~Zeldris
The silence accompanying the aftermath was almost cruel.
Even the wind had gone quiet.
Zeldris lay still, half-buried in the dirt and heat and sweat, his body marked by claws and teeth, by touch and something far more damning...desire.
He watched the blood moon, its crimson light spilled across the ruins like a wound torn open in the sky. It pulsed, slow and patient. Watching him back.
Taunting.
His breath came in shallow pants, chest rising and falling as he fought to piece himself back together. But every inch of him was still on fire. Stretched thin. Used. And maddeningly…sated.
What had just happened?
He should have been raging. Should have reached for his magic and reduced the beast to bone and ash.
But instead…
He shivered.
Not from fear. No, never that.
It was something else.
Something he didn't quite have a name for.
His fingers curled into the dirt, clawing at the earth in an attempt to ground himself. His magic coiled within him, unpredictable, feral...reacting, not with wrath, but want.
That was what terrified him most.
He could still taste the beast. On his lips. On his skin. In the spaces between his thoughts.
Zeldris hissed, dragging himself into a sitting position. His muscles protested. His pride did too.
His ruined armor lay scattered around him like a fallen crown.
He pressed trembling fingers to his mouth... blood. His own blood. Not from violence. From a kiss.
A kiss.
He'd let someone touch him. No. Not someone.
Something.
Zeldris's jaw clenched, his eyes scanned the darkness. But the beast was gone. As if it had never been there at all. No pawprints. No scent trail. No silhouette in the trees.
It had taken what it wanted.
And disappeared.
Leaving him like this.
Ravaged...Reeling...Ruined.
He laughed then. A dark, rough sound that cracked in the back of his throat.
"I let it happen," he whispered.
He had not just let it, he invited it.
Welcomed it.
He didn't recognize the thing inside him that had begged for more.
He had always been in control.
Of his body, his magic, his kingdom, his cravings.
But tonight had torn him open. Unmade him in silence and moonlight.
And now… there was something new stirring in his chest.
It wasn't rage.
It wasn't shame.
It wasn't even lust.
It was something alarmingly close to obsession.
He'd been chosen, hunted, taken.
And the beast hadn't even had the decency to tell him its name.
Zeldris rose to his feet slowly, his body aching in ways it hadn't since his first war. He gathered the shreds of what remained of his clothing, draping them around himself in vain. He was still bare.
Still marked.
Still waiting for something he couldn't name to come back and finish what it started.
He looked to the sky one last time.
The blood moon was fading.
But the hunger it birthed?
That would not.
And the haze hadn't lifted, not fully.
It still clung to him like smoke, sulfur and musk and sweat. His magic hissed beneath his skin, volatile, hungry. Every nerve in his body was still tuned to it. The weight. The scent. The presence.
Gone.
No. He couldn't have that!
He needed an answer and he needed it now. The beast couldn't have gone far.
Zeldris dashed forward.
The blood moon pulsed above, dimmer now, but still red enough to poison the world with heat and madness. He stumbled through the broken clearing, sniffing the air like an animal, magic flaring wildly from his palms.
"Where..." His voice cracked. "Where are you?"
The ground was clawed, grass torn. He dropped to his knees, tracing his fingers through the marks.
They were fresh. Deep.
And very much real.
It hadn't been a vision. It was no dream. He wasn't mad. He wasn't.
Zeldris pressed his palm to the earth and whispered a summoning word in a language older than kings. Shadows bled from his fingertips, rippling out in a ring...searching.
Nothing.
No scent. No trail. No echo of soul.
It was as if the beast had never existed.
His lips curled into a snarl. "Coward."
His voice trembled, not with fear, but need.
He stood, spinning in a slow circle, magic spiking in jagged bursts from his aura. "You can't run from me. Not now. Not after what you did."
His hand shot toward a tree, splitting it in half with a sharp twist of his fingers.
Still nothing.
Zeldris was panting now, chest rising with wild frustration. He tilted his head back and screamed, his tone raw and guttural, not a king's sound but a creature's.
He'd been touched, claimed, unmade.
And then discarded.
It was intolerable.
He dragged the torn collar of his cloak tighter around his throat, but he could still feel it, the traces of hot breath against his nape. The weight of powerful limbs. The way he'd arched up into it like a whore in heat.
No one had ever made him feel like that.
He wanted to see it again. Wanted to kill it. Or kiss it. Or let it tear him apart properly this time.
His lips parted around another summoning spell. But the magic fizzled uselessly. The blood moon was dying. And with it, the link.
Zeldris dropped to his knees again.
This time, he didn't rise.
Not yet.
His hand pressed to the clawed dirt. "You don't get to disappear," he murmured, voice hoarse. "You don't get to haunt me."
But the truth churned bitterly in his throat.
The beast had not only taken him. It had unwritten itself.
As if it knew he'd come looking.
As if it wanted him to.
Zeldris closed his eyes. The blood moon was almost gone.
But it didn't matter.
The hunt had already begun... his own hunt.
He remained crouched in the soil long after the mystery of the blood moon passed.
Night fell flat around him, the sky bloated with stars that dared to twinkle. The blood moon had retreated behind the mountains like a god ashamed of its own indulgence.
The haze was gone now, burned out by adrenaline and fury, but its residue lingered in Zeldris's chest.
It wasn't just heat anymore.
It was ache.
A terrible, clenching ache that made his ribs feel too tight for his body. His own scent was tainted, laced with another's musk, impossible to scrub out no matter how many times he dragged claws down his arms or lit fire in his veins.
He had never been taken before.
Not like that.
Not without name, without warning, without choice.
And yet, he hadn't fought. Not truly.
That was the part he couldn't stomach.
He had bared his throat. He had reached back, not forward. And gods, he wanted it again. Not just the violence or heat, but the weight of it. The way the beast had held him, like he was theirs. Like he had always been.
Zeldris shoved himself up, staggering toward the dying embers of a fire he hadn't lit. A hallucination? A vision? No. He didn't believe in delusions. Not when the bruises were real. Not when his body still pulsed with aftershocks.
And his mind...
His mind betrayed him worse than his body ever could.
Every blink conjured flashes:
Of glowing gold eyes, maddened with want.
Of a snarl pressed against his ear.
Of teeth grazing his throat, but never breaking skin.
Of restraint...Power.
His lips parted around a breath, and it shivered out of him, too close to a whimper.
He was Zeldris. King of the Nyxborn. Nightmare. The Devourer.
And he'd been held like something precious. Ruined like something claimed.
He turned sharply, shadows swarming behind him like faithful hounds. "Find it," he ordered the void, though he knew they wouldn't.
"Find it and drag it to me."
No answer.
No ripple of energy. No glimpse of the beast.
Zeldris closed his eyes, jaws clenched so tightly it hurt.
This wasn't over.
He would scour every cursed territory until he found the creature that had made him feel. He'd demand its name. Its purpose. Its reason for leaving.
And if it refused him?
He'd tear it apart.
Or let it tear him apart again.
Because ancients help him...he didn't know which he wanted more.