Blood Rose

by Jacquelynn Gagne

  “Fight it. The hunger will take you over if you let it.” The feeling that surged through my body was like an electric current. It was insanity. “I know it’s difficult. It’s like having a demon inside of you, gnawing at your sanity, begging you to let him take over.”

  Yes, that was exactly how it felt. And that demon was promising power and relief. It would be so easy to just let go…

  “Don’t.” His thumb stroked my cheek before brushing my lip and holding there. “You’re going to have to fight it, Anna. Yes. I brought you back. I saved you and then I cursed you.”

  Damien’s voice brought me back to focus as I looked up to him with wide lost eyes. “We have to get you blood, Anna. I made a call last night. It’s not much. Nor is it human, but I was able to get you some blood.”

  “Blood?” I sounded uncertain. Sure, I understood that he had told me I was a Vampire. But still, did I really want to drink blood?

  As I thought on this, my mouth became dry. My tongue flicked against dry lips and over my teeth, which were much longer than I recalled. Four fangs. Just like Damien’s. Two on top, two smaller ones on bottom. “Okay.” Desperate for relief, I finally nodded.

  “I will be right back.” He started to stand but my hand grabbed his wrist clutching him to me. I wasn’t ready to be alone.

  “Anna, I will move so fast you won’t even realize I’m gone. I promise, sweetheart.” He smiled weakly before sobering again. “You have to drink though. Alright?” Gently he pried my fingers off his arm before kissing each of them. The next second he was gone.

  It wasn’t like I would normally ever have been so needy. However, this situation wasn’t exactly ordinary either.

  My gaze darted around the room, following dust motes as if they may turn into monsters. The panic surged through me so intensely I nearly screamed as he flew back into the room, startling me.

  “It’s alright.” Damien’s voice was gentle and a bit amused as he sat back beside me. He carried a small red cooler. The same kind hospitals used for transporting blood or other things I didn’t want to think about. There was a veterinaries logo on the side.

  “Where are we?” I whispered simply because I didn’t like how strange my voice sounded.

  “We’re still at our home in Vermont. This is just another room of the house. I didn’t think you should see the other one, when you first came too.” He answered stiffly while opening the cooler to pull out a blood storage bag.

  My eyes went wide as it became my only focus. As my mouth watered, I realized my body knew how badly I needed and truly wanted what was in that bag, even if my mind wanted to deny it. He tore it open with his teeth before handing it to me.

  Ravenously I drank it down in mere seconds. My breath ragged as my body screamed for more. He instantly handed me another, taking the empty one and tossing it back into the cooler. I drank the second one down with just as much greed. Sucking each one of them bone dry. One drip ran from the corner of my mouth.

  Reaching a hand out, his thumb wiped it up and back to my lips. My eyes closed as I suckled softly on his thumb.

  The flavor was overwhelming. It wasn’t at all as disgusting as I thought it would be. In fact it was the most perfect thing I had ever tasted in my life. It was power. This was a charge of life. It brought my senses to a new focus. Made me feel free. Animalistic even.

  Damien stared at me with a smile slowly creeping onto his lips. “You’re stronger than I thought you would be.”

  He took the second empty one and handed me a fresh bag. “I’m sorry there is only one more. My contact couldn’t get much on such short notice.” I could almost hear how that conversation went. Damien could be quite frightening when he wanted to be.

  Pulling back, I shook my head no. It took every ounce of will power to turn it down though.

  “What’s wrong? I know it doesn’t taste very good, but it will have to do for now. Come on now, drink up.” He held the bag out to me persistently but all I could do was shake my head no. I didn’t trust my lips not to betray me.

  I swallowed on a burning dry throat, forcing myself to answer him. “You need it.” I managed to whisper, clinching my hands into fists to keep them from shaking.

  His lips parted to a weak chuckle. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m fine.”

  I shook my head, my brow arched as I stared at him warily. “Don’t lie. You’re not fine. I saw you. You’re sick.”

  His brow furrowed as he looked to me questioningly. “What do you mean, you saw me?”

  XX

  “NEW LIFE”

  “In your room, on the bed. You drank from me… You drank from me and it made you sick from the bloodstone and the venom. You are still sick. Now drink it.” I pushed his hand away from me, which still held the little clear bag filled with rich crimson. To be honest, I was rather proud of my self-control.

  With a sigh, he accepted defeat and quickly guzzled down the bag with a sneer. It was obvious he didn’t care for it as I did. I guess after a few decades you acquire a finer taste than old bagged animal blood.

  Once he was finished, his hand brushed my cheek, leaning slowly to me. Hesitant, as his eyes focused on mine, which were still wide with unease. Slowly his lips brushed mine.

  A whole new thrill of emotion took me over. In seconds, my arms were around him and I was nearly pushing him over as I climbed into his lap kissing him back aggressively.

  He groaned as his hands found my hips and pulled me into to him. It didn’t last nearly as long as I wanted it to though. In moments he was easily prying me off him and sliding out from under me. “You torture me, my sweet,” he said in a huff as he collected himself.

  Shrugging helplessly, I looked down away from him, mumbling, “Sorry.” His hands found my cheeks once more, as he kissed lightly onto my lips. However, before I could get carried away, he pointedly pulled away.

  “Never be sorry for any kiss you grace my lips with. We need to get you cleaned up though. We need to be leaving as soon as possible.” His lips brushed mine again before he quickly pulled back.

  Damien drew me into his embrace and stood with me, setting me to my feet. My legs trembled and nearly gave. They felt like jelly fish legs.

  With a small faint version of his old smirk, he swept my legs out from under me. Then his sobriety switch. “Do me a favor and close your eyes for just a moment.” Looking to him doubtfully, he forced a rueful smile. “Just trust me.”

  Clinching my eyes shut tightly I locked my arms around his neck. He carried me a brief way reminding me again to keep my eyes closed as a strange smell wafted through the air. Blood. It smelled far too good so I clung to him even tighter, burying my face against his chest.

  In another second, we were in the upstairs bathroom. He carried me to the counter and set me down onto it.

  Curling myself into a tight ball on the marble counter I watched him turn the hot water on only. Steam quickly filled the room.

  There was too much to take in. I couldn’t focus on any one thing. The steam looked so different now. I could see every individual molecule of water.

  They all grouped together making beautiful swirling patterns dancing through the room. My tongue flicked out from my lips. I could taste them all. It didn’t taste the same way I remembered water tasting. My tongue flicked with distaste. It was grotesquely sweet.

  When Damien turned around he saw me with my neck craned out forward and my tongue stretching out as far as it could. He laughed of course but it seemed weak, tired really. Even the way he moved seemed less fluid than I was used to.

  He looked weaker than I had ever seen him. “Damien?” My mouth parted to continue but nothing came out. Glancing up at me briefly, Damien turned away just as quick. He wasn’t going to answer my unspoken revelation. He was very ill. And it was my fault.

  Every inch of the bathroom was tiled with beautiful stone. More beautiful than anything I had ever seen, intricate and alive. The pores of the granite seemed to devour the moisture making it swell a
nd the color become that much richer than before.

  He smiled as he came back to me. Damien’s hands rubbed along my arms as if he needed to keep me warm. I wasn’t cold just very uneasy with my new self. He knew though. Damien leaned forward and softly kissed my forehead. “How are you feeling?” I nodded some, not sure what response he wanted. “Good. We need to get the blood off you.” I nodded again looking down at my blood stained hands.

  Well, anywhere I looked was covered to be honest.

  His hands took to my hips lifting me up for a kiss before setting me to my feet. Without a smirk or hint of modesty my hands took up the bottom hem of my tank top and drug it up to hook my running bra and pealed them off together. His brow arched high as I slid my thumb into the top bit of fabric of my shorts and slid them down. That was it for my clothing. Without a word or even glancing back at him, I walked into the shower.

  “You’re positively horrible for my self-control, sweetheart.” He grumbled with a slight chuckle.

  Holding back the grin for all that I was worth I turned to look at Damien. “Well, aren’t you coming?” His expression of pure bewilderment was enough to make anyone laugh. I didn’t. Though I couldn’t hold back the smirk any longer as I slid under the water and ran my hands up through my hair.

  He muttered under his breath as he followed after me. I looked down at his jeans with a smirk and shook my head. “Trust me when I say it’s for the best.” He chuckled, shaking his head as his hands slid up and down my arms.

  “Your best or my own?” I let the water rain down on me as I closed my eyes and lift my chin.

  “Neither. Only for the best due to the time, and lack thereof.” Without further comment on the matter, he took up a familiar bottle of cherry blossom body wash. He’d brought some of my things up. Thoughtful.

  Pouring a dollop of gel into his palm his arms slid around behind me, washing my back slowly. “I have blood on my back as well?”

  With a heavy sigh he paused a moment. “You have blood everywhere, Lianna.” We didn’t speak again as my fingers worked through my hair, using the gel to wash out the blood.

  Damien washed the dried blood away from my body carefully. It turned the water pink as it ran down the drain. There was so much of it. He even made sure he got the blood out from under my nails. He was incredibly tender with every touch.

  His eyes never lingered inappropriately. Though nor did his eyes lock with mine. His fingers in my hair and running over my slick flesh made my entire body tingle.

  Damien swept me off my feet and up to his chest tight against him. Carrying me out into the bedroom, we dripped every step of the way. It would have been patronizing if I didn’t have a great urge to attack him in a most primal way. The way he stared back at me, I could only hope he felt the same. I couldn’t tell.

  The urge didn’t last long enough. There in the middle of the room, soaked in the blood of my death, was the bed. That image I knew then would forever be imprinted in my mind.

  Staring entranced, my head tilted to the side. How does one process their own death? He stood me to my feet. The brush of his lips crossed the hollow of my neck before he vanished from my side.

  Within a few moments, Damien handed me a set of my clothes he had waiting on a chair. Slowly I stepped into a black cotton thong and then slipped the straps of a black bra up my shoulders. I was startled when Damien materialized behind me to clasp it. Brushing my hair back from my neck, his lips pressed against the nape firmly. His lips drug around to the soft flesh under my ear. “Do you still doubt my want for you?” He chuckled as I shivered when his tongue flicked my flesh. “No? Good. Don’t ever doubt that again.” He nipped softly before pulling away.

  I redressed in a daze into a worn pair of jeans torn in all the right places and plain dark green tank top. Olive drab. Love it.

  Damien quickly moved to his closet. Seconds later, he came out in a pair of his designer jeans hung low on his hips and an open black button up long sleeved shirt, the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Some things don’t change. Some things shouldn’t.

  Staring at his chest, my lips parted slightly. He smirked. Embarrassed I turned away and then lost all touch with reality. Unable to move unable to speak, I became completely detached. Frozen.

  He stepped in front of me, pulling my vision away from the blood once more. “Anna, don’t do that to yourself. I know this is hard but I can’t lose you right now. I need you to focus on me, okay. Just me and nothing else. This will get easier, love. I promise.”

  With a tight nod, I looked away from him and the bed both and stared down at my feet. “Why do I feel so funny?” At a loss for coherent words, I mumbled as I slid on my old pair of leather flip-flops.

  “Hunger” I shook my head no.

  “Like I’m spinning but not me. The whole room. But it’s not. I’m not.” Shaking my head I tried to rid myself of the insanity. I sounded like a loon, felt one too.

  Damien chuckled slightly. “That will pass very soon, don’t worry. Basically, you’re feeling the rotation of the earth. You’re very sensitive right now. It doesn’t really go away but you just quit noticing so much I suppose.”

  Damien’s shoulders shook just slightly as he contained his laughter. He placed a gentle kiss on my forehead, then each cheek before finally finding his way to my lips. Before he pulled away he kissed gently onto my neck, over the place he’d bitten me once.

  He kept me very close as he guided me out of the room. Damien tensed, stopping at the door. “If I carry you, will you promise to keep your eyes shut?”

  Did he really think so little of me? “I’m fine. Really, I can handle it.” He smiled and found my hand, squeezing it softly. Damien led me down the stairs. My eyes were wide but I tried to hide the shock as I replayed the night in my head, as if I was watching a movie.

  No one survives that. Blood had been thrown from one end of the room, all the way up the stairs, and I knew the bed had been saturated. The smell of course told me that most of it was mine.

  With each step, I walked through pools of thick dry blood. It was sticky. The sickest part was that it smelled good. Too good. My body was trembling.

  New Blood is the term used for a new Vampire. New Blood or not, I still couldn’t imagine myself sucking on the carpet to absorb my own dead blood. No matter how it smelled. “It’s okay. Just stay calm.” He did his best too sooth me.

  I did my best not to lose my temper.

  “Damien, do not be patronizing. I’m not sucking the carpets clean yet.” Grinning, he shrugged his shoulders as if to say he couldn’t help it.

  We made it to the bottom of the staircase when I saw Liahm. My body froze, tensing in a silent panic.

  Specific images of Liahm torturing me came flooding back so fast it took a moment to realize it was only a memory. I could feel his teeth tear through my breasts across my chest slowly.

  But now, now he was just strung about pieces of rotting Liahm. A whispered regret told me that it should have been me to do this to him. I would have enjoyed it. A lot.

  Damien tugged my hand, pulling me out the door. The sun didn’t kill me as he had promised. However, it was as if I had been in the dark for a million years and then decided to look directly into the sun. It felt warmer than I was used to.

  Rushing ahead of me, Damien opened the passenger door to the Jeep. One arm lifting me, he nearly threw me in. The windows were so darkly tinted from the outside a human could not see in at all. Relief washed over me like a drug.

  “Wait, my book!” My hand came up to open the door when he stopped me.

  “Your bag and everything else, including the sketchbook are in the back seat. Body wash can be replaced.” As Damien drove, I twisted around and grabbed the book from the back. He drove like a bat out of a hell down a path too over grown to possibly be a road. Now it didn’t bother me at all.

  I curled up in the seat with my legs crossed butterfly, flipping through the book to the second to last page with an image. The art was done in
black oil pastel.

  A fallen angel viewed from behind. Mercy. Blood had soaked the paper from the page beneath this one. I flipped to the next.

  It had been heavily stained in blood. My blood. The hand. Cut. Black blood drops and all could still be seen clearly despite the massive smear. Hm, the irony I thought. Without thinking, I dug a pen from his console and began to sketch…

  I think this is a good time to step back and look over some things again. Many of the memories in my time of humanity are like a haze. Thinking of them now is like watching everything through a fog. It’s difficult to explain some things. The details that is. My existence from after I turned, of course, is much clearer.

  If I were to describe a leaf to you now, know I would be able to tell you the exact shade in astounding detail. Such as its geometric measurements in size and shape. I could count every pore and every vein running from the stem through the body. All of this from simply driving by.

  In my years of humanity, I may be able to tell you the leaf was green. That was only because I knew they were supposed to be. The difference is to explain living in a black and white world and then suddenly living in High Definition Technicolor. Bet you didn’t know there are really sixteen colors in a rainbow.

  This was the story of my death and my birth into a new life. This was my demise. I was reborn into a new world. A new life. A world that is dark as dark as it is mystical.

  My own personal land of illusion. A land where the statues of the gods walk the earth in all of their glory. Now I am one of them. With skin like living marble and eyes that shine like the stars in the dead of night. Sculpted and beautiful in ways I never would have imagined.

  Now I see the world through new eyes. An entirely different world. Not just changed. No, not changed at all. For it has always been this way. It is I that has changed. Now I can see the world for what it truly is.

  This is my gift from my dark angel. My prince of darkness. My draconian devil. I will forever be mesmerized by the intensity that I had been missing. My years trapped in mortality. The beauty. The chaotic. The impossible... The magic. The Immortal.