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“I told you,” he said, sinking back into the chaise. The velvet and leather cradled the sharp lines of his frame, long fingers curling into the carved wood. His voice was tight with frustration. “No more.”
Anastasia stood at the threshold of the study, framed by the intricate patterns carved into cherry-toned mahogany. Her arms were folded, her crimson gown spilling to the floor like a slow bleed. Pooling at her feet like the blood she intended for him to let. Her hair fell in soft, beige waves to the curve of her spine.
“You’ll like her, Draco,” she said, a glint of a fang catching in the light. She stepped into the room, her heels clicking languidly along onyx and marble. “She’s a poison berry of the highest potency.”
“I said I was done, Ana.” Draco dragged a hand through his hair - platinum strands catching the firelight like molten gold. “I’ve turned enough souls for you and your coven.”
He turned to the fireplace, propping his chin in his hand, voice low. “You treat me like a fucking sex slave.”
“Oh, don’t be dramatic.” He felt her approach, her presence always heavier than her form. Her fingers drifted along the inner seam of his thigh, cool and deliberate. “I deliver them to you - don’t I keep your thirst sated?”
“I’m not your pet.”
“No, but you are my favourite weapon.” She stroked her hand lovingly through his hair. He shivered despite himself. “She is different. You’ll like her.”
“Turn her yourself.”
“You know I can’t turn humans.”
“Then, tell your beloved Achilles to turn her.”
Her lips curled. “Achilles is mine ,” she said, voice sharp, slicing skin. “He won’t.”
“And what if I said, I won’t.”
“You will.”
Draco gritted his teeth, fangs digging into his gums. They ached with a vicious tingle. Defiance bubbling and boiling in his blood, catalysing the hunger that her venom set aflame in his veins.
He hadn’t been born into this. He chose it - seduced by the brilliance of the sun, then swallowed by the eclipse of the moon. Claimed fully and willingly by The House of The Twelfth Eclipse. Achilles had been the lure: luminous, golden, ancient. The purest of vampires - skin and hair bleached and blinding, eyes that shone golden in the sunlight. His blood immune to the suns rays, skin that burned others rather than burned itself, a sheen that seemed to melt like molten gold over ropes of lean muscle.
And then Anastasia, the moon that swallowed him whole. Hair pale and luminescent in the night sky. Her being prickled on the tongue, cool and biting like frosted, sea salted air. Her shadow consumed Achilles, a sliver of the sun only granted by her if she so pleased.
The sun. Heavenly. A luxury.
Draco imagined he’d taste of clementines and vanilla.
He craved it.
Taste.
Draco remembered the first time he craved taste - real taste. After the turning, food lost flavor. Fragrance lost dimension. Life turned colorless. Bland and dry. All he desired and sought was something that would wet his tongue, awaken his senses. Make the world vivid again.
Blood.
And of the servants of the Eclipsed House, he was the most blood-thirsty. His bite was rare. His taste, exquisite. He would savour those with the most valuable blood. Spit on and kill the rest.
And that was why Anastasia kept him close. He kept the quality of her kin high. The blood running within the walls of the manor, rich and dark. The air within the corridors and halls perfumed with red grapes and white roses.
Servants of the Eclipsed House were nicknamed like knives. Switchblades for the guards. Butterflies for the ritualists that maintained the Manor. Blood-letters for those like Draco. The vampires with fangs dipped in venom, bestowed the gift of expanding the empire and turning humans.
There were only three blood-letters within the House. Carefully selected by Achilles for the qualities of their blood. Turning humans meant infusing them with the minerals that the blood-letter produced - the mix of blood resulting in a combination of scents and properties.
And Draco was the sharpest of the blood-letters - his veins richly laced with Achilles’ blood. The essence of him carried undertones of pine and aged red wine, refreshing like morning dew on moss, yet finished with a slow, deliberate burn. Those he turned bore his signature: their skin shimmered with the glint of malachite, their tones sharpened, hues made vivid. But more than beauty, his blood granted them something rarer - loyalty. Irrevocable. Unstealable. They became bound to the Eclipsed House, tethered to Achilles himself - without the master ever needing to intervene.
The turning process was exhausting. It quenched the thirst, but thirst could easily by soothed by other, simpler means. Transformation, however, demanded far more. It required discipline - a delicate, merciless control - to avoid draining the human completely. And the hunger that came with holding back didn’t disappear; it lingered, gnawed, demanded release through other, equally taxing methods. The more starved the blood-letter, the more punishing those alternatives became.
Draco understood why Achilles had chosen him. He was built for this - sharp, potent, and unrelenting. And truthfully, he didn’t mind being a blood-letter… so long as his victims were worth the effort. Lately, they weren’t. Too many dull souls. Too much flavorless blood staining pristine marble, or choked down purely for sustenance. More corpses than candidates, left to rot beneath the garden roses. He suspected Anastasia was testing him - or more likely, starving him. She knew - the hungrier he became, the more powerful the ritual. The more powerful the ritual, the more flawless the newborn.
The hunger twisted him, made him volatile - impatient, irritable, cruel. Perhaps it was bitterness. That he was only ever allowed to feed on humans. That he wasn’t allowed to drink from Anastasia, herself - blood floral and earthy like crushed rose petals diffused in sweetened gin. Or perhaps he was jealous he couldn’t drink from Achilles - who radiated gold and citrus, like some forbidden sunlit god.
Whatever the cause, he was done with the absence of flavour. His tongue felt dry as sandpaper, scraping against his own teeth, dulling the edge of his bite - or perhaps sharpening it, depending on how long he endured the ache.
Ana’s fingers drifted over his shoulder, her oxblood nails long and precise as they traced the thin linen of his shirt.
“You’re hungry, aren’t you?” she murmured by his ear, her breath perfumed with peony. He inhaled, deep and slow, masking it as a sigh.
She sliced a finger open with her nail, painted it over his lip.
His tongue caught it - desperate, instinctive.
And then he felt it.
Tastebuds ignited like struck matches, the flavour roaring through him. Floral and sharp, kissed with citrus - the tang of orange beneath the bloom of peony. Her blood was potent. Addictive. Beneath it, subtle and unmistakable, came the aftertaste of Achilles - a trace of something sacred and sunborn.
His muscles locked. Hands clenched around the armrests. Leather tore beneath his nails.
Anastasia giggled, the sound curling at the edges of his restraint. She was delighted by his torment, a thrill shimmering in her breath. And in the quiet glint of fang at the corner of her smirk, there was the unmistakable glimmer of arousal.
“You like that?” She asked, voice low and sultry.
He glanced up at her - eyes the colour of blooming dahlias, flickering like flames in the dark. He clenched his jaw, willing himself not to beg. Not to need .
Her gaze softened, lids growing heavy with something dangerously close to tenderness.
“You’ll like her more.”
Anastasia hummed - a sound like silk sliding over skin - and with a snap of her fingers and a single, languid whistle between her lips, the air shifted.
And then -
It hit him.
The scent .
Blueberries. Pears. Freesia.
Something golden and sugar-spun - honeyed, caramelised, like molten syrup cooling into crackle. Juicy. Ripe. Decadent.
Potent.
Powerful.
Inhuman.
His breath stilled. Eyes widened - silver irises shrinking to pinpricks beneath lashes pale as moonlight. His head snapped violently toward the doorway, nostrils flaring, every nerve sharpened and hunting for the source.
She stood just beyond the threshold. A girl.
Framed in shadow. Something sheer and pearlescent draped over her body. Light clinging to her like water.
Behind her stood a switchblade - dark cloak drawn, eyes watchful. His hand rested on her elbow, not to restrain… but to guide. Too careful. Too reverent.
Her skin was fair, like poured cream - thick, untouched, luminous. Indigo hair fell like spilled ink, curling over her collarbones, dripping down her chest in loose, deliberate waves. Moles dusted her body, constellations barely visible beneath the translucent fabric that veiled her form. The dress clung like mist - and through it, flushed pink nipples peeked through, delicate and soft. Her eyes were a muted lilac, dreamy and glassy. Her lips, the colour of crushed roses, curled into a calm, unreadable smile.
“You like sweet things, don’t you?” Ana breathed into his ear. Her voice stroked down his spine. “This one’s ripe. Bursting with flavour. Aged. Fermented. She’s been waiting... desperate. So willing.”
“So she’s another fool,” Draco muttered, voice hoarse - catching in his throat, thick with spit he hadn’t realised he'd swallowed.
Ana chuckled. Unfastened the loose string at his collar with slow fingers. “No,” she whispered. “Far from it.”
She leaned in, placed two cool fingers under his chin, tilting his face toward the girl. “She’s insane.”
Draco resisted, barely - but she made him look . Really look.
“Poor thing,” Ana crooned, “blinded by love. So desperate to give up everything - just for a boy.” Her voice curved into a smile. “A boy with beautiful curls and dimples…”
Draco’s eyes widened.
“And the most pristine fangs to match.”
The firelight caught golden beneath the edge of a hood - thick, chestnut curls glowing in the dark. Theo stepped into view, lashes casting bloodied shadows across his cheekbones, his gaze fixed on the girl as if she were made of stained glass.
Held her like she might disappear - delicately, possessively. His expression quiet. Protective.
“You know I adore a love story,” Ana murmured. She draped herself over Draco’s shoulder, her hands feathering down his chest. A wistful breath escaped her lips.
Draco sat motionless - every muscle tensed. The girl’s scent flooded the room now: bright, sticky, heady. It soaked into his senses, into his skin, into his bloodstream. He could feel her on his tongue already - taste her, almost .
And she hadn’t even spoken yet.
It was familiar now. The closer they came, the stronger the scent grew, thickening the air around them like a tide. Theo’s essence lingered in every corner of Draco’s mind - the bittersweet trace of when he had first turned him. Her scent had been just a drop in the ocean of dark caramel and patchouli that swirled through Theo’s blood - a heady mix, rich and intoxicating. Theo had been the closest Draco had come to losing control, his blood thick and syrupy on Draco’s tongue, drowning him in forbidden hunger.
His bloodied clothes had carried that scent for weeks - a cruel reminder. And he hadn’t been allowed to taste him again.
But now - now the two of them were entwined in the air like a potent elixir.
Overwhelming. Delirium-inducing.
He had thought that taste was him - the subtle note of wild berries and pears. Had thought about the aftertaste for months, years. Praying for the day he would get to experience it again, coat his tongue in it. Savour it. Smear it on his body. Soak in it.
It wasn’t Theo he had been praying for all this time.
And yet, The Six had answered his prayers anyway.
“Don’t you worry, Theodore.” Ana rose, fingers threading through Draco’s hair with a casual intimacy as she stepped past them both. “Draco here will take good care of your little pear.”
Theo’s grip tensed over the girl’s elbow, ever so slightly. For the first time since entering, she turned over her shoulder to face him. Her gaze softened impossibly, melting into something raw and aching - a mix of longing and the fierce flame of maniacal love. Tears glistened in her eyes, shimmering like frozen rain drops on the edge of breaking.
Scared, yet unflinching.
Determined, and utterly inflamed.
And it made Draco… want.
He stood, his shirt falling open loosely around him.
Theo finally met his gaze. His face hardened, jaw clenched tight. His fangs bared - not out of choice, but necessity. Switchblade fangs, longer and sharper, the lower canines just as deadly.
A pale hand snaked around Theo’s chin, the girl pulling him back to her. Then she kissed him - no regard for her mistress-to-be looming behind, no fear of the executioner that awaited her. Arms wrapped tight around his neck, she tip-toed on bare feet, slipping into his cloak. Theo sank heavily into her, inhaling deep and greedy, arms coiling around her small waist. Silk and chiffon cascaded off her like a spring-fed waterfall, pooling at their feet.
Draco watched, cold blood turning molten, seething beneath his skin like fire beneath ice. Jealousy clawed its way up his chest, up his neck. He wanted to strangle her. To take her. To own her. To make her want him. That taste that had haunted him for so long. Finally materialising before him, being claimed by another.
A muffled yelp broke the charged silence as Theo’s fang bit into her lip. A drop of scarlet slid down her chin. Draco nearly staggered back at the scent, Theo’s tongue greedily tracing the trail, sucking hard on the puncture. His throat bobbed as he drank.
Draco stepped forward - shoving Theo away and grabbing her arm, pulling her toward him, the kiss breaking with a trail of scarlet-tinged saliva.
“That’s enough,” he hissed. “She needs to save her blood for me if you want her in one piece.”
Theo swiped his tongue over his canine, blood licked clean as he adjusted the clasp on his cloak.
“You can have as many pieces as you want. She’ll still be mine.”
Draco scoffed. “We’ll see about that.”
His hand crawled up her spine; chiffon gathered around his fingers, slipping to curl around her neck. He pressed his knuckle under her jaw, tilting her chin up to meet his gaze. Her eyes half-lidded, hazy - a peculiar lavender hue for a human. Skin soft and flushed, her head hung back, teeth gleaming beneath a sly smile. So calm, so at ease, as if she held all the control.
Ana stepped forward, trailing her thumb over the girl’s blood-speckled chin, licking the remnants from her skin.
“Be a good girl, Lillith,” she whispered. Her powder pink eyes flashed with warning as they landed on Draco. “I want her alive, Draco. I’m trusting her with you.” Her finger hooked under his jaw, tracing the slow pulse that thrummed just beneath skin and bone - the point that would kill him if struck. “Do not lose control. If she turns out well, I may let you taste her once she’s reborn.”
His stomach twisted at the thought - never before had he been allowed to drink from another vampire. And this girl, Lillith - she would be delicious.
“If she would allow it, of course.” Ana added. She placed a guiding hand on Theo’s shoulder. “Come now, Theodore.”
“Lillipad,” he whispered, a flicker of urgency in his throat, voice thick with something tender, “I love you, hm?”
“I’ll be fine, Teddy,” she replied quietly, her voice like winter clouds - soft, serene, an unshakable calm. A frozen river that Theodore would drown in. Suffocation Draco desired more than he dared admit.
Ana patted Theo’s shoulder, impatience beginning to flare in her eyes. Theo spared Draco one last look - dark, metallic storms swirling in his irises, carefully contained - then swept his cloak behind him and followed Ana out.
Lillith stood motionless, posture relaxing as the door clicked shut behind them. Her gaze remained fixed on the doorway, but her expression began to shift - melting into something colder. Blank. Devoid of emotion. Almost psychopathic.
Draco’s hand still lingered at her throat, fingers ghosting over her pulse - fast and frantic, a trapped bird fluttering beneath delicate skin. The warmth of it throbbed against his fingertips. The flesh over her carotid was as thin and tender as a lily petal, unfurling and blooming under his touch.
“You don’t love him?” Draco asked, voice low and almost gentle. Not out of care - out of caution. He didn’t want her to flee. Or worse… fight.
She turned within his grasp, tilting her head to look up at him. Her lashes were long, thick, a violet-black that curled like ink smoke against her pale skin. A small mole sat like a kiss at the corner of her eye. Another beneath her chin. Her lips were full, warm, slightly parted - pink like bruised cherry blossoms.
Draco swallowed.
The one thing he liked about drinking from humans was the heat - the way their blood surged through them, flooding every limb. It made the taste richer, more intoxicating. And this one - this girl - was overflowing. You could feel it in her. Like her veins couldn’t contain it. Like she was made to be drunk.
“Of course I do.” She replied, her tone certain, almost offended by his doubt.
“Then, why didn’t you tell him?”
She smiled, a clairvoyant air swimming in the light refracting in the dusky blue of her eyes. “Theo is scared you’ll kill me. He wants his last words to me to mean something.”
She reached for his hand still resting at her throat, warm fingers wrapping around his wrist. “I’m not scared.” Her fingers curled beneath his palm. “He doesn’t need to hear those words from me, yet.”
Draco’s lip twitched, more sneer than smile. His thumb pressed deeper into the side of her neck, right over the pulse he could feel hammering beneath.
“You’re not afraid of me?” he whispered, his mouth lowering toward her ear, his breath brushing over her temple. His nose dragged through the inked waves of her hair. Her scent flooded into him - so dense, so sweet his eyes burned. His fangs ached.
She held his hand tighter. “I trust you,” she said simply.
“I wouldn’t. ” The words were a growl, low and buried in her hair.
His grip locked around her neck. Her fingers caught in his palm as he twisted her sharply, shoving her backward. She stumbled - tripping over the layers of organza and voile pooling on the floor - until her back met the wall with a soft thud.
He stepped in. Her feet lifting a millimeter off the ground.
“Of the blood-letters, I’m the most vicious.” He said, voice serrated. “My venom stings the most. My methods - violent.”
His grip tightened. “You should be terrified.”
And yet, her eyes met his - dilated, defiant, unblinking.
“You like them scared, do you?” She choked through the vice around her neck. He loosened slightly, fingers buzzing, claws ravenous. She gasped once, sharp and deep, then pulled her dress off her shoulders. The veil of fabric falling to hang loosely around her waist, revealing her skin underneath.
Puncture marks. Littered over her right shoulder, her arm, her breast, her ribs, her thigh. Some faint and silvery, constellations of pain long past. Others red and raw, half-healed. Fresh.
Draco’s hand dropped away like he had been burned. She fell back onto her heels, braced against the wall - smooth stone now cool against her bare skin.
“What the fuck…” He muttered, an involuntary step backwards to drink in the view of her. The scars weren’t clean. They were deep, some torn into longer cuts. Brutal and jagged. Not like his work. These were switchblade wounds. “He’s… Drunk from you…”
“Many times.” She smiled, her hand gently soothing the skin over her throat, already beginning to bruise. She lifted her arm toward the firelight, eyes narrowing with a lazy, almost reverent admiration for the carved map of scars etched across her flesh.
“I quite enjoy it,” she murmured, voice silky and intimate. “The feeling of teetering on the brink of consciousness - surrendering completely to something only you can give yourself to.”
She stepped closer, bold and unflinching, fingers reaching out to brush against his hand.
No human had ever been this daring. None had survived a switchblade bite.
Switchblade fangs were designed to bleed and kill, their venom a cruel anti-coagulant that stopped clotting, prevented scarring. Yet here she was, marred and whole.
Draco laughed, sharp and bitter, disbelief curling through his throat. Her fingertip glided lightly over the back of his wrist.
“What are you…” he whispered, lips curling back over his fangs - short, clean, gleaming with an opal sheen.
“ Devoted ,” she said simply. A whisper of berries over the stale air crackling through the study.
There was something secret and arcane hidden within her answer. Something delectable, succulent - fruitful and fleshy deep within her core. Her skin seemed to melt onto him, like butter smoothing over his hand, sliding up his arm.
He was mystified. Transfixed by her gaze. By the beautiful, crazed look in her eye. For once, he felt paralysed - stunned by how different she was from the other innocent fools who gave themselves to him. Willingly or not.
Her eyebrow arched, amusement curling her lip. A flicker of realisation lit her face.
“Have you ever experienced it?” she asked, stepping in close. “Draco?”
He exhaled slowly at the sound of his name on her tongue, watching her over the sharp bridge of his nose. Composure returning to his body.
“Experienced what, my dear?”
“True devotion.” Her head tilted, eyes wide and curious - as if he were the anomaly in this equation.
His lower lid twitched. She was swallowing him whole with her words - like a succubus with teeth as short, and harmless, as freshwater pearls.
“No.”
His answer was short, but soaked in hurt. And greed. And temptation. And need. Gifted to a torturous sire by his own parents. Lovers who discarded him, repulsed by the taint of his name. Used by a master and mistress he unashamedly loved - rewarded only with scraps.
He wanted it.
Longed for it.
That look she gave Theodore - so heartbreakingly pitiful. Lusted for it. Needed her to look at him that way.
He was parched to his soul.
“I can show you,” she whispered, her hands sliding up his chest - skin just as pale and flawless as hers. Marbled. Smooth. “You can take everything from me.”
She tiptoed closer, pressing her body to his. He felt the gentle, maddening heat of it. Felt his blood swim like thick syrup towards his groin. Felt himself hardening, torturously slow.
Her lips brushed his ear. Her neck mere inches from his teeth.
“As long as you make me… perfect.” She requested.
He didn’t move. Not yet. Let the serpent coil within him.
“The more perfect I try to make you,” he murmured, “the more painful the process.”
She pulled back to look at him. Eyes a dead calm. Expression blank.
Impeccably unbothered.
“And therefore,” she gracefully swung her hair over her left shoulder, baring flawless, virgin skin to him, “the more devoted I will have to be.”
His lip curled - thin, pale, trembling at the edge of contempt. Eyes like ashen wheat narrowed beneath lashes the colour of aged champagne.
“How can you promise such a thing,” he murmured, voice slick and low, “when you’re so clearly infatuated with Theodore?”
She bit her lip, deceit dressed as coyness. “Well then,” she purred, “maybe you’ll have to persuade me.”
Anastasia was right.
She was different.
Like dusky clematis climbing up his legs - rooting him to the stone beneath, pricking warmth into the frozen skin between his thighs.
He had never known arousal before the hunger. It normally came after he began to drink. But now, the prussian-blue blood that stood still in his veins was stirring within him, even without the current that fresh human blood brought.
And she was the reason.
The one flavour that wrecked his tongue and scrambled his mind - turning a colourless world even duller in its absence.
He imagined Theo’s copper skin slick with her blood, lips buried in her flesh not for survival - but out of pure lust. A vampire having sex with a human. Unheard of. Too deadly. A death wish.
And yet, here she stood.
And they had fucked, regularly.
“I adore a love story…”
Was Theo drinking from her with the mistress’s blessing? Was Lillith to be gifted back to him once she was turned - fanged and reborn - while Draco was offered just a single drop, a fleeting taste, a mercy? Ana promised he could taste her again… If Lillith allowed it. Always if. Always with permission. Always the subordinate. Cruel. Infuriating. Frankly, disrespectful. Spit on his shoes.
And he lapped it off the stone each time.
He moved.
Hands sliding around her waist, silk pooling through his fingers, warm skin peeking beneath - pliant, ethereal. He guided her gently against the wall. She was smaller than he imagined. Fragile. Like something sacred and easily ruined. Skin begging to be bruised. Bones that taunted with the need for restraint.
Her lashes fluttered. An imperceptible catch in her breath as his hands moved higher. A thumb brushed beneath the soft weight of her breast, pressed against her nipple. So flushed. So tender. What a waste, he thought.
A waste of a human.
His mouth brushed the shell of her ear, voice a low rasp - slow and burning like whiskey down a raw throat. “What does he do to you?” he whispered. His head dipped, nose trailing her jaw, chasing her scent like smoke under a locked door. It licked at his tongue, made his fangs ache. Made him salivate. “How does he take you?”
“He never intends to…” She hummed, the vibration of her voice dissolving into his skin. “Scared of hurting me… Gentle… Until he can’t be gentle any longer…”
Her fingers trailed across his chest - soft at first, then spreading wider, grounding herself in his cold flesh. She tipped her chin over his shoulder, breath brushing hot against his ear, her neck tilted in offering.
“Are you scared of hurting me?” she whispered, wholly innocent.
“No,” he growled. But his touch betrayed him - still hesitant, trembling on the edge of control. Her perfume coiled through his brain, his vision blurring into a heather-toned haze.
She gave a quiet laugh, her breath washing over him, seeping into his pores.
“I’m glad,” she whispered.
Her arms slid up his neck, fingers tangling into the fall of his pale hair. She gripped hard, yanked him back - his fangs flashing as he hissed, mouth torn from her throat. His hands now over the small of her back, long fingers curling into the hollow of her spine, pressing her tightly against him. He was fully erect. The throbbing ache between his legs pulsing at a maddeningly slow pace against her pelvis.
“ Make me scream your name to The Six ,” she said.
Her lips caught his upper, tongue parting his teeth, plunging between them. He inhaled sharply - flooding his lungs with her, drowning in her. Her saliva a burst of flavour - sharp, sweet, intoxicating. Her tongue slick against his own.
He shoved her head back against the wall, a fist twisting in her hair and pulling back hard, exposing her throat to him like a blade set on velvet. He kissed her, devoured her - tongue shoving down against her palette, sucking down her breath, her spit, her soul.
He never kissed his victims. Just bit, drank, fucked. Discarded. Kisses were for lovers. Dangerous things. Too tender. Too binding.
But Lillith.
He wanted to kiss her until his lips bled. Devour her, tooth by tooth. Be loved by her. Longed for. Ruined. Destroy her. Steal her. Posses her.
He wanted her to choose him - and damn the Six for it.
He crushed her body into the stone, pressing her spine to the wall as though pinning a relic in place - one he meant to worship, ruin, or both. His hands slipped beneath her thighs, hoisting her effortlessly, draping her legs over the ridges of sharp hip bones. Her saliva alone more flavourful than any human blood he had ever drawn - coated his tongue like sacred nectar, milky venom already threading down his fangs. It mingled with the copper tang of her dried blood, still drying at the corner of her mouth, rolling in rivulets down her chin.
His tongue chased one down, curling to the mole on her chin before trailing wet, fervent kisses along the underside of her jaw. Her pulse, hammering strong beneath satin-smooth skin, throbbed against the flat of his teeth, her neck tasting of fresh cream and sin. Deep scars that tasted of caramel and aged oak burning with the bitter acidity of switchblade venom down his throat.
She exhaled in frustration, a shuddering breath as her hips rolled against him - heat blooming through the fabric between them, melting the thin layers of silk and cotton. He hadn’t even begun to drink, and already his composure hung by a fraying thread. The instinct to take her - to claim her fully - was becoming unbearable. He wanted to fuck her now, before the real bloodlust overtook reason, before her lifeblood flooded his mouth and jumpstarted the slow death slumbering in his withered organs.
His mouth dragged southward, wrapping over her breast. His teeth grazed her skin, welts blooming like roses where his fangs had passed. His tongue lapped and curled over her nipple, soft as crushed velvet, the flesh lush and plum-ripe. His jaw flexed, muscles twitching as he restrained the violent instinct to bite and rip.
A heated gasp escaped her, stifled against his temple as she writhed in his grip, her hands tangled in his hair, holding him fast to her chest. Every sound she made rippled down his spine, the thirst clawing and intensifying in his throat.
“I thought you said you were violent - ” she rasped, a chuckle slipping between ragged breaths.
He scoffed, lifting his head to meet her eyes. Let her nipple hook over his lower set of teeth, dragging the sensitive skin through his slack jaw. Her eyes challenging, as if not recognising the severe restraint he was already exhibiting. Impatient.
“I haven’t started yet, dear,” he murmured. His hand slid beneath her thigh again, hooking her firmly to his waist. The other curled behind her neck, fingers digging into the column of her throat - harder than necessary, cruel and spiteful.
“But if you're so desperate to crawl back to your beloved - ”
She sneered, “I am.”
She wasn’t.
He wrested her head to the side mercilessly, his fingers embedding into the hinge of her jaw. A fraction more pressure, and he would have cracked her spine. The unscarred stretch of her neck glistened - porcelain and delicate, a swan’s throat offered in sacrifice. Strands of her hair clung to his fingers, winding in dark loops like ancient script - an incantation etched across skin.
Venom spilled from his lip. He drew it back with a slow pull of his tongue, letting it lacquer the roof of his mouth like warm milk turned wicked.
“Liar,” he murmured - more breath than word - low and bladed.
His hand climbed higher, jaw stretched to the side, the skin taut and glistening. Ripe as a summer fruit beneath a sacrificial blade.
Then -
Bite.
Suck.
Drink.
Blind.
Deaf.
Numb.
Drown.
Taste.
Taste.
Taste.
Taste.
Taste.
The world fractured into violet. Heliotrope. Dried lavender crushed under heel. The bruised skies of dusk. He drowned in colour - the moon devouring the sun, light vanishing into monotone darkness. Night consumed him, stars unravelling like pearls sinking into ink.
Blackberries split on the tongue. Osmanthus, syrupy and heady. Black cherries soaked in wine. Aged nectar. Fermented sin.
He blinked.
Lilies. Spring water. Elderflower. Pears sugared in frost.
Blinked again.
Blinked harder.
Vision swimming, ashen irises flooding with periwinkle, unnatural and bright. An intense pressure squeezing at his temples like an overflow of nitrogen.
Every dormant nerve ignited, lightning crawling through his veins. Cornflower blood surged beneath his skin, stained lilac by the rich red of hers.
His fangs were still deep inside her neck. He felt them elongate - the points like roots growing towards a life source. Blood rushed down his throat, gulping ravenously like a man starved, on the brink of death. The rasp in his ears ringing loud and deafening, until he realised it wasn’t static.
It was her.
Screaming.
Her nails raking down his skin, flaying him back into the moment.
He released with a snarl, tore himself from her neck, dropped her to the floor. Stumbled backwards, swiping the blood dripping from his mouth with the back of his arm. Dazed. Gasping.
She crumpled to the floor, clutching at the wounds in her neck. Blood spilling freely through her fingertips, staining her bare chest, seeping into the cloud of silk folded and plumed around her waist. The fabric bloomed a dusty rose, tainted by his venom. She panted heavily, tears pricking at her eyes.
Salty. Still exquisitely sweet.
He clenched his fists, tongue darting over his lip, the taste of her blood still sparking along his palate - a sharp electric current slicing through his nerves. Every muscle in his body twitched with want. To take her. To consume her. To make her his in every conceivable, irreversible way. The craving boiled, rising in him like magma beneath cracked stone.
“You still want this?” He threatened. A pointless question. He was going to give it to her, even if she didn’t.
His venom was far crueler than a Switchblade’s - more erosive, more volatile. A searing sting at first - like a paper cut across a nerve - then a slow, blossoming agony, blooming beneath the skin like fire in a bed of snow.
Blood-letter venom was infamous for its burn. But Draco’s was worse. Laced with malachite - razor-sharp and alchemical - it behaved like powdered diamond, sliced through vessels, ripped them to shreds. He could only imagine the pain. Only the worthy could endure it.
She laughed, eyes wide, tears beginning to trickle down her face. “Who the fuck said I didn’t?”
His pupils blew wide.
Willing.
He stepped forward, her expression shifted.
Scared .
Her jaw snapped shut, bracing herself for him.
Devoted.
He seized her wrist, tugging her to the floor, long hair spilling in a sun-kissed tide over the stained marble. The hem of her dress curled beneath them like storm-tossed seafoam.
He unbuttoned his trousers, releasing himself with a low breath, running one blood-slicked hand over his length - her warmth painting him. Then he peeled her legs from the tangled folds of fabric, letting the silk billow around them like a cushion, the last mercy he’d grant her tonight.
“Don’t think of the pain,” he murmured. “Just focus on me.”
He lowered himself, mouth trailing slow-burning kisses along her abdomen, following the path of blood smeared across her skin. His tongue swept up to her chest, pausing at her nipple, circling it once before drawing it gently between his lips. He looked up.
She was watching him.
And her expression had shifted - not just lust or defiance now, but something deeper. Something impossible.
As if she saw through the hunger, the venom, the violence.
Saw the soul he thought he'd buried long ago.
He reached up and kissed her again. Saliva now salted with tears, the taste muted compared to blood. Softer and fragile on his tongue. His fingers painted over her body, traced her hip bone, cupped over her, felt her dripping in something slippery and smoother than blood. She moaned into him, he swallowed the sound.
His touch deepened, fingers moving with purpose, rubbing over the delicate bud between her folds, seeking out her heat and coaxing out every ephemeral sound she offered him. He slid his fingers down, plunged them into her. She melted beneath him, arching, trembling - her body burning against the coolness of his skin.
He wanted more. More. More. Carnal instinct taking over. Fingers pumping into her, curling at the ends. She keened and whimpered into his mouth, sounds that strengthened the flame fuelling the current in his veins. Her head tipped backwards, the curve of her neck exposed to him again, sighing loudly, blood smeared over her lips. Wholly distracted from the sting of his venom.
He pulled his fingers back, brought them to his lips, sucked on the nectar - fragrant, sticky, potent with the blood she had given. A divine, maddening flavour. His eyelashes fluttered at the taste, his cock pulsing hard against her with the rush of fresh blood. He refocused his vision on her, her lips beginning to pale, her eyelids loosely hooded.
His thumb found the ring on his fourth finger, the nail clicking its’ small blade loose. He dragged it across the sinew above his collarbone, a line of glistening, iridescent blue blood surfacing in its wake. Cradling her jaw, he drew her closer, her lashes fluttering.
“Drink.” he instructed. She hesitated. “Drink or you die.”
He felt her lips wrap softly over the wound, her tongue licking over his skin. Felt her pulse return, her muscles tightened as she swallowed. Her body once waning, now reigniting with borrowed life.
“This is going to hurt.” He warned. She laughed weakly.
He bit again.
Lower on her neck. Felt the taste explode into his mouth again. Felt all the muscles in his body tense and coil at the sensation. Felt her bite down hard on his shoulder, suck on the cut in his skin, a strained sound choked through her throat. His claws began to dig into her scalp, his other hand piercing deep into the skin over her thigh, trying to puncture and draw more blood.
He felt something wet and hot against the tip of his cock. Her core. Molten. Could smell her. Poached pear, baked apples. Sweet, inviting.
He pushed in hard.
She cried out, muffled by his shoulder in her mouth.
His eyes rolled back this time. A low, guttural growl escaping him as he released his bite momentarily, jaw going slack at the feeling of her - tight over his cock. A sweltering heat drenched and coated over him.
He bit down again, drawing back and ramming in. Her fingers tightening over his arms in reaction to the sting. Her moans mumbled and choked into his shoulder, her mouth filling with the blood entrusted to her.
His elbow slipped beneath them, the marble beneath now slick with blood, poison, sweat and spit. Sweet and incensed. Every motion was desperate, tethered by more than want - by something fanged and holy, a sacred desecration. Her body moulded to his, her being melting in a smouldering lust around his cock like candle wax - feverish and burning, then hardening and gripping him tight.
He clutched her to him, felt her pulse now beating wildly against his mouth. Completely and utterly undone. Every part of his body scorched and smoked, his mind dizzy with the haze of berries and wildflowers.
“Fucking Six…”
He groaned, his vision colouring red as her blood dripped from his lashes. He rocked forward again. Bit again. Seeking fresh skin each time - biting into ripe fruit, letting the essence spill over his arms, seed into his hair, dirty the river of indigo locks beneath them.
She gasped, her head falling back, breath rasping through trembling lungs. His eyes fluttered open, heavy-lidded with hunger and release. Emerald veins blossomed beneath her skin around the bite marks - minerals and venom constricting around her throat, the transformation taking effect.
His ring glinted as he swiped it across his palm, then covered her mouth with it, pressing blood-soaked skin to tongue, his grip nearly suffocating. His other hand dug into her waist, nails biting into her crimson-streaked skin, anchoring her as he thrusted again and again - fast, fierce, unrelenting. Each movement drew ragged breaths from her, sucked back in through the blood that stained her throat.
She grasped blindly at his hand, nails clawing into him, pleading for air.
His pupils narrowed to black pinpricks. His hair soaked, streaks of rose-red and deep azure catching the dim light like a crown of shadow and flame.
Her eyes were wide, periwinkle filling with bright fuchsia, ink leaking into the veins of her irises.
He watched her with a rabid hunger. Colour seemed to flood into his vision, everything hyper-saturated and intense. Her skin gleamed like freshly cut jewels - flawless and gleaming in firelight, hot to the touch and sparkling with sweat.
So, this was the sun. Wrapped in an un-ending night sky. A true eclipse.
So impossibly beautiful.
He lifted his hand, entwining his fingers with hers, pinned them above her head, devoured her mouth from within. She swallowed over his tongue, her lips full and engorged with the blood he yearned, dreamed of, hallucinated about.
His nails dug into the cracks in the marble beneath them, searching for some friction as he sank and crushed into her. Full with her sustenance, her body cooling under him as the transformation completed.
And yet he continued.
Lifting her off the floor, he settled back on his knees.
Her back glassy with blood as her hair peeled from the crimson pool beneath them. He held her to his body, her arms wrapped over his neck as he thrusted up into her. Her head lulling to the side, caught between ecstasy and a pale, dizzying haze. His tongue traced the coagulating blood over her collarbone. His cock painfully hard and sensitive, filled with the potent concoction of his blood and hers.
He grunted as he bit into her breast. The taste so powerful and overwhelming now with the transformation complete. He was so saturated with her essence, he lost all thought. Couldn’t control himself. Couldn’t stop himself. Couldn’t fathom a world without her taste. Her touch. Her voice. Her scent.
“Ah- Dr - Draco -”
Wanted her.
Needed her.
Fucked her.
Gripped her.
Kissed her.
“P - please-”
Want.
Want.
Want.
Want.
Want.
“Draco - Draco - Draco -”
“Lillith~”
He collapsed forward, bracing himself on his elbows as her body arched around him - tight, trembling, wringing every last drop from him. Heat surged through his cock, dragging out the guttural moan from his throat. Thick liquid flooding the space between them, the velvet rush of release soaking into the silk beneath, euphoria steeped in sweat and blood.
And then it was quiet.
The two of their shallow breaths crackling over the fireplace. His teeth aching, his gums swollen.
He rested his forehead on hers. Her breath puffing cool over his nose. Her face streaked and bloodied. The contrast of her features impossibly sharper than before, as if she had been painted anew. A flush still colouring her cheeks.
He withdrew slowly. Both of them inhaling, breath hitching as he did.
They stared at each other. Her face serene, eyes curious and searching, still like a pond blooming with water lilies and lotus flowers.
Perfection.
The door burst open behind them. Loud footsteps rapidly thundering towards them.
He didn’t move. She didn’t look away.
“Lillipad - ”
A rough hand shoved Draco off of her. He relented, falling into the thick pool of blood and soaked silk. His eyes remained fixed on her face. Still mesmerised by the look she gave him.
“Lilli, look at me -” Theo dropped beside her, carelessly sloshing into bloodied silk. His hands cradled her blood-streaked cheeks, thumb swiping smeared blood from her eye. Pale taupe eyes panicked and hopeful. “Are you - you -”
She smiled - a twin set of sharp curved fangs now peeking beneath her upper lip. Butterfly knife.
“Hello, my love.”
Draco saw her eyes flicker towards him.
The corners of his mouth curled.
He would taste her again.
If Lillith allowed it.