by M. Leighton
It exploded in my throat like a blast of intense heat. I could feel it spreading through my body, working its way into my tissues, bringing them back to life, back to being.
After the first few gulps of liquid bliss, the excruciating thirst ceased to be the dominant sensation. Another element in the tornado of feeling rose to supremacy. It was desire.
I’d fought my overwhelming craving for Bo practically since we’d first met, but it was nothing like this. Now it seemed magnified a thousand times.
As Bo’s blood bathed my flesh from the inside, his skin scalded it from the outside. It seemed I was enveloped in Bo, surrounded by his flesh, filled with his tangy scent, a scent that now seemed to overpower even that of his blood. I was hyper aware of his body at my back and I could feel the tension in his muscles as he wrestled with his own demons.
Yearning poured through me, a physical desire stronger than anything I’d ever felt. I squeezed my eyes shut tighter and fought the groan that lurked in the back of my throat. I couldn’t stop my body from squirming against him as my skin tingled with awareness and the need to be touched.
As I moved, I became aware of just how much this was affecting Bo. I could feel his hardness pressed against the small of my back. With that knowledge, warmth gushed through me and set my core on fire. I throbbed with want of him, with a carnal need so intense I tore my mouth away from Bo’s wrist just so I could breathe.
I panted and fought for control, leaning my head back against Bo’s shoulder where he was folded around behind me. I searched my surroundings for anything, anything at all that I could focus on to take my mind off the feeling that I needed Bo inside me more than I needed to live.
I inhaled deeply, straining to maintain control of myself, but that was the biggest mistake of all. There was something delightfully forbidden permeating the air. It brought to mind images of damp skin and tangled limbs, of arched backs and open mouths.
It was desire I smelled. Bo’s desire.
His blood was hot with it. It scented the air like a musky bouquet that made my skin feel sticky and warm.
“Ridley, please,” Bo groaned from behind me, his voice thick with a passion that matched mine. “Think of something else.”
My head still rested on Bo’s shoulder. I opened my eyes and turned my head just enough so that I could press my lips to his jaw. I saw Bo close his eyes as he struggled to bridle his need.
“Ridley,” he repeated, his voice breathless and tortured.
I knew Bo was fighting and it was a testament to his control when he turned his face toward mine and pressed one gentle kiss to the corner of my mouth. I wanted to dive into him, but he pulled back. After several tense seconds, I felt his tongue.
Bo licked at the blood that was smeared around my mouth and then he breathed my name. I could smell the heavenly scent on his breath. And then he kissed me.
Bo drove his tongue deep, swirling the residue of his blood inside my mouth. I felt a stab of something primal in two places at once—somewhere in my soul and somewhere south of my bellybutton.
When Bo pulled back, I could’ve cried. I ached for him, but I knew before he spoke that we couldn’t let things get out of hand. I was in deep and turbulent waters, and I knew that adding a new dimension to our relationship would not be wise. There was too much at stake to make any mistakes. We had to proceed with caution.
Though my thirst for blood was somewhat less, I felt frustrated in another way. But despite that unfulfilled feeling, my head was clear enough to be grateful for and appreciative of Bo’s restraint.
“Sit up,” Bo gently commanded.
Obediently, I did as he asked. Bo slid around me and off the bed. When he offered me his hand, I saw that his form was looking weaker than it had before he’d fed me. When I put my fingers in his palm, I saw that I was in virtually the same state—somewhere just shy of completely visible.
“It’s dark and we need to feed. We both need more blood.”
I was immediately uneasy.
“Where are we going to get it?”
“The woods.”
At Bo’s words, vivid imagery flashed through my mind. I thought of killing sweet, innocent animals just for their blood and saliva gushed into my mouth. But it wasn’t from thirst; it was from nausea.
“Will they die? Will we have to kill them or can we just take a little bit and let them live, like humans?”
Bo’s expression said he hated his answer, but that he had to give it.
“We have to kill them, Ridley. For one thing, it takes much more animal blood to satisfy our bodies and keep our form. Also, they’re life force isn’t as hearty as a humans, so ones left alive turn mad after only one feeding. We can’t let them live. I’m sorry.”
It was so distasteful, I dared not consider it.
“I don’t think I can do that, Bo. I just- I can’t…”
“Yes, you can. You just have to try.” Bo tugged on my hand, swiftly putting an end to the conversation. “Come on.”
I let him lead me from the hidden room back into the main house, down the stairs and out to my car. Bo opened the passenger side and helped me in before he rounded the hood to slide in behind the wheel.
“We could run, but there’s no reason to waste any energy until we can get you built up,” he explained, very matter of fact.
We rode in silence to the edge of woods. Bo parked in the same spot we’d used several times, right beneath the No Littering sign that had been tagged with obscenities. He cut the engine and got out to come around to my side.
I let him help me out and we walked, hand in hand, into the woods. Though the forest wasn’t as brightly lit as, say, noon, I could still see as clearly as I could if the sun had been setting. I could plainly make out branches, leaves, roots and fallen trees, as well as the shift of tiny bugs and things darting and scuttling about on the forest floor.
When we’d gone far enough that we could no longer see the car, Bo stopped.
“What are we—”
“Shh,” he whispered. “Listen.”
At first, all I could hear was Bo’s breathing, his heartbeat and the loud sounds of woodland creatures scurrying about through the underbrush. But then I heard a heavier rustling and I listened closely, trying to block out all the other sounds so that I could hear more clearly.
Twigs snapped, leaves crackled and bracken broke beneath the weight of a much larger creature, a creature with footsteps that sounded nearly human. I could tell they were deliberate as whatever it was picked its way through the forest. When the movement stopped, I heard a blowing sound.
“Smell,” Bo whispered.
Tipping my chin up, I stuck my nose into the air and inhaled deeply. A strong and offensive animal scent assailed me. My first instinct was to grimace, but beneath that smell was another aroma, one that made my mouth water a tiny bit. It wasn’t even in the same league as the smell of Bo’s blood, but I could identify the sweet coppery notes of something similar in the air.
“Why can I smell blood? Is it wounded?”
“No,” Bo murmured in response. “You can smell things now that scent the blood, like pheromones and other hormones. Blood has a very distinctive smell that seeps through the skin. You couldn’t smell it before.”
Briefly, I wondered about Bo’s delicious scent and how it had always seemed so strongly identifiable to me. However, my tangent was curtailed, as Bo’s next words brought me sharply back to the present.
“I want you to chase it, okay? Pay attention to the sound of it. That will tell you which direction it’s running. Pay attention to the smell, too. You can track things that way. I’m going to run around and flank it. I’ll meet back up with you in a few minutes.”
“You just want me to chase it?”
“Yes. That’s all. Just chase it.”
I had to admit that I felt a tremendous amount of relief that he didn’t expect me to hunt the poor thing and kill it. I knew I didn’t have the stomach for it. At least not yet.
<
br /> “This is a good way to get you used to moving so quickly, too. You need to know what it feels like so that you don’t do it in front of anyone else.”
“Okay, so you just want me to start running toward it? Do I need to make some sort of noise or something to spook it?”
“When you get close enough for it to hear or smell you, you won’t have to spook it.”
“How far away is it now?”
“Probably a couple hundred yards.”
In my head, I stretched two football fields out, end to end, and imagined myself looking all the way out across that distance. That simple exercise added some perspective to the true sensitivity of my heightened senses and I was duly amazed.
“I can smell something and hear it moving from that far away?”
“Pretty cool, huh?”
Bo grinned. The action accentuated his handsomeness and my stomach flipped over. I couldn’t help but smile in return. He was positively captivating.
“You ready to give your new body a whirl?”
Not really I felt like saying, but instead, I nodded.
“Take off,” he said, pointing straight ahead.
Reluctantly, I turned to walk away. When I’d moved several feet, Bo called out in a hushed voice, “Run!”
With a start, I pushed my feet into a faster pace until I was moving smoothly over the forest floor. I looked down and could still see every leaf with crystalline clarity. My eyes darted left and right, taking in the passing scenery, and I increased my speed, careful to mind my footing.
I edged myself on, faster and faster, until I felt like I was moving at the speed of light. No matter how fast I went, though, my surroundings never blurred. They simply passed by in quick-yet-clear images, like I was seeing them in high-speed snapshots.
I weaved in and out of the trees, my body reacting to every command quickly and with an amazing agility. It was as if the response time of my muscles had dwindled to the point that it seemed to coincide with the thought.
By the time I quit playing and remembered what Bo had said, I had no idea where I was. I stopped and sniffed, realizing that the scent of the animal was very faint and very far behind me. Quickly, I turned to head back the way I’d come, letting loose and running as fast as I could.
It seemed like only seconds had elapsed when the smell of the animal began to saturate the air again. I tuned out the sounds of my own feet passing over the leaf-strewn terrain and focused on the sounds of the creature, waiting for it to move.
And then it did. I heard that blowing sound again right before it took off, crashing through the thick underbrush. In my mind’s eye, I imagined that it was a deer, running through the trees with a head full of antlers that tangled in every bush and short tree that it passed.
I scanned the woods in front of me, making a semicircular pass from left to right and back again. Finally, I caught sight of a flash of white bobbing between the trees. It was the raised tail of a deer as it darted frantically through the forest, away from me.
Keeping my eyes on it, I matched its speed and moved when it moved. I zigged when it zigged and I zagged when it zagged. It seemed as though my body could almost anticipate the actions of the deer, as if the instant the deer decided to go in one direction or the other, the information was relayed directly to my muscles.
With the heavy scent in my nostrils, the sounds of its flight in my ears and the beautiful white tail in my sights, I let go and began to enjoy the delicate dance the deer and I had engaged in.
But then Bo darted out from the right and the deer disappeared from my sight. My heart leapt up into my throat and I ran to the deer as hard and as fast as I could.
When I reached it, the deer was on the ground and Bo was half-lying across its upper body with his mouth at its neck. The deer wasn’t struggling, but I could see its one visible eye rolling around in terror. And I could smell its blood, nothing like the sweet scent of human blood. My stomach clenched in revulsion.
I stood motionless—thoroughly horrified and repulsed—as Bo killed that poor deer. I tried to concentrate on the logic of the whole thing, on how we needed it to survive, no different than killing a chicken or a cow for meat. But somehow, that didn’t console me. My chin trembled, belying the indifference that I was trying to portray as I stood watching.
When Bo finally raised himself up off the deer and looked at me, I kept my eyes trained tightly on his. I refused to let them stray to the red stains around his mouth.
The nearly-black brown of Bo’s eyes had given way to the washed out, pale green of thirst. But beyond his need was a sadness, like he’d witnessed the death of something other than the deer. And I knew what that death was.
In a way, that moment marked the death of my innocence. I could no longer look on vampirism through the rose-tinted glasses that I’d apparently been wearing. At times, our curse was a nasty business and there would come a day when I would have no choice but to act as Bo had.
But tonight was not that night.
“Ridley, we have to do this to survive. You know why we can’t randomly feed on humans.”
I couldn’t speak past the lump in my throat so I nodded. I understood it perfectly. I just didn’t like it.
Bo held out his hand and I shook my head.
“Ridley, you need to feed.”
I knew that, but I couldn’t bring myself to take that final step and drink from the deer. Although it was already dead and would know no difference, I just couldn’t do it.
“Ridley,” Bo said again, motioning me toward him with his fingers.
Again, I shook my head. Bo stood as if to come toward me and, before I could even give it a second thought, I bolted.
My chest burned as I ran, but not with hunger. It burned with a hopeless sadness that felt like acid, eating away at my heart. This was going to be my life for all eternity. And the only good thing about that eternity was no longer a certainty. It was a very real possibility that I would end up spending the rest of my long, long life alone, without Bo.
The wind blew across my cheeks, drying the wet tracks of bitter tears. Why was it that we just couldn’t seem to get a break, Bo and I? One day it seemed that fate was on our side, the next it seemed she was playing hardball against us.
I had no idea where I was going, but apparently my nose and my legs had taken control of the situation and guided me back to the car. Fishing out the keys Bo had handed back to me upon our arrival, I slid quickly behind the wheel and started the engine. I spared only a moment’s hesitation before I shifted into drive and steered the car onto the road, leaving Bo in the woods behind me.
CHAPTER THREE
As I drove, I pondered the best course of action. Of all the bad ideas that were my choices, I felt like going home and locking myself in my room was probably the only viable one. I told myself that if I started to feel extreme thirst coming on, I would just leave. Get the heck out of dodge. But at least with that option, I could make an appearance at home, so as not to arouse any undue suspicion.
Besides, I might not even run into Mom. She might still be drinking, but even if she wasn’t, she’d likely be passed out in bed. All in all, I felt pretty good about my chances.
When I pulled into the driveway, I sat in the car for a few minutes, reassessing the situation. I didn’t want to make a mistake. Blunders at that point could be very costly, if not outright deadly.
No other car in the drive meant that Mom wasn’t home, which was good in a way. I could get into my room and lock myself away before she got there. Then maybe when she came in, she’d bypass me completely as she so often did. I could only hope.
After letting myself into the house, I closed the door behind me and stopped in the foyer. It was as if I was observing my home for the first time.
The unique smell that had always made the structure feel like a sanctuary was there. It was strong and soothing in a way I’d never noticed. But beyond that was a plethora of other scents that I’d never been able to pick up on befo
re.
I could plainly smell alcohol. Very plainly. I could also smell a sour odor, reminding me that the trash probably needed to be taken out. I smelled hints of Dad’s cologne and Mom’s perfume, but there was another fragrance. This one I could detect much more strongly now that I was a vampire. It was the smell of my dead sister’s perfume.
Over the more than three years since her death, Izzy’s scent had all but faded from her room and her belongings. But now I could smell it as if she’d been gone only days rather than years.
With a smile, I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. Maybe there really were a few upsides to this whole vampire thing.
As I made my way back to my room, I began to feel a strange weariness come over me. I assumed that since I would no longer feel fatigue in the same way that this was how I’d experience being tired or emotionally drained. More than sleep, however, I felt like I needed a shower.
I headed straight to the bathroom.
I turned on the shower to let the water warm while I gathered clean clothes. I thought it best to stay fully clothed rather than put on pajamas, just in case I needed to flee.
I closed and locked my bedroom door and opened the window so that I could smell the fresh night air rather than the myriad bothersome scents saturating the air of the house. After shedding my blood-splattered clothes and burying them in the bottom of the hamper, I gratefully stepped beneath the hot spray of the shower.
Bathing turned out to be yet another new experience. I’d never noticed the way the jets of water stimulated different nerve bundles beneath my skin. I’d never noticed the way the smell of chlorine hung in the air. I’d never noticed the different berry notes in my shampoo. I’d never been able to see each tiny water droplet that drifted in the steam.
I don’t know exactly how long I marveled over the spray of the water and the feel of it on my skin before I actually began to bathe. Long enough that I knew my body was impervious to scalding temperatures. Long enough that I knew that time no longer meant the same thing as it had that morning. Long enough that I knew I could not wash or rinse away the events of the day.