The Parasite Rose

Chapter 14 — The Taste

The garden was a lie.

Glass panels sealed the ceiling, filtering the sunlight into a pale, greenish glow that passed for natural light. The plants were real—vines climbing the iron trellises, flowers in neat rows along the stone paths, a small pond with water that caught the light and threw it back in fragments. It was beautiful in the way that prisons are beautiful when someone bothers to put flowers in the yard.

I came here in the mornings. The vampires didn't use the garden—the glass panels let in enough sunlight to make their skin itch, not enough to burn them, but enough to make them uncomfortable. For me, it was the closest thing to open air I had.

I knelt beside a flower bed. Purple petals, tight in the center, opening outward like a hand uncurling. I pressed my index finger to my mouth and bit. Not deep—just enough to break the skin. A bead of blood formed, round and red, catching the filtered light.

I held it over the flower.

The drop fell. Hit the petal.

The petal withered.

Not slowly. Not the gradual curl of a dying leaf. Instant. One moment it was purple, alive, full of water and cells and the ordinary business of being a plant. The next it was brown, brittle, the edges crumbled like ash. The discoloration spread from the point of contact outward—brown to black, the petal shriveling into a dry, paper-thin husk. Within three seconds, the entire flower was dead. Not just the petal. The stem, the leaves, the roots. Everything within a two-inch radius was gray and crumbling.

I pulled my hand back. Stared.

My blood had killed the flower. Not killed—erased. The cell structure had collapsed on contact, the way a building collapses when you pull out the foundation. My blood was the foundation remover. It reached into living tissue and dissolved the connections that held it together.

I scooped dirt over the dead flower. Covered it completely. Patted the soil flat. No one would notice—one dead flower among hundreds. Garden attrition.

I bit my finger again. Another bead of blood. I held it up to the light, watching it catch the greenish glow. It looked normal. Red. Ordinary. The kind of blood that any human would bleed.

But no human blood killed flowers on contact.

I wiped the bead on my pants and stood up. The garden was quiet. The filtered light made everything look soft, gentle, safe. The opposite of what my blood had just done.

Knox was stable.

That was the word Ryker used—stable. Not good, not better, not recovered. Stable. The kind of word that meant "not getting worse, but not getting better either." I'd been coming to the Iron Cage twice a week for a month now, and the word had shifted from "critical" to "controlled" to "stable." Each upgrade was one step away from disaster.

I arrived at the tunnel entrance at dusk. Ryker was waiting, arms crossed, his face its usual mask of controlled indifference. He didn't speak. He just turned and led me through the corridors, down into the underground, past the numbered doors and the fluorescent lights that hummed at a frequency only my blood senses could hear.

Knox was in the training area. Not the pack cave—there was no frenzy tonight, no emergency, no crisis. Just the regular exchange, scheduled and ordinary, the kind of thing that should have felt routine but never did.

He was sitting on the edge of the mat, elbows on his knees, breathing slow. The room was empty except for us. The fluorescent light buzzed. His heartbeat was steady—my senses picked it up from across the room, a rhythm that was almost calm.

"You look better," I said.

"I look like I haven't slept in three days."

"So you look normal."

The corner of his mouth twitched. Close enough to a smile. He held out his wrist. I sat beside him, pulled out the knife, made the cut. Clean, shallow, precise. His blood welled. I pressed my wrist to his.

The connection. The current. But this time it was gentle—a slow pull, not a flood. His blood met mine with the ease of something that had happened a hundred times. The frenzy gene was quiet, buried deep, sleeping. My blood soothed it further, the symbiotic fluid spreading through his veins like cool water over embers.

His breathing slowed. His shoulders dropped. The tension that lived in his muscles—constant, relentless, the permanent state of an alpha who couldn't afford to relax—eased by a fraction.

"You're eating?" he asked.

I didn't answer right away. The question was simple. The answer was not.

"Enough," I said.

He looked at me. His eyes were amber, steady, the gold flecks dim. "Your face is thinner than last week."

"It's the lighting."

"The lighting hasn't changed. You're not eating."

I pulled back. Pressed my thumb over the cut on my wrist. "I'm fine."

"You're lying. I can smell it—your blood's off. Too sweet. That's what happens when you stop eating and let the parasite compensate."

I stood. "I said I'm fine."

He stood too. Taller than me by a head, broader by twice. He didn't use his size—he never did, not with me. But the alpha in him was there, present, the weight of his attention a physical force that pressed against my chest.

"Stay," he said.

"For what?"

He didn't answer. He walked to the doorway and said something to someone I couldn't see. A minute later, Mara appeared. She was carrying a bowl—ceramic, plain, steam rising from the surface. She set it on the mat between us and stepped back.

"Drink," Knox said.

I looked at the bowl. The liquid inside was dark, almost black, with a sheen of oil on the surface. The smell hit me—iron, copper, the unmistakable tang of blood. Wolf blood. Cooked, diluted, but still there.

"Wolf blood soup," I said.

"My mother used to make it. For the pack, when they were injured." He sat back down. "Drink. Or don't. But you're not leaving until you try."

I sat. Picked up the bowl. The ceramic was warm in my hands. I raised it to my lips and took a sip.

Iron. Copper. The taste of blood that had been heated until the proteins broke down, leaving behind the minerals, the salt, the metallic residue that was wolf and pack and something older. It tasted like rust and warmth, like a fire that burned from the inside out.

I drank the whole bowl. Mara refilled it without being asked. I drank that too.

Knox watched me. His eyes tracked the movement of the bowl to my lips, the tilt of my head, the swallow. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The alpha was doing what alphas do—observing, assessing, cataloguing.

When I set the second bowl down, he spoke. "How long since you ate?"

"Three days."

His jaw tightened. I saw the muscles work. "Why?"

"The blood exchanges kill my appetite. The parasite takes what it needs from my body, and my body stops asking for food." I shrugged. "It's efficient. One less thing to worry about."

"It's not efficient. It's starving you."

"Same result. Less effort."

He didn't respond to that. He just looked at me with those amber eyes, and I could see the calculation happening behind them—the alpha processing the information, filing it away, planning something I wouldn't like.

"Don't," I said.

"Don't what?"

"Whatever you're thinking. Don't."

He stood. Walked to the edge of the training area. Picked up a water bottle from the shelf and brought it back. Set it in front of me.

"Water," he said. "Not a request."

I took the bottle. Unscrewed the cap. Drank. The water was cold and clean and tasted like nothing, which was the best thing I'd tasted in three days.

We sat in silence for a while. The fluorescent light buzzed. His heartbeat was steady against my senses—slow, strong, the pulse of a body that was healing, that was finding its balance, that was learning to live with the thing that lived inside it.

"You can go," he said eventually.

I stood. Rolled down my sleeve. Tucked the knife back into my boot. I made it to the doorway before his voice caught me.

"Nessa."

I stopped. Didn't turn.

"Next time you don't eat for three days, I'll know. And I won't just give you soup."

I didn't respond. I walked through the corridor, up the tunnel, past the guards, through the grey zone between territories. The night air was cold on my skin. My wrist was warm where the cut had closed.

Back at the Court, I went to my room. Locked the door. Drew the curtains. Sat on the bed and rolled up my sleeve.

The bite mark was a thin red line, closing by the second. I pressed my finger to it. Skin yielding, new tissue forming underneath, the wound erasing itself.

I looked at my hand. Flipped it over. Examined the fingertips.

The skin was thinner. Not dramatically—not enough for anyone to notice at a glance. But I noticed. I pressed my thumb to my index fingertip and felt the bone underneath more clearly than before, as if the layer of flesh between my skin and my skeleton had worn down. The nail beds were paler, the half-moons almost invisible.

I curled my fingers into a fist. Hid the evidence.

Then I turned my hand over again, held it up to the candlelight, and watched the glow pass through the edges of my fingers. Not through the center—the skin there was still opaque. But at the tips, at the very edges, the light was faintly visible beneath the surface. A soft, warm glow, like a candle behind frosted glass.

My fingers were getting thinner.

I lowered my hand. Pressed it flat against my thigh. My heartbeat was steady—my own pulse, counting down to something I couldn't name.

I went to the bathroom. Ran the tap until the water was cold. Cupped my hands and splashed my face. The water ran down my chin and dripped onto the sink.

I looked at my reflection in the mirror above the basin. My face was the same—sharp features, deep brown skin, dark eyes that were too tired for nineteen. My hair was a mess, as always. My jacket was stained with wolf blood and something else that might have been garden dirt.

I held my left hand up to the light.

The glow was there. Faint, but there. The light passing through the tips of my fingers, through the skin and the thin muscle beneath, the faintest outline of bone visible in the candlelight.

I could see through my fingers.

Not clearly. Not enough for anyone else to notice. But enough for me. Enough for the light to pass through me like I was something made of glass instead of flesh.

I lowered my hand. Looked at my reflection again.

Same face. Same eyes. Same person.

But the light was passing through my fingers, and the sweetness in my blood was growing, and I didn't know what either of those things meant.

I turned off the tap. Walked back to the bed. Lay down and stared at the ceiling.

My fingers were in my lap, hidden under my thigh, out of sight.

But I could still feel the light passing through them.