Rudra woke in agony.
His body was burning—not with fire, but something deeper, something worse.
A hunger.
It gnawed at his bones, twisted in his gut, roared in his veins.
He staggered to his feet, panting, only to realize his fingers had lengthened into black talons, curling into the cracked, blood-stained earth beneath him.
The battlefield stretched endlessly before him, corpses of dragons, beasts, and warriors littering the ground like fallen leaves.
The air was thick with the stench of death, iron, and something else—something intoxicating.
Blood.
His throat rumbled with a sound that wasn't human.
His vision blurred, then sharpened, colors deepening, the pulse of the living flashing like torches in the dark. Every movement, every shift of flesh and muscle, called to him.
They were prey.
