Chapter 7 The Queen’s Hunger
The dungeon torches crackled weakly, their dying flames casting long copper shadows across Kael’s chained form. The room itself was built for intimidation—cold stone, iron restraints forged with vampire blood, a floor stained by centuries of screams. It had broken kings, mages, and immortal beings.
It had never broken her.
And tonight, for the first time in centuries, she felt like the one being undone.
Lyrathia stood at the edge of the shadows, her posture rigid and regal, but her hands—hands that had never trembled—curled faintly against her sides. She should have felt nothing. She should have been untouched by the sight before her, just as she had been untouched by anything for a millennium.
Emotion was a myth inside her. A dead language she no longer spoke.
And yet—
Kael lifted his head, pulling subtly against the chains that bound his wrists high above him. The muscles along his arms flexed under the strain, and Lyrathia felt something sharp and hot twist under her ribs.
Hunger.
Not the hunger for blood—she had conquered that centuries ago. This was deeper. More dangerous. An ache she shouldn’t be capable of.
Her jaw tightened.
This was wrong. Impossible.
Her curse should have frozen such impulses long ago. And yet she stood here—watching him like a predator that didn’t know if it wanted to devour its prey or press its body against it.
Kael’s eyes found her in the dim.
“Back again?” His voice was sandpaper and heat. “I was beginning to think the great queen only visits when she wants to… study me.”
Study. Yes. That was what she should be doing.
But her gaze betrayed her—sliding down the line of his throat, lingering on the bruises left by her soldiers’ hands, then drifting lower, to the rise and fall of his chest as he breathed slow, steady breaths.
Her fangs tingled.
She looked away sharply, furious with herself.
“Your insolence is tiring,” she said, voice colder than the stone beneath their feet.
“Then stop coming here,” he said simply.
Her pulse—dead and useless for centuries—gave a faint, traitorous flutter.
She stepped closer.
Kael watched the movement the way one watches storm clouds gather. Not afraid. But aware. Eyes trained on her, reading her in ways no one should have been able to.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” he asked quietly.
She hated him for noticing.
For seeing.
For making her feel visible.
“You misunderstand,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “I am evaluating your… condition.”
Kael gave a soft, humorless laugh. “Right. Of course. That’s what that look was.”
“What look?” she snapped.
“The one that says you want something you’re not supposed to want.”
Her breath stilled.
She moved before she could stop herself, closing the distance in a blur of predatory grace. Her hand shot out, gripping his jaw with a force that made his breath catch.
She could hear his pulse now, beating calmly beneath her touch. Not fast. Not afraid. But alive and warm in a way she hadn’t felt against her skin in centuries.
The sensation sent her reeling.
“Do not assume you know anything about me,” she hissed.
His lips quirked. “Then why are you shaking?”
Her eyes widened imperceptibly.
She wasn’t shaking. She couldn't be.
But then she realized—her fingers were trembling against his jaw.
A small, terrible tremor.
He felt it too.
Kael’s expression changed. Not mocking. Not fearful.
Curious. Devastatingly gentle.
“Something’s happening to you,” he murmured. “Isn’t it?”
“Silence.” She released him abruptly, stepping back as though his skin burned. “This is nothing.”
It was not nothing.
It was a wildfire licking at the edges of her curse.
Every time she looked at him, something inside her stirred. Something she had entombed long ago under layers of duty and ice.
Desire.
Raw, consuming, irrational desire.
She wanted to feel his pulse beneath her palm again.
She wanted to drag her mouth along his throat and taste the heat there.
She wanted—
No.
This was madness. A queen did not crave a mortal. A cursed being did not crave anything.
“What are you doing to me?” she whispered before she could stop herself.
Kael blinked. “What?”
Her eyes snapped away. She had not meant to speak aloud.
His chains rattled softly as he shifted, stepping forward as far as the restraints allowed—mere inches, but the movement felt like pressure against her lungs.
“I’m not doing anything,” he said, voice softer now. “You’re the one taking things from me. My freedom. My answers. My dignity.”
A pause.
“But if I’m affecting you… maybe you deserve to question why.”
She should have struck him. Should have ordered him beaten or thrown into a darker cell.
Instead, Lyrathia found herself stepping closer again—drawn by some traitorous instinct.
The hunger spread, molten and reckless, heating her blood in ways she couldn’t understand. It seeped into her bones, curling through her veins like smoke.
She hovered inches from him, staring into his storm-gray eyes. They were clear and resolute, lacking the glazed fear she was accustomed to seeing in this chamber. Mortals always cowered. Always begged.
Kael did neither.
He leaned forward slightly.
And her breath—another useless relic—caught.
“Tell me, Queen,” he murmured. “What exactly do you feel when you look at me?”
She opened her mouth—no sound emerged.
Because she didn’t know. Because she had no word for this. Because for a heartbeat, she wanted to—
Her fingers twitched.
No.
No.
Enough.
She tore herself away from him, forcing her body back across the room toward the heavy iron door.
When she spoke, her voice was sharp enough to cut stone.
“You are nothing but a pawn in a larger puzzle. Whatever… reaction… I experienced is irrelevant. I will crush it. Do you understand?”
Kael tilted his head. “If you could crush it, you already would have.”
Her fangs pressed against her lower lip.
She hated him.
She wanted him.
She feared him.
And for the first time since she’d ascended her throne, she was terrified of herself.
Without another word, she turned and left the dungeon.
But she made one mistake—
She looked back.
Kael stood in his chains, breathing steadily, watching her with those unbreakable eyes.
And the hunger inside her whispered:
You will come back.