I kept moving until the pub disappeared behind me, its music reduced to a distant beat beneath the rain. 

Walking wasn't exactly what I was doing. 

I stumbled along a narrow road until my back met cold, wet brick. 

Cheng had seen me with Liam. 

Fuck. 

Since what happened at the pub where I worked, Cheng had become even more protective of me. 

Possessive, too. I should have found it annoying. Maybe I did. 

But another part of me found comfort in it because it meant he cared. 

And now I was terrified of seeing his face again. 

Would he be angry? Disgusted? 

Would he ask why I'd let Liam kiss me when I'd spent so long pushing everyone else away? 

My fingers brushed my swollen lips. Liam was practically a stranger. I wasn't someone who kissed people for fun.

 A kiss felt too intimate to give to someone who might forget me the next morning. 

Then again, maybe I should've been thinking less about Cheng's reaction and more about everything he'd already done for me. 

He'd seen me sick, terrified, angry, pathetic, bleeding - and somehow he was still there. 

That was exactly why I couldn't ruin what we had over feelings I didn't understand. 

The jealousy. The possessiveness. 

The anger whenever someone else touched him or made him laugh. Cheng wasn't mine. 

Jesus, we already lived together. What else did I want from him? 

"Jealous? Me?" I laughed under my breath. 

Even drunk, I couldn't make that convincing. 

Liam had done something interesting, though. 

The moment he'd kissed me, Cheng had disappeared from my thoughts. 

Only for a few minutes, but maybe that was exactly what I needed. 

Maybe Liam could help me understand whether I'd confused being close to Cheng with wanting him. 

Friends could get confused, couldn't they? 

You trusted someone. Needed them. 

Stayed when everything went to shit. 

Wanted them beside you when something good happened. 

Eventually they became so woven into your life that separating yourself from them felt impossible.

Except Cheng had become my world. There was no softer way to say it. 

When something happened, he was the first person I thought about. 

When I was afraid, I wanted him. When I was angry, I wanted to argue with him. 

Even when he drove me insane, I needed him close enough to know he hadn't left. 

I didn't know when that had happened. Maybe I liked men. 

Maybe I'd always liked them and had simply become very good at refusing to look too closely. 

Maybe I liked Cheng's flirting, his attention, the stupid remarks, the touches that lasted half a second too long. Fine. What scared me was what would happen if I actually kissed him. 

No alcohol to blame. No joke. No pulling away before it became real. 

Liam was almost a stranger. If he rejected me, I'd survive. If he disappeared tomorrow, my life would continue.

Cheng was already everywhere. If I crossed that line and destroyed what we had, I wouldn't just lose someone I'd kissed. I'd lose my best friend. The person I'd somehow started building my new life around. 

So Liam... maybe Liam was safer. 

I pulled the piece of paper from my back pocket and stared at his number before unlocking my phone. 

-Hey, it's Chin Mae. The guy who had way too many drinks at the bar and shared your break with you. It was nice meeting you, Liam. -

Am I seriously doing this? 

I pressed send. 

A small, nervous smile crept onto my face. Maybe one small step was enough. 

I put my phone away and closed my eyes, letting the cold drizzle settle over my face. I was still confused. 

Still anxious. But strangely relieved. 

Then someone touched me. 

Hands caught me before my legs could give way and pressed me against the wall. For one stupid, hopeful second, I thought Cheng had found me. Then I smelled the perfume. That's not him. 

"Where have you been, baby?" A mouth crashed against mine. My eyes flew open.

"You shouldn't have run away from me." Fingers traced my jaw almost gently before closing around my throat.

 "Brian -" His smile widened. 

"Oh. So you remember your ex boss now." 

I shoved against his chest. "Get off me." 

"You said you wouldn't call the police." 

"I didn't." "My pub is closed." His smile vanished. "Do you know how much this has cost me?" 

"I didn't call them!" For one second, I thought of Cheng. Did he? 

No. Something's off.

If Cheng had decided to destroy Brian for what he'd done to me, I couldn't imagine him quietly stopping after the pub closed and Brian paid a fine. 

"You're lying." 

"I'm not. Get the fuck away from me." I tried to move, but Brian caught me. 

My forehead struck the wall, pain exploding through my skull as my arms were forced behind me. 

"Don't tell me what to do," he growled. "You know I hate that." I struggled hard enough for my shoes to slide across the wet pavement. 

He was bigger than me, and I was drunk, injured and barely steady. Still, I refused to collapse. 

A bitter laugh escaped me.

"What?" Even now, somehow, my mind found Cheng. 

"You guys... You and your fucking obsession with controlling everything." I twisted against Brian. "Did you hear what I said?" His grip tightened. 

I stopped fighting for half a second, then threw my head backward. Brian cursed and stumbled away. 

Run. 

I should have. Then I smelled it.

Metallic. Sharp. My mouth filled with saliva. 

Brian had one hand beneath his nose. Blood slipped between his fingers. 

Blood. 

The hunger hit so violently my stomach clenched. 

The rare meat. 

The metallic taste. 

The way my eyes kept finding people's necks. 

All of it surged through me at once. 

My teeth actually hurt, sharp pressure pulsing through my gums. 

What the hell? 

I should have run. 

Instead, I stared. 

Brian's fist snapped my head aside. 

Another blow followed before I recovered, and the street vanished beneath a high ringing in my ears. 

My knees buckled. He caught me. 

Everything sounded far away. Everything except the smell. 

Blood. Still there. 

Brian forced me against the wall again. "I really missed you." His voice reached me through the ringing. 

Blood stained his lips. "After you disappeared, I thought I'd lost my fucking mind. I don't care about the pub anymore. I don't care about the money. I just wanted another chance to make you fall for me." I turned away.

Don't cry. 

"When I saw you tonight, I was so relieved." The tenderness in his voice made my skin crawl. 

He actually believed himself. That was the worst part. 

"Brian. Let me go." 

"No." 

"I don't want you." Something almost wounded crossed his face. 

"Don't you understand how much I love you?" He kissed me again. I fought him until something touched my tongue. 

Metallic. Blood. His blood. 

Heat tore through me. 

The pain in my teeth intensified until I ripped my face away and dragged cold air into my lungs. 

What is happening to me? 

Brian pulled me back. 

His hands kept moving despite every attempt I made to stop him, and my body betrayed me with reactions I hadn't asked for. He noticed. 

"See? Your body likes me like this." 

"No, that's not -" Shame hit me. 

Then his bloody mouth touched mine again, and something stronger swallowed it. 

Hunger. 

I should have spat the taste out. Instead, my mouth watered. 

No. I didn't want Brian. 

I didn't want his hands or his mouth. I didn't want any of this. 

But the blood - I wanted that. 

Another streak of red appeared along his lip. Before I understood what I was doing, my tongue caught it. 

The taste sent a shiver through me. 

Why? 

My fingers tightened against his shoulders, not because I wanted him closer, but because my legs suddenly felt unreliable. 

The craving made me greedy. I wanted more, though I didn't understand what more meant yet - only that I wanted to devour him, to chase that sensation until I'd had enough. 

My grip shifted impatiently. My hand slipped from his shoulder, nails dragging across the side of his neck and breaking the skin. Brian hissed.

A thin red line appeared beneath my fingers. I stared. 

The scent rising from his neck was different from the blood I'd already tasted - richer somehow, sharper, pulling at the hunger inside me in a way the blood on his lips hadn't. 

"Why don't we go somewhere?" Brian murmured. I barely heard him. His fingers brushed through my hair, mistaking my silence for surrender. "A motel or something. I can show you how much I love you." 

A low, bitter laugh slipped from me. Brian smiled. He thought he'd won. 

I rested my forehead against his. "Here will do just fine." 

His smile widened. 

I leaned closer and passed my tongue over the scratch. The moment the blood touched it, something inside me broke loose. 

Every thought disappeared beneath hunger. 

"Just fine." I bit him. Brian screamed, his whole body jerking against mine. 

I expected resistance from skin, some instinctive limit that would stop my teeth from going deeper. There wasn't one. They sank through. 

Too easily. 

"What the fuck are you doing?!" He shoved me, but instead of releasing him, a growl tore from my throat. 

Was that mine?

Then blood flooded my mouth. My eyes widened. 

This was different. 

A violent shudder ran down my spine as weeks of inexplicable cravings collided at once.

Rare meat. 

Blood. 

Necks. 

Pulses. 

That constant ache in my throat. 

Stop. 

I tried to pull away. My body refused. 

Chin Mae, let him go. 

Brian struck my stomach. The pain registered somewhere distant. I bit down again. 

His scream tore through the street, sharp and desperate, but even that wasn't enough to make me let go. 

My fingers dug into the back of his neck. 

And I drank. 

There was no other word for it. 

I drank. 

Blood ran over my tongue and down my throat. The hunger vanished. 

Not slowly. Instantly. 

Relief crashed through me so intensely my knees nearly gave out. 

Oh God. 

This was what I'd been craving. 

Brian struggled against me. 

I knew this was wrong. I knew I was hurting him. I knew I needed to stop. 

But beneath those thoughts was something simpler. 

Something that understood only one thing. 

More. 

Brian's fist drove into my side. 

My hands only tightened as every swallow quieted something inside me that had been screaming for weeks. 

The rain faded. The street faded. 

For the first time in weeks, the emptiness inside me was disappearing. 

I wanted it gone completely. 

Brian's movements weakened. His weight sagged against me. 

That should have brought me back. 

Instead, I held him upright.

What are you doing? 

His breathing had changed. So had his pulse. 

I could feel it beneath my mouth. 

Fast. Then slower. 

Stop. 

Another beat. 

Let him go. 

Another. 

Slower.

 I pulled back for half a second. Then the scent reached me again. 

My fingers tightened. I tilted his head farther aside, and the sickening sound of skin tearing reached my ears again. 

More. 

"No..." 

Rainwater ran down my face. 

Cars rushed along the main road beyond us. 

Music still pulsed faintly from the pub. 

The world continued as though nothing had happened. 

Brian's arms hung uselessly over my shoulders. I felt them go limp. 

I knew exactly what that meant, and somehow I managed to pull myself away. 

For a moment, I stopped. 

Then the hunger surged again. 

My eyes fell back to his neck, and before I could convince myself otherwise, I leaned toward it once more. 

"Hey!" A voice cut through the haze. I froze for barely a second. "Hey! You two!"

Someone could see us. It should have mattered. It didn't. 

All I could hear was Brian's weakening pulse. All I could taste was blood. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, I could breathe, as though I'd spent months drowning without knowing I was underwater and somebody had finally dragged me to the surface. 

"STOP!" 

Hands seized Brian and ripped him away. A growl tore out of me. 

I reached after him before I could stop myself. Then the cold rushed in. 

Rain struck my face. 

Air filled my lungs. 

Without Brian against me, the hunger loosened its grip enough for reality to return. 

He collapsed several feet away. 

Too heavy. Too still. 

My breathing became uneven. 

I looked down. Blood covered my hands. 

It had settled into the lines of my palms, worked beneath my fingernails and stained my sleeves. 

For a moment, I couldn't connect those hands with myself. 

My hands. My fingers trembled. 

Slowly, I touched my mouth. Wet. Sticky.

 I pulled my hand away. 

Red. 

My stomach twisted. 

This wasn't Brian's blood splattered on me because I'd fought him.

It was there because I had devoured him. 

What did I do? 

I swallowed automatically. The taste was still there. 

Worse was the tiny pulse of satisfaction that followed it down. 

"No..." I pressed myself against the wall and looked up. Someone stood near Brian. 

Shoes. Trousers. Hands hanging rigidly at his sides. I knew those hands. My gaze travelled higher. 

Cheng. 

My heart slammed once against my ribs. 

Not him. 

Of all the people who could have seen me like this - not him. 

He stood completely motionless. His eyes dropped to Brian, then returned to me. 

My hands. My clothes. My mouth. I wiped my lips without thinking. T

he back of my hand came away red. 

Cheng stared at it. 

"Cheng..." My voice sounded small. 

He didn't answer. I wanted him to. God, I wanted him to say anything. 

Call me a monster. Ask what happened. 

Get angry. Come over and pull me away like he always did. Instead, he stared.

"Cheng, I -" The words died. 

What was I supposed to tell him? 

Brian attacked me.  I fought back. 

That part was easy. 

Everything after wasn't. I looked at Brian and immediately wished I hadn't. 

"I-I am..." I touched my mouth again. 

Cheng's gaze followed my hand. 

That was when I saw it. I'd seen Cheng furious. 

Drunk. Jealous. Reckless. 

I'd seen him lose control badly enough to frighten me. 

I'd seen fear in his face, too. 

But it had always been fear for me. 

This wasn't. 

My breath caught. Shock held his face unnaturally still, as though his mind hadn't caught up with what his eyes had already seen. 

And beneath it - Terror. 

"Cheng..." I took one step toward him. Something in his expression changed. 

Barely, but I saw it. I stopped. 

My eyes burned. I wanted to tell him I was still me. But the words wouldn't come. 

Because I could still taste Brian's blood. 

And somewhere beneath the nausea and horror, the hunger was finally quiet. 

Satisfied.

I didn't understand what had happened. 

I didn't understand what I had done. 

But looking at Cheng's terrorised and shocked expression, one thing became horribly clear. 

Whatever he had just seen - I wasn't the only one afraid of it anymore.