AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I hate you for doing this,” I snarl, breathless and feral and slowly losing control.
“About time you started hating me for something,” he says. His hand goes to my jaw, holding me until it hurts, his fingers bruising. “You know that you can’t stop it now, can’t stop it once it’s in motion. If you don’t drink from him, you’ll die from the agony and he’ll die for no reason.”
“Okay,” I whimper, trying to swallow the sawdust in my throat. “But promise me you’ll let him go after this. That you’ll compel him to forget this and let him go.”
“I promise to let him go,” he says, running his thumb over my chin. “Now go get your fill, my dove.”
He moves out of the way and pushes me a step toward the boy. The boy is staring at the ceiling and for a moment I fear he’s dead, but then he blinks and tries to look at me.
I avert my eyes. I look at the blood leaking onto the table and spilling onto the floor.
And I let myself go.
I rush to the boy’s side and grab his arm and sink my teeth over his wound. The blood, so fresh, so young, fills my mouth and I drink, insatiable and unrepentant. I feel all my humanity drain out of me while my veins fill with this stranger’s blood and in my heart of hearts I realize what I am and what I know I’ll spend my life trying not to be.
An animal. A creature. A monster.
Not a human being. I’m not Dahlia Abernathy anymore. I’m Rose Harper. I’m a vampire and I drink the blood of the living in order to survive. No, not even to survive but tolive. Valtu was right in that I can’t go back to those blood pills, not after this. Michael was just a taste but I tried my best to pretend it would only be a one-time thing. Now I know it can’t be. I must feed and I hate myself for it, hate what I’ve become.
And I hate Valtu for making me this way.
I let that hate simmer inside me for a moment and then I use it to stop. It takes all my willpower but I can’t let him win. I can’t let his depravity push me to these depths. I can’t kill this boy because if I don’t stop, I will kill him.
I unhook my fangs and stagger backward from the table. The boy is barely breathing, his skin ashen and blue. In my trance, I don’t know how long I’ve been feeding from him but I think I’ve nearly bled him dry.
The boy jerks and then turns his head, manages to look at me with pleading eyes and I feel my humanity come rushing back.
It’s a relief. He’s alive.
“You said you’d let him go,” I say to Valtu, my voice cracking.
He’s been watching me this whole time, a glint of pleasure in his eyes.
“And I will,” he says simply. “A promise is a promise.”
He walks over to the boy and grins down at him, removes the chain cuff around his neck.
“You’re free to go,” Valtu says to him, brushing the boy’s hair off his forehead in a strangely tender gesture. “Thank you for your sacrifice.”
Wait. Sacrifice?
The boy is finally able to open his mouth, free from whatever spell Valtu had him under, and he lets out a weak but haunting scream that I know I’ll hear in my nightmares.
Then Valtu picks up the knife from earlier and in a blur of movement, stabs the boy right in the heart. The crunch of bone and a squelching sound.
The boy’s hollow scream dies in his throat.
But I’m screaming now.
“No!” I yelp, hurrying back to the boy. I push Valtu’s arms out of the way and place my hand around the hilt, pulling out the knife, yet only a little blood leaks out. There’s nothing left.
The boy just lets out a gasp, a wheeze and then he’s still.
He’s dead.
I look up at Valtu, shaking with the horror of it all.
“I let him go,” Valtu explains carefully as he eyes my rage. “He was dead the moment I cut his artery. I let him go, Rose.”
