Bloodlust.

Vasilis.

  The study session went on for way longer than I thought it would.

Somewhere along the line, a man Jade called Mr. Edward brought us some noshes to munch on while we worked. I couldn't help but notice the weird way he'd stared at me before leaving.

Then we studied some more, then we had afternoon tea, then we kept studying. And then Brittany excused herself to use the bathroom.

Jade and I sat in a long, unending sequence of a deafening silence, still reveling torturously in the aftermath of our almost-kiss.

I wanted to scream. Or die. Possibly both.

I shouldn't be here. I should never have come. I should not have been in the woods that day she ran into me. I should not even be here in London at all.

I needed to move. Stay away from her at all costs.

My heart thrummed darkly, cold, pure killer instincts awakening in my veins as I felt my insides twisting and reshaping into something insidious.

My fangs hurt from the pure unadulterated primordial strength it took to keep them from lengthening. I kept my teeth clamped shut, my fingers balled into such tight fists, I feared I would soon implode from all the impulses I was so desperately struggling to reign in.

And it was all because of her.

Jade.

A single touch from her had awakened every ounce of bloodlust within my eternally damned heart and body, and my accursed self now craved even more of her, in-spite of the pain that accompanied my craving.

I had been hesitant to make any assumptions before, because she always walked about with that absolutely impenetrable mask of indifference. I'd thought it was impossible that she was attracted to me in any way.

But she was, apparently. She was filled with just as much lust for me as I was for her.

I didn't know how to feel about that realization, because it didn't necessarily mean that she liked me in any particular way, or that she had any emotional feelings for me. In fact, it was just confirmation that she was attracted to my body.

Vampirism only picks up on lust.

Our almost kiss had been the seal in the connection. And now, my previously quite well managed bloodlust had been fully unleashed, relieved of all and any possible restraints.

I'd been working on my restraint for nearly a year since my...blood-rage days.

I hadn't had human blood in nearly twelve months. I had learned to survive on animal blood instead, because despite the high and unmatched rush of adrenaline human blood gave, the emotional fallback was murderous.

I'd had a...phase, after Roman turned me. A phase I hated to reminisce.

I had stopped feeding the beastial way after that, and I had been working instead, on preserving whatever parts of my humanity remained untainted.

But now I could feel the old instincts awakening, rushing back in through a door that had been cracked open by Jade from the moment her lust for me became solidified.

She had wanted to kiss me, just as much as I'd wanted to kiss her.

If I wasn't currently fighting the urge to feed on her at that moment, I would have been over-the-moon elated by the realization that she was attracted to me. That she had wanted to kiss me.

But my muscles were beginning to spasm, my veins bubbling with an evil malady with no remedy as my eyes began to dilate.

I needed to get out of there.

My vision was blurring all over at the edges and corners. My breaths came out in short, pin-prickly bursts as my blood boiled over inside my veins.

The air was filled with her scent. The creamy sweetness of vanilla, entangled with the woodsy fragrance of patchouli, and a heady, mouth-filling allure of sweet jasmine.

God, I wanted her.

I wanted to kiss every inch of her I could touch, pin her down as I did sinful things to her magnificent body. And then I wanted to feed on her blood.

I wanted so desperately to feed on her blood, it was suddenly the only thought in my mind.

The singular, viscerally most incapacitating thought consumed my head like a bacterial virus, spreading, multiplying and growing thicker with every second, until the desperation of my need was a glass-shattering scream on the inside of my skull.

I had to leave. Now.

Suddenly, her scent was no longer just filling the air, but it was directly in my face, fogging up my senses until every inhale I took was her.

My lungs burned with torturous vanilla oxygen, mixed with deadly patchouli and jasmine.

"Hey, are you okay?" She seemed to be saying. I couldn't make out her words for sure due to the ringing in my head, but she was right there in front of me and her lips were moving, and with a sudden, wild wave of panic, I realized she was touching my face.

I swatted her hand away and was out of the house before I could do irreversible damage. I didn't care that I'd just disappeared like air in front of her. Some lies and excuses could be made up to explain that later.

That is, if I ever let myself appear in front of her ever again.

In a few minutes, I was back at the school, stumbling through the deserted stone hallways.

A pained, urgent growl ripped itself from my lungs as my fangs lengthened, ripping themselves out of my gums, as desperate hunger twisted my insides painfully.

I was in Roman's quarters in the flash of an eye, uncaring about consequences as I rummaged through his stash of blood bags.

I didn't stop until I'd greedily gorged my way through over two dozens of blood bags, and I kept going, until the Devil himself appeared.

"Well, well, well! If it isn't the prodigal son returning to his devilish roots!"

He roared with hard, nefarious laughter behind me, accompanied by a slow, mocking applause.

I whirled around, fangs gleaming, eyes glowing and mouth filled with the agonizingly delicious fill of human blood splattered messily all over my face.

He looked so smug and proud, and that was what snapped me back into a conscious state of mind.

The blood bag I'd just been ripping my way through fell from my hands as cold realization dawned on me.

Twelve long, hard months of restraint had just gone up in flames.

Shame and regret welled up within me like rapidly growing vines, twisting around my insides, until I looked back up into Roman's self-satisfied smirking face.

Rage replaced the shame and regret.

"You know, I've been plotting to kidnap your withering ass, to force feed you some proper human blood one of these days, if you didn't snap out of your foolish rebellion soon." He began, leaning against the door frame as he hooked an ankle over the other casually.

"Glad you've finally allowed common sense back into your head." He snickered, letting his eyes rake over me from head to toe with a weird glint in them, before he continued.

"And whilst this beautiful development in your character and your inevitable return to your diabolical roots makes me so very joyous, I must ask what prompted this change," he raised a silvery-white eyebrow.

"Just yesterday, you still remained quite steadfast in your starvation and you surely did not seem to be growing out of your rebellion any time soon. So, do tell, precious Vasilis, what happened?"

His icy eyes had hardened. I knew he was no longer joking around, but I did not care. My rage would not let me care.

"Fuck off!" I growled, and in the blink of an eye he had me by the throat, pinned against the wall as he bared his silvery fangs to me.

"What. Happened. To. You?" He gritted out between clenched teeth, eyes murderous as his fingers tightened around my throat.

"I said, fuck off!" I head butted him, slamming him across the room and into a wall as my rage consumed me from within.

"You devil! How dare you ask what happened to me when it was you who did this! You made me into this monster that I can never outrun. YOU!" I waved a blood covered finger at him as he slowly stood up.

He'd left a dent in the stonewall.

"We've been through this a million times already now, haven't we?" Roman rolled his eyes, his features twisting with wild fury.

"Yes, I saved you from death. Yes, it was without your consent. It's not as though you were in the position to give consent, but I'll gladly take the blame for taking initiative and be the devil you so desperately need me to be!" His rage seemed to boil and smoke beneath his glacial eyes, until it was rolling off his body like steam.

"Yes, you never wanted to be a vampire. No, I do not regret what I did to you. And yes, I would do it all over again if I had to, Vasilis!" Roman roared, his voice thundering and drowning out my rage as he stalked towards me, backing me up against the wall again.

"I would bloody do it all over again because doomed as I might be, you did not and you still do not deserve to end your own bloody life!"

And I broke down into a strangled sob.

The rage was rapidly leaving my body like rain washing off dirt from rooftops, and I could feel all of my anger washing away, leaving behind nothing but pain.

"You should have just let me die," I sobbed and watched Roman's gaze soften, though his glacial eyes remained stark with conviction.

"Never. Not while death has yet to deserve you."