AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I think he needs food,” I said shakily.
Mooney rooted through his backpack and pulled out a crushed ham sandwich. “I was looking forward to this, but I guess he could… Hey, what’s with his teeth?”
Zack leaned down, hands on his knees. “Uh, yeah. Those look really fucking real.”
I took a deep breath. Lucian could yell at me later, but I needed the guys to help right now and the simplest way I could think of was to tell the truth.
“Lucian is a vampire, okay? I accidentally broke a wall where he and these two other vampires were trapped. There were some asshole vampires who want him dead, and they tried to kill me to lure him out. Then he saved me with his blood, which meant we couldn’t be more than a few feet apart for the last few weeks. You don’t remember much because he kept wiping your memories until I convinced him to stop.”
Mooney and Zack didn’t say anything at first, then they both laughed. “A vampire?”
Zack knelt down, then tugged on one of Lucian’s teeth as if he expected it to pop off. The amused look on his face faltered. “What’s this thing stuck on with, superglue?”
“Funny,” Mooney said. He got down and tried as well, grunting with effort.
Lucian, who was still blistered, squirming, and very much in pain, flinched. It happened so fast that none of us moved.
One moment, Mooney was tugging on Lucian’s tooth, the next, Lucian’s teeth were clamped around his wrist and a thick droplet of blood was pattering from Mooney to the ground.
“What the fuck!” Mooney yelled. He tried to pull back, but Lucian’s other arm shot up and gripped his upper arm, locking him in place.
Zack tried to kick at Lucian, but Lucian effortlessly swung his arm to the side, sending Zack literally tumbling through the air several feet to crash into a row of seats.
“Lucian!” I screamed.
Only a few seconds had passed, but Lucian’s blisters started to bubble and fade. His eyes opened. The look in them was wild, like a cornered animal. Like something dangerous and unnatural.
Then he blinked and I saw the man I’d started to fall in love with.
He released Mooney, who scurried back, clutching his wrist and looking at Lucian like he might look at a lion who had just wandered into the room. Zack was groaning and trying to pull himself up from the seat, which had broken under the weight of his fall.
Lucian closed his eyes, let out a long breath, and then his whole body let off a rush of steam. He sighed with relief, and got to his feet, rolling his neck. “I feel much better. Thank you for the blood, Mooney.”
“The—fucking—you—” Mooney stammered. He looked around, saw a lectern, and hoisted it up, holding it like a baseball bat. He started inching toward Lucian with it. “You fucker. You bit me.”
“You were pulling on my teeth, if I recall,” Lucian said.
Mooney swung the lectern toward Lucian so hard that I flinched. I expected to see Lucian crumble to the ground with the force of the heavy object being swung at his head. Instead, he lifted his forearm to shield himself. There was a gruesome crack.
Lucian glared, nostrils flaring. His forearm was bent at a strange angle, then there was another faint hissing sound and it straightened itself.
Mooney dropped the broken lectern, taking a few staggering steps back.
Zack was on his feet now, rubbing the small of his back. He picked up a piece of the chair and launched it at Lucian. It bounced off Lucian’s head with a comically quiet thud.
“Stop!” I shouted. “Vampire. He’s a vampire. Okay? You were tugging on a freaking vampire’s teeth. Of course he bit you a little bit!”
Mooney shook his bleeding wrist around, spraying bits of blood on the carpet. “A little bit? The fucker tried to take my hand off!”
“It’s a flesh wound.” Lucian, who currently had a blood mustache, was already completely healed of blisters.
“Any wound is technically a flesh wound,” Zack said shakily. He was backing up, not taking his eyes from Lucian. “I mean, like, if you get cut in half that’s a flesh wound. And then some.”
“He’s going to live. Unfortunately,” Lucian said. “I barely took any blood.”
“Be nice, Lucian.” I moved to put myself between Lucian and Mooney, just in case Mooney tried to charge him. “They helped me drag you in here. You were boiling alive out there. What the hell was that?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know. I pushed my ability to heal to its limits. I’ve been quite hungry as well, but I was hoping to wait until you didn’t need to watch me feed.”
“Oh how fucking sweet,” Mooney groaned. He waved his wrist around limply. “Looks like that plan backfired, huh, Dracula.”
“Dracula?” Lucian laughed. “He has been dead for centuries. Quite the asshole, if the stories are true.”
