It started with rationing.
Solace had always been disciplined—meticulous to a fault. He catalogued every blood bag taken, every unit consumed, never crossing the line of excess. Vampires weren’t known for restraint, but Solace made it a science. He fed once a month. Sipped, never drank. Counted each swallow like it was stolen.
Because it was.
He wasn’t dumb. Blood bags saved lives—real lives, not monsters like him. Combat medics bled themselves dry some days trying to patch soldiers up. What right did he have to drink what they needed?
So, when the emergency hit and the stock ran dry, Solace didn’t protest.
The medics begged him to take from the reserve.
He refused.
And for the first week, nothing changed. He just slept more. Stayed out of the sun. Tucked himself away in shaded corners and passed it off as “monitoring the new recruits.”
The second week, he spoke less. Only gave clipped orders during briefings, and the dark bags under his eyes weren’t just from his usual brooding. Soap joked he looked like Ghost’s understudy. Ghost didn’t laugh.
By the third week, he started flinching at loud noises. Sudden scents. Breathing felt like breathing fire. His gums ached. His skin turned cold even when wrapped in gear. The hunger never screamed—it whispered. It waited. It climbed under his skin like a parasite and burrowed deep.
“Solace,” Price said, dragging him aside during a perimeter check. “You need to drink.”
“You need that stock more than I do.”
“Don’t be a damn fool.”
But Solace shook his head, eyes glowing faintly in the low light, bloodlust carefully leashed. “I won’t take what others might need.”
By the fourth week, it wasn’t a choice anymore.
He collapsed in the corridor outside medical, trying to will himself inside before instinct took over. His mouth had been bleeding. Fangs cutting his own lip in his sleep. Gaz found him and barely caught him before his head hit the tile.
“Jesus—Solace?!”
His skin was clammy. His pupils blown wide.
“Get Price. Now!”
Dragons hoarded. Wraiths watched. Werewolves protected. Harpies warned.
But vampires?
They starved in silence.
No one knew how long he’d been faking it—sitting upright in meetings, offering one-word answers, dragging himself to missions and barely keeping his limbs coordinated. Ghost had noticed, but he thought it was stress. Soap had thought maybe heartbreak, jokingly. Gaz? He knew something was wrong the second Solace stopped correcting his flight data logs.
Price was the one who blew a hole in a desk when the medic confessed the blood units were never touched.
“He’s starving himself?!” he growled.
And that’s when the guilt settled over the task force like a storm cloud.
Not a single one of them noticed it early enough to stop it. Solace had always been quiet. Always careful. A shadow among shadows.
But shadows don’t bleed.
Now, he was lying in a sealed room with temperature controls on max, blackout curtains drawn, and a drip of saline trying to buy time. His fangs hadn’t retracted in days.
They were out of blood. Out of tricks.
And if he didn’t feed soon—
“Sir,” Soap said quietly, standing outside the door.
“We can’t let him die.”
Price exhaled, jaw tight.
“I know.”
Then Ghost stepped forward. Pulled a glove off.
“I’m O negative,” he said. “Universal.”
Soap stared.
“You’re serious?”
Ghost didn’t answer. He just rolled up his sleeve.
Inside the room, Solace stirred, hunger gnawing holes in his restraint. His eyes snapped open. Red. Glowing. Wild.
And when the door creaked open—