Chapter 228: Thirst for Blood.

The night seemed too heavy to fit inside the mansion.

Damon lay on the bed, eyes open, staring at the ceiling as if he could answer something. He didn’t blink. He didn’t need to. The problem wasn’t tiredness.

It was his body.

Every muscle was restless, vibrating beneath his skin like wires stretched too tightly. His heart beat slowly, deliberately… and yet each beat seemed to echo in his throat.

Damn blood.

The word pierced his mind like an intrusive, insistent thought. It wasn’t a vague desire. It wasn’t curiosity. It was raw, brutal, animal need.

He swallowed hard.

His throat ached.

It wasn’t ordinary thirst. It was as if something was drying out inside, cracking. A concentrated, specific pain that rose up his neck and lodged behind his tongue. He ran his hand across his throat, pressing as if he could physically contain it.

It was no use.

“I want to drink blood.”

The thought came complete, without hesitation, without shame.

“I want to drink blood now.”

Damon closed his eyes tightly, breathing deeply, trying to remember Elizabeth’s words. Redirect. Contain. Emotions. Will.

But his body wasn’t interested in lessons.

The hunger came in waves, exactly as she had said. Only this time it wasn’t a gentle warning. It was a call.

He felt first a tingling in his chest. Then heat. Then a growing pressure, pushing everything in a single direction.

And then he felt her.

Elizabeth.

Not with his normal senses. Not with hearing or sight. It was something different. An invisible thread stretching inside him, rising, crossing the mansion like a pulsating red line.

She was lying upstairs.

Her room.

Her presence was like a beacon in the darkness of hunger. Controlled, dense, contained… and yet absurdly alive. Each nonexistent heartbeat of hers seemed to scream directly inside his head.

’Drink her blood.’

The phrase didn’t sound like his own thought.

It sounded like an order.

Damon opened his eyes suddenly.

“No,” he murmured, his voice hoarse, almost broken. “No.”

But his body was already moving.

He sat up in bed without realizing when he had decided to do so. His feet touched the cold floor, and the contact sent an overwhelming amount of information throughout his body. He felt every imperfection in the wood, every distant vibration of the sleeping house.

He stood up.

The movement was too smooth. Too fluid. As if that position was already his natural state.

He stood still for a second, breathing deeply, trying to anchor his own mind.

’This is hunger. It will pass.’ But it didn’t.

His throat burned now. Not stinging—it burned, as if something was being corroded from the inside. He felt his canines pressing against his gums, an uncomfortable, almost painful sensation.

Each step he took toward the door seemed to slightly ease the pressure.

This frightened him.

“Damn it…” he whispered.

He opened the bedroom door.

The hallway was dark, too silent. The mansion slept. No footsteps. No voices. No real barrier.

Elizabeth was above.

He didn’t need to think to know the way. He didn’t need to decide. The red thread pulled, constant, insistent. Each invisible beat of her existence echoed like a biological call.

’She’s strong. She can handle it.’ The thought arose, treacherously. ’She herself said that the bond is completed this way.’

He descended a step… then climbed another. His body moved with unsettling precision, controlling its strength instinctively now, as if it had learned too quickly what it needed to get there unnoticed.

Each passing second made the hunger more acute.

It wasn’t just blood.

It was her blood.

The idea came accompanied by vague images—warmth, power, stability. Something inside him knew that this blood wasn’t just food. It was an answer. It was correction. It was the closing of an incomplete cycle.

“Stop,” he whispered to himself, pausing halfway up the stairs.

His hands trembled.

He closed his eyes, trying to feel something else. Anything. Emotions, desire, will, as she had taught him. He tried to recall memories, faces, human sensations.

But everything seemed distant.

Hunger was very close.

When he opened his eyes, he realized he had climbed higher than he thought. The upstairs hallway stretched ahead, illuminated only by the moonlight streaming through the tall windows.

Her room was at the end.

The presence was overwhelming now. Not aggressive. Not threatening.

Intimate. The red thread no longer screamed.

It whispered.

’Just a little.’

’She’s not going to die.’

’You need this.’

Damon took another step.

And then another.

Each step seemed to lessen the pain, ease the pressure in his throat. His body responded with a silent, almost comforting approval.

This terrified him more than any external threat ever could.

He stopped before Elizabeth’s bedroom door.

His hand hovered over the doorknob.

He could feel her blood on the other side. Not as a smell—as a promise. A contained power, ancient, absurdly vast, waiting just beyond that door, too thin to truly separate them.

The system—that irritating presence, always silent until the worst moment—shone in his mind like a blade.

[Drink Elizabeth Wykes’ Blood]

No warning.

No explanation.

His throat ached so intensely that he groaned softly, pressing his teeth together. His body leaned forward, almost touching the door with his forehead.

“You said… you’d be here to stop me…” he murmured, his voice faltering.

But Elizabeth was asleep.

And he was alone with his own hunger.

The red thread pulsed stronger.

Damon took a deep breath, the air entering unevenly, as if his lungs no longer knew the right rhythm.

He still hadn’t opened the door.

Yet.

But for the first time since waking up as a vampire, the question wasn’t whether he would lose control anymore.

It was when.

Damon opened the door silently.

The room was bathed in soft twilight, illuminated only by the moonlight filtering through the partially open curtains. The air there was different. Denser. Warmer. Elizabeth’s presence was no longer a distant thread—it was a silent, contained ocean, pulsing beneath the surface.

She lay on her side, too tranquil for someone who should be vulnerable. Her light hair was spread across the pillow, her face serene, almost too human for something that didn’t need to truly sleep.

Damon closed the door behind him.

Each step to the bed seemed like a silent agreement he made with himself. He didn’t run. He didn’t need to. Hunger guided him with cruel patience.

When he reached the edge of the bed, he stopped.

For a second—a last, fragile second—he hesitated.

Then he climbed up.

The mattress gave way under his weight with an almost imperceptible creak. Elizabeth didn’t move immediately. Damon leaned back carefully, as if self-control were still something possible to preserve in small doses.

He felt her warmth. Not physical. Vital.

His body leaned forward instinctively, and as he approached her neck, the hunger ceased to be pain and turned into vertigo. The world narrowed to that specific point of pale skin, where the nonexistent pulse still carried enough power to drive him mad.

The scent was subtle, metallic, sweet in a wrong way.

He closed his eyes.

He let his deepest desires surface.

He no longer tried to push them down. He didn’t try to redirect them. He didn’t try to be rational. All that existed now was the absolute need for her.

His face drew closer.

So close that he felt her skin warm under his own breath.

Then—

—If you do this—said a calm, awakened voice—our relationship will change completely.

Damon froze.

Elizabeth slowly opened her eyes and, with two fingers, touched his chest, pulling him away just enough so that their faces were no longer inches apart.

She wasn’t angry.

There was no shock. No fear. No reproach.

There was only… realization.

“I knew you wouldn’t last much longer,” she continued, her voice low, almost gentle. “Five days was truly impressive.”

Damon was breathing heavily now, his body leaning forward as if resisting the invisible force pulling him back.

“I tried,” he murmured. “I swear I tried.”

Elizabeth nodded slowly.

“I know. The curse of hunger is not weak.” She watched him closely, her red eyes assessing every microtension in his body. “It’s surprising that you’ve resisted since the transformation. Much more than most could.”

She sighed.

“But I always knew this would come.”

Damon clenched his fists on the mattress. His throat ached again, more intensely now that hope had been acknowledged.

“I can’t take it anymore,” he said, his voice faltering for the first time since he’d entered the room. “It’s not willpower. It’s not a choice. It’s like… like my body is screaming for you.”

Elizabeth was silent for a few seconds.

Then she nodded.

“The problem was never the act itself,” she said, with cruel honesty. “The problem is what comes after.”

Damon looked up at her.

“I take responsibility,” he said without hesitation. “For whatever changes. For whatever happens. It doesn’t matter.”

He swallowed hard.

“I just need you now.”

Elizabeth stared at him for a long moment.

Then she laughed.

Not a mocking laugh. It was low, almost weary, laden with something that mixed irony and acceptance.

“This is going to be problematic,” she said. “On more than one level.”

She adjusted herself on the bed, turning her face slightly to the side. A simple gesture. Too intimate to be casual.

Exposing her neck.

“Do whatever you want.”

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