Dawn crept through the windows of Arthur's private chambers, finding him exactly where it had left him the night before—hunched over his desk, surrounded by a fortress of books, scrolls, and hastily scrawled notes. The candles had burned down to stubs, wax pooling on papers covered in his increasingly frantic handwriting.
"Emotional state correlates directly with hunger intensity," he muttered, adding another line to what he'd labeled his 'Hunger Journal.' "Anger—eight out of ten. Fear—six. Arousal—" His pen hesitated over the page as he remembered Urzara's weakened form. "Ten."
Behind him, Urzara shifted in their bed, a small groan escaping her lips. Arthur turned to watch her sleep, noting the faint tracery of dark veins that appeared and disappeared beneath her green skin like shadow puppets playing under silk. They'd been doing that all night—growing more visible when she dreamed, fading when she settled.
*She's changing because of me.*
