SAGE
I woke up craving blood.
The awareness slid into me before my eyes opened, before my breath even found rhythm.
It sat on my tongue first—metallic, sharp, a taste that wasn't there and yet was. My mouth watered in a way that had nothing to do with hunger as I knew it. Not bread. Not fruit. Not even meat.
Blood.
The word pulsed through me, unwelcome and undeniable.
I lay there staring into the dark, my sheets twisted around my legs, my skin damp as if I'd been dragged out of deep water. My heart thudded hard enough to bruise from the inside.
I swallowed, once, twice, trying to scrape the sensation away, but it clung—thirsty, insistent, alive.
The nightmare unraveled itself in pieces when I blinked. Naked fellows, bodies pale and wrong, their mouths red, lunging hands, tearing teeth. I'd woken just before they reached me, a scream trapped behind my teeth.
I told myself it was only that—the dream, the panic, my mind playing tricks in the hours before dawn.
