Chapter 5: Blood and Possession
The hum of the fluorescent lights was a high, thin whine in the cold, still air of the armory storage. It was a sound Camilla had come to associate with this era—a constant, electric buzz underlying everything. She trailed her fingers along the cold, perforated metal of a gun cabinet, feeling the precise patterns. So much order. So much cold, hard efficiency.
The door clicked shut behind her.
She didn’t need to turn. She knew the shift in the air, the particular weight of the silence that followed him. Simon.
“König looked like a kicked puppy when he dropped this gear off,” Ghost’s voice was low, stripped of any radio static, and all the more dangerous for it. “Said you seemed upset.”
Camilla kept her back to him, focusing on the geometric perfection of the steel. “I was not. He was kind.”
She heard the soft crunch of his boots on the concrete floor, slow and deliberate. A predator circling. “Kind.” He repeated the word as if it were a foreign, distasteful concept. “He offered you his blood.”
It wasn’t a question. Of course he knew. The walls in this place had ears, and Simon was the one listening.
“It was a gift,” she said, finally turning to face him. He was closer than she’d expected, a solid wall of black and tan, his skull mask a stark negation of emotion. “Given freely. I have never been offered a gift like that.”
“It’s not a gift, it’s a transaction he’s too stupid to understand.” Ghost took the final step, closing the distance until the gear bag on the floor was the only thing separating them. The air grew thick, charged with the scent of gun oil and his own unique, coiled intensity. “You don’t take gifts from recruits.”
“Why? Because your rules say so?” She tilted her head, her silver eyes reflecting the sterile light. “The mess rules? You said yourself they are a mess.”
His gloved hand shot out, not to strike, but to grasp. His fingers wrapped around her throat, his thumb pressing into the hollow beneath her jaw. It wasn’t meant to choke, not yet. It was a claim. A grounding. The leather of his glove was cool, but the heat of his hand bled through.
“Yes,” he snarled, the sound raw and close. “Because my rules say so.”
He used his grip to back her up, one step, two, until the cold metal of the gun cabinets bit into her back. There was nowhere to go. The hum of the lights was inside her skull now.
“He offered it because he wants something from you,” Ghost hissed, his masked face inches from hers. His other hand went to his belt, the rasp of the buckle unnaturally loud in the quiet room. The click of the release was like a gunshot. “He doesn’t know what he’s offering. I do.”
Rough, jerky motions. The zip of his fly. He shoved his clothing down, just enough. His free hand fisted in her hair, not gently, angling her head back, forcing her gaze down.
“You want to feed?” he growled, the words vibrating with a fury that felt like it would tear him apart. He pressed himself against her lips, the skin hot and velvety, the weight of him a blunt, demanding pressure. “Then take from me. Only from me.”
Camilla went utterly still. The threat, the dominance, the sheer human volatility of it should have ignited her own predatory instincts. But something else flickered in the ancient dark behind her eyes. This wasn't the clinical transfer of blood from a bag. This wasn't König's awkward, generous offer. This was something else entirely. A violation that was also an invitation. A punishment that was also a surrender.
He was giving her what he thought she wanted, but in a way that ensured he was still in control. He was the one providing. He was the source.
She didn’t open her mouth. She didn’t move. She just breathed in the scent of him, soap and sweat and that unique, storm-charged air that was Simon Riley. Her lips, pressed against his skin, felt the frantic, hammering pulse in his thigh.
The silence stretched, taut and fragile.
The grip in her hair loosened, just a fraction. The hand on her throat gentled, his thumb making a slow, almost unconscious stroke against her pulse point. The anger seemed to drain out of him, leaving something heavier, more confused in its wake.
“Camilla,” he said, and her name was a broken thing.
She finally moved. She turned her head just slightly, her cheek resting against his skin, her lips brushing his thigh as she spoke, her voice quiet and impossibly clear.
“You misunderstand,” she whispered. “It was not the blood I wanted from him.”
She felt his whole body stiffen. The confession hung in the oil-scented air, dismantling his entire premise. He had assumed her motivation was hunger, a primal need he could monopolize and control. He was wrong.
He stepped back, shoving himself away from her, fumbling with his clothes, turning his back to her as he rectified his state. His shoulders were rigid with a fresh, different kind of tension. The shame of miscalculation. The terror of not understanding the game he was playing.
Camilla stayed against the cabinets, watching him, the cold metal seeping into her. She had seen the crack in his armor, not in his anger, but in the quiet, desperate moment after it had failed.
He didn’t look at her as he strode to the door, his movements once again sharp and efficient. The Ghost was back, sealed up tight.
But he paused with his hand on the knob, his head bowed. “Stay away from König,” he said, the order lacking its earlier heat. It sounded hollow. A formality.
Then he was gone, leaving her alone with the hum of the lights and the lingering, metallic taste of his desperation.
The sharp click of the door locking into place echoed in the sterile silence. Camilla remained pressed against the cold metal cabinet, its rigid geometry a stark contrast to the turmoil inside her. Simon’s heat, his anger, the shocking intimacy of his demand—it all clung to her like a shroud.
She slowly slid down to the floor, the rough concrete scraping against her trousers. The hum of the lights was now a maddening drone, amplifying the silence he left behind. She replayed the scene in her mind, the violence in his hands, the raw offer of his body.
Why did it hurt?
She had faced swords and fire and the burning sun with a cold, ancient heart. But this? This was a different kind of weapon. His jealousy was a confused, brutal thing, and his way of claiming her felt like a punishment for a crime she didn’t understand. A hot, unfamiliar pressure built behind her eyes.
Tears fell from Camilla’s eyes. They traced slow, warm paths down her cool cheeks, each one a silent confession of her utter confusion. She was unsure what to do with Ghost’s attitude, this volatile mix of possession and rejection that left her feeling both seen and completely unknown. She brought her fingers to her face, staring at the moisture in wonder. She hadn’t wept in centuries.
The storage room door creaked open with a hesitant, soft sound. Heavy boots shuffled on the threshold, then stopped.
“Camilla?” König’s voice was a low, hesitant rumble, cutting through the oppressive quiet. He stood there, a mountain of a man framed in the doorway, his posture unnaturally stiff. His eyes, wide behind his balaclava, took in her form curled on the floor. “I… I heard shouting. Are you… okay?”
She quickly wiped her face with the back of her hand, turning away. “I am perfectly functional.”
He didn’t believe her. He never did. He took a few slow steps into the room, his large frame seeming to make the space smaller, warmer. He knelt at a careful distance, his knees cracking loudly in the quiet.
“You are not,” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle. “You are crying. Did he… did Ghost do this?”
Camilla looked at him then, really looked. His eyes were not hard and demanding like Simon’s. They were worried. “He was… angry. About your offer. He said I should only take from him.”
König’s hands, resting on his knees, clenched into massive fists. A flicker of something dark crossed his features before it was replaced by a look of pained understanding. “He does not own you,” he muttered, more to himself than to her.
“He thinks he does,” she whispered, another tear escaping. “And I do not know why that makes me feel like this.”
“Because it is not right,” König said, his voice gaining a little strength. He fumbled in a pocket on his vest, pulling out a small, crinkled packet of tissues. He held it out to her as if presenting a rare artifact. “Here.”
She stared at the proffered tissues, this simple, mundane object of comfort. It was so profoundly human. She took one, the paper soft against her skin. “Thank you.”
“It is nothing.” He watched her dab at her eyes, his own gaze darting away to give her a moment of privacy. “You should not be in this cold room. Come. I will walk you to the mess. They have those little cakes with the pink frosting today.”
The offer was so kind, so ordinary, that it almost made her want to cry again. It was the antithesis of everything that had just happened in this room. It was a choice.
Camilla looked from the locked door Ghost had exited through to König’s open, waiting face. She nodded slowly, pushing herself up from the floor. “The pink frosting is my favorite.”
A visible relief washed over him. He stood quickly, offering a hand to help her up, then thought better of it and shoved it back in his pocket. “Good. That is good.”
She followed him out of the storage room, leaving the humming silence and the ghost of Simon’s touch behind. The corridor outside felt different, the air easier to breathe. König walked beside her, a quiet, solid presence, his occasional, nervous glances checking on her.
“He is not a bad man,” König said suddenly, breaking the silence as they turned a corner. “Ghost. He is just… broken in sharp ways. He does not know how to hold something without cutting it.”
Camilla considered this, the metaphor settling deep within her. Broken in sharp ways. It explained the pain. She looked at König, at his clumsy attempts at solace, and felt a strange, protective warmth. “Not all sharp things are meant for holding,” she replied softly.
König glanced down at her, a confused but appreciative look in his eyes. “No,” he agreed. “I suppose they are not.”
They walked on, the sound of their footsteps a syncopated rhythm in the empty hall, moving toward the distant, mundane promise of little cakes.