by Kaia Bennett
Since I killed Liam. Not since I drank from Evie on the forest floor. That sweet nectar between her thighs had filled me in ways I’d never been full before. I experienced only a phantom stirring, thinking about that moment in the woods, but I still hungered more for the memory than I did for live prey before me.
Panic later. First I gotta feed this dumb shit.
I leaned the struggling man over Vaughn’s salivating mouth. The blond vampire couldn’t move, but his entire body vibrated with tension. Slowly, so slowly, I lowered The Big One’s neck over Vaughn. “Go ahead, take a bite.”
He strained to comply. I thought I heard a faint gargling whimper under the prey’s screams. The Big One’s fat tears splattered Vaughn’s bloody face. The parched, cracked flesh of my brother’s lips trembled. I yanked the appetizer into the air and heard the beginnings of a relieved breath, which broke off into a scream when I ripped into his throat with my teeth.
Not my fangs.
The fuckers still wouldn’t come out to play, not even with a fresh artery pumping against my tongue and my mind screaming for my fangs to extend. Doesn’t take much pressure to rip through the skin and meat of a human, but I growled in frustration at my loss of control.
“Please, stop! Why are you doing this?”
I pulled away from his throat, and though his blood coated my tongue, I couldn’t taste him. I swallowed and felt ill. The rest of the blood cascaded from my open mouth to splatter against Vaughn’s chest like drool. While the man struggled in my grip, I held his bleeding throat against Vaughn’s lips.
Vaughn’s mouth filled, overflowed. After about thirty seconds, he could swallow the flood healing his throat. Vaughn quivered his lips against the prey’s wounded throat, trying to cup them to the open artery. Then, my brother let out a desperate shriek of relief and closed his eyes as he drew in the first voluntary draw.
Vaughn’s eyes fluttered open again. They’d bloomed black as ink, still dull, but gaining their sheen with every drought from the dying man’s throat. He tried to grab the prey’s body, but Vaughn could only manage to arch his neck and tug at the limp arm cradling him as the man fell into unconsciousness.
The swallowing and suckling sounds became more urgent, damn near sexual, like all our feedings become. Still, I wiped fresh blood from my own lips and spit out the rest. Vaughn watched me with a covetous gaze. Hatred deepened the ebony eyes.
“Aw, poor baby. You mad I’m wasting what you crave?”
I tossed The Big One’s empty shell into the corner, the same corner where I’d found Evie huddled in shock. Not long after I’d left her alone Vaughn had dragged her down here. She’d been sitting beside his comatose body for hours and I tracked the ghost of her movements. Her handprints and footprints mingled with the dull scarlet streaks on the walls and floor. The Big One’s limbs twisted at odd angles, like an abandoned marionette, before he bounced and slumped to the floor. His milky, hooded eyes stared through me with an accusation—like Evie’s.
A throaty groan exited Vaughn’s lips, tugging me away from my staring contest with a corpse and a ghost. My brother’s breathing sped up as the pain of his healing tissue tingled to life. He managed to raise his hands a few inches before they fell limply to the plastic floor. His throat had taken the brunt of the blood and had begun in earnest to thread together. Even his heart would play second fiddle to the mending bone and sinew that would protect his spine and help him swallow more blood.
“You want another one?”
A mucous-filled groan hit the air, so like Liam’s coughs when he got sick. Vaughn shuddered, the muscles moving, stretching, reviving from the rigor of his half death.
Nothing would be real to him until he’d had enough blood. No speech would penetrate the bloodlust, no reason. His cock jerked, trying desperately to participate in the feeding, but lacked blood to harden.
It’d be a few hours before Vaughn could consume his next meal on his own. I trudged up the steps. I didn’t feel like playing with the food, but, dammit, I’d left them free to roam. Their escape attempts had given Cai some inspiration, judging by the energetic screams floating from his bedroom. I felt less inspired.
Should’ve knocked them out or tied them up.
The Pro hammered a bar stool against the impenetrable glass overlooking the lake. Cai had made sure the windows were set to the opaque tint my kind use when prey roams around the house. Even if the windows weren’t tinted, the property was well guarded with trees. No one would witness the last moments of the desperate men and woman who found their way through my door.
“C’mon, hand it over.”
I gestured for the man to hand over the stool. The backwards hand wave turned into a grab when he swung the damn thing at me. Plucking the wood easily from his hands, I snatched him by the neck. His already-wide eyes rounded like a wild tarsier on speed, but he still kicked and struggled. He’d fight, too. I smiled, thinking about Vaughn trying to wrestle this one to the ground in his weakened state. The Little One hid in one of the closets. I could hear the third heart beating, the sobs muffled by a shaking hand. Smart, not like the other two.
I set The Pro down, then jostled him toward the basement. I hadn’t bothered to close the door, so after a shove to his back, all I had to do was funnel him into the basement and close us in. Vaughn clawed his way to a standing position, while his second meal screamed. Vaughn’s prey stared between the two of us at the blood everywhere. The tan-skinned escort’s future lay in a dead, bloodless heap in the corner.
I crossed my arms over my chest and watched the other vampire thaw like frozen meat, zombie limbs struggling towards strength. Soaked in blood, and scenting prey. Vaughn staggered with speed I didn’t think he had in him toward The Pro, just missing his main course. The escort scrambled and slipped in a pool of Vaughn’s blood.
“Why are you doing this?!” He screamed at me over and over, his terror reaching a fever pitch.
Why are you doing this? Why are you hurting me? Questions I’d always had fun answering.
I didn’t answer now. I stared into him, through him, wondering why I saw a man when I should see prey, why when I licked my lips I didn’t taste nourishment where the blood still lingered. I tasted liquid ash. Nothingness.
Vaughn’s hunger, plus his growing strength, meant he stumbled less, but he still looked like a newborn colt. He threw himself from one wall to the next trying to capture his meal. I laughed when he tripped over the first dead body.
Vaughn let out a furious growl and launched himself at the human’s abdomen. The Pro slipped out of Vaughn’s grip but Vaughn caught his ankle. The pathetic tug Vaughn managed made me laugh again, but the main course went down, thanks to a puddle of clotting blood. He smeared his hand over one of Evie’s footprints and pleaded as Vaughn turned him onto his back and climbed up his body like a vine. The blond vampire bit and clawed exposed flesh where he could, but his destination lay at the throat of his prey.
“Stop! Plea—” The man’s voice caught in a gargling scream, fingernails breaking against the floor and digging into Vaughn’s blanched skin. The rosy glow under the paleness of my brother began to return. His throat looked all but closed and the cuts on his chest, shoulders, and stomach were knitting shut. His hips pumped against the dying man’s, his cock returning to life with every draught of healing blood.
When Vaughn finally released his dead prey, he gasped in a lungful of air and exhaled a roar of life that echoed in the torture room. Muscles flexed and strained. His feral face held something other than bloodlust now. A faint inkling of Vaughn returned with a crazed grin. His semi-hard cock strained between him and the dead man, searching for something living to penetrate.
I smiled, but without mirth. He thought his last meal meant healing, release, and then business as usual. He might’ve forgotten my promise, but I hadn’t.
And I hadn’t forgotten the strange truth itching in my mind where hunger used to be.
I knew I should be starving. Distantly, I felt
the first true twist of hunger in my gut. Vaughn had reminded me of my true nature, what hunger looked and felt like. But when I swiped my tongue against my lips, I tasted nothing. No sweetness. No desire.
Liquid ash. Death.
What happens when I need to feed?
By the time Vaughn finished his final meal, he’d begun to remember how he got in this mess in the first place.
And my promise.
I, to my relief, began to feel the first stirrings of something beyond numbness. Not hunger exactly, but a desire to kill. Maybe I just need to build up an appetite.
“How ya feelin’, man?”
Vaughn swallowed audibly and dropped the corpse he’d been cradling like a cat toying with a long-dead mouse. He’d fucked and sucked his dessert dry several minutes ago, but he knew what waited for him. I peeled off my shirt and tossed the garment atop Vaughn’s jeans.
“It was a joke, Jesse.” Vaughn’s gaze drifted left and he gulped. I smiled, ticking off all the gestures that revealed his lies. His old wounds were mostly healed. Bruising around the knife wounds and a body covered in blood were the only signs he’d suffered so much damage.
“Funny.”
My fears that the witch had fucked me up powered my swing. Vaughn’s jawbone shattered under my knuckles like dead wood beneath a boot. While he bent and cradled his weak bones, I picked up the dead body and tossed the remains of Dessert in the pile with the other two. Nothing in my way now.
“I wasn’t—”
I grabbed him by the top of his platinum head and buried my fist in his face, grinning when he gulped down a gush of his own blood, peppered with teeth. The next blow shattered the bones surrounding his eyes. I sighed in satisfaction. I had to stop and savor the feeling with a shudder of relief. Not dead after all. I could still feel this. I could still imagine the cracks in Vaughn’s bones like shattering ice, mending and melting. He’d feel every fissure re-blending just before I cracked the bones again.
“Jesse, c’mon man!”
Jesse! The witch screamed inside my mind, her voice threading with Vaughn’s like a twisted chorus.
I drove my fists into his knitting bones over and over, until all I could hear were muffled groans lodged in a throat full of his own blood. He flopped onto his belly to crawl away when I dropped him and popped my knuckles. Vaughn tried to get on his feet but he swayed and fell. The corner had been his destination. I grabbed his knife, the one Evie had abandoned in that pool of blood, and waited for him to look at me.
He stared over his shoulder, and then slumped when he saw me tapping the flat of the blade against my bicep.
“C’mon, man. Not again. I just got my mind right.” He spit out a mouthful of blood and teeth and shook his head like he was trying to clear an etch-a-sketch. The sweet music of grinding bones healing inside him tickled my ears. The healing slowed again. I smiled and nodded.
“Good. Now we can get started.”
3
My shadow fell across Vaughn. He closed his eyes just before I grabbed his ankle. I flipped him on his back as he fought to get free, and started in on his chest, prying open each and every wound with his own knife. Slowly.
Every time his body limped toward stitching him into one piece, I sliced through a layer of fresh, weak skin and tissue. Without more blood, his body would keep healing until he became starved again. Sweat beaded on his brow and upper lip. When he slapped my arms away, I gripped his throat in my hand.
“You either stay still, or I cut off your hands next.”
He gritted his new mouthful of teeth when I twisted the knife in one of the wounds. I’d pissed him off. Good.
“You tryna turn me on, or what?”
“Another joke, huh? What do you think, Vaughn?” My steady grimace drew a flinch. I slid the knife down the center of his chest, tucking the blade under his bottom rib. His breathing quickened as he braced himself. Then, he screamed when I slid the knife in deep as a virgin cock, slow and steady, under the rib. Tickling him from the inside out. Every scrape of the blade drew a shudder.
“Fine, okay! I’m sorry! I! Apologize!” He gasped before I could puncture an organ. “I should’ve listened to you.”
I wriggled the knife.
“I wasn’t really gonna kill her! I was just scaring her! A cut here and there, throw a quick fuck in her. Then a little blood and she’d be good as new. Just a joke, like I said.”
I laughed, pulled the knife out, and licked the sharp edge clean. Nothing. Air or ashes would have more flavor. I knew better, had tasted this blood enough times to know my tongue had stopped working. Vaughn’s blood tasted sharp as his knives. Bittersweet, just like him.
“You know what’s really funny?”
My brother scooted as much as he could, but slipped in his own blood and fell flat on his back. He gave up, heaving and staring at the ceiling like a dejected starfish. The shallow test cuts I’d made along his chest and stomach were healing at a glacial pace. Despite his boast, I knew none of what I had planned would feel good, even for Vaughn.
“What’s funny is, I can smell her blood and your come. You and I both know blood and come mean death when you’re involved. You don’t have enough control to just scare someone. But I do, little brother. I do.”
I thought of how he must’ve smiled down at Evie as he emptied inside that perfect pussy. My perfect witch. She’d been mine to give and mine to take away, not Vaughn’s. Not my fucking father’s! I slid my knife into his mouth, the razor-sharp edge poised at the hinge of his jaw.
“It was a joke, right? Why aren’t you laughing, Vaughn?”
Vaughn’s groans of agony echoed through me and bounced off every wall. I grinned while I opened him from jaw to the edge where his lips joined. He huffed in shallow breaths to stop himself splitting the cut on his right cheek further. His Adam’s apple bobbed against my palm while I held him down and finished slicing a Chelsea grin on the left side. Tears swam in his eyes and the splash of blood against his pale skin made me hungry, wild and hungry and full of rage. I almost felt relieved to be so full of emotion when I’d been afraid of being emptied.
“I’ve got control and a pretty good sense of humor, Vaughn. Which is why your spine isn’t in my fucking hands right now. Every time I get mad that you disobeyed me, all I can think is how you brought her down here, figuring you had us both beat… and woke up a day later with a second pair of lips under your chin.”
I chuckled, then leaned close enough to inhale his breathe. My smile died on my lips.
“I had plans for the witch. Plans to keep her around just a little bit longer, you know? You took that from me. You and Cai and my dad. You all get to take and take, and I’m just supposed to give, right? I’m supposed to bend and break, and if I want a little something just for me, that’s too much. How is it I’m in charge but everyone else thinks they get to make up rules for me?”
Vaughn swallowed another mouthful of his own blood and blinked. I distracted myself by watching the skin on his cheeks knit together in the lazy patterns of a blood-starved vampire.
“Jesse?” His voice came out clipped as he struggled not to move his lips too much and re-tear his flesh. “Who’s Cai? Who’s…?”
Vaughn’s pale eyes widened as realization dawned, then narrowed.
“True born?”
The mention of a dad gave up the ghost.
“You never asked, I never told.”
He and Liam had assumed I’d been turned. I’d been older, sure. Stronger. But it never occurred to them I could be anything else. What true born would run with turned vampires? No, I had to be older, with money stashed here and there, not a true born slumming.
Turned vampires don’t have fathers, they have makers. And, as of a decade ago, turning humans had been sanctioned so their population didn’t get out of hand.
True born vampires, like Vaughn’s twisted maker, might take a special liking to a human and give them venom, but unlike us, the turned can’t breed and they can’t turn a huma
n. They’re mules to our stallions, so generally we don’t mix with our neutered brothers and sisters for long stretches of time. We have prime real estate on the food chain. We’re born to rule, as my father always said.
I’d had more fun pretending I didn’t have to rule one day. I’d found the brothers I could never have as a true born heir. I could already see the resentment building in Vaughn. How could he ever understand the kind of freedom that came with being like him?
“You’re telling me I been running with you since ‘87 and you’re just bringing up you’re true born?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m telling you.”
Truth is I’d never expected to love the little shit, or to love Liam. It’s just more fun to free run with a crew. The hunts are sweeter, the days shorter, and yet fuller. I didn’t want to spend the whole time watching fellow true born or turned jockey for favor with ‘Jesse the Heir’. I didn’t want to worry they were reporting to my father, like Cai did. I wanted something else. I wanted to escape. I’d found a family in the midst of the hunt, a family I could build in my image, when I’d spent so many years molded in my father’s.
Freedom.
Even if freedom had been an illusion, the illusion had been sweet as witch blood.
“Who the fuck are you, Jesse?”
Vaughn managed a look of betrayal despite being under my hand with a knife poised over his face. I contemplated giving him teardrops to match his slow-healing clown grin.
When my father called me to his side, Vaughn and Liam were supposed to be a non-issue. Like the witch. Like prey. I hadn’t thought about how much I’d miss them or what I’d tell them. I just figured I’d go back to my life, quit slumming, and claim my birthright.
Look how well that turned out….
I smiled and laid the tip of the knife at the very edge of Vaughn’s lower lid, caressing the space between two blond lashes with cold steel. He didn’t move.
“I’m an Oldman.”