The dreams were always red since I was born.
They were not the red of a sunset, a sight I had only read about in ancient, crumbling texts, but the red of a freshly opened vein, pulsing and hot. I woke with the taste of copper on my tongue and the phantom sensation of silk sliding against my skin. My heart wasn't beating; it was thudding, a frantic, irregular rhythm that hammered against my ribs like a caged bird. I sat up, the fine linen sheets tangling around my legs. The air in my chambers was frigid, the fire in the hearth having died down to a few glowing embers, yet I was slick with a cold, feverish sweat.
He is here, the Wolf whispered, its voice a jagged rasp in the back of my mind.
He is close, the Succubus hummed, a vibration of pure, unadulterated hunger that made the tips of my fingers ache.
I gripped the edge of the mattress, my knuckles white. "No," I breathed, the word a puff of silver mist in the dark, but the beast within me, the tripartite monster I called a soul, wasn't listening to logic. It was focused on the balcony, and it was pulled toward the glass doors by an invisible, magnetic thread. There was a presence outside, a frequency so sharp and familiar that it cut through the heavy, alchemical fog of my masking wash like a diamond through glass.
Elias Thorne was out there, lurking in the shadows of the Citadel like a common thief. My internal Vampire hissed, its hunger spiked by the proximity of his vibrant, wolf-born life force. The Succubus roared, wanting to draw him in, to feast on the confusion and desire I knew were clouding his mind, and the wolf simply wanted to claim its territory.
I stood up, my movements jerky and uncoordinated. I didn't reach for my robe at first; I simply walked toward the glass, drawn by a compulsion I could no longer fight. I felt raw and exposed. The alchemical layers I had applied before the feast had worn thin, and without them, I felt as though my very skin were vibrating.
I pushed open the heavy glass doors, and the night air hit me like a physical blow, a wall of ice that should have chilled my blood but instead felt like a beckoning hand. I stepped out onto the stone balcony, my bare feet flinching against the frosted masonry.
The Citadel was silent, a graveyard of white stone. Below me, the drop to the jagged cliffs was a dizzying plunge into obsidian, but I didn't look down. I looked out, my amber eyes now bleeding into that forbidden, shimmering violet, scanning the shadows of the buttresses twenty feet below.
He was a patch of deeper darkness against the grey stone. He was perfectly still, a master of the hunt, but to my heightened senses, he was as loud as a scream. I could hear the frantic, rhythmic thrum of his heart. I could smell the salt of his skin, the pine of the woods he had run through, and that sharp, metallic scent of a Thorne wolf, a scent that should have signalled an enemy, but instead felt like an answer.
I gripped the stone railing, my fingers digging into the frost. The Succubus within me surged, a violent wave of heat that made me want to vault over the railing, to drop down into the shadows and press him against the stone until our heartbeats merged. I wanted to see his face. I wanted to know if he was looking at me with hatred or with the same terrifying, soul-deep recognition that was currently tearing me apart.
Go to him, the beasts chanted in a dissonant choir. Let him see. Let him touch. Let the mask break.
My breath came in ragged, shallow hitches. I was the Crown Prince of Athelgard. I was the symbol of Purity. If I went to him now, in this state, with my eyes glowing and my nature leaking into the wind, I would be handing him the torch to my own pyre. Elias didn't move, but I felt the moment his gaze locked onto me. The air between us seemed to ionize, thick with a psychic static that made the hair on my arms stand up. He was watching me, inhaling me, and I bet he was discovering the monster in the moonlight, and he wasn't running away.
The temptation to call out his name, to beckon him up, was a physical weight in my throat. I wanted to be known. I was so tired of the masks, the caustic washes, the lies told to a father who loved a ghost. For one heartbeat, I imagined what it would be like to simply fall to let the prince die and the Hybrid live, if only for an hour, in the arms of the man who was born to kill me, but then, the wind shifted, carrying the distant, lonely toll of the midnight bell from the Citadel's chapel.
The sound was a cold splash of reality. It reminded me of the Inquisition. It reminded me of the silver blades. It reminded me that Elias Thorne was a weapon of the state, and I was the target, and I forced myself to straighten. I pulled the remnants of my royal dignity around me like a shroud and looked down into the shadow where I knew he was hiding, knowing he could see the violet fire in my eyes, and I did the only thing that could save us both.
I turned my back, and it felt like tearing off a limb. The thread connecting us stretched, thinned, and screamed as I stepped back into the warmth of my chambers and pulled the glass doors shut. I leaned against the frame, my forehead resting against the cold pane, listening to the silence. I waited until I felt the frequency of his soul begin to recede, moving away from the palace and back into the safety of the dark.
Only when he was gone did I allow myself to collapse, and I didn't go back to bed. It was tainted with the heat of the dream. Instead, I moved toward the bathing chamber, my legs heavy and trembling.
The tub was a massive basin of carved obsidian, already filled with water from the mountain springs. It was supposed to be heated by the hearthstones, but tonight, I reached out and kicked the heating vents shut. I stripped off the silk robe, my skin looking unnaturally pale in the dim light, and stepped into the water.
It was freezing, and a jagged, piercing cold that made my lungs seize and my skin turn to gooseflesh. I sank until the water reached my chin, my teeth chattering. I welcomed the pain. I needed the ice to kill the fire the Succubus had started, and I needed the shock to drown out the Wolf's whimpering.
"Think of the laws," I commanded myself, my voice shivering. "Think of the throne."
But the water couldn't wash away the memory of the scent. Even in the freezing bath, I could still feel the phantom ozone clinging to the air. I closed my eyes, submerging my head entirely, letting the silence of the water fill my ears. In the crushing cold, I tried to map out a plan. I had to eliminate the threat. Elias Thorne was no longer just a rival; he was a witness. He was a leak in a dam that was already under too much pressure. Tomorrow, we would go to the Wild-Zones for the hunt, and it would be easy to orchestrate an accident.
A stray arrow. A fall into a ravine. A pack of rogue vampires.
The Wolf snarled at the thought of harming him, and my succubus beast recoiled. I broke the surface, gasping for air, my hair dripping into my eyes. I gripped the sides of the tub, my skin blue-tinged and numb.
I couldn't kill him, and that was the horrifying truth. My nature had already marked him not as prey, but as something vital, and he was the anchor to a reality I wasn't allowed to have. I stayed in the ice until my heart slowed to a dull, sluggish thud, until the violet in my eyes faded back to a cold, distant amber. I stepped out of the bath, my body shaking with a deep, bone-marrow chill. I didn't dry myself; I simply wrapped a fresh robe around my freezing limbs and walked back to the window.
The horizon was beginning to pale with the approach of the fractured sun's next cycle. The day was coming, and with it, the hunt. I sat in the chair by the cold hearth, watching the light grow, waiting for the horn to sound. The mask was back in place, but beneath it, the hunger was only growing sharper. The hunt at dawn wouldn't be for the monsters of the Wild-Zones. It would be a dance on the edge of a blade, and I was beginning to realize that I didn't care if I bled, as long as Elias Thorne was the one who drew the blood.