Lustborn

The candlelight flickered against the walls of her room, casting long, slow shadows that seemed to breathe with her. Each breath she drew was shallow, sharp. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt him. Not just in the air, or in the silence—but inside her. Beneath the layers of flesh and fear.

She sat curled on the edge of her bed, bare feet on the cold floor. Her nightgown clung damply to her skin, sweat gathering in the hollow of her throat. Her fingertips trembled as they traced the pendant around her neck—the one they made her wear after the Rite. The glass center was warm. Always warm. Almost alive.

Her thighs still ached faintly from the ritual—its phantom touch lingering like a bruise she couldn't name. Not from pain. No. From longing.

She hated that she wanted it again.

She hated that she couldn't stop thinking about him.

"No one is born of lust," they had said.

But what was she now, if not made of it?

She rose slowly, moving to the mirror like she wasn't sure she was real. Her reflection stared back, disheveled hair, swollen lips, eyes rimmed in shadow—but lit with something else. A hunger.

And then—his voice.

Low. Coaxing. Just behind her ear.

> "Why do you run when you called me?"

She froze. Her breath hitched. There was no one in the room.

She turned.

Nothing.

But the pendant pulsed once against her sternum. Like a heartbeat.

"No," she whispered. "No more games."

> "Then stop playing innocent."

She backed against the wall, fingernails biting into her palms. "Leave me alone."

Silence.

Only her own breathing, ragged and quick.

But her skin betrayed her—goosebumps rose down her arms, heat curled low in her belly.

He wasn't even here. And yet her body remembered him better than her mind dared.

---

That night, she dreamt again—but not like before.

This time, she stood in a velvet corridor, naked but not cold, the walls pulsing like the inside of a mouth. She didn't walk. She drifted, pulled forward by something unseen.

He waited in the center of a circular chamber, cloaked in smoke and desire. Tall. Formless. But beautiful. Even without eyes, he watched her.

> "You ache, little flame."

"I don't want you," she lied.

He didn't laugh. He stepped closer. The air grew heavier, rich with the scent of him—burnt sugar, myrrh, skin.

> "Say it again, and I'll believe it."

She opened her mouth but nothing came. Only heat. Only want.

He touched her cheek, and her body melted toward him.

> "You are not bound by shame. You were born of longing."

"No one is—" she gasped.

> "You are."

---

She woke with a cry.

Her sheets were tangled. Her body was wet with sweat. Between her legs, the fire still smoldered.

She pulled her knees to her chest, shaking, lips bitten raw.

What was he doing to her?

No.

What was she becoming?

---

Later that day, as she walked through the temple corridor, the other initiates moved away from her path. Not in fear. In reverence. As if they sensed something ancient stirring beneath her skin.

She felt it too.

A warmth. A power.

And a voice—his voice—still coiled inside her ribs, whispering:

> "You are mine now. Not because I took you. But because you've stopped pretending you weren't already."

She should have been terrified.

But all she felt was truth.

And beneath that was desire.