Blood Craving

by Gabrielle Bisset

  The door was open slightly and through the crack he spied her lying on the floor, her clothes torn and filthy. She looked like she hadn’t had a shower in weeks. Her dark hair hung in dirty clumps that hid her gentle brown eyes from him.

  He’d told himself this was what she’d look like, but seeing her like this for real made his heart feel like someone had it in a vice. He needed to get her out of there. She deserved better than this.

  Kneeling beside her, he shook her gently to wake her up. When she opened her eyes, there was a look of confusion in them, as if she didn’t know where she was, but as soon as she turned her head toward him, he saw the recognition in those eyes he’d spent so many hours furtively gazing into back in Romania.

  Then in seconds, it changed from knowing him to not wanting to see him.

  “Kali, I’m here to take you away from this place. You need to come with me now.”

  “Sion? What are you doing here? Why are you here? I need to get away,” she said in a dry, hoarse voice.

  Kali moved to roll away from him, but he held her in place as she pushed against his grip. “I need you to come with me now, Kali.”

  “No, no. I can’t do this. Leave me. I don’t want to go with you.”

  She wasn’t going to come with him willingly, so he’d have to take matters into his own hands. Grabbing her around the waist, he hoisted her up into his arms and held her tight as she began to fight him.

  “Sion, no! I can’t go with you!” she screamed as he left the house and transported the two of them instantly back to his apartment.

  He placed her down on the bed and watched as she stared up at him in horror. “Kali, I don’t want to fight with you, but I can’t let you do that anymore. We need you working on the prophecy.”

  She rolled over and covered her head with her arms. In a muffled voice, she said, “No you don’t. I mess everything up. Just let me go back there and be happy.”

  Sion locked the door and went into the bathroom to run a shower for her. As he tested the water to make sure it wasn’t too hot, he heard footsteps move toward the door and raced to catch her just as she was turning the knob. Grabbing her, he held her tightly to him as she began to cry.

  “Sion, let me go,” she sobbed. “I can’t do this with you. I ruin everything.”

  He couldn’t see her eyes because of the hair that hung in front of them, so he pushed it off her face. Looking into those sad eyes, he wished he was better with this kind of thing.

  “Kali, you don’t ruin everything. We can’t do this without you.”

  Closing her eyes tightly, she shook her head. “Thane’s dead because of me. It’s all because of me.”

  Everything Sion had feared was true. Kali had spun out of control and let addiction take over her very being because of what he’d said about her helping Sasa to go to Thane. He never meant to make her feel like this and seeing her cry made him cringe with regret.

  “Let’s get you cleaned up and get some food and blood in you. Come, you need to take a shower.”

  She went limp in his arms and simply nodded, so he carried her into the bathroom and stood her on her feet. He turned his head to give her some privacy, but she seemed confused and her fingers fumbled with the buttons on her shirt until she just dropped her hands to her sides in frustration. A crazy laugh exploded out of her, followed by another bout of crying.

  Damnit, he wasn’t the right Son for this.

  “I can’t even unbutton my own shirt. I can’t do this,” she said in an anguished voice as she hung her head.

  Sion stood frozen as the room grew steamy from the hot shower. Her emotions were all over the place, confusing him. As tears streamed down her cheeks, he finally moved toward her and began unbuttoning her shirt. When he’d finished, he stood in front of her seeing her body for the first time. Even looking like she did after weeks of living in bleeder dens, Kali was beautiful.

  The vision of her standing there, her shirt barely covering her breasts, startled something in Sion, and he stepped back from her, unsure how to deal with his body’s reaction to her. She looked up at him with a hurt expression when he moved away.

  “I’m so disgusting you don’t even want to stand next to me. I guess I understand.”

  “No…that’s not…do you need help with anything else?” he stammered out.

  She shook her head and pulled the two sides of her shirt closed to cover herself. “No. You can go, if you want.”

  The sadness in her voice told him he wasn’t handling this well. “If you need anything, I’ll be right outside.”

  Sion left the room and hoped a shower would help her begin to get back to her old self, but fifteen minutes later she still hadn’t come out. Almost afraid of what he’d find, he opened the door to the bathroom and looked in warily. The window wasn’t open, so she was still in there. That was something.

  “Kali, are you okay?” he called out but got no answer. Again, he called her name but heard nothing.

  Pulling back the shower curtain, he found her huddled on the floor of the bathtub, her hands and arms covering her head as ice cold water beat down on her. The scene was heartbreaking, but all Sion felt was confusion. How was he to help her if she couldn’t even bother to help herself?

  Once more, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the bed. Her teeth chattered from the cold water dripping off her hair and skin, and her eyes stared up at him with a vacant look. He had no clothes for her there, so the best he could do was wrap her in the blankets from the bed. She fought him like she had earlier, but now she was weaker and gave up much easier.

  When he finally calmed her, he looked down into her sad face and felt his nature take over. “Do you need blood? When did you last have some?”

  She said something almost unintelligible, but he heard the words ‘his blood’ in her ramblings and a shot of jealousy tore through him. Through all his searching for months, he’d foolishly convinced himself that she’d never taken another vampire’s blood.

  He let his fangs drop and pushed up his sleeve to give her what she needed. Piercing the vein in his wrist, he held out his arm toward her to offer what he could. In all the time they’d been apart, he hadn’t fed anyone. This was the first real contact he’d had with another soul since she’d fed from him last, and he wanted it as much as he hoped she would.

  “Take from me, Kali. I’m here to give you what you need.”

  With wide eyes, she stared at the blood slowly trickling down over his palm. He knew she was hungry, but she didn’t make a move. Afraid she wouldn’t, he sat down next to her and gently pressed his wrist to her mouth.

  When she didn’t turn away, his heart filled with happiness. At least he could believe a part of the Kali he knew still existed inside her.

  Her mouth felt so warm and soft against his skin, like a familiar sensation he hadn’t realized he’d missed until that moment. She drank quickly, pulling much harder on his vein than ever before, but he didn’t mind. At least if she was taking from him, he knew she wasn’t being poisoned with Bliss. Hopefully, this was the first step toward her recovery.

  Kali held his arm tightly to her, and her still wet hair fell across his skin. Every sensation seemed so much more potent after being away from her for so long. For the first time, he was moved to touch her as she drank from him, stroking her hair and loving the feel of it against his fingers.

  She moaned softly against his skin, sending a tingle up his arm. Sion let the feelings her feeding produced in him take over, and for the first time in months, he didn’t think about anything but how wonderful he felt to be there in that tiny apartment with her.

  He didn’t notice when she moved her mouth away from his arm, instead lost in the joy of having her with him. It was only when she spoke that he was brought back to reality.

  “May I close the holes?” she asked in a strange voice that jarred him out of the beautiful haze he’d been enjoying.

  He didn’t answer, mainly out of habit because she never
asked after that first time he’d instructed her not to close them. Instead, he brought his wrist to his mouth to close the holes and savor the taste of her lips on his. Even now, all these months later, he still stole her taste in this way.

  “I’m sorry, Sion,” she whispered up at him.

  He stared down at her, unsure of what she was sorry for. Whatever it was, she didn’t have to apologize.

  “I’m sorry you have to see me like this. I never wanted you to see me this way.”

  No words seemed right, so he said nothing once more, instead stroking her hair again and hoping it made her feel better.

  Wrapped in the blankets of his bed, she curled up next to his side and closed her eyes. A sense of contentment washed over him, but something else too was beginning to exist inside him. He wanted to protect her, to be the one who could save her from the poison she craved. She looked so small and frail next to him, like a damaged doll discarded without care. He wanted to be the one who showed her she was so much more than that broken soul she was now.

  Kali slept pressed against him for hours, her thin body clutching his like she feared he’d leave at any moment. When she woke up, she was disoriented and didn’t seem to remember who he was.

  She stared wildly at him, clawing at his face to get away. “Who are you? Why are you in my room?”

  “Kali, it’s me. It’s Sion,” he said quietly. “You know me.”

  For a moment, her eyes flashed her recognition of him and everything about her relaxed. She cupped his face with her hands and said his name over and over. “Sion, I remember you. I know you.”

  “That’s right. You know me. We’re friends, Kali.”

  Then suddenly, her face grew hard and angry. “Don’t you feel anything? Do you even have a heart inside you?”

  Stunned from her outburst, he recoiled in horror at the pain in her words. God, he was the wrong Son for this. Her emotional swings from joy to rage exhausted and confused him, but he couldn’t give up on her.

  She flailed her arms against his body, her fingernails scratching his jaw, but he silently rocked her back and forth until she fell back to sleep. This went on day and night for over a week, a gentle peacefulness next to the only one he’d ever enjoyed spending time with broken up by intermittent bouts of her anger and sadness and his trying his best to take care of her.

  For Sion, the week was oddly one of the happiest of his life. He had no idea how to react to her behavior and wasn’t sure he was helping at all, but just being next to Kali made him feel whole again.

  Eight nights in, Kali finally began to act like herself. At sunset, she began stirring in his arms, and he awoke to find her sitting up next to him. The look in her eyes was that same old Kali he remembered from the monastery. That spark that had intrigued him from the first moment he saw her working on the prophecy had returned.

  “Sion, I don’t know how to thank you for…” She covered her face with her hands and shook her head. “I never wanted you to see me like this.”

  “I’m just happy you’re feeling better.”

  In truth, he was happier than he’d been in a very long time. Her sweet smile lit up the dingy rooms he temporarily called home, and he wasn’t alone. Even all that she’d put him through couldn’t take away from what she made him feel when she was herself.

  She dropped her hands from her face and stared into his eyes. “I promise you I’ll never be like that again. I promise, Sion.”

  “We need to get back to work on the prophecy. I told Nico what you said about Theron being the key when we talked that one time…”

  Sion stopped talking, unsure what to say. He didn’t know what had happened to her between that phone call and when she became the vampire he’d found in that bleeder den that night. And he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

  “There’s more we need to learn to know how to defeat the Archons.”

  Hanging her head, she nodded. “I hope you all can forgive me. I’ve lost valuable time on the prophecy because of my weakness. I won’t let you down again, Sion.”

  “Let’s get you to your place here so you can pick up some clothes. Are your books there?”

  Kali’s face dropped for a moment into a frown at his sudden, businesslike demeanor, and she said quietly, “Yes. They’re all there.”

  “Good. We’ll pick them up and come back here to start.”

  Shyly, she asked, “You want me to stay here with you?”

  “Yes. We can’t go back to the monastery and I want to help you with your work, so it’s best we stay here together since the Archons don’t seem to know you’re here.”

  Looking down, she said, “Oh. Okay. You’re right. This place is as good as any. Give me a few minutes to clean up and I’ll be ready to go.”

  As Kali took a shower, Sion sat on his bed thinking about the look of disappointment she’d had when he’d explained why he wanted her to stay there with him. It’s not that there weren’t other reasons why he preferred her to be with him. There were, and there had been for months, but he wasn’t the type of male who spoke about those kinds of things.

  There were good reasons the other Sons called him the Ice Man, after all.

  Five

  Kali settled into Sion’s apartment and wondered if how he’d seen her had ruined everything there might have been between them. If only she hadn’t been forced to try Bliss! Her sire knew she had struggled with problems in the past. Why did he make her try this new drug of his?

  As she took over a small corner of the shared living and dining room, stacking her books and papers as neatly as possible, she wished Sion would say something so she could try to explain things. His silence made her want to talk, but since they’d returned from the rundown flat she’d called home since she arrived in Prague, he hadn’t spoken a word. She thought she’d heard him gasp when they entered her room, but if he was disgusted by the filth of the place, he never said so. All he did was silently help her gather her things and return here.

  Things seemed so different between them now. How could they not be? He’d seen the worst of her and been forced to endure all those hours of her withdrawal—all those ugly hours of her emotions being all over the place, something so foreign to a man like him. And she’d looked so awful, her hair a tangled mess and her clothes covered in dirt and grime.

  How could he ever look at her the same way again?

  Just like all the other times she’d lost friends and loved ones because of her problems, she feared now she’d lost the chance to gain Sion’s love. She understood, though. What man would want to love a woman like her, especially with all that he’d seen in the past week?

  She spied him sitting at his laptop across the room and so wished he’d say something. Anything so she could gauge what his thoughts were about her. The silence was killing her.

  Unable to stand not knowing, Kali tentatively approached him and quietly spoke about the only thing he seemed to be willing to discuss with her. “Sion, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have to feed.”

  His fingers stilled on the keyboard, and he stopped whatever he’d been working on. Turning toward her, his mouth turned up ever so slightly at the corners, and then he simply pushed up his sleeve to reveal the gently pulsing vein in his wrist.

  “Take what you need.”

  And that was it. Four tiny one-syllable words were all he gave her. Kali kneeled down next to his chair and did as he ordered. The first taste of his blood on her tongue thrilled her, and she hoped he felt the same joy in giving his blood. At one point just before she finished, she thought she felt his hand touch her hair, but the feeling was short-lived and by the time she was done, she believed it had all been in her imagination.

  At least in her mind, he cared.

  She looked up at him as he closed the holes in his wrist and longed for what they’d been all those months ago back at the monastery. But they were far from that place and that feeling they’d shared.

  “I better get working. I need to make up for all the tim
e I’ve lost,” she said quietly, hoping to get some sense that the one she’d shared all those hours with working on the prophecy still resided inside him somewhere.

  Sion merely nodded, saying nothing as he returned his own work. Kali wanted to ask him about the machines he was designing. She wanted to know the details of what he spent his time on, but his silence stopped her. Whatever they’d been before, now they were merely co-workers.

  It was probably for the best. Her attention needed to be on deciphering the Prophecy of Idolas before the Archons did, and Sion’s work on his drones was more important than one woman’s feelings. As she opened another book, it was almost as if that very idea was written all over his face. Stoic and serious, he focused on his schematics and designs, ignoring her completely.

  So that’s what she’d have to do too. Even if it felt like an impossible task.

  Kali began reading a passage she’d translated before becoming addicted to Bliss. It told of Theron’s rise as the one who would save vampires around the world from subjugation by the Archons.

  In the end of ages, at the twilight of years

  They rose to heights as great.

  One born not made will hold the key

  One from eight.

  Darkness and light, life and death, good and evil warring in one.

  She studied the words, knowing that the one not born line referred to Noele and Ramiel’s son, but one from eight seemed wrong since Thane’s death. Now the Sons were down to seven, so Kali felt sure she’d misunderstood that line.

  For nearly an hour, she worked to find another meaning for one from eight, but nothing seemed to ring true. The problem was Theron wouldn’t be ready to join the Sons anytime in the near future, and from all that Nico and the Order believed, the Archons would launch another attack like the one they’d made on the monastery soon.

  Was there another who would be called to be a Son of Navarus?