Page 168 of Marked By His Hunger
An entire month of restraint.
A month of grinding my teeth against the iron bars of my own will.
And I was slowly losing my damned mind.
Damn that interfering Witch—Professor Kenna—had ordered me away from Serena for the time being, to allow her to acclimate to the Asgarheim Runevald Institute.
To focus on her studies.
To allow her to learn control, to not tangle with Monsters, as Professor Kenna had so delicately phrased it.
Control.
As if I did not already live shackled by it.
I tried.
Fuck knows, I tried.
I buried myself in Runic Theory. In Blood-Binding Doctrine. In the ancient codices of the Draugen curse stored in the restricted wing beneath the western tower.
I submitted to meditation rituals designed to quiet the Bloodlust.
I let the scholars siphon controlled offerings from me to measure volatility.
But my need for her was greater than my will to obey the rules by which I’d been allowed to attend Asgarheim Runevald Institute.
For a moment or two, I thought Bloodlust would overtake reason entirely.
But in a cruel twist of irony—my hunger was centered on only one.
Serena Notte.
Her name did not whisper in my mind.
It burned.
It blazed across my thoughts with the intensity of a supernova, a rune carved into the back of my skull.
Every corridor I walked seemed to hum her presence.
Every torch flame bent slightly when she passed floors below me.
The Institute’s ancient wards trembled when our proximity narrowed.
I sat through my classes like a carved idol of a forgotten god.
Silent. Immovable. Terrifying.
Students avoided my gaze.
Professors avoided provoking me.
I refused participation.
I did not care about my grades.
Fucking hell. I was only at Asgarheim Runevald Institute to learn how not to be a nightmare.
