Chapter 9
“ M atteo,” Carlos’s voice reached me from far away. “You only have another day to go. You have the worst of it to go. I’m here.”
Two days. Two days of no blood, and it was taking all my strength to remain myself. To not fall into the red haze. I’d already attacked Carlos numerous times in an effort to escape. I lay on my back with him sitting next to me, leaning against the wall. Chains rattled as I dropped my arm over my eyes. I could smell the blood from his recent meal.
“Can you brush your teeth or something, so I don’t have to smell that?” I grumbled.
He chuckled. “Tell me about your human,” he requested. “ You killed for her, you endure this because of her, so I want to know more.”
Her face appeared before me, a hallucination. Her eyes that lit up as she sang, her voice that had pulled me in. I sighed. “She’s not my human.”
“But you want her to be, don’t you? I want to meet her,” he said in a low voice.
I growled. Carlos’s hand pressed down onto my forehead. “Worry not, Matteo. I will not fight you for a human. Talk about her to get your mind off your hunger. How did you come across her?”
I smiled then. “She was singing, and her voice pulled me from mid-hunt. Human or vampire, I’ve never seen, nor heard, a creature so beautiful.”
Carlos took a while to respond. “She must be something,” he marveled. Through our bond I showed him her face. “She is stunning, I can see why you’re already possessive of her. Imagine how she’d look as a vampire. She’d be irresistible.”
I sat up, meeting his eyes. “No. I won’t take her life from her as mine was.”
He smiled. “If she chose you? Loved you? Would you bring her into our world?”
I yearned to say the words, but instead I shook my head. “She would never love someone as feral as me. To a human, any vampire would not be easy to accept, but a feral? To invite me into her bed, I’d be just as likely to rip her throat out.”
“Why not let her decide that? You won’t take her choice away about being a vampire, yet it seems like you already have as to whether she would open her heart to you.”
Another wave of hunger washed over me. I groaned, squeezing my eyes closed.
“I hate seeing you like this, Matteo.” He sighed. “When this is over, I’ll bring you a party. You’ll need a lot of blood.”
The hunger burned through my veins. “You speak as if I won’t rip anyone apart. Or that I won’t end up on the street, taken by the feral.” The image of Quinn filled my head again. But this time it was of her walking towards me, unaware of the danger she approached. “Don’t let me hurt her,” I pleaded, still not understanding my obsession with a human.
“It won’t come to that,” he promised.
I fought down the urge to attack Carlos again, rip into his throat. His blood would do me no good.
“I have an idea.” Carlos rose from the ground. “Wait here.”
I lifted my arm and rattled the chains, growling. He laughed and left the room. No sooner had he left than he returned with an easel and canvas. He vanished again, returning with paints and brushes.
“You have these here?” I stared in shock.
“I’ve always seen how much it calms you, so I thought to have some on hand in case of emergencies.” He moved the easel and canvas closer to me, then the paints and brushes.
I reached for a brush, the shackles restricting movement.
“If I unlock one shackle, I have to leave the other one on,” Carlos approached me. “Don’t try to escape.”
I nodded, holding out my right arm.
The weight of iron dropped from my wrist. I contemplated what to paint. “Would you let me paint you?” I asked.
Carlos laughed. “Why don’t you paint your human?”
Quinn. Once again, her face appeared before me. She would be easy to paint from memory. I’d memorised every part of her. I set up the paints, knowing what colours I’d need. Finally, ready to paint, I let myself go. I fell into calm, my hunger forgotten for the moment, my feral allowing me the peace I needed.
Carlos watched over my shoulder as my work took shape on the canvas. He said nothing, his presence as much a comfort as my work.
Finally, I put down the brush, staring at my masterpiece. Quinn, along with her band on stage. I’d painted a glow around her. The fire that burned within her, a strength that I’d seen. I could almost hear her singing, could almost smell her, feel her warmth. Her soul shone through her eyes from the canvas.
Carlos stood beside me. “I do believe she already has your heart, Matteo. That is quite the masterpiece.”
“ She is the masterpiece,” I countered, realising that while painting, the feral within had calmed, almost as if painting her had soothed my darker self. “You knew this would help.”
Carlos smirked. “Of course I knew. In the moments you were lost to the feral, I brought you back by talking about her.”
“You did?” I didn’t remember any of that.
“Normally I would say don’t start anything with humans. But something tells me this human woman will be in our world before long.”
I gazed at the painting again. Her eyes really felt like they were watching me, staring into my very being. “This will be the front and centre of my display at the gallery,”