Chapter 18 #2
In a rush of agony, I tasted his blood. It was burning pain and agonizing need that multiplied with a swirling intensity of a million tornadoes.
I was inside the storm, no, it was inside me, and it ripped me apart molecule by molecule, rearranging the order of my cells as my changed DNA rewrote the fibers of my flesh, creating something else, something that burned and ached and hungered for something that filled my nostrils like fresh roses after a rain.
I drank sweet nectar, burying into that dizzying liquid until something pried my jaws apart and another blooming bouquet pressed against my mouth.
It was so sweet, almost painfully sweet, but I drank, drank and drank until again, something pride my jaws apart, and then the sweetest elixir of all spilled between my lips and I was in heaven, absolute pleasure cresting and breaking over me again and again.
I drank until I could drink no more and then my lips relaxed and I fell into soft silk and satin that cocooned me into sweet darkness.
I woke up to the gentle pit pat of rain falling on the roof. A fire crackled in the fireplace and the scent of sweet smoke, maybe apple curled up the chimney while the scent of rain came in through the chimney and the windows.
A soft warm body was next to me in the exact shape of Wat, only taller than the last time he’d had a nightmare and needed me to help him fall asleep. I absently stroked his hair.
“She’s waking up.” Lock’s voice came from close, low, intense.
I cracked an eye open, and the world spun around until I focused with remarkable clarity on Lock’s handsome face. He really was stunning for a human. It made sense that he was a vampire. I raised my hand and brushed his cheek.
“Hey, handsome. How are you?”
He bit his bottom lip and looked almost like he was going to cry. “I’m good, mom. I’m really good. Are you hungry?”
Was I? No, I was extremely content with my two sweet sons. The only thing that I needed was Hazen. But of course, Hazen wasn’t the person I knew anymore.
“No, not hungry. Are you?”
He gave me a tremulous smile and then threw his arms around me, almost knocking me back off the bed. I hugged him back as tight as I could.
“Thank you, mom,” he said, voice cracking.
“I don’t think you should have done it,” Wat said. “But how else were you going to get your hand reattached?”
My hand reattached? The flurry of memories came back, all the weird stuff, being taken over by the zombie queen and then Hazen killing me.
I released Lock and looked down at my left arm. It was as pale as snow, with a jagged line around my wrist where I’d chopped off my hand with the last reserves of my slayer instincts and love.
“What happened?” I looked searchingly from Lock to Wat. “Didn’t I die? I thought I died.”
“Only for a little while, but then dad brought you back. Everyone said that he did it perfectly.” Lock smiled, tremblingly.
I pressed my hand against my unbeating heart. “I’m undead. He turned me into a vampire?!” I stood up on the bed and was suddenly trembling and so furious that energy crackled around me strong enough to taste and see and smell.
“You asked him to turn you,” Wat said, frowning at me. “He promised that he wouldn’t turn you unless you asked.”
“I wanted him to kill me, not turn me! I was very clear when I thought to him. He can read my thoughts, right?”
“Not when you’re under the Zombie Queen’s thrall. Seriously, Mom,” Wat said, looking disgusted. “You have to realize that there’s no way dad was ever going to kill you. He wants to turn you. You cut yourself and put your neck in his fangs. That’s asking to be turned.”
“I very clearly thought that I wanted him to kill me.”
Lock sighed heavily. “Well, he did, he just brought you back as a vampire after that.”
“I didn’t ask to be a vampire!”
“You’d rather be dead?” Wat asked, looking kind of hurt.
I fought against the rage that rippled through me, but I really wanted to destroy everything in that room, including my two precious sons. “You two need to leave. I’m not in a good place for company.”
“We’re not leaving,” Wat said with a nod at Lock, and he nodded his agreement.
“Then I’m going to rip both of you apart,” I snarled, struggling against the beast inside of me that raged and struggled against the bars of immortality that Hazen had put on me.
“It’s all right, boys,” Hazen said, putting a hand on Wat’s shoulder and smiling at Lock.
“You both did well. She woke up very comfortably thanks to you two. I could feel her contentment as strong as I feel her current rage. She is very angry, very alive.” He smiled at me so tenderly, so sweetly, I couldn’t help but throw myself at him and try to rip him apart.
He rolled with me, not resisting my attack until I was straddling him, holding his hands over his head, alone in the bedroom with no witnesses to watch me kill him.
“I’m very hard to kill,” he said apologetically, with another soft smile that was so infuriating. I bit those lips, ripping into them with fangs I had no idea how to control. His lips were not easy to rip apart, but I did taste his blood, and then I knew what that elixir of pleasure had been.
I pulled away from him abruptly, shocked by the taste of blood enough to interrupt the rage.
I stared at him, struggling to breathe, but my lungs weren’t working the same way they had when I was alive with a beating heart.
He caressed my cheek. “It’s always a difficult transition, but you’re doing beautifully.
Most freshly turn rage for days, weeks, before they pause for anything.
” He frowned slightly, because he wanted me to rage like a real vampire.
He wanted me to unleash the monster and destroy until I was getting kicks out of torturing rabbits.
I pulled away from him and curled up, wrapping my arms around my knees while I stared at him. He was more than beautiful. He was life. He was the source of the blood I needed, the pleasure and happiness I craved.
“Get out.”
He stared at me. “I don’t think that you should be left alone.”
“You changed me! I chose to die for you, not become a monster. You took my love for you and twisted it into this…” I looked down at my clawed fingers. “Get out!”
“I would die for you. I would kill for you. I will not kill you. I won’t ever apologize for that. I’m not enough of a monster to destroy the only thing I’ve ever loved.”
“You did destroy me, her. Get out. Get OUT!” I screamed and put my head on my knees and stayed there, barely holding onto my rage. He stayed with me a few more moments, then with a heavy sigh, he went to the door.
“Call me when you want me, if you want anything. It’s going to get better, I promise.” He left me alone with that rage. He promised? Like he promised not to turn me? Liar! Betrayer! And he’d given me his blood.
A tapping on my window had me up as quickly as my reflexes allowed. I went carefully to the glass, beware of rabbits as I unlatched it and stepped back. It swung open and then Tom peered in, dangling high above a roiling ocean while a storm whipped around.
He crept soundlessly inside, wearing a pack and ropes harness as he stretched and cracked his back.
“The Grand Master’s storm keeps going. You are remarkably good at foiling him. Good for you. I’m here to kill you, if you’d like.”
I stared at him, shocked, and then grateful, and then confused. “You’d kill me?”
“Sure. You were a slayer. It’s important for slayers to stick to their beliefs.
The trouble is that you married him as a human.
He buried his monster for years for you, and you had kids, so it’s not a straightforward noble death.
Not that you’re alive exactly, but your sons, they were born, and they would be damaged if you chose to die instead of stay with them.
” He scratched his chin then shrugged. “Still, I’ll kill you if you’d like. ”
I sighed and dropped onto the edge of the enormous bed. “I’m so angry.”
“Fresh vampires always are. It will fade.”
“How much of me is still me?”
“Can I tell you a secret?”
I nodded.
“Well,” he said, sitting next to me and crossing his leg over his knee.
“The reason the Grand Master became human is because I gave you some of my slayer blood, so when he took yours, that’s what weakened his monster and brought out the dregs of his long sleeping humanity.
He’s been messing with that blood, your blood, my blood, and his blood, and that’s the blood he fed you when you rose.
That and the boys, who aren’t even proper vampires or humans, so you are going to be a weird vampire. ”
I stared at him. “That’s the secret, that I’m going to be a weird vampire?”
“Well, that and all the other vampires who think it’s a good idea to have their own blood children are going to come after me to harvest my blood, so I’m going into hiding.
Oh, Gloria told me to tell you that you owe her a whole case of champagne.
We got married.” He raised his left hand to show me a diamond studded band on his finger.
He’d gotten Gloria to marry him? If that was true then anything was possible.
He stood up, took two knives out of their sheathes and held them crossed at my throat, tips on my shoulders. “I’ve got to run. Do you wish me to slay you? I’m not going to offer again.”
I exhaled a breath and pushed his knives away, back towards the sheaths. “Thank you for the offer. I appreciate it, but I’m not the type to quit just because things are extra weird. And besides that, I owe Gloria a case of champagne. I can’t do that as a ghost. I guess he won. Hazen won.”
“Well, you have immortality and a family. Most people wouldn’t call that a losing hand. I’m glad I didn’t have to kill you. It’ll be interesting to see how you influence the Grand Master and the world.” He turned and headed for the window.
“Wait, is Gloria okay being on the run from vampires?”