The truth was the hunger. Since accepting the offer, nothing had been the same. She hasn't been the same since the ritual in the forest, since the foreign presence had settled inside her bones. At first, the thirst came slowly, as a whisper. A pull. A dull ache.
She had resisted, fought it with everything she had. But after Strega, after she had felt a living essence flood into her, banishing her fatigue, sharpening her sense, filling her with vitality, the whisper had become a constant thirst. A gnawing want.
The need for blood, for life itself, had begun to feel natural. She woke up thinking about it. She watched people in the street and wondered what their lives would taste like. Each time she fed, she felt stronger. Sharper. More alive. It was a beast on a fraying leash.
