I had never been inclined to violence before. But then again, I had never borne witness to acts so vile they demanded retribution. I had never experienced the kind of agony that leaves the mind coiled and poised to lash out at the first opportunity. I would carry that viper inside me for years, letting it out intermittently to rip the wicked to pieces. But that day, I had not yet befriended the serpent within. It seemed to me a strange interloper, a frightening thing, demanding to be fed.
You put your mouth close to my ear as I stared off into the distance, towards where the raiders were enjoying their meal. Even now, I have no idea how they stomached taking their supper feet away from the disemboweled entrails of women and children. War is the whetstone that grinds down all sense, all humanity.
“They will not hear you coming,” you murmured. “I will stand a little ways off to ensure your safety, and to make sure none of them run.”
My mouth watered, aching gums screaming out. My stomach twisted into painful knots, as though I hadn’t eaten in a fortnight.
Slowly, the shaking hands at my sides curled into steady fists.
I felt you smile against my skin, your voice taking on the rough pleasure of the hunt.
“Water your mother’s flowers with their blood.”
I nodded, my breath coming shallow and hot.
“Yes, my lord.”
My lord. My liege. Beloved. King. My darling. My defender.
I had so many names for you in those days, my cup of devotion overflowing with titles worthy of your station. I used your name, too, the one your mother had given you, but only in our most intimate moments. When I comforted you during your rare displays of weakness or made a vow to you as a woman, as a wife.
But I am not your wife anymore, my lord, and I don’t think you ever truly saw me as a whole woman. I was always a student. A project. An accessory in the legal and decorative sense.
You did not let me keep my name, so I will strip you of yours. In this world, you are what I say you are, and I say you are a ghost, a long night’s fever dream that I have finally woken up from. I say you are the smoke-wisp memory of a flame, thawing ice suffering under an early spring sun, a chalk ledger of debts being wiped clean.
I say you do not have a name.
Bloodlust brings on a delirium that’s difficult to describe. From the first squirt on the tongue to the last dying jerk of your prey under your hands, the whole experience builds and builds into a screaming fever pitch. Those with little imagination have compared it to carnal climax, but I liken it more to religious ecstasy. I have never felt more truly alive in my waking death than when I am taking the life of another person.
I didn’t start small, with the gentle siphoning of blood from a lover in bed. I launched myself into the midst of my attackers like a fury from myth.
And I didn’t just kill them. I tore them to pieces.
There were five or six men. I hadn’t been able to keep count when they attacked, and I didn’t bother counting them when I descended. They seemed to be one writhing, pulsating mass, a horde of insects best eradicated in a furious stomp of my boot. Before you found me, I wouldn’t have been able to fight off one of them, let alone half a dozen. But your blood made me strong, stronger than any human had a right to be. It evaporated my fear and propelled me forward into their ranks, my mouth twisted into a snarl.
One of them looked over his shoulder and saw me coming, his face half-illuminated by the cooking fire.
He opened his mouth to shout. I wrapped my fingers around his upper and lower sets of teeth and wrenched his jaw apart before he had the chance.
The others fell so easily. I gouged eyes, snapped necks, fractured ribs, tore open the tender flesh of inner arms with my burgeoning teeth. My gums split, mingling my blood with the blood of my assailants, as I fed from them again and again. Only one of them tried to flee, staggering into the dark and right into your arms. You broke his leg with a swift, efficient kick, then sent him hobbling back my way like a parent turning around a wind-up soldier wandering too close to the playroom door.
When it was over, I stood unsteadily amidst the bodies, panting hard. I was satisfied with what I had done, with no treacherous regret creeping in at the edges, but I didn’t feel exactly… satiated. The hunger was still there, quiet but present despite my churning stomach full of blood, and I didn’t feel as clean and vindicated as I had hoped. The horror of being beaten while my family burned to death still existed, seared into my memory though my body no longer bore the marks. The appetite for revenge those men had sown in me was still there, curled up tight and sleeping fitfully.