Chapter Eight: Hunger Beneath the Skin
POV: Aria (Selene Reborn)
The moon had marked me.
The beast had bowed.
And Lucian had claimed me again.
But something deeper stirred now beneath the skin, inside the blood.
It wasn't hunger for power or sex.
It was something older.
Darker.
And it was waking.
I stood naked in front of the mirror, long after Lucian left me aching and filled.
The bite marks on my thighs pulsed with heat.
The silver-moon crest now etched above my heart shimmered softly, as though breathing.
I wasn't supposed to feel it.
Not this soon.
Not yet.
But the blood had started to whisper.
And I… I started to answer.
The priestesses who came to dress me flinched when they touched my skin.
They whispered of how my temperature kept shifting too hot, then ice-cold.
How my scent had turned strange: no longer wolf, not quite human, not even entirely celestial.
They fastened the ceremonial silk between my thighs, but it soaked with heat almost immediately. My body rebelled against restraint.
The hunger beneath my skin was growing.
It wasn't for food.
Not even for Lucian's cock.
It was something unnameable.
I felt it in my tongue.
In my fingertips.
In the space between heartbeats.
The Moonblood Ceremony was held in the Sanctuary of Stone a ruined cathedral carved into a mountainside, lined with obsidian statues of the first priestesses, and lit only by moonfire.
It was beautiful.
And terrifying.
Much like what I had become.
The crowd gathered beneath the crescent arch.
Elders. Warriors. Shifters. Fae emissaries.
Even the shadows seemed to lean in.
They all waited for me.
And when I stepped barefoot onto the altar cloaked in nothing but my hair and the divine sigils glowing down my spine the air changed.
Wolves howled in the distance.
Magic crackled beneath the stone.
Lucian stood at the edge of the altar, arms crossed, chest bare, his eyes glowing like twin suns as I approached.
But there was something else in his gaze.
Not just lust.
Not even pride.
Fear.
"Something is changing in you," he murmured as I passed him.
I didn't stop. "You're only just noticing?"
"Your scent it's wrong. It's not just the mark anymore. You smell like"
"Death," I whispered. "And sex. And prophecy."
He growled. "Don't mock this."
"I'm not mocking," I turned to him now. "I'm becoming."
The ritual began with the sacrificial offering.
A bound animal, usually a stag or mountain ram.
But this time… they brought a shifter.
Wounded. Crazed. Eyes full of silver madness.
A former priestess's mate who'd gone rogue under the last blood moon.
He was to be the conduit.
The symbol of death and rebirth.
And I was to take from him… everything.
They chained him to the stone slab.
He roared. Fought. Shifted halfway through, fur bristling in patches along human skin.
I knelt before him, raised the obsidian dagger passed down from priestess to priestess, and pressed the tip just beneath his heart.
He laughed through bloodied teeth. "I know what you are…"
"I don't think even I do yet," I whispered.
Then I cut.
Blood sprayed.
Not red.
Black.
Like tar. Like starlight. Like venom.
It hit my skin and burned cold.
And I
I moaned.
My body arched as the liquid touched me. My nipples tightened. My spine bowed.
The hunger beneath my skin screamed to be fed.
I dropped the blade. Crawled atop him.
And drank.
Not with mouth.
With skin.
His essence poured into me, and I felt every part of him: his memories, his madness, his love, his hate. It flooded me.
And I came.
Right there.
On the altar.
In front of the pack.
In front of Lucian.
I shattered.
And when I looked up, my eyes glowed moon-white.
The crowd gasped.
The elders rose.
The chains turned to mist.
And Lucian stepped toward me, but too late.
Because something else stepped into me.
Selene.
The old goddess.
The first moon priestess.
The one whose power had been lost for centuries.
She had returned.
And her vessel… was me.
I collapsed onto the altar, panting, shaking, cunt still pulsing with aftershocks.
Lucian caught me before I hit the stone.
He cradled me in his arms, whispering, "You weren't supposed to take it all."
I blinked. "I didn't mean to."
"Yes, you did," he growled. "You drank his soul."
"I needed it."
He stared at me hungry, horrified, helpless.
"You're becoming a god."
I laughed, weakly. "Then why do I still feel like I need to be fucked?"
He growled again.
Threw his cloak over me.
And whispered into my ear, voice trembling with reverence and something close to rage: "When we get back to the den, you'll beg for mercy. And I won't give it."
Later that night…
The hunger remained.
I writhed beneath him.
Lucian held my wrists above my head with one hand, his other buried between my thighs.
But it wasn't enough.
His cock stretched me, bruised me, filled me again and again.
Still, I was empty.
Still, I ached.
"Harder," I moaned, voice a prayer.
He snarled, biting my collarbone. "You'll break."
"Then break me."
Hours passed. Or days.
When I finally screamed, it wasn't Lucian's name on my lips.
It was a goddess's.
And the moon outside our window bled silver fire across the sky.