The Blood Thirsty ✨

🌑 Chapter 2 — Shadows Stir...

The night carried a weight Lina had learned to recognize—one that didn’t rest, one that lingered in the hush between heartbeats. London’s streets had a rhythm she could read: the pulse of life, the scrape of shoes on cobblestones, the faint smell of rain still clinging to brick. But tonight, it was different. The city seemed to hold its breath. Something watched. Something waited.

Lina tightened the strap of her bag, her fingers brushing the spine of The Masked Lady. The book had not stopped whispering secrets since she pulled it from the library shelf. Every time she glanced at it, a shiver coiled through her, deep and electric. It was as if the words inside weren’t printed on paper at all—they were alive, breathing, bleeding into her mind.

She kept walking, the usual path toward home, but her senses stretched, listening, feeling, smelling. A shadow flickered across the alley to her left, melting into the darkness before her eyes could catch its shape. Lina froze, holding her breath, her pulse flaring.

“Not real,” she whispered, as much to herself as to the night. “It’s just… my imagination.”

But the cold in her veins told her otherwise.

Somewhere in London, a presence stirred—a hunger that had nothing to do with food. Lina didn’t know it yet, but the same force that had taken her parents twelve years ago had begun moving again, restless, calculating. Its eyes were not human. Its patience was eternal. Its attention had found her.

Meanwhile, Nera’s world was not far, yet it could not have felt further.

The West side of the city was quiet at this hour, a careful façade over streets that had seen more fear than hope. Nera’s boots hit the pavement with practiced precision. Her senses were alive in a way Lina’s weren’t—alert, sharp, unforgiving. She had learned early that hesitation could kill.

Her little brother Marcus had already been tucked into bed by her return from work, and the apartment was dark save for the moonlight spilling through the blinds. But Nera knew the night didn’t sleep. She could feel it pressing against her skin, crawling into the tiny crevices of the city. Someone—or something—was near.

The first warning came in the form of a sound she had memorized in childhood: a soft, deliberate footstep, too light for the street, too precise for chance.

Nera’s hand went to her belt instinctively. The blade there was familiar, comforting. But she didn’t reach for it yet. Patience was a weapon she had honed alongside muscle and steel.

A whisper slid through the alley like smoke:

“Do you know me?”

Nera froze. The voice was foreign, yet it resonated somewhere deep in her chest, behind her ribs, where memory and instinct tangled. She turned sharply, blade ready, eyes scanning the shadowed

corridor. Nothing.

Only the night.

Back with Lina.

Her path home led her through the quieter streets, where the glow of lamps barely cut the darkness. The Masked Lady book pressed against her chest like a talisman, heavy and warm. She could feel its pull—the quiet insistence of a story that wanted her attention, wanted her involved.

Then she saw movement

.

Two figures, barely visible in the dim light, standing at the corner of the street. She slowed, heart hammering. Her instincts screamed run, but another voice—softer, older—urged patience.

The figures parted slightly, revealing their faces. The first was a man, dark hair falling into his eyes, a presence that carried control and command without a word spoken.

The second was older, his aura sharp, cold, regal, like he belonged to another century entirely. Both were looking directly at her, though she could not explain why they felt familiar.

“You feel it too, don’t you?” the younger man said, voice low but urgent. “The shift. The awakening.”

Lina’s fingers tightened on the book. “Who… who are you?” she asked, voice trembling, not just from fear, but from something deeper—recognition.

The older man’s eyes, pale as moonlight, held her gaze. “You’re not ready to know… but you’re already part of what is coming. Fate does not ask permission.”

Before she could respond, a shadow darted behind them, too fast to see clearly. A hiss of wind, a metallic scent of blood.

Lina stumbled back. Her pulse slammed against her chest. Something cold, sharp, unnatural had brushed the edge of her awareness.

Nera’s city.

Nera’s intuition flared again. The same presence Lina felt was here too, though she couldn’t see it. She moved through the alleyways, silent as a cat, every muscle coiled. Then she felt it—a vibration in the air, subtle but undeniable. Someone… something… was watching.

And then, the message came.

Her phone buzzed. A single text.

"We have Marcus. Alone, or he dies. Come."

Nera’s breath hitched. Her mind ran through scenarios in a heartbeat, calculating risk, routes, timing. She knew she could not call the police—not yet. Not if they were dealing with something that defied reason.

Her hands tightened on her bag straps. She left her apartment without a sound, boots slapping the pavement, instincts guiding her like a silent compass.

Back in Lina’s world, the air thickened.

The younger man—Jaxon, though she did not yet know the name—took a cautious step forward. “You must be careful. They watch everything. They have… history with you.”

“Who? What?” Lina’s voice cracked, her eyes darting around.

“They will come,” the older one—Dante—said, voice like stone. “And when they do, they will try to take what belongs to them. You. Your power. Your blood.”

Lina’s chest tightened. Power? Blood? The words rang in her ears, sharp as shattered glass.

The street around them seemed to hold its breath, the shadows growing longer, darker. A low growl emerged from somewhere behind the lamplight.

Lina’s instincts screamed, and she ran.

Nera’s alley.

The alleyway seemed to stretch infinitely, shadows twisting unnaturally. She saw figures emerging—humanoid, yet wrong, hungry. Her blade gleamed in the streetlight.

“You picked the wrong night,” she muttered. Her hands moved on autopilot. The first shadow lunged. Nera twisted, slicing it cleanly; it evaporated like smoke, leaving only a trace of heat in the air. Another followed. And another.

The fight was a dance she had performed countless times in her dreams—muscle memory, honed by years of necessity. But this… this was different.

They weren’t ordinary predators. Their eyes glinted with a strange hunger, something she had never seen. And as they closed in, one of them hissed her name:

“Nera…”

Meanwhile, Lina stumbled into the old church on the corner.

She had no plan, only instinct. Her breaths came sharp, ragged, as she pressed the Masked Lady book to her chest. The walls, lined with centuries of stained glass, offered strange comfort. Light filtered through colored panes, falling like blessings on her dark skin.

She dropped to her knees, hands trembling. “What is happening to me?” she whispered.

Then the book vibrated. Not physically—it hummed through her very bones. Words formed on the page that hadn’t been there before:

"The time is near. Two sisters. Two souls. Four destinies. The blood will call. The night will answer."

Lina’s eyes widened. Her chest tightened. The shadows outside pressed closer, and she realized, with a sudden, terrifying clarity, that the night was no longer empty.

It was hungry.

And it had found her.