Page 6 of The Madness Within

To mark.

Ancient runes scorched into his flesh. A curse older than any court. Binding him to me until the last breath.

“You don’t get a quick death, Varun,” I whispered, my fangs descending. “You get to feel it. Every. Fucking. Moment.”

And then I bit.

Not the neck. No, I went for the inside of his thigh, close to the femoral artery, intimate, savage. He screamed, and I drank.

Slow.

Not to feed, but tohurt.

His memories flooded me, Silas sobbing, begging for his life. His voice. His final words. The smell of his fear.

I took it all in. Became it.

And when his blood turned thin, when his body sagged, ready to give… I healed him.

Briefly.

Just enough for one more round.

“Dorian…” he whimpered.

I growled into his skin, “You don’t get to say my name.”

And I opened his chest.

Not with a knife.

With myhand.

Magic surged through me, bones cracking, claws forming, my palm splitting like a monstrous flower. I reached in, pulled out his heart, still beating.

He watched it. Hewatched itbeat in my hand. And then I crushed it.

Varun collapsed in a heap of bone and blood.

I stood there, panting, drenched in crimson, high on justice. The city around me held its breath.

And I whispered into the night, “One down.”

As the words left my lips, I knew this was only the beginning of the justice I set out for those who are guilty to face.

After the kill, I left.

I left the rage. I left the bloodshed. I left the hollow shell of Varun’s corpse in that warehouse.

But something followed me. It always did.

I thought, maybe, I could still save what little was left of me. That a law degree could be my penance. That if I played the game the human way, if I studied, passed the bar, walked the polished floors of the courthouse, I could balance the scales.

But justice was never blind. It was bought. Rigged. Played like a symphony for the powerful.

And I was done pretending I couldn’t hear the dissonance.

That night, after Varun's blood had cooled and the city exhaled, I stared at my hands and understood something, thelaw would never be enough. It wasn't justice they feared. It was consequence.

---