Page 61 of Demon Monster's Little Human

A structure looms in the distance, its windows dark, its scent old with dust and disuse. Empty. It will do.

I push inside, kicking the rotting door shut behind me. The space is cramped, the wooden beams aged and cracked, the walls whispering with forgotten time. No one has lived here in years.

Good.

I lower Liora onto a moth-eaten rug, my claws brushing her sweat-dampened forehead. Her face is ashen, her lips parted as if gasping for a breath that does not come.

Her heartbeat is slowing.

Too slow.

Panic is a foreign thing, an emotion I have not allowed in centuries, but it claws at my ribs now, filling my chest with an unbearable pressure.

I do not know how to save her.

I have no power to heal.

She shudders again, a broken sound tearing from her throat. Blood seeps past her lips, staining her pale skin red, red, red.

A memory strikes like an arrow.

Blood.

Fed from her hands.

Her lips.

A woman, with eyes like fire, pressing her wrist to my mouth, whispering my name, before she sealed me away.

The taste of her had burned into me, marking me in ways even stone could not erase.

I remember. I despise it.

But the truth sits there, undeniable. Her blood saved me.

Purna blood.

Liora is Purna.

If there is even a chance, even a sliver of a chance that her blood can be bound to me the same way.

I do not hesitate.

My claws cut into my palm, slicing deep, the crimson pooling instantly. The scent of it is thick, metallic, laced with old magic.

I lift her, pressing her lips to my wound.

“Drink.”

Nothing.

She does not move, her lashes fluttering weakly.

I snarl, fingers gripping her jaw, forcing her mouth open. Forcing her to take it.

“Drink.”

The first drop touches her tongue, and the world shifts.

---