Maximus's POV
The blood moon rose.
I felt it before I saw it—like a blade sliding slow and merciless beneath my skin, splitting me open from the inside. Heat, sharp and unrelenting, spread through my chest until I could hardly breathe. My lungs dragged at the air, my ribs aching with every inhale, every exhale.
Then it began.
The first wave.
A violent shudder ripped through me, throwing my body forward against the chains. They clattered, groaned, the iron biting into my wrists as if to remind me—monster, prisoner, cursed.
I roared, a raw sound, tearing from my throat until it scraped my lungs raw. My head snapped back, veins bulging as fire seared its way beneath my skin. It was always fire. Fire licking at my nerves, eating through muscle, burning me alive from the inside out.
The
