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CHAPTER THREE 
FINN
Marcus finally finds a parking spot about two blocks away from the park. It’s clear we weren’t the only ones with this idea based on the number of cars surrounding the park. But hopefully that just means that it’s something worth going to.
“First thing we need is hot chocolate,” I declare.
“Bloody hot chocolate,” Marcus decides, like that’s not at all disgusting sounding and creepy. I kind of feel like that’s what he’s going for, and then when the server doesn’t volunteer to bleed into it, Marcus will make him cry.
“With a splash of tears,” I add in.
“You’re never going to let that go, are you?”
It hasn’t even been twelve hours since I heard this tale, so I can’t fathom having forgotten it yet. “Never. I’ll be old and decrepit, and you’ll wonder how you ever found my wrinkled ass attractive, and I’ll be like ‘How many people have you made cry?’” I say, trying to sound like an old grandpa.
“I’m not going to let you get old,” he says.
“God, you’re going to murder me when I no longer fit your desired look?” I ask as if I don’t know what he’s implying. Especially because for him to turn me into a vampire, he’d be doing something horribly illegal. He’d end up in prison and never be able to work as a detective again. He would ruin his life for me, and I refuse to allow that to happen.
“Yes,” he simply says.
“God, that’s so romantic,” I tease as I reach out and take his bare hand in my gloved one. It’s finally the time of year where I can wear my gloves without looking out of place.
There are a few stands up and going, so I head over to one that promises the best hot chocolate around. While it doesn’t have blood marshmallows or whatever insane thing Marcus is craving, I still get two of them and pass one off to him.
“This is nice,” I say as I start walking toward the path that’s decorated with lights.
“Not this hot chocolate. Best around, my ass,” Marcus grumbles.
“You writing a review?” I tease.
“As soon as I have a free hand, I will,” he says.
It’s definitely not the best but also not worth sending Marcus back to make them cry since it warms me up as we walk through the lights.
“There’s too much happiness,” Marcus decides as he looks at the lit-up candy canes placed in an arch around the sidewalk.
I squeeze his hand like I’m scared. “Oh, dear god, no! Happiness! How heinous!”
“Hear that child laughing?” he asks as a dad chases after a giggling girl.
“No, my ears! I don’t think I’m going to make it, Marcus. The laughter! The joy! The colors! It’s too much.”
Marcus tries keeping a straight face, but of course he can’t because he’s a sucker.
“I smell a horse.”
I glance over at him. “That is the weirdest thing I think I’ve ever heard you say. Like are you hungry?”
He gives me a look like I should know better, but I honestly never thought he was writing death threats for waiters or leaving them in a puddle of their own tears.
He makes a break for it, hurrying past the children, down a dark path that cuts through the back of the festivities, and over to where there’s a horse hooked up to a sleigh. I have to speed walk to keep up with his gigantic steps; honestly, it’s rare Marcus is this excited about something “mundane” that humans enjoy.
“Should I be creeped out that we sniffed our way here?” I ask as I eye the long line.
“It’s not creepy. I could smell that the horse walked through this area, just like I could follow your scent. Just… stop trying to make me seem weird.”
“I don’t have to make it seem like anything, you did it all yourself,” I say as I head over to the tickets and Marcus purchases two of them. “You know Claude is planning on building a barn behind his house? I bet he wouldn’t mind if you got a horse to keep Alexei’s company.”
Marcus seems to contemplate that for an extremely long time. “I’m trying to decide if the horse outweighs having to rely on Claude for something.”
“Claude is not as bad as you think he is, Marcus!”
“He’s brainwashed you and Alexei. I mean… Alexei was the last one I ever thought could be brainwashed and he washed him,” Marcus says.
“He did not. They love each other.”
“It’s Claude’s superpower,” he decides. I think he’s being a bit dramatic, but isn’t Marcus always when it comes to Claude?
When it’s finally our turn, I watch the horse walk toward us as it finishes the previous couple’s lap. It looks like the horse could make this trek in its sleep and even stops next to the line without being told to do so.
“So pretty,” I say. “I like the fluff on their legs.” I point down to the long white hairs on the horse’s legs.
“They’re called feathers,” Marcus says.
“Horses have feathers?”
“It’s just hair, but it’s called feathers.”
“Hmm… sounds suspicious. Not as much as your reviews but still suspicious.”
“I’m not lying to you,” he says as the family gets off and we’re allowed to get into the back of the sleigh. The moment we’re seated, the lady putting people on goes, “Would another couple like to jump in?”
A couple toward the back seems eager to jump ahead in line until Marcus turns his eyes onto the line and absolutely no one chooses to “jump in.”
No surprise there at all. Why share when you can scare people away?
Realizing that we’re going off alone, the driver asks the horse to walk on, which it does without hesitation. “This is nice,” I say as I listen to the sound of the horse’s shoes striking the pathway. The blades of the sleigh aren’t actually touching the ground since the pathway is snow-free, but it doesn’t make it any less fun. The horse probably prefers having less weight with the help of the tires anyway.
“What kind of horse did you have?” I ask.
“I had many throughout the years. Sadly, I couldn’t make them vampire horses so they could live forever.”
“You imagine? Just riding along and then they just start eating people,” I say.
“You’re grinning while saying this, which concerns me but also turns me on.”
“I’m not evil. We’ve already established that you’re the evil one.”
“Anyway, back to the question. I had a few favorites, but I was actually thinking about which one was my favorite the other day. She was a stubborn mare I got from a man who simply gave her to me.”
“He gave you his horse?” Clearly, this is suspicious.
“Yes, he didn’t want to deal with her anymore.”
“Or he didn’t want to deal with you anymore?” I tease.
“Perhaps,” he says with a grin. “She was as pesky as hell, but that horse would give it her all whenever I needed her for something.”
“She kind of sounds like you,” I say.
“No.”
I grin as I let him pretend that.
We fall quiet again as we head down a lane with big evergreen trees on both sides. Marcus never seems overly eager to talk about his past, though I feel like the horse is a pretty safe topic and will maybe allow me to work my way over to the people from last night, but before I can, Marcus goes, “Is marriage something you wish for?”
The question startles me. “Um… well…” That came from nowhere.
“A human woman I was forced to work with was telling me about how she’s been with her partner for over two years and is impatient that he hasn’t proposed. You know human traditions are odd to me, but I also don’t want to go against something you want.”
I turn to look at him. “I love you and would love to spend the rest of my life with you, so I wouldn’t be opposed to marriage. But I also don’t need it if it’s something you dislike. I know you love me whether or not I have a paper to prove it.”
He’s refusing to look at me and I feel uncertain what is bothering him. “I hate you being human. I hate how easy it is to lose you.”
“Marcus, you can’t just focus on what might happen. There are humans living well over a hundred every day. There’s nothing we can do about it.”
“But there is,” he says.
“No, no there’s not,” I say. “Hell, you might get sick of me by the time I’m forty.”
“I will not.”
I smile at him as I lean back in the seat and squeeze his hand. “Stop stressing about unnecessary stuff. I’m young.”
“Fine. Then we shall marry so everyone knows you are mine,” he decides.
“Is this a proposal? Is this how you propose to me? By claiming me? Marking me like a dog would? So romantic.”
“Listen here, I will make it romantic, alright? This is just your warning so you know to run now if you don’t want it.”
“Oh, I want it.” I can’t stop grinning. I feel like Marcus is trying so hard and I’m just pestering him, but he has to love it. I mean, he’s stayed with me for this long, there’s no way he doesn’t love it.
Even as we get off the sleigh, I can’t stop smiling. Honestly, I feel so happy about our life. I feel like whether or not we ever get married, it’s clear he wants to spend the rest of his life with me. I don’t need anything from him to prove that.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FOUR 
MARCUS
Walking into the office on Monday morning, I’m hoping everything is back to normal. That Landall is a thing of the past, and I can just move on. My team’s desks all face each other so the moment I sit down, I’m stuck staring at Claude.
“You don’t work here,” I remind him.
“But I do,” Claude says, sounding ecstatic.
“Just hanging around for days on end irritating people is not a job,” I remind him as I start up my computer. It’s running irritatingly slow, and I have to keep from breaking it just to force them to buy me a new one that actually runs.
“I was offered a job by Chief Burns. She said that I was so intelligent when it came to history and objects that I’d become indispensable and she’d like to offer me a job,” Claude says. “I asked if I could get paid more than you and she said it could be discussed.”
Alexei, who is busy on his computer, glances away for one moment to look at me. “Hey, if he’s going to be here anyway, he might as well get paid.”
“He’s being given too much,” I decide. “He’ll start acting smug.”
Alexei glances over at Claude who looks positively thrilled about this whole situation. It’s like he’s busy over there enjoying life to its fullest and no amount of glaring from me will help. That’s when my desk phone rings, and I see that it’s Deputy Chief Brooks. When I answer, he tells me he needs to see me and Finn in his office, so I decide to leave the beaming Claude to his weird ecstasy and head to Brooks’s office.
On the way, I pass DeGray who gives me a “Morning.”
“Morning. Please kick Claude away from our area,” I say.
DeGray just laughs, like he thinks this is a joke I’ve told him. Stupid fucking joke, clearly. Claude has managed to woo everyone in this office with his weird power of charisma that I’ve never quite figured out.
Finn beats me to Brooks’s office, but it appears they’re waiting for me to get started. The only thing we need to start on is setting some boundaries for Claude’s work attire.
“Good morning,” Brooks says with a nod. “We’ve been assigned to Friday’s case. Chief Burns is afraid the case is too much for the current team and has decided that she’s going to sort things around so it’ll be top priority with us. I understand you both were present as well as Karsyn and Claude?”
“Yeah, the assailant attacked Karsyn. Did they ever get an ID on the man?” I ask.
“Not yet. The victim, Landall Taylor, has been refusing to speak to anyone. Finn has an extremely good track record for getting people to open up to him, so I’m hoping he can talk to him and make him feel at ease enough to share something. They’ve kept him at the hospital under surveillance for now out of fear he’ll be attacked once out,” Brooks explains. “They’re trying to figure out a good location to move him to.”
“Okay, we’ll head over right now, then,” Finn says before turning to me. “You good?”
“Yeah,” I say, not loving the idea of dealing with Landall, but it is what it is. If I told Brooks my history with him, it probably wouldn’t change much since there are no other teams capable of taking over at this moment.
I’m quiet as we walk out to the car, Finn staring at his phone, probably looking over what information the other team got on the case so far. I probably should as well, but I can’t seem to get myself to do it or even ask Finn.
“You can sit outside the room while I go in,” Finn says, noticing my unease with the whole thing.
“There’s nothing traumatic between us,” I assure him.
Finn watches me for a long moment, a bit of scrutinizing going on like he thinks I’m not allowed to get away with this shit, and maybe I can’t with him. “God, I love how cryptic you are.”
“Thank you.”
“Was he like your long-lost lover come to steal you back?” he asks as we get into the car.
“Fucking hell, no. I’d murder that man before I’d fuck him and he probably feels the same about me.”
“You’d murder a lot of people before you’d fucked them, so that still tells me very little about this man. I actually think that’s what you thought of me when you met me.”
I want to claim that I wasn’t that savage, but I leave it. “He was literally a guy I ran across a few times. When I met him, he was still a human, actually a slave in one sense. At the time he was controlled by a man I disliked. I don’t know if he couldn’t leave, but I do know he was used for his blood and didn’t seem to be allowed any control himself.”
“That’s kind of awful. Did he want to be in that position?”
“I never asked. He didn’t have much of a life growing up, so I honestly don’t think the alternative was any better. Just selling himself on the street to get by was the only other choice he had,” I say.
“So he found that being the slave of a vampire was the lesser of two evils.”
“I suppose. In some ways it was and in some ways it wasn’t. There are good vampires, but so many of them like the thrill of controlling others.”
Finn flexes his prosthetic arm. “I get it. Trust me.”
“Right.” I hate that he gets it.
When we reach the hospital, we park and head up. They’re expecting us, so they guide us to Landall’s room using their keycards that keep others from entering the unit. When we walk in, Landall is sitting on the bed, knees pulled up to his chest, staring at the TV with the blinds closed.
“Hey,” Finn says with an immediate smile, but Landall’s eyes shift past him to me. He stares at me for a long moment before turning back to Finn and giving him a warm look.
“Are you breaking me out of here?” he asks in a clear English accent.
“Not yet. We want to make sure that when you leave, you’re safe.”
“I know. I’m just tired of the room but also positive I don’t want to be outside it. It’s a fun combination.”
“I’m Finn Hayes. And you know Marcus Church,” he says.
“I do,” Landall says as he gives me a long look again. “He tried killing me once.”
Huh… I did, didn’t I?
“I feel like that’s not at all surprising but might make him being on this case a bit difficult,” Finn says as he glances at me, probably wondering why I left it out. Honestly, I thought about killing so many people back then that I kind of forgot about it.
“It’s fine. It was a long time ago and I deserved it. I feel like I tried killing him first,” Landall says. “I had some… strange ideas. Looking back, they weren’t such good ideas.”
“No, I broke your arm and you decided to never do that again,” I say.
“Yeah.”
Finn sits down on the couch near him to make him feel more at ease than he would if we were looming over him. I grudgingly sit beside Finn.
“Can you tell me about Friday night?” Finn asks.
Landall immediately goes back to staring at the TV.
“I know it’s hard and I know, more than anything, you don’t want to relive what happened, but we want to be able to help you. We have very little to go on and I know the way the system works. If we don’t get moving on something and find out who did this to you, they’re eventually going to claim we can’t help you any longer. Then you’ll be forced to go back out into the world without protection. I don’t want that to happen to you when the man who attacked you could be waiting out there.”
Landall turns his attention away from the TV and looks over at Finn. I’ve always been astounded by how well he can get people to respond to him. As for me, I probably would have gotten frustrated and either snapped at Landall or left. People skills have never been my strong suit. Even with how much I feel like I’ve grown from knowing Finn, I’m still nothing like this man who has seen thirty-one years instead of hundreds like I have.
Landall sinks back a little, and I can tell he’s caving. “We were looking for someplace to hide, so we’d taken up refuge in the abandoned building. We’d been careful. We hadn’t fed on any humans or anything. Isabella would go out and get us packets of blood. She didn’t tell us how, but she had a good heart. I’m sure she was going to a shelter somewhere and asking for it. She seemed uneasy the night before we were attacked. I could tell something was off and I asked her again and again what it was, but she’d continually tell me it was nothing. That nothing was wrong.”
He rubs at his face nervously before continuing. “I should have pressed her more. I know she was trying to remain quiet to protect us, but I don’t know why… if we’d have been more prepared to know that—”
The door opens without a knock. I expect it to be a nurse a moment before my eyes settle on the man standing in the doorway. The second my brain comprehends who it is, something washes over me. Anger? Hatred? I don’t even know, I just know that I’m up and standing before I feel Finn’s hand on my wrist.
The man looks delighted to see me and smiles, even though he has to know I want to rip that expression right off his face. “Marcus! What a pleasure to see you.”
“Don’t speak to me,” I growl.
Kaden is completely unfazed by any of it as he steps into the room, clearly uninvited if the way Landall refuses to look at him by staring at the TV is any indication.
Finn steps in front of me. “Excuse me, do you have permission to be here?”
The vampire flicks his eyes over to Finn, looking displeased that he interrupted the reunion. “More than you do,” Kaden says. “I am a part of the council. I, along with the other council members, decide what happens to the vampires in this city.”
“So was Bowman and you saw what he did with his authority,” Finn says, alluding to the way the former chief was deeply involved in human trafficking with the intent of selling off the victims to vampires.
“God, you’re feisty for being such a tiny and breakable human. I’ve heard a lot about you, Finnigan Hayes,” he says, voice toying.
Finn squares up, and I love the way he can always look so confident even when face-to-face with an asshole vampire. It generally forces vampires to respect him once they know they can’t bully him.
“Let’s please step outside the room. It’s best to not cause unnecessary stress,” Finn says as he walks past Landall who has begun to tear his sheet into pieces while staring at the TV. When Kaden doesn’t move, Finn waves him to the door.
Kaden looks thoroughly shocked by Finn’s gesture, and I can’t help but love it. “I suppose you have to be stubborn to put up with Marcus,” he says as he walks out into the hallway with Finn.
If Finn hadn’t already walked out, I would have chosen to stay in here and stare at the TV with Landall until I was positive Kaden was fucking gone—especially since Finn made it clear I couldn’t commit murder in the hospital. Hating the idea of him anywhere near Finn is what drives me outside of the room and into the hallway.
“What brings a member of the council all the way here?” Finn asks, seemingly at ease.
“You see, Landall is here illegally,” Kaden says. “It’s our job to figure out how he crossed the ocean and was smuggled inside… along with his group of rather dead friends.”
“I was actually working on figuring that out when you came in. He was telling me some interesting stuff before we were rudely interrupted,” Finn says. “Could I take your card and I’ll give you a call as soon as I figure it out?”
“I’m afraid that’s not an option,” Kaden says. “I will figure it out myself.”
And with that, he pushes Finn out of the way and lets himself into the room. Through the open doorway, I can see the way he looms over Landall, and I know that this will not fly with Finn. But I feel like if I do anything, it’s going to be me tearing Kaden’s head off his body and then won’t that be a shit ton of paperwork?
As Finn storms his way back into the room, Kaden is glowering at Landall to try and scare him into answering his questions. “Why are you here?”
“Please, don’t. Please. Stop,” Landall begs.
“Knock it off. This is highly immoral and illegal,” Finn says as he rushes up. Kaden shoves Finn back, and of course he does it with ease—Finn’s not a big guy—but the moment he sets a hand on Finn, all the power I’d put into refraining from murdering him disappears and I grab Kaden by the throat. I shove him against the wall, knocking down Landall’s tray in the process. “Remove yourself from this room before I remove your head from your body.”
There’s a flicker of something there… rage? Fear? I’m not sure. And then he gives me that sarcastic smile that drives me fucking insane. “Yes, maker. You’ve always been phenomenal at tearing heads off. It’s a wonder mine is still attached.”
I push him toward the door and follow him out into the hallway. “What is your plan here?”
“Plan? I’m simply doing my job,” Kaden says. “Don’t forget, in the hierarchy of things, I can remove you from your job, Marcus.”
“I would love to see you try,” I say, knowing that while his job title might allow it, no one else would as I am rather invaluable. “As the detective said, we’ll be in contact when we figure out something.”
Kaden just smiles cruelly at me. “I feel like I can rightfully ask a man I own what the fuck he’s doing here.”
“Yeah? You own him? Then maybe I own you, Kaden. Maybe I can go to the council and tell them everything you’ve done.”
This seems mildly concerning to him, but he quickly covers it up. “Because it happened over a hundred years ago, they won’t do anything about it. There’s nothing they can do to find solid proof of any of it. But I’d love to see you try, Marcus. Now keep a close eye on your pet. I’d absolutely hate for something to happen to such a cute human.”
“Don’t tempt me,” I growl. Finn is my weakness, which I’m well aware of.
Kaden just gives me a smirk before heading down the hallway with a confident stride that makes me want to slam him into the wall again. I’m perfectly aware that if Finn wasn’t watching, I’d have done just that.
Finn gazes at me for a moment before turning around and heading back into Landall’s room. I know he’s dying to ask me questions, but I’m glad he hasn’t yet. Instead, I need to keep myself from punching a hole into the wall and wishing it was Kaden’s face.
When I finally manage to calm myself enough to go into the room, I find Finn unsure of what to do while Landall refuses to acknowledge him.
“We’re going to come back later. I told Landall I’ll make sure people stay out of his room,” Finn says.
“You can try, but Kaden does as he pleases and has the authority to,” I say.
“You could stop him,” Landall suggests.
I stare at him since he’s refusing to look at me, even as he continues speaking.
“But you never could, could you? Even after all the people they slaughtered… you could never do it.”
“None of us were good people back then,” I say before turning and leaving. If he wants to go slaughter Kaden, he can have at it. I’m done.

FINN
I don’t realize that Marcus fully left the building until I step out into the hallway and find that I’m alone besides an officer who’d been asked to watch Landall’s room for the time being. I thank the man before heading down the hallway, wondering where Marcus went to. When I pass through the door out into the main part of the hospital, I find the man Marcus called Kaden standing in the hallway.
There’s no way Marcus would leave me in here with him alone if he thought he was unsafe, but I still feel uneasy. Watson made sure that I will forever have a healthy fear of those stronger than me.
He doesn’t say anything, so I just walk past him and get into the elevator but before the doors close, he slips inside with me. My body is telling me that this is a man to fear, but I keep myself steady in order to not let him become aware that I feel anything but confidence about this situation.
“I heard what Watson did to you,” he says. “Saw pictures.”
I glance over at him, wondering what he’s wanting out of it. “Yeah?”
“There’s a reason Marcus never killed me, you know?” Kaden says. “Because Marcus didn’t used to be the man he pretends to be today.”
“I’ve known Marcus for years. I’m confident I know the kind of man he is. It doesn’t matter who he was, it’s who he is now that matters.”
“Ah? Perfect. Then everything I did in the past doesn’t matter. I like you,” he says as the door opens and he steps out of the elevator and walks off without anything more.
Honestly, I feel like I want to get out of this building and back to Marcus. I feel annoyed he’d just leave me in here alone, but I know he’s going through his own shit right now.
When I reach the car, I find that he’s sitting behind the steering wheel.
“Sorry I left,” he says, not yet looking up at me.
“Yeah.”
“Did he harass you?”
“He talked to me,” I admit.
“He’s conniving. Don’t let what he’s saying get to you.”
“He said similar things about you,” I say.
Marcus’s hands tighten on his steering wheel. “That’s not surprising.”
“Do you think you can finally tell me something about your past? I’ve told you so much about mine. And I know it’s not… a competition. I know you don’t have to tell me just because you know about my life, but—”
“Yeah. I think it’s about time I do because it looks like the past is coming to haunt me… and if I ever want to change you into a vampire, he’s going to be the one who will either help me or stop me. What I did to him was not fair but what he did in return was even less fair. And I think he might know more about the vampire that attacked Landall than Landall will ever give us,” Marcus says.
“Okay.”
And so Marcus finally begins to tell me about his past.
OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER FIVE 
MARCUS
Something’s wrong, I know it the moment I get near the village. Something is horribly wrong.
The horse I’ve borrowed snorts and shies to the side, startling me since I hadn’t been paying attention to it. When I turn to look at what spooked the horse, I realize what the smell is. There’s an ox, still attached to the cart, lying slaughtered on the ground, intestines and blood oozing out. Jumping off the horse, I ground tie him before moving over to the cart where a man I know lies across the seat, open eyes staring up at the sky.
What the fuck has happened?
Panic hits me hard as the realization that something truly awful must have happened settles in my mind. I rush toward the horse, startling him, and he jerks back, afraid of me. I manage to snatch the end of his reins but he tears free and bolts, likely running back the way he’d come, seeking out the home I’d borrowed the gelding from.
If I rush after him, I could catch him, but something is telling me to get to the village now. There’s no time to wait when something is clearly wrong.
Rushing through the woods to the small village I’ve called home for a few years now, I can smell the blood and death. The village is generally peaceful and quiet; there are a few soldiers that call it home that can protect it while I’m away, but why would I ever imagine I’d need to protect it? The country isn’t at war. Things had been peaceful for many years.
As I reach the first house, door torn from its hinges, I realize just how wrong it is. The body of the woman who ran the bakery lies out front. I can’t see anything wrong with her, but the color of her skin and lips tells me just how dead she is.
Someone screams and I look down the cobblestone road to where bodies lie. Rushing down it, I look for who screamed when I can suddenly smell an overwhelming odor of blood. Turning quickly, I see a man holding the limp body of a young woman in the air, feasting on her. He’s naked but covered in red, like he’d dipped himself in blood. He grins when he sees me and tosses the woman before rubbing the blood over his chest and down his arms.
“Just the man I was looking for,” the vampire says. “I wondered how many I had to kill before you would show up. Funnily enough, after I’d killed the last one, I realized that maybe you weren’t even home. How funny is that?” He laughs, like he’s enjoying every moment of this.
“What the fuck have you done?” I ask in disbelief. “What the fuck… Why did you kill them all?”
“Because they’re food. Oh. I’m sorry. Were they your pets? That’s okay. See… the thing is that I learned that human blood is nice and almost soothing. But nothing is like feasting on the blood of vampires. And especially those who were born with vampirism.”
He starts walking toward me as I realize what he’s saying. He seriously thinks he’s going to kill me just to eat me?
The man rushes at me and I sidestep him, ready to show him how much stronger I am than some young vampire, when he grabs me by the throat.
Where the fuck did he even come from?
His hand crushes my neck a moment before I kick him off me and rush away from him. I can’t breathe, but I can live without breathing. My question is… does that mean he’s like me and Claude? That he’s been around for years longer than the other vampires that I’ve found much weaker than us?
He moves in quickly and I just barely avoid his attack.
How the hell can he move this quickly? How can he do this? I twist out of his path but he’s there a moment later, tearing my chest open before I even have a chance to react.
“You’re not even trying, are you?” he asks as he licks his fingers that have skin and blood from my chest on them. He moans as he watches me closely. “You’re going to taste exquisite.”
Anger is burning inside me that this man dare toy with me as my wounds heal. I rush toward him, barely managing to catch him before he’s shoving me hard against a building.
How the fuck is he so strong?
He pins me there and tears into my throat with his teeth, ripping my neck open. Forcing him back, I twist as blood falls freely from the open wound. I manage to keep him back, but it seems like every step I take toward drawing blood from him is a step closer to him tearing me open.
When I finally manage to cut into his stomach, he looks surprised as he stumbles back and glances down at my blood mixing with the dried blood already there. He swipes his finger through it and sucks on it.
“I was told you were going to taste good, and I am not disappointed. Maybe I’ll even keep you for a bit. A little pet,” he says with a grin. “God, how good you’ll taste as I drain you slowly every single night.”
We fight as the sun rises and the heat begins to take hold. It seems like the longer we go, the more blood I’m losing and the weaker I’m feeling. I begin to wonder if I truly am not going to win this fight. This will be how I die, surrounded by bodies.
No one will come to bury them. Their bodies will just rot in the sun. No one will even notice I’m gone. The only one who has ever cared about me is Claude and he’s left our life for a very different one. He probably will never even notice that I’m gone. No one will. Because the only people who even remotely cared are all dead. They’re always dead.
The vampire’s nails tear into my stomach, ripping it open. I’ve lost enough blood that I’m barely healing. I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up, especially when my healing has slowed from the amount of blood loss.
I hear something but the vampire is clearly too fixated on me to even notice the human working his way toward us. The man is a soldier I once worked with, and now he’s dragging his body closer, telling me that maybe the vampire hears him but is ignoring him because he thinks he’s not a threat. But Harold has won his fair share of fights and even as he’s dying, he manages to lift the sword. The vampire surely would have dodged it, but he’s not given the chance as I strike at the same moment, allowing Harold to drive the sword right into the vampire’s back.
The moment it happens, I tear into the vampire’s throat, ripping it open as blood gushes out. He looks at me in shock as he stumbles back, like he can’t fathom how I hurt him.
He opens his mouth but only a gurgling sound comes out. I want to chase him. I want to kill him, tear his head off, and drive Harold’s sword through his heart, but my legs are so weak I’m positive I’ll fall if I step forward, and he won’t back down if he sees how weak I’ve become.
The vampire’s concerned now, I can see it in his expression as he begins to back up, moving away from me. Maybe he’ll bleed out. He’s not healing well as he tries to hold the blood in, no longer taking joy from seeing it. Hopefully, he’ll die before I do.
He turns and flees, rushing away from me in his panic. The moment he’s out of sight, I try stepping forward, hoping I can find the strength in my body to pursue and kill him, but the moment one foot goes out before the other, I crash to the ground. Looking down, I can see the hole he’s torn into my stomach and know that I need blood to heal.
“Harold,” I say, but I receive no answer. Crawling toward him, I reach down and cup a hand over his wound even as my hunger drives me to bite him. It’s a nearly insatiable desire, though I manage to push it back; instead, I try to focus on him, but my hands are shaking as I realize I can’t hear a heartbeat. “Harold, wake up.”
But he’s not asleep.
“Fuck,” I say as I press my head against his chest, hoping his heartbeat is just faint, but he’s gone… even if I were able to keep him alive, there’s no doctor near here. An hour at a fast gallop and he didn’t have an hour.
He didn’t even have minutes.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper before biting his throat.
There’s something horribly grotesque about feeding off a dead man I cared about. There’s something sickening about it, but if I get enough blood, if I stabilize myself, maybe I can avenge them? Maybe I can keep him from killing again.
I feel sickened as I pull back and even worse when I don’t feel much better with the limited blood I’d managed to consume. Rolling up to my feet, I stagger and hit the ground on my knees. What keeps me from getting up is a strange mix of devastation and fear.
Have I ever feared another vampire?
I’m not sure I have.
Even young, I was quite strong. Never had I feared any human or vampire. As a child I feared the unknown. I feared what I would do to keep Claude safe, but as we grew into adulthood, all of that was gone.
But not today.