Chapter 7: Bloodlust

Claude’s POV

“No,” Oriana’s voice had contorted into something unfamiliar.

The walls around him began to shake as her blue eyes became completely black, even the whites of her eye succumbed to pure darkness. It was a monstrous expression that he had never seen before. The closest being his mother, Eva’s, face when she fought Sekhmet’s bloodthirst.

Oriana, however, lacked the centuries of control and experience that her grandmother had before she was gifted the ancestral power. Claude knew that it was a last-second desperate attempt to save both Oriana and her mother, Astrid, twenty years ago. It was successful, but no one knew what it would mean later.

Even with godlike powers of destruction, he never anticipated that she could lose control like that. His precious niece distorting into something akin to a demon. Before Claude could say, “wait, we’ll find another way,” the ceiling of his apartment came caving in. Instead, he could only shout her name in shock as he was buried.

He could hear shouting from the units above him, a deafening crack and crumble as the ceiling and rubble came crashing down on him. It knocked the breath out of him briefly as he pushed through the wreckage.

Dust coated his back, the side of his face slick with his blood. In the distance, he could see a mass of curly hair sprinting through the alleyway. He shouted Oriana’s name again, but his head reeled. Ouch. When he looked back again, she was gone.

His legs wobbled underneath him, and he could only mutter, “Shit,” under his breath before collapsing in temporary pain. He grumbled, gripping his side. This was bad. This was really bad.

Thankfully, none of his neighbors had fallen into the chasm that formed through the side of the apartment building. No one else seemed hurt aside from him, but he still had to get out of there before the police came.

The cell phone was coated with a powdering of dust and insulation but seemed just fine. He needed to call Rowan. At least if Oriana was with him, she would have been safe.

But by herself?

This city is full of people that wanted to take their pound of flesh.

Claude dialed his brother, and he picked up after a few rings.

“Claude?” Rowan asked, seemingly surprised that he called.

“Hey,” Claude huffed, still gritting through the pain that tore up his side.

“What’s going on? You sound off.”

“Yeah, I sound off. Your daughter just destroyed my apartment,” he ground out between his teeth, grabbing his jacket and wallet to evade the scene.

“Of course, she’s with you. Hang on, I’m going to put you on speakerphone-”

“I’d really rather not talk to Astrid right-” Claude tried to say.

“Oriana is in New York? Why didn’t you call us?” Astrid shouted, sounding very angry.

“Hi, Astrid,” Claude greeted insincerely. “Well, maybe I didn’t call you because she asked me not to.”

“You still should’ve!”

Great, now they’re going to fight again with Rowan as the mediator.

“And betray her trust like that? No, sorry,” Claude scoffed.

Claude heard Astrid grind her teeth from over the phone before replying, “Then why are you calling now?”

“Because, you sent out a fucking notice that might as well have said, ‘Free-for-all.’ What were you thinking?”

The phone was quiet before Rowan replied, “We thought it might be a good incentive.”

“For who, exactly?” Claude spat. “I live in New York, okay? Do you know who else is here? Lycanthropes. You know, the same pack that our mother drove out of Italy a few centuries ago? Did I mention the Vivace’s migrated here after our family executed half of theirs?” Claude reminded them under his breath as he slipped down the fire escape.

Again, silence.

“Did you really not expect her to come and visit me? God, you don’t know her at all! I could have kept her safe until she was ready to go back. But no! You had to try and pressure a full-grown woman to go back home. No wonder she freaked out on me.”

“She’s safer at home, you know that,” Rowan said.

“And a bird is safer in a cage,” Claude retorted. “You remember how much you hated being at home. Hated being under our mother’s thumb. Well, guess what, she’s your daughter, Rowan.”

“I know she doesn’t like it, but we still don’t know the full extent of her powers. We don’t know what her lifespan will be, if she’s invulnerable. She’s not ready-”

Claude cut Astrid off. “Frankly, I don’t give a fuck what your reasons are for smothering her. But you put her in deep water and I’m the one who is going to get her out of it.”

Claude hung up the phone. Those two were insufferable. He saw firetrucks pull out in front of his building and turned the corner, trying to find which alleyway Oriana went down. All the smells in New York were so muddled together that all it did was confuse his nose.

*****

Oriana’s POV

My heart thudded loudly in my ears, my throat burning as if I was starving. God, I was so thirsty. So depleted. I couldn’t keep running, my legs wobbling as the breath was taken out of me. I panted, exhausted. My back hit the wall near the side of a dumpster. I slid down to the ground, my face buried in my hands.

My teeth were still out, that ravenous hunger had a hold on me, like a fist around my throat. I clawed up and down my neck, trying to find some sort of release but I couldn’t find any.

That outburst took a lot out of me. It was so powerful it felt like it ripped a piece of my soul from me or stamped it down into submission. My chest shook, my fingertips trembling.

I knew I was far from Claude’s now, but I also had no idea where I was. Fire escapes and skyscrapers. This maze of backways all looked the same.

Where was my phone? My hands shook violently as I felt in my pockets, but I couldn’t feel anything. Shit. I reached into my inner pocket and found my envelope of cash. At least I still had that to keep me afloat for a while.

My temples pounded, an awful headache accompanying the thickness in my throat. I buried my face behind my knees, begging the awful feeling to go away. I was a prisoner to my own body.

“Hey, what’s a little lady like you doing in a place like this?” a strange man asked, approaching me.

I usually would’ve smelled a human approach me, but my head was throbbing so bad that I couldn’t differentiate the smells from one another. I didn’t answer the man, my arms wrapping around myself in tight restraint. Go away. Just go away.

“Don’t you hear us talking to you, girl?” another voice said.

So, there was more than one.

My shoulders bristled, as the scents got closer to me. My throat ached. I needed to feed. While I felt exhausted, my body still trembled in retained power. I glanced up at the two men approaching me. I felt the control stretch thin. The control that I barely had a grip on to begin with.

“She looks all tweaked out, doesn’t she?” one of the guys laughed.

“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave me alone,” I spat, a growl forming like a bubble in my chest. Fizzing. Boiling toward the surface.

I was answered by a cacophony of cruel laughter. “What do you think? Do you think she’ll put up a fight?”

“I doubt she’ll even remember anything,” the other guy answered.

They talked for a moment about what was going to happen to me. What they were going to do to me. It was like I wasn’t even there. I was only a thing. An object. Something easy to play with.

“Feed, child.” A voice inside of me spoke. It wasn’t in a familiar language, but I knew what she was saying. “Sate your bloodlust.”

I felt helpless against the desires in my own body. The power crackled like a hungry flame. Just as one of the men reached out to me, I didn’t feel afraid anymore. My arm shot out, shooting through the man’s chest like it was tissue paper. He fell to the ground with a heavy thud.

The delectable scent of blood filled my nose as I stood up, my eyes met the other man. The one who laughed. The one that suggested horrible things. He didn’t even have time to scream as my teeth tore through his throat. This awful rage poured out of me. The desire to destroy.

I drank greedily, filling that horrible hungry hole in my chest.

The more I sated my bloodlust, the more everything came back into focus again. My head stopped hurting; my body stopped trembling. I could smell my surroundings with complete focus.

“Hey!” I heard another voice shout from down the alleyway.

The scent of wet dog just on the tip of my nose. My eyes looked up and I saw a group of people running toward me. I had to run. I ripped my teeth out of the dead man’s throat and bolted down the alleyway.