Blood Descent

VIOLA

The bass didn’t just rattle the floor, it crawled up my bones and sank its teeth in. Bodies pressed in tight, heat and perfume and sweat slicking the air until every inhale tasted like lust. Neon lights carved us apart in strobing fragments, hips, lips, hands before plunging us back into shadow. Emery spun me in a careless whirl, Kaylee laughing between us, and for a fleeting moment, I let myself drown in it. Just another Friday in Toronto: drink, forget, repeat.

But even as I laughed, the emptiness curled inside me. No high ever lasted. No music was loud enough to smother the silence that crept in after.

And then the night cracked.

Kaylee faltered. Her laughter collapsed into a pained groan as she bent double, arms clutched tight to her stomach. The lights slashed across her face, pale, clammy, eyes wide and lost.

“I don’t feel so good,” she whispered, voice brittle as glass.

Emery caught her, irritation already rolling off her. “That’s what happens when you take drinks from strangers. You know vodka wrecks you.”

“You can’t be allergic to alcohol!” Kaylee protested weakly, fingers scraping at her temples.

Emery’s exasperated sigh cut through the music as her gaze flicked to me, sharp.

I shrugged, bitter humor tugging at my lips. “Last weekend, I held her hair back.”

“Come on,” Emery hooked Kaylee’s arm over her shoulder, her jaw tight with annoyance. “We’re getting you to the bathroom before you puke all over my shoes.”

They vanished into the crowd, swallowed by shadows and flashing light, leaving me alone in the sea of grinding bodies.

The bass throbbed harder. Too hard. It didn’t just shake my chest, it pressed against it, like the heartbeat of something older, hungrier, vibrating beneath the music. The air shifted, thick and strange, lights flickering in a stutter that wasn’t part of the show.

For a second, everything warped. Sound dulled as though I’d been shoved underwater. The dancers blurred, their limbs jerking in distorted fragments.

And then I heard it, threading under the music, faint but unmistakable.

The clink of chains.

Soft. Metallic. Wrong.

The hairs on my arms rose, a chill cutting through the heat of the club. I turned, pulse spiking, but the crowd danced on, oblivious. Only I heard it, chains dragging, tightening, as though something unseen was straining against its bonds.

And somewhere in the darkness, it felt like something heard me back.

For a moment, I froze, the pounding bass swallowing every sound but the frantic drum of my pulse. Bodies brushed against mine, sticky with sweat, reeking of alcohol and perfume, but I forced the unease down, convincing myself it was nothing.

Just music.

Just heat.

Just another night.

I let it take me. Eyes closed, arms raised, hips swaying to the relentless rhythm until the world dissolved into nothing but sound and sensation. No expectations. No magik. No responsibilities. Just the beat pounding like a second heart.

For one stolen breath, I was free.

Then I heard not just the chains, whispers, threading beneath the music. Ancient syllables curling through the lyrics like snakes in tall grass.

Latin. Not the playful Latin professors droned about but the kind every witch was raised to fear, the kind soaked in blood and spellcraft, old enough to remember the first bones burned on altars.

My movements faltered. This was a human club. The DJ didn’t spin hexes, and mortals didn’t chant invocations to long-dead gods. Maybe I was imagining it. Maybe...

But before the thought could root, I felt him.

A body pressed flush against mine, solid and unyielding. Heat radiated from his chest into my back, his breath ghosting the sensitive curve of my neck. Hands slid to my hips, firm, coaxing and pulled me into his rhythm.

My body betrayed me, moving with the stranger. The world blurred into a slow grind, every shift of his hips against mine deliberate, obscene. His grip tightened, anchoring me in place, and the bass seemed to pulse in time with the thrumming want spiraling low in my stomach.

I didn’t turn to see his face. I didn’t need to. I didn’t care.

The music swallowed everything but us, my lip caught between my teeth as the song built to its climax. Lights flared, blinding strobes that fractured the world into violent flashes. Bodies pressed closer, tighter, a living cage around me.

And then the song ended.

The silence that followed wasn’t silence at all, it was worse.

My eyes snapped open, chest heaving, lungs clawing for air that refused to come. The weight of sweat-slick bodies crushed against mine, the tang of alcohol and heat sour in the back of my throat. The club reeked of lust and desperation, but all I felt was trapped.

Or it could be the faint sound of the chains and the latin whispers that wouldn’t let up.

I tried to step away and the stranger’s grip only tightened.

“Hey—” His voice was low, close to my ear, cutting through the chaos. “One more dance.”

I stiffened. Not a request. A command.

“No thanks,” I managed, the words rough, blurred by alcohol. I turned my head just enough to glimpse him, shadow and strobe hiding more than they revealed.

I expected his hands to drop and they didn’t.

“I’ll buy you a drink,” the stranger offered, voice pitched low but his grip hadn’t loosened.

I accepted, not because I wanted him, but because I wanted more alcohol. And unlike Kaylee, I could handle my liquor without puking it back up like some teenager.

We pushed toward the bar, his hand at the small of my back, guiding me through the press of bodies. Heat radiated from his touch, and though I let him, the instant we broke free of the crowd, I shifted just enough that his hand fell away.

When the bartender finally glanced our way, I flashed him my prettiest smile. “Four shots of tequila and a rum and coke.” My voice cut clean through the noise, honeyed but commanding.

The stranger’s brows lifted. “Are you sure you can handle that?”

“It’s for both of us,” he said quickly, too eager, like he couldn’t stand to be excluded.

I tilted my head, curls spilling across my cheek as I held the bartender’s gaze, not the stranger’s. “What he said.”

The bartender lingered a beat too long, his eyes snagging on the slow drag of my tongue across my lip. I let him. A witch’s power wasn’t always in spells—it was in knowing when to bend attention, when to turn hunger into leverage.

The bartender vanished to fetch our drinks, and behind me, the stranger filled the silence with random talks of being a foreman in construction. Sites he was working on, deadlines, steel beams and all the while asking questions about me in this too loud club.

I played my part: a nod here, a hum there, letting my eyes flick just enough to keep him tethered. He swallowed it whole, every tilt of my head, every feigned glance. A man already convinced he’d won.

But I knew better.

When the shots landed, I clinked his glass with a wink, downed mine in a single swallow, the tequila burning fire down my throat. He coughed after his, reaching for his wallet.

By the time he fumbled for cash, I finished the third shot of Tequila and already had my rum and coke in hand. “Thanks for the drinks,” I gave him a smile that promised everything and delivered nothing, then slipped sideways into the tide of bodies.

“Hey—wait!” His voice vanished beneath the pounding bass as I disappeared, a ghost with lipstick and tequila on her lips.

It was a game I’d mastered. Appear. Captivate. Disappear.

I wove through the dancers, drink clutched tight, though the room tilted just enough to remind me of how much I’d already had. My footing wavered, but I righted myself with a hiss of breath.

“Come on, Viola,” I muttered, pressing forward through the heat and noise.

My mind clawed toward the image of home: my apartment with its worn couch, books stacked too high, the chipped mug still on the coffee table from this morning. The one place where silence didn’t claw quite so deep.

Warmth tingled through my fingertips as I whispered, lips brushing the rim of my glass: “Domum reditus, iter breve.”

The return home is a short journey.

The words curled into the air, weaving beneath the music, chains and latin whispers like threads of smoke, unseen by mortal eyes. My pulse raced, not from alcohol this time, but from the familiar rush of magik awakening under my skin.

Damn it.

On a curse, the music snapped back into focus, the same pounding bass, the same swarm of bodies stumbling past me. I was still right where I’d started.

Of course it hadn’t worked, my pathetic excuse for magik never did.

Never anything useful.

I shoved through the crowd until at last the doors spat me out onto the sidewalk. The night air hit like a slap. Downtown Toronto churned around me with laughter, chatter, the sharp blare of horns but beneath it all was a hush, a wrongness that clung to my skin.

A neon sign across the street flickered once. Then again, in perfect sync with the odd throb in my chest.

“Breathe,” I muttered, but the world tilted harder than it had inside. The city spun in jagged streaks of light and shadow, every sound too sharp, too close.

I staggered, colliding with someone. My drink slipped from my grip, glass shattering against the pavement in a splash of rum and coke.

A shriek. An angry, “What the hell?”

Blinking through the haze, I focused on the young woman in front of me, her shirt plastered wet against her chest.

“Oh no—” a giggle bubbled up, unstoppable, betraying me. “I’m so sorry.”

Her boyfriend appeared, sliding an arm protectively around her shoulders. “It’s okay, babe. Let’s go home. I’ll buy you a new outfit tomorrow.”

They left in a hurry, her hand clutched tight in his, and I called after them, voice too loud, too loose: “You’re lucky, girl! Wish I had a man like that!”

My phone chimed, a text slicing through the noise.

Jamal: Where u at?

I snapped a sloppy selfie, and sent it off with a smirk.

Me: I want a shopping spree.

Jamal: Nobody got that kind of money.

I snorted, about to fire back, when movement snagged my eye.

In the middle of the street, a man knelt.

Shirtless. Pantless. Bleeding.

I froze, heart lurching into my throat.

He hadn’t been there a second ago.

Confusion clawed up my spine as I stared. Chains locked around his wrists, yanking his arms wide, stretched to the point of breaking. His body bowed under the pull, straining but there was no one there.

Nothing held the chains.

No captor. Just iron links pulled taut into empty air, dragging the man’s arms wide as though unseen hands were tearing him apart.

Cars passed straight through him. Headlights cut across his body, slicing him into ribbons of light and shadow, like he was smoke. Like he wasn’t real at all.

Holy fuck.

“Are you seeing this?” I blinked and my voice cracked as I grabbed the attention of a group of strangers stumbling past, pointing into the street.

The man was still there, head bowed, hair pale and disheveled, his body trembling against the pull of the chains. His face was hidden in the shadows.

The strangers glanced where I pointed, their brows furrowing. “See what?”

“The man!” My voice pitched too high. “Right there in the street!”

They exchanged uneasy looks. One girl gave me a sympathetic smile. “Maybe you should sit down, hon.”

I blinked hard, my stomach flipping.

Was I losing my mind?

The thought of a spiked drink slashed through me, but no, the bartender had served me directly. And besides, I wasn’t Kaylee. I could hold my liquor.

No. This was something else.

A vision? My magik had never been strong enough for that. I was barely more than a human with a spark, tarot cards, hair charms, little tricks that wouldn’t impress anyone beyond a coven of hobbyists.

My thoughts tangled, searching for logic where there was none. Had I eaten something laced at Kaylee’s? Her kid brother was infamous for “special” brownies. But no, I’d only had pizza.

When I looked back, the man was gone.

Erased.

But the sound remained, soft and metallic. Chains rattling just beneath the city noise, a ghost of iron that slid beneath my skin and left a trail of ice in its wake.

I should have known. The whispers in the club, the way my magik stirred restlessly. Hallows’ Eve was less than two weeks away, the veil thinning. But this… this wasn’t seasonal energy.

This was wrong…different, hungrier.

I chewed my lip, mind clawing for an explanation but came up empty. I’d never felt anything like it, not even during the peak of Samhain rites.

And then, arms locked tight around me from behind.

I squealed, body jolting, already unsteady from alcohol and the phantom chains.

A low voice rumbled against my neck, warm breath spilling across my skin. “How’s your night, babe?”

Jamal.

I inhaled, expecting the familiar spice of his cologne, the steady scent that usually grounded me. Instead, my nose wrinkled at something sweeter, floral, cloying.

Not his or maybe I just waltzed out of night club, so my senses were all over the place.

“I’m hungry,” I murmured, my mind still tangled in chains and whispers, still caught on the phantom vision I couldn’t shake.

“Burritos,” he suggested, as predictable as always.

I nodded, grateful for the distraction, even as my stomach twisted with unease.

That was Jamal, routine wrapped in skin. Steady. Stable. Safe. He liked what he liked and rarely strayed. Maybe that’s why I stayed. No surprises. No risks. Just the comfort of monotony… even if it dulled me to the bone.

I thumbed out a quick text to Emery.

Me: Leaving with Jamal

I slipped into step beside him and we walked a few blocks to his favorite burrito place, then caught the late bus.

Back at his apartment, the night unfolded on cue. Kisses with no fire. Touches that never lingered. Sex that was quick, perfunctory, forgettable. He finished first, as most nights and sighed in quiet satisfaction before rolling to his side, already drifting into sleep.

Within minutes, soft snores filled the room.

I lay beside him, staring at the ceiling, the weight of silence pressing down harder than his body ever did. Frustration simmered. Not just tonight’s sex, though that, like always, left me aching and unsatisfied. It was everything.

I felt restless and trapped.

How was it possible that I’d felt more alive grinding against a stranger in a club, his hands claiming my hips, than I did lying here next to my boyfriend?

The question clawed at me, settling deep in my bones.

I shut my eyes, trying to banish it. Trying to ignore the gnawing truth that I was suffocating, that I needed more. More than routine. More than mediocrity. More than this half-life of weak magik and weaker love.

Was this all there was for me?

A cage disguised as comfort, a spark that never caught fire.

My thoughts drifted to the bartender, the sharp cut of his gaze when I ordered drinks, the way it lingered just a heartbeat too long.

And I hated myself for craving it.

My fingers grazed the edge of the sheets, inching lower as my breath caught. Heat pooled between my thighs, my sex clenching on nothing as I imagined the bartender’s hands gripping me rough, pinning me against the bar.

Wrong. I knew it was wrong.

But the thrill of imagining anyone else, sent a sharp rush of desire tearing through me, even as guilt twisted in my stomach.

My fingers crept lower, drawn by an ache that had nothing to do with the man beside me. I was horrible for this, for letting my body betray me with fantasies of strangers while teasing the tension that burned hotter with every pulse of my blood.

But in the darkness, shame was easy to ignore. Desire louder than conscience and just as my hand brushed lower—

Clank.

I froze.

The chained man’s image slammed into me, vivid and merciless. Louder. His head bowed, arms stretched wide as iron links dragged him apart. My hand withdrew at once, trembling. The sensation of him was too close, too real.

He needs help.

The thought was absurd, insane. And yet it rooted in my chest with terrifying weight.

The silence pressed in, thicker than the dark itself. Even the hum of the city faded, smothered beneath something older, heavier.

And then, Latin syllables. Familiar, impossible. The more I strained to catch them, the more they slipped away, taunting.

Clank.

The chains again. Louder. Closer.

The shadows in the corner of the room shifted, thickening, watching.

My skin prickled with awareness. A chill licked down my spine, every instinct screaming danger.

Jamal snored on, oblivious. Useless.

I wanted to shake him awake, to anchor myself to his steady normalcy but something deeper, darker, told me not to move. To stay still. To listen.

The whispers swelled. The chains dragged louder and the air pressed heavily in my lungs and then, silence.

Gone. Vanished as if they had never been.

Only the thunder of my own heartbeat remained.

I sank back against the pillow, every muscle taut, trembling. My eyes stayed open long after I forced them shut, the dark around me breathing, alive.

Watching.

Waiting.

Sleep would not come, not tonight.

-

🩸 This is an early draft, so if you spot anything or feel something, I’d love to hear it. Doesn’t have to be long, a few words. Your comments and feedback help shape the final version.

-

View My Website:

www.athenastarr.ca

Indulge in the world of Blood Descent—exclusive merch & support the chaos:

www.shop.athenastarr.ca