Her Name Was Selene
742 Words
That night, the hunger came.
It started as heat — low in my belly, rising behind my ribs like smoke. Then the ache. The kind that no food could touch. I gripped the edge of the bed as it built, wave after wave, like my veins were screaming for something I couldn’t name.
I could smell the blood in the walls. In the wind. In the ghost of someone who’d passed this room hours before.
And then… I smelled her.
Not Elias. Someone else. Feminine. Sharp. Ancient.
I stood, drawn to it like prey—or predator.
When I reached the grand staircase, she was already there.
She looked like she’d walked out of a dream designed to make men weep. Midnight hair in a braid down her back, lips the color of crushed berries, a black dress that clung like smoke. But it was her eyes that stopped me cold.
They were the same shade as Elias’s when he was hungry.
“You must be Eliza,” she said, voice smooth as poison.
I didn’t answer.
She smiled, slow and knowing. “He used to mention your name in his sleep.”
My jaw tensed. “And you are?”
“Selene.”
The name cut through the air like a blade.
“I’m his past,” she added. “The part he doesn’t want to remember. But always does.”
I stepped closer, though my legs trembled. “If you’re here to threaten me—”
“Oh, darling,” she purred, circling me. “I don’t need to threaten. You’ve already lost.”
“To what?”
“To time. To him. You don’t understand what he is. What we are.”
“I’m learning.”
“Too slowly,” she said, pausing just behind me. “You smell like confusion. Like freshly spilled blood. Delicious. Untamed.”
She leaned in. I could feel her breath on my neck.
“If Elias won’t finish the job, I could,” she whispered.
I spun and shoved her back instinctively — only to find she hadn’t moved.
She was in front of me again instantly, smirking.
“Still new,” she said. “Still soft.”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
“No. You’re afraid of yourself,” she said. “Of what you’re becoming.”
Her smile vanished. “He should’ve let you go.”
My chest burned. “But he didn’t.”
“No,” she agreed coldly. “Because he’s selfish. He always has been.”
She stepped away, her presence like smoke fading.
“But you should ask yourself, Eliza,” she called over her shoulder, “when the hunger truly comes… will he still want you?”
Then she was gone.
And I was alone.
Except for the sound of my own breath — too fast, too shallow. And the pounding in my ears that wasn’t fear.
It was craving.
I pressed my palm to the wall to steady myself, and gasped.
I could feel a heartbeat. Not mine.
Someone in the manor.
Someone alive.
The scent hit me — warm, bright, unbearably sweet.
I moved without thought.
Through the hall, down a narrow corridor, toward the old servant’s wing. A young man—maybe staff, maybe a villager—stood with his back turned, placing something on a shelf.
I stepped closer.
Too close.
He turned, startled. “Miss Holloway—?”
I didn’t hear the rest.
All I saw was his throat.
His pulse.
The way my teeth ached for him.
But just before I lunged, I saw a shadow. Tall. Still. Watching.
Elias.
His eyes stopped me cold.
Not with fear.
With shame.
The boy walked away, never knowing how close he’d come to being nothing more than memory.
I turned to Elias, breath ragged.
“I almost—”
“I know,” he said.
His voice wasn’t angry. It was broken.
“I told you,” he said, stepping closer. “You’re changing.”
“What is she doing here?” I asked. “Selene.”
“She’s a mistake,” he said. “One I made long before you.”
“Does she want to kill me?”
He hesitated. “No. She wants you to do it yourself.”
My hands trembled.
“She’s wrong,” I whispered.
“Are you sure?” he asked softly.
I looked up at him.
And I wasn’t.
Not anymore.
- Writer
