C7 Shouldn't have

ALARIC

The moment my lips touched hers, I knew I had made the greatest mistake in centuries.

Sydney tasted like fire and defiance, like something forbidden and intoxicating. Every part of me screamed to pull away. To stop. To remember who I was, what I was. But her warmth, her softness, her stubborn little gasp against my mouth—

It broke me.

I hadn’t wanted to kiss her. Not truly. I wanted to shut her up, to scare her, to push her away. But the second my mouth claimed hers, centuries of discipline unraveled.

And worse—she had seen me.

The veins. The darkness. The thing I kept hidden at all costs.

If she remembered that, everything was finished.

I pressed harder into the kiss, letting the ancient power buried in my blood surge forward. My hands cupped her face, steadying her trembling as my will seeped into her. The hypnotic pull of my kind—older than kingdoms, honed through lifetimes of survival.

“Forget,” I murmured against her lips, the word more command than whisper.

Her heartbeat faltered, then steadied. Her lashes fluttered. I felt her mind bend beneath mine, fragile as glass. I pressed again, pouring power into the kiss.

“You saw nothing,” I breathed. “You remember nothing. Only this.”

Only the heat, only the kiss, only the chaos. Not the black veins. Not the hunger. Not the monster.

She shuddered in my arms. For a moment, I thought it had worked perfectly. She sagged against me, pliant, her memory smoothing over like water after a stone had been dropped.

But then—

Her hand fisted in my shirt. Not surrender, but resistance.

For the briefest second, I felt her mind fight me.

No human had ever resisted me before.

That terrified me more than her seeing the truth.

I tore myself away, gasping like I’d been drowning. My fangs ached, cutting into my lip. The taste of her lingered on my tongue—sweet, maddening, dangerous.

“Don’t push me, Sydney,” I rasped, my voice raw.

Before she could say a word, I fled. Not through the door—through the shadows, moving faster than human eyes could track.

---

I went straight to the woods to feed.

I didn’t stop running until the city was behind me, until the glass towers gave way to trees and earth and the silence of the night.

My chest heaved. My throat burned. The hunger was unbearable.

I should have gone to her throat. I should have drained her dry. I wanted to. The monster inside me wanted nothing more than to sink my fangs into that warm, stubborn neck and taste every drop of fire she carried.

But I hadn’t. Because I couldn’t.

Instead, I dropped to my knees among the trees, the earth damp beneath me, and summoned every shred of control I had left. The air was thick with the musk of deer, rabbits, foxes. My instincts sharpened, and I pounced.

Minutes later, my mouth dripped with animal blood, hot and bitter. My hands shook as I wiped it away, disgusted. It never satisfied. It never truly quenched me. But it was better than killing her.

Better than killing another one.

I leaned against a tree, closing my eyes. Images of Sophia’s broken body flashed behind my lids. And then Sydney’s face overlapped it—alive, flushed, trembling from my kiss.

I cursed under my breath.

Sophia had been light. Kindness. My redemption.

Sydney was chaos. Fire. The very thing that would destroy me.

And yet…

She had resisted my hypnosis. Just barely, but enough for me to feel it. No ordinary human could do that.

What are you, Sydney Stallone?