The Bloodbound Saga

The Vampire’s Hunger

“You are locked in. The walls are soundproofed. Yet, a hunter lies dead outside your window, and your scent is all over the kill. Explain this paradox.”

Dante’s voice was lethal, stripped of the strange, electric heat of the previous night. It was pure Alpha command. Selene stood in the center of the small cabin, her pale gold eyes blazing copper from the intensity of the suppressed bloodlust she had felt moments before the throat was slit.

“I was at the window, Alpha. I was blood-mad from hunger and trauma residue,” Selene admitted, using short, razor-sharp sentences. She inhaled, searching for the scent of a hidden perpetrator, finding nothing but Dante’s furious presence. “I saw him stagger. I wanted to feed. But I was here. I did not kill him.”

Kahlan, the Den Counsel, stood beside Dante, her posture severe. “The denial is moot. The blood is human, and freshly spilled. The manner of death is brutal, suggesting a predator’s fury. The scent trail begins and ends at this window.”

“The Pack is skeptical, sun-walker,” Kahlan declared, her voice was cold and measured. “They believe you lured him here, used your fevered state as a cloak for murder, and are now lying to the Alpha.”

Selene felt a deep wave of frustration. The hunger was a constant, throbbing pain, and the judgment of the Pack was a weariness she couldn't afford. “I don’t kill humans, Kahlan. I have resisted human blood for decades. Why start with a hunter on your doorstep?”

Dante stepped forward, cutting off Kahlan. He held up a bloodied piece of leather, a scrap torn from the dead man's jacket. It was a cheap, low-grade material, and Dante’s wolf-gray eyes were now dark with concern, not just fury.

“This hunter was a low-level contact for Don Moretti. He was likely sent in as bait, expecting you to take the easy opportunity to feed,” Dante explained in a gruff voice. “But you are claiming a restraint that defies your nature. Prove it. Now. The Pack demands to know the truth of your survival.”

Selene knew this was the moment of confession. She had to peel back the layers of the lie she lived to survive. She closed her eyes, forcing her mind through the complex, arduous mental lockdown that constituted her daily ritual of denial. She slowed her breath, focusing on the soft vulnerability within herself.

“I live by a ritual because I have to,” Selene confessed, her voice softening into slow, rhythmic lines. “My bloodline… the sun-walker ability… it requires more than basic sustenance. If I feed on human blood, the power is uncontrolled, and dangerous. I resist human blood because it makes me something more than a predator. Something they engineered.”

She opened her eyes, meeting Dante's gaze. “I drink animal blood. It is thin, it is bitter, it is barely sustaining. But it dulls the resonance. It keeps me confused and weak, which is safer than being exposed and powerful.”

Kahlan scoffed, her skepticism clear. “A vampire surviving on farm animals? That is a fairy tale for pups. You are simply hiding a recent, large feed.”

Suddenly, Lyra Kestrel appeared at the door, having clearly listened in. Her eyes gleamed with malicious satisfaction.

“She’s right, Alpha. It’s a disgrace to even call it a diet,” Lyra said, her voice dripping with petulant mockery. “You are a pup, sun-walker. A blood-mad pup who is too weak to hunt properly and too cowardly to burn. If you were truly a warrior, you’d have fed and taken the power, instead of shivering in a locked room.”

Lyra crossed her arms, her stance entitled and arrogant. “I speak for the Pack. We do not need a Luna who survives on fear and half-rations. We need strength.”

Dante's glare silenced Lyra, but he didn’t dismiss her. He turned back to Selene, his focus absolute. “Lyra has voiced the Pack’s doubt. They need proof that you are not one panic attack away from turning on them. What is the ritual you spoke of? Demonstrate your control, or you will be confined permanently.”

Selene understood. This was the formal test. She stood straighter, tapping into her inner well of resilience. She couldn’t show them the mental strain, only the result.

She placed her hand flat against the cedar wall, allowing the raw, surging heat of her true nature to flow through her veins, then slowly, and painstakingly, pulling it back. She focused on the internal command: Contain. Suppress. Deny. Her pale gold eyes fought the copper color until the metallic glint receded.

“The control is not external, Alpha. It is a constant decision,” Selene stated, weary but firm. “I am not an animal that needs to be chained. I am a survivor who chooses weakness over engineered strength.”

Dante watched, his wolf-gray eyes studying the faint tremor in her hand, the thin sheen of sweat on her porcelain skin. He saw the exhausting toll of the suppression, recognizing a fight harder than any physical skirmish.

“You confess to hunger, but you choose denial. I accept your story, Selene. For now,” Dante said, his voice lowering to the intimate, low confession reserved only for her. “But the man outside changes things. The hunt is here, and your weakness is a greater risk than your strength.”

He walked to the single window of the cabin and looked out at the forest. The sun was setting now, staining the western sky in deep violet and orange. “I will deal with the body and the Pack’s fear. You will remain here. Rest. Or prepare for the next hunt.”

Before he left, he placed a small, silver-tipped wooden stake, an antique dagger from a den collection on the desk. It was an impossible gesture: a weapon against her own kind, offered by her captor.

“If the urge breaks you before I return, use this on yourself. Do not breach these walls,” Dante ordered, his voice gruff, his meaning clear: protect my people, even from yourself.

Selene stared at the stake, then at the thick Pack broth he’d left earlier. She walked to the window and placed her hand against the cold glass, watching the sun finally dip below the horizon.

With the sun gone, the blood moon began its slow, majestic ascent. It was huge, perfectly round, and terrifyingly red.

The moon’s energy slammed into Selene. It bypassed the mental walls, ignored the suppressed weakness, and hit the core of her true, unique sun-walker blood. The hunger, which had been a painful throb, became a demanding, physical roar.

Her pale gold eyes widened, filling with an uncontrollable, blazing copper. She could smell the warm, potent lifeblood of the Pack moving outside, could hear the rush of a lone, vulnerable sentry pacing near the northern trail like a living pulse of energy. She saw, through the dark trees, the perfect, unmoving silhouette of the guard.

Her body locked up, rigid with agonizing need. She couldn’t move away from the window, and she couldn't break the glass. She was entirely consumed by the savage, overpowering impulse. The sun-walker was fully awake, and she was desperate to feed.

Did the blood moon’s raw sorcerous energy just trigger the full, terrifying strength of Selene’s unique bloodline, or was her sight of the vulnerable sentry the final, deliberate choice of a predator who can no longer resist the hunt?