Page 156 of Marked By His Hunger

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And somewhere in the middle of all that?

I was starving.

Not metaphorically.

Not socially.

Physically.

Bone-deep, gnawing, throat-drying hunger that no amount of cafeteria food could satisfy.

Because I was avoiding it. Him.

Raven.

The Draugr.

Or maybe he was avoiding me, but that hurt more to think it.

Either way, the whispers followed him like shadows.

Nordic Revenant.

Cursed bloodline.

Cannibal ancestors punished by the All Father.

Monster.

Devil.

But none of those stories matched the man who had wrapped his wings around me in the infirmary.

None of them matched the way his voice softened when he called me his Unnasta—whatever that meant.

None of them matched the way I felt him even when he wasn’t there.

It was like I was missing a part of myself, even though I was whole.

I felt it. Felt him.

Or, well, I thought it was him—every time I relaxed it would pop up again.

The weight of someone’s eyes on me in corridors.

A shadow at the edge of my peripheral vision.

Each time I turned away from it.

Because of the warning I received from her.

Professor Kenna.

Her voice still echoed in my mind.

You are here to learn control. Not to entangle yourself with Monsters.

And I knew she was right.

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