Path of the Vampire forum

"You know what, buddy? There are two kinds of people in this world," the man slurred, pausing to take another artless swig. "Those who give and those who take. And you. You’s the good kind that gives."

Henry smiled at that, his eyes gleaming like two hunks of polished jade. He was leaning on the polished teak bar, his jaw perched on the palm of his hand, as he gazed at his dishevelled companion.

“That’s a bit simplified, but, I get what you’re saying,” Henry said, his Brazilian accent was as thick as molasses dripping over the warm fudge of his words.

The man gawked at him, although his eyes didn’t quite know where to focus. The pupils expanded and contracted, swallowing the brown of his iris like the gaping maw of a muddy dragon. Speaking of which, the man’s jaw hung lowly too and exaggerated the whiskers that were growing unchecked on his chin. This white-collared Joe hadn’t showered or shaved in a number of days, and yet, rather than be disgusted by the odour, Henry found that stress added a new layer of flavour to his meals like cloves and cinnamon added extra dimensions to a beverage when boiled into red wine. Of course, adding actual wine, as well as various other alcoholic beverages, to the mix was always encouraged. Not only did people taste better when their blood coursed with the acrid taint, but they were certainly more compliant.

“There is, though, also a third type of people,” Henry said as he reached forward to pluck a piece of lint from the man’s loosened tie. The man blinked at the sudden motion. “There are some who give just so that they can take later.”

“Like a prostitute,” the man said in a low voice, nodding his head sagely. “Or my wife.”

At first, Henry’s eyes widened at the response. It wasn’t exactly what he’d had in mind when he’d opened his wallet to spend a couple of hundred dollars on drink for this guy, but he could see how those staggered steps had taken him specifically to that logic station. Here he was, a man in his late 30s, a man wrung out by ever-increasing commitments at work and at home. He’s the husband that can never be good enough to meet the fleeting fancies of a younger, prettier wife and he’s the employee that will never escape the pool of middle management. His hair has retreated from his brow and sits in one lump of greying brown fluff at the top of his head as if he were wearing a novelty bobble hat. He’ll work until he dies, probably, and he’ll not have achieved much worth mentioning either. It wasn’t really any of Henry’s business what happened to this sad sack after tonight, however. He had given and soon he would take.

After a moment, the Brazilian settled down and sniggered beneath his breath. “Yes, sure. Say, why don’t we go someplace else? There’s a bar down the block that always has the best looking women.”

Henry had no idea whether this was true or not, but he appeared convincing. Nodding his head, the white-collared Joe dragged his body up onto his feet and started toward the door in a comical stagger leaving Henry to tail after him as a foreboding shadow. The cold by comparison air outside the club was as refreshing as stepping into a cold shower. Along with the heat of the day, the intensity of the city folk had gone too; they sauntered in slackened paces wearing party clothes and glittering like disco balls. Henry threw his arm around Sweaty Bob’s shoulder, gathering him to his side, and began to walk – tautly – to his desired location. It was like smuggling a man-sized goose under his coat trying to get the drunken man to walk in a straight line, but Henry was determined. They would leave the crowds behind and the Allurist would find a quiet nook somewhere off the main street to enjoy his meal.

A quiet breath left the tall, regal woman as she ran a hand back through her long, silky black hair, pausing with her wrist in front of her face to check the time on her watch, before tugging the sleeve of her dress down over the single accessory she dared to adorn herself with on the job. She tipped her head back as she waited, checking again, for what felt like the thirtieth time in a three minute window that there was no fire escape above her, that the only two ways in and out of this little alley were the door she watched, and the end of the street where the narrow space between both buildings opened into the road. Either way, she would see her prey coming before she even thought to look for her.

The email that she had sent had said to arrive at 1:30. It was 1:00, now. Raven knew her quarry well, and knew that she would be here soon, thinking to arrive first, to lay in wait herself, to scope out her customer before engaging. Her lips twisted into a wry little half smile at the thought of finally putting a bullet into the most hated rival she could imagine. She gave her long, ebon mane a sharp tug to curb her excitement as the door in front of her opened.

The light that struck the moderately tall woman reflected off the scar that ran the length of her cheek, her gaze sweeping the alley toward the street. Raven didn’t wait for ceremony, for confrontation. She had lost to this woman one too many times to let her get the drop on her again. Without a word, she lifted her pistol and shot her, square in the chest. The sequence of soft, muffled pops filled the alley, blood bursting from the woman’s chest as she was tossed sideways, face-first into the brick wall. Raven pulled the trigger again and again, bullets slamming into the woman’s chest, one striking her in the face, just beneath her good eye. A sharp hiss of pleasure escaped between the tall woman’s clenched teeth as her weapon finally clicked empty, her finger still pulling the trigger wildly, until she tossed the weapon at the woman crumpled against the wall, her booted foot lifting as her hand lifted the long skirt of her dress to kick at the German’s abdomen.

“Damts’vroba jojokhetshi tkven damp’ali veshap’i. I finally ******* beat you… I finally… I just… rot in hell, whore.” Her voice was a pleased hiss, the point of her heeled boot striking the downed woman in her chest again, blood splashing from her mouth as she remained unmoving. She knelt down, taking a fistful of strawberry blonde locks, snapping the head up to stare into what was now, finally, two lifeless eyes, instead of just the one. Instead, the ***** grinned, and Raven’s heart stopped. “****.”

The single word was almost a whine, punctuated with a grunt as the knife pierced her chest, the woman’s fist contacting her chest with enough force to rush the air from her lungs in a grunt. Raven fell to her backside, splashing the long, black fabric of her dress into a puddle as she sank back, her shoulders hitting the brick wall as she stared at the knife in her chest. “Not… not fair.” She managed before she coughed, blood staining her teeth and spilling from the corner of her mouth. She grit her teeth in fury, her eyes burning with rage as she watched the other woman stand, working her jaw until she spat the bullet that had entered through her cheek onto the ground at her feet.

The blonde woman sneered, and leaned down to tap at the knife handle once, sending a lightning bolt of pain through Raven’s entire body that caused her to recoil against the brick wall, before she spat blood in the other woman’s face. The other woman frowned, and lifted Raven’s hand, wiping her face with the cuff of her long sleeve, before she snapped open the tall throat of her dress, allowing her to breathe with a little more ease.

“Remember this, when you finally do bleed out. I could have finished you off, but you did this to yourself.” Raven clenched her fist and gave a weak growl, trying to push herself up before she hissed, blood dripping from her lip again as she went limp against the brick wall. “****. You.” The blonde smirked, and stood, turned, and moved to exit the alley out onto the street, without another thought to her bullet-riddled appearance, a half-expected scene in the day of vampires knowingly walking the streets, fighting each other and monsters unknown to the finish. She was just another monster, on her way to work. She chuckled knowingly to herself, and tossed a wave into the darkness where Raven groaned in rage and pain, slamming her fist into the puddle she’d fallen into.

Their steps were cumbersome, inelegant - like a swan had been tied to a giraffe and forced to march on sand. Henry did his best to guide his prey without force. He squeezed Sweaty Bob’s shoulder, spoke with him, pointed him down the road, and smiled his pearly whites to distract from whenever he had to apply a little bit of pressure to pull or push them back on the path. The floor beneath their feet was like crossing between patches of ice, jello, and broken glass. Henry was nearing the limit of his patience. In fact, he might have lost his damn mind entirely and snapped this man’s neck when he mumbled about needing to take a piss if it weren’t for the eyes on them constantly. Instead, the Brazillian cooed in his ear, told him that they were almost there, and shuffled the man down the nearest alleyway. Henry was - in fact - so in a rush at that point, that he nearly came to blows with the blonde who was walking out of there.

“Desculpe,” he said sincerely, keeping his eyes low.

The Allurist didn’t acknowledge that she was one of their kind or even how that had mattered at the time. Neither had he detected the heavy scent of blood until they were already halfway in the shelter of the alleyway and Sweaty Bob started to gag up a hairball. The man pulled himself out of the Vampire’s grip and staggered forward, his body slumping against the wall on his forearm and forehead. Between retching and burping, he kept talking about how he’d never seen a dead body before and there was so much blood and it wasn’t like you saw in the movies. Henry, admittedly, was too concerned with stepping back out of range of any potential vomit - he still had standards, after all - that the truth of the scenario was somewhat lost on him.

When Henry had been human, he’d seen plenty of corpses and in various conditions. He had never reacted with fright and rarely with disgust either. It was as though that part of his brain - the ancient part that controlled the fight or flight response - was just not functioning correctly. So, the source of Sweaty Bob’s reaction only became compelling to those lax senses when the woman on the floor made a noise of life. When Henry realised that she wasn’t yet a corpse, those hazel eyes swept over her form with sympathy and surprise. Her breath seemed to come and go in ragged gasps and he could hear how her shallow pulse seemed to tick away her lifeforce.

“She’s not dead,” Henry concluded.

Sweaty Bob threw a puzzled look over his shoulder, followed by a garbled sound. “You what?”

“She’s not dead,” Henry repeated with a softer tone. “Not yet anyway.”

“Oh God!” Sweaty Bob huddled closer to the wall as if it could bring him comfort from the news and stop the surge of nausea. Of course, it couldn’t.

The Vampire moved toward the woman on the ground - slow and purposefully with his form shrinking on each step like a cat hunting a bird in the grass. Before long he was kneeling at her side at eye-level, though his gaze flickered toward the knife protruding from her chest wall.

“Hey there,” he offered, “Can you talk, bonita? What happened to you, eh?”

She smelled his companion long before she saw them, and could hear the sound of his wretching that made her stomach churn. His words, though, were what let her know. She must have looked pretty ******* bad. She fought the urge to laugh at herself, at her predicament, the breathless gurgle of a chuckle causing pain to bloom in her chest, earning a gasp for air that rattled. She was drowning in her own blood, her heart lanced neatly by the knife in her chest hadn’t spared her lungs. She let out a sigh, and resigned herself to the mercy of the men standing in her alley. It wasn’t like she was going to get up and run away.

As the man stooped next to her, she tried to lift an arm to sweep the dark hair from her face, managing half success and gritting her teeth through the pain it caused her to move at all, and looked over the man that had found her in what was, finally, her lowest point. When she parted her lips to say something, what first game out was less a word than a groan, more akin to a gag as the man behind him wretched again. Blood spilled from her lips and she clenched her fist at her side, every inch of her etched in fury at her predicament. "I finally had her, I won," she growled, her fingers digging through the wet puddle for her discarded pistol. She didn't recognize this strange man, but he didn't seem like he was any sort of threat to her. So why did he make her so uneasy? Something about him spoke of power lying behind that appraising stare, the jade of his gaze watching her making her feel small, in spite of her stature.

She shook her head, dark green eyes of her own looking up at him as she frowned. "The ***** stabbed me. I had her, and she stabbed me, and left me here." Speaking earned her another gag, blood dripping from her chin before she tried to push herself a little more upright against the brick wall of the alley and a sharp hiss of pain left her, followed with a groan as she let herself collapse back, the shock of pain that lanced through her too much to let her keep going. She slammed her fist into the water, giving up on following after her, and giving up on finding her gun.

Instead, then, she looked to this man as she fought her hardest to ignore the stinking lump that he had carried into this garbage-ridden alley with him, where she had been marked to die. She closed her eyes and let her head rest back against the bricks as she tried to concentrate on breathing, on keeping herself going. Being found gave her the tiniest shimmer of hope that she wouldn’t have dared otherwise have had. “You can laugh,” she managed to wheeze, her hand falling to rest on her stomach, fighting the sick feeling she had there as she watched him more tensely, trying her hardest to continue ignoring his drunk, which was now slumped against her wall and only in marginally better shape than she was herself, she thought.

As she spoke, she began laying down puzzle pieces for him to pick up in his head and form a picture of what had happened to her. However, working it all out was like playing an awkward game of cognizant Jenga where the blocks stacked cumbersomely over one another. Henry had the foundations right - this woman had been in an altercation with another and it hadn’t exactly gone her way - but everything else was sketchily added to the pile and it was teetering. After a few moments, he decided to do some detective work by actually paying attention to his surroundings. That copper-rich scent of blood hung in the air like a fog and Henry found that he could fix his nose to the points of higher concentration, noting the spray of crimson on the wall either side of the door and the puddle on the floor beneath it. To him, it appeared as though someone had been shot and had laid down there, but they weren’t there now.

Addressing the mortal with a critical look, Henry searched for any sign of bullet wounds, but she was clean. Therefore, he had to assume that it was this one’s adversary who had just gotten up and left the scene after reportedly stabbing her. So either the gunshot wasn’t as fatal as it had seemed, or, something else was going on - most likely, something supernatural. Still, it was difficult to tell what exactly was going on judging on this woman’s reactions alone and Henry’s Jenga tower was threatening to topple. In fact, it had about as much stability as the mortal did when she attempted to get to her feet and immediately crumpled against the brick wall.

“Hey now, take it easy,” he cooed, and on impulse, moved to lay his hands on both her shoulders.

Henry was a whisker’s width from making contact when she groaned and slammed her fist into the ground. Her head lolled against the brickwork so that her long dark hair covered her face, her eyes were pinched shut, and the agony broke out of her in soft hisses and gasps. The Vampire did take pity on her, even as his stomach protested this charitable excursion - at least a part of him hadn’t forgotten why he’d come out this evening. The idea of sipping on a few pints of drunken Bob no longer appeased him after the man had started dry-heaving in the alleyway, and while this woman certainly was more appetising, there didn’t look to be much left to drink.

“Why would I laugh?” Henry asked genuinely as he cautiously brushed the strands of hair out of her face and tucked them behind her ear. “I died once,” he offered, like it was the most natural thing in the world to say. “It’s not so bad. When you wake up, you feel better about it.” Henry took a handkerchief from the inside of his jacket and brought it to her lower lip, dabbing at the blood so that the silk would absorb it - turning from ivory to jet. His hazel eyes were focused on what he was doing, ensuring that he was cleaning up as much of that blood as possible.

When the man’s hand moved to brush the hair from her face, she wanted to offer her thanks, but only managed another wracking, wet cough that spattered blood on her teeth. She sighed, the sound a wet gurgle as she did her best to keep her head still, and her hair out of her eyes as she watched the man in front of her. She heard what he had said, and her dark brows knit in thought. He had died before, and cearly, death didn’t take. Maybe that held some sort of clue as to how her nemesis had managed to get up after an entire magazine was emptied into her scrawny body, and shoved this damned knife into her chest. The anger caused her pulse to try and quicken, which only sent another wave of pain through her, though she couldn’t manage to react to the agony, the only thing she felt in spades was the cold that had begun to seep into her bones.

“What are you?” Her voice was just whisper, the question more for herself as she pondered the man than for him to actually answer, her head tilting only slightly to accept his assistance as he offered it, allowing him to wipe the blood from her lip like she was some sort of child, her face sticky with a bit of candy she had dug into with too much vigor. She fought the urge to smile at his gesture, a fight she won easily as she grimaced at the pain in her chest, though she remained deathly still, naught but a shiver shooting through her at the sudden chill that was sweeping over her. “Thank you, …?” her emerald stare suddenly turned quizzical, and she let her weight shift to be braced up partly by the arm she had planted in the puddle, alleviating some of the pain in her chest with the shift of her weight. “I’m afraid I don’t know your name.”

She felt better, now that her weight wasn’t so focused on the blade in her chest, and she could manage a few words without blood bursting from her lips, which made her feel infinitely better to not have made a total waste of the man’s gesture of kindness. The entire encounter was inconceivably embarrassing for her, a professional killer left for dead like a dog. She was better than this, and she knew it; the way he looked at her like she was some kind of dying little bird made her angry with herself for letting this happen. Compared to her situation a moment ago, however, she almost felt comfortable, the water beneath her that was soaking into the flowing fabric of her black dress felt warm against her skin, and she could more easily concentrate on the man in front of her as she felt calmed by his being there. If she was going to die, at least she wasn’t going to die alone in this dingy back alley like that Kraut slut had hoped.

Her eyes focused on his face and she gave a little twist of her lips as she thought over her next question, making sure that she wasn’t going to vomit another mouthful of blood as she spoke, swallowing the bitter stuff down as she closed her eyes and tried to focus, before looking at him again. “And, can I ask, how you came to not die?”

The Vampire didn’t have an answer for her question. He lowered his head so that his eyes were obscured, all the while he smiled darkly and continued his efforts as if he were pretending that he hadn’t heard her. He folded the handkerchief over, finding new territory, and doused it this time in a shot of vodka he had taken from his hip flask. She was dying, sure, but they weren’t quite at the point where he’d consider lavering his own saliva down her chin and lips, not on the back of a handkerchief at any rate. Besides, he didn’t trust himself to get any closer. Through the stink of mud and motor oil rolled the smell of blood, ever heavy and sweetly enticing. His thirst rose, independent of his charity and rapture; thirst and yet resistance. His jade gaze flickered up to her eyes, beyond her throat, beyond her vodka-glazed lips. The powerful tang of dirt and blood and alcohol congealed in the back of his throat, yet it felt dry and raw. This was a pointless gesture to be sure, but something in the way he looked at her no longer said pity, it whispered desire.

The Brazilian swallowed. “I’m Henry,” he said. It wasn’t clear if he meant to finally answer her in regard to what he was or just to give her a name to refer to him by.

Again, this was all rather pointless though, wasn’t it? It would do no good to the cow to know the name of the butcher. He’d not given Bob his name. It hadn’t occurred to him to bother when in just a few hours Henry would have been nothing more than a nightmare, a hangover, a sore neck. But he’d always had a weakness for strong women, hadn’t he. Stopping to think about it for even a second had the Vampire’s mind made up. Henry had no idea what this woman’s vendetta was about - who initiated it or whether they were scrapping over a favourite lipstick - and it didn’t matter to him. It had meant enough to her to give it her all, to focus her soul into that fight, and she’d gone down swinging, shooting, cursing the heavens. She’d lost even after she’d won. It was unfair. But he could do something about that, couldn’t he. Henry could give her a second chance the same way he’d been given his.

The Vampire sat back on his heels and regarded her. She twisted against the solid structures of the ground, the wall, and the knife in her chest. Discomfort must have been worming its way into every inch of flesh, but the look on her face suggested that she’d found some semblance of peace here despite it all. Their only source of light was the sallow glow from nearby streetlights which blanched much of the colour away, but Henry could still make out the depth of her eyes as their gazes met. He admired them as though he was looking at two precious stones; a virescent glow of emerald and burnished gold that shifted into the colour of the deepest ocean. When she spoke, his focus shifted to her lips again, to that perfect cupid’s bow and how it sat so elegantly above the larger and more plush bottom one. For a moment, he forgot how to speak, and then he laughed to himself and brushed a hand through his hair.

“Oh, but I did die,” Henry replied, his voice soft and gleaming in the silence of the alleyway. Henry moved in as if to share a secret; the angle of his cheek grazed the softness of her own, and his voice became more intimate as he spoke to her ear. “My heart stopped beating a long time ago, amor. But then I woke up. I don’t worry about bullets or… knives now. I can crush that man’s head in the palm of my hand. If I want. And, you can be like this too, if you want.” Henry withdrew just enough to seek her gaze again. “To seek out revenge on that person who killed you. What do you say?”

The man’s name rolled around hazily in her head, thinking becoming harder for her as the seconds marched on. Everything became so much more difficult, every agonizing pulse of her heart was a battle, the shallow, ragged breathing of her blood-filled lungs was a painful struggle against her impending death. Even concentrating on the man’s name was a herculean contest of her will against the ever more fuzzy numbness that crept into every facet of her consciousness, every inch of her tingled with the lack of interest in the agony that had pulsed through every part of her moments ago. The canvas of her existence had narrowed itself into such a miniscule speck, all that existed was the man’s name rolling around in her fuzzy head and the taste of the vodka on her lips, a welcome experience given the twang of blood that still burned at the back of her throat and filled her nose. Her own blood. Her own life escaping her.

She had been cheated, and that filled her with a rage she couldn’t begin to convey. Every part of her desired to lash out in that fury, to pound her fist against the asphalt and cry out at the injustice of it all. She had struggled her entire life for the victory she had so rightly earned, and again her opponent had risen up, effortlessly dusted herself off, and finished her with little more effort than a flick of her wrist, as naturally as a breath, as easily as a blink of that disgusting dead eye. So when the man, when Henry leaned down to her, his words filled with promises that spoke to the very depths of her existence, that curled about her deepest desires like shadowy tendrils about her blackened and broken heart, her hand rose up and clutched at his shirt, just beneath the collar about his throat, and drug him close as best as she could manage, which was little more than a weak tug that a toddler could have managed in that moment.

Those green eyes sparked with hope at what she had thought that she had just heard. She let them move to the man’s eyes, glaring into them with all of the focus that she had left in her, and twisted her grip as tightly as she could manage into the fabric of his shirt. “Do not toy with me, bat’ono. If you truly have this to give, then I will take it, and I will finish the traitor.” She tightened her hold on him in her excitement, which, with a particularly violent twitch, twisted her lips into a distressed expression, the heel of her boot moving to grind against the wet asphalt, scuffing up the leather as she fought against the pain that she could do so little about, her head falling back against the brick again and her hand falling from his shirt, freeing Henry from her desperate grasp. The harrowing reality of her predicament still second to her thoughts of revenge, to the idea of getting up and fighting again.

Violence spurred her on, the incorruptible desire to exert her will over the power of finality, to have the ability to fight back against the outright indignity of her death fueled her decision without question. Whatever the cost of his offer, whatever price he asked, it was nothing against the tools that he would give her, against the weapons he would knowingly place into her hands. This stranger, this Henry, was a saviour, an answer to a subconscious prayer to some part of the universe, that had fallen into her lap in her hour of greatest need. In her fading and fuzzy sight, the pale glow of the light in the alley almost made him radiate with the very light of some supernatural liberator from the chains of life and death, like some sort of angel sent to lift her out of the bloody mud and scum of existence to make her into something more.

Into something powerful.

“Do it.”

While it seemed like death had always lurked in the corner of his eye, hidden and yet ever-present with its heavy shadow, Henry had never spent any time considering what it was actually like to die. He had always been convinced that he would outlive the family curse or find some way to break it. The inevitability of meeting an early grave like his forebears had chased him from continent to continent, waking him from restless sleep like a shock of ice water. And he had felt it come close a few times, snatching at his heels like a starving dog. It made him impatient, impulsive, and imprudent; ironically pushing him closer to that which he’d been running from all his life. It eventually led him to Harper Rock and there, finally, Henry realised that he couldn’t run any longer. Now, Henry’s relationship with death was as intimate as a lover. He knew how it felt in his hands, how the sound of a beating heart hiccupped before it went forever silent, how the smell was as complex and distinct as a perfume, and how it tasted to drink to the very last drops.

As time marched on, it was apparent that Raven was only inches from the end. Still, she fought against every tug and pull that sought to bring her closer to that finality. Watching her struggle bravely and so defiantly gave him a sudden and unwelcome sense of inadequacy. The Allurist felt unworthy of being the one who would bring her back from the abyss, giving her that second chance. He didn’t deserve to be her saviour. What right did he have claiming such a title anyway? Everything he’d ever done was for his own survival, and after that, his own satisfaction. Even now, jade eyes regarded Raven like a drug addict craving a fix. Saving her was the furthest thing from his mind as his stomach twinged and his veins smouldered with desire. He couldn’t accept being seen as the white knight. He could accept being the beast that conquered and corrupted her, however.

At her submittal, the Vampire hurriedly closed the gap between them, putting tension on the air that remained trapped between their lips. With one hand, he gripped the shaft of the dagger and extracted it from her chest with a sudden, unceremonious popping tug. Once the dagger had been cast aside - a clap of thunder signalling when it connected with the alleyway floor - Henry then used the same bloody hand to grip her throat beneath the ridge of jaw bone. It was important to him to hold her firmly against the wall and keep their faces aligned. He couldn’t think of a damn word to say as his mind swam with dangerous intent. The two-edged ecstasy of feeding: a compulsion so strong that it almost sickened. It felt wrong to take pleasure in this death, but it was impossible not to. There was nothing in his bag of charismatic tricks or treats that he could utter to make this any easier for her. Instead, he held her tired gaze with a hypnotic stare as the blood snaked from her chest in thick, black ribbons.

Her heart rolled on tenaciously like an endless rumble of gunfire. As each throb became softer and heavier than the last, clinging to life, Henry knew that he had to act now. He pressured his tongue against the sharp edge of a fang and once the muscle suffered the pain of incision, he drew on the wound until his mouth had filled with his own blood. His eyelids swept down; he was no longer looking into her eyes, but at her mouth. Henry slid a hand across her shoulder, fingers stroking the skin before nails bit down. Then he leant towards her and kissed her, very gently, but for a long time. Their mouths joined like moist, opening roses. If she meant to protest, to scream, or shout or sigh or moan in delight, it didn’t really matter. As Henry’s tongue slipped into her mouth, it carried with it the seed of her corruption. She could swallow it, let it grow and form her, or she could die. Henry suspected she would fight him - natural instinct and disgust could set her flailing against him - but he had such a firm, conquering grip on her that it was inevitable that she would swallow the stream of blood and saliva that he was passing into her mouth.

When the man closed the distance between them, a startled sound left her throat that was immediately silenced as her jaw fell open on a silent scream. The knife ripped from her heart sent a bolt of agony shooting through her that consumed every part of her being. Every muscle in her body was rigid with a fiery torment as her entire existence was narrowed down to that single, all-consuming sensation of blinding pain. Her body trembled with adrenaline, fighting for its life, in futility, as she was pinned to the wall behind her.

Her emerald glare was a tortured glaze, barely able to see the man that pushed her into the bricks as she tried to react, to claw at her burning chest, only earning a fistful of blood that pumped from her in an alarming way, no matter how hard she tried to keep it from spilling down her frame. She tried to form words, but only managed a pained grunt and a few groans before the man’s lips found her own, causing her body to go rigid again. She lifted a hand to shove at his chest, managing only to weakly bat at his hard frame.

As his tongue rolled into her mouth, she could taste him, could taste his blood as plainly as she tasted her own, and a growl left her as her fingers curled with what she thought was violence and a tremendous amount of force to try and throw him off of her, but was only the total sum of what strength she had left, like a whisper trying to shove a mountain. She could feel his blood filling her mouth and she felt it as it was forced down her throat, sliding over her tongue like a bitter medicine. She gave a quiet sound of pain as a shiver went through her, the hand twisted in his shirt managing only a faint tremor now as she felt the cold sweeping over her, claiming every inch of her from head to toe.

He had promised her life, or his version of it. Too late, she wondered at what she had done, and how much of what he had said was true. If she was going to see the end of the night, or if she was going to die in that alley like a dog. The uncertainty of it panicked her as her body went lax in his grip, his hold on her throat the only thing keeping her upright as she focused on what she knew were the final, struggled beats of her heart as her eyes slowly drifted shut.