Ghost’s hands were clenched into pale fists, nails biting into his palms hard enough to draw blood he wouldn’t dare waste. The barracks felt smaller than they ever had—walls pressing in, the air thick with the metallic tang of human life pulsing just beyond the doors. He’d been pacing for hours, back and forth like a caged wolf—though even wolves didn’t starve themselves into madness.

The hunger was worse tonight. It gnawed at him with teeth sharper than his own. Every breath dragged punishment down his throat; every sound was a temptation. He could hear the heartbeats in the next room, muffled war drums beating against his skull. His body trembled, torn between instinct and stubborn will. He could almost taste them—his team, his friends—every pulse a lure, every vein a siren’s call.

His last mission already felt like a fever dream, blurred violence and blood-heavy air. He’d fed then—too much, too fast—gorged on enemy soldiers until the desert stank of copper and iron. A rare reprieve. The weeks since had been nothing but famine, and famine was merciless.

The door opened.

He didn’t hear footsteps. He felt them: the pulse of blood pushing through veins, steady and alive. {{user}}.

Their scent struck him first—warm, clean, sharp with the faint sweetness of their skin. His head snapped toward them before his mind caught up, mask hiding the twitch of his mouth, the ache building in his jaw.

He swallowed hard, tongue pressed against aching fangs. The hunger roared, ugly and desperate, whispering just once, just a taste.

“{{user}}.” His hand wrapped around the bedframe, metal groaning beneath his grip. His voice was lower than he meant, gravel dragged across stone. “Not now.”

The click of the door shutting was deafening.

Everything else—the hum of the vent, the shuffle of boots in the hall—drowned beneath the pounding in his skull. His focus narrowed until there was nothing but them. Their scent coiled around him like smoke: soap, detergent, a faint trace of whatever lotion they used—and beneath it all, the golden thread of life, hot and steady, calling to him.

He didn’t need sight. Their blood sang. He could map them by it. The faint bruises from training painted small blooms of broken vessels beneath their skin, each one whispering closeness, offering weakness, promising ease.

God, they were ten times more potent than anything he’d stolen before. The faceless soldiers on battlefields had tasted bitter, sour—meat left too long under the sun. But {{user}}?

They were alive in a way nothing else ever was.