’t answer, just shook her head, mouth tight with fear.
I clicked my tongue. “Come on. What’s your name?”
“I—Why am I here?” Her voice barely reached me.
I tilted my head, containing the growl in the back of my throat. She wouldn’t answer me but expected me to answer her?
“You’re here because I’ll be feeding from you,” I said, the words out of my mouth too fast, too easily. The hunger was clawing at the edge of my restraint, yes, but I let her deflect. I let her get away with it.
Her face twisted, horror, confusion, disbelief curling in her features, and she stumbled back another step, shaking her head like denial would free her.
“Why?” she breathed, voice trembling like grass in the wind.
I stepped closer, until my breath stirred the loose hair by her ear, until I could taste the pulse of her panic in the space between us. “Your blood is mine.”