Troubled (The Binding Chronicles #4)

15. Every Last Crimson Drop

Every Last Crimson Drop

I t didn’t seem to matter how many throats Therese ripped into, nor did it matter how much blood she imbibed. The hunger that had been her companion for centuries remained.

As if starvation wasn’t bad enough, she’d been in constant pain ever since that damned couple had attacked her. Black blood oozed from her wounds, and she was burning up from the inside out.

Why, why, why wasn’t she healing?

The First sought answers in her mind, but it was still fragmented after her time in the tomb. She didn’t even know if the information was there, somewhere.

She didn’t know much of anything anymore.

Everything, including time itself, was nothing more than a painful blur.

Her bare feet pounded the snow, and she ran and ran and ran. The direction didn’t matter—all that mattered was blood.

Every time the scent of life tickled Therese’s nose, she hunted. She didn’t care who her prey was or how old they were. Those matters were of little consequence.

All that mattered was that humans contained the sustenance she so desperately desired.

When she caught them—and she always caught them—she consumed.

Every.

Last.

Crimson.

Drop.

It was never enough. Not really.

Therese knew her name, but what good was that when she was being destroyed from the inside out?

She left bodies drained of blood in her wake as she tore her way across the frozen forests of this desolate country. She didn’t bother keeping track of how many she killed. They were humans, after all. They existed, first and foremost, to serve creatures of the night, providing them sustenance and strength.

Therese ran and ran until the moon dipped below the horizon. Then, she found shelter and waited out the sun.

The nights passed quickly, but the days crept by, each longer than the last.

Therese didn’t need sleep anymore. Issues that plagued mortals, such as exhaustion, aching muscles, and joint pain had stopped bothering her long ago.

She was a pendulum swinging between two states of being.

Sometimes, she remained still and meditated, plucking at the strings of her memories. She could feel them hiding in her mind, waiting for her to uncover them. She just needed them to tell her why she’d been locked away .

They would return one day. They had to.

Other times, when the reality of what had been done to Therese became too much to bear, she raged. Those days, when she remembered that centuries of her life had been stolen from her, she gave into the monster within her.

She screamed and pulled on her hair. She slammed her fists into stones until her hands were covered in black blood. On the days when anger took hold of her heart, she let that fury fester and grow until it was all she could think about.

Someone had stolen her life from her. Her memories. Her people. Her freedom. Everything .

During one such day, when rage tinged her vision red, and everything was too much, she made a vow.

She sliced open her palm on a sharp rock, letting black blood pool on the stones beneath her.

“I will find those responsible for locking me up,” she swore. “And when I do, I will avenge myself and the rest of the Twelve.”

She just needed more time. More blood. More strength.

Luckily, this world seemed to have more than enough humans to feed her.