"Can you feel it? Can you feel how your heart beats? How the power pulses through your veins? It's the monster inside you. Allow it out, allow it to take control. Don't fight it, live with it. Only the vampire in you can make you powerful. If you reject it for too long, you will die. Die like a pitiful human, Beatrice. You can't die, you must return to me. You must show me it." Her voice echoed inside the darkness, soft yet commanding.
Show you what? What do you want from me, you old hag? I'm not your puppet. I won't serve you. I'm free. I'm not an animal like you. I am… I—
I froze. The power inside me was moving, flowing through my body like molten fire. It filled the emptiness inside me, repairing, feeding, rebuilding what was broken. Even though I couldn't see anything, I felt every part of it, every pulse. It was too strong, too real, too alive.
It was hard to deny that I wasn't what she said I was. That I wasn't the monster she claimed.
Shit.
