The mark had done more than claim him. It had changed her.
She hadn't realized it at first—just a low, restless burn in her chest, easily mistaken for lingering anger. But then came the hunger. Deep, aching, and sharp as a blade pressed to the inside of her ribs. She could feel it beneath her skin, in her throat, coiling like a snake made of smoke and fire.
Agni whispered inside her skull:
He is yours. And yet you have not fed.
That whisper haunted her.
Vex stood at the edge of what remained of the old cathedral ruins, watching the Hollow pulse faintly with crimson light under the rising moon. The stone beneath her bare feet was still warm, scorched from her earlier outburst. Shadows curled around her ankles, drawn by the scent of her unquenched thirst.
She could feel him.
Rhydir. A storm wrapped in silver eyes and lazy swagger. He'd left after she'd marked him—without a word, just a cocky grin and the faintest bow, like he hadn't just offered his neck to a monster.
She should've killed him. She hadn't.
She should've stayed away. She couldn't.
The mark bound them. Even if it had been accidental, even if it had been Agni's doing, it was done.
She hadn't meant to crave him.
And she hated the way her body called for his blood.
No.
Tonight, she would feed.
Not from him. Never from him. Not unless—unless he begged.
And gods, she hated how much she wanted him to beg.
⸻
The tavern wasn't much. Just a crumbling outpost near the edge of the Hollow, where scavengers and deserters came to drink away their memories and pretend death wasn't watching from the trees. It was the perfect place to be cruel.
Vex walked in with nothing but a smile. Her crimson-tinted hair clung to her damp neck. Her cloak hung low and loose around her shoulders. The low lighting only made her fire-bright eyes more dangerous.
She didn't need to speak. They looked at her like prey looks at a flame—mesmerized, too slow to run.
One man approached. A mistake.
"Never seen you 'round here," he said, leering. "You lost?"
"I never get lost," she replied, sweetly, her nails trailing lightly along the edge of his jaw. "But you're exactly where you're meant to be."
She pressed a kiss to his throat—sharp, slow—and when her fangs sank in, his moan drowned in the thunder of his own blood.
It was empty.
Not the taste, but the act.
It didn't ease the hunger.
It didn't touch the flame inside her at all.
She stepped away before the man even hit the floor, his eyes glassy with bliss and blood loss. The room didn't stop her. No one dared.
Because something else had just entered.
Him.
⸻
"Darling," came the drawl from behind her, warm and amused. "Is this how you cheat on me? A backwater tavern? I expected better."
Vex turned slowly, wiping a speck of blood from her lip with the back of her hand. "You left."
"I came back."
He leaned against the doorframe like a devil with nowhere to be. His long black coat was dusted with ash, and his hair looked like he'd fought the wind and let it win. Silver eyes locked on hers like twin blades, glinting beneath lashes far too pretty for someone who killed for a living.
"You fed," he said, a bit too calm.
"I had to," she snapped.
He pushed off the door, closing the distance with that predatory grace that reminded her of wolves in the snow. Quiet. Lethal. Always watching.
"Why not me?"
Vex blinked. "You want to die?"
"No," he said, stopping just short of her. "I want to feel it."
The air between them ignited.
Rhydir reached up, brushed her jaw with one knuckle. "You put your mark on me. You made me yours. And now you think you can go feed on scraps? No, my queen. If you burn, burn me."
"You don't know what you're asking."
"Oh, I do."
Vex's breath hitched.
She shoved him. Hard. He didn't stumble. He laughed.
"Do you think this is a joke?" she hissed.
"I think it's the only thing that's felt real in years." His voice was quiet now, dangerous. "You think I haven't seen what you've become? You think I'm afraid of it?"
"You should be."
"I'm not."
His hands found her arms—not holding, just there. A reminder of his presence, not a demand. Not a cage.
No one had ever touched her like that.
Not since… before.
Not since she'd stood in that grand council hall, blood still fresh on the marble, and heard her stepfather lie through his teeth.
⸻
She sees it again, now—how they stood in a semicircle, the king at the center, her stepbrother grinning like the snake he was.
"You murdered your own mother," they'd said.
She hadn't.
But they'd needed a reason to be rid of her.
Because the people were listening to her, not them. Because the dukes whispered that she was too clever, too beloved. Because the king was weak and terrified of losing his grip.
They framed her, gave her mother's murder to the flame-hungry mobs, and watched as her name turned to ash.
They threw her into the Hollow expecting screams.
All they got was silence.
Until now.
⸻
Vex blinked the memory away and met Rhydir's gaze. There was no pity in it. Only heat.
"You don't understand what this is," she whispered. "What I am."
He leaned in.
"I don't need to understand it. I just need to want it."
And gods help her, she did too.
But she stepped back. Just once.
"You shouldn't make me want you," she said.
Rhydir grinned. "I didn't. You did that all on your own."
⸻
Later, when they returned to the crumbling ruin she'd started to claim as her palace-to-be, they sat under the stars like it wasn't madness.
"I don't have a plan," she admitted. "Not yet. Just rage and power and… a list."
"A list?"
"Of names."
He smiled. "Tell me the worst one. I'll start there."
She looked at him, really looked. "Why do you keep coming back?"
Rhydir tilted his head, his grin fading into something softer. "Because you came back from the dead… and they should be afraid of what they left behind."
She stared at the firelight flickering between them, her mind spinning.
"I used to believe in mercy," she murmured. "But they taught me that mercy is a weapon they turn against you the moment you show it."
Rhydir reached out, tracing the edge of her mark on his neck with one fingertip. "Then don't be merciful."
She laughed. "You say that like you're not terrified of what I'll do."
He leaned in, brushing his lips against her jaw, not quite a kiss. A promise.
"I'm not afraid of fire," he said. "I'm just smart enough to fall in love with it."