Chapter 2 - Anson
2
ANSON
I wake with a gasp and this odd sensation that I’d just been holding my breath for far too long. A rhythmic whooshing noise fills my ears then, low and throbbing, and far too loud for my liking. I hate it and roll onto my side, putting my hands over my ears to block it out, but it doesn’t help. I take a shuddering breath, but that’s too loud as well, the rasping sound grating on my nerves. Hell, the feel of my own hands against my skin is too much.
“What the hell?” I mutter, but it might as well have been shouted through a damn megaphone, since it pierces my eardrums like a hot knife. I curl into a ball.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“Anson?” a familiar voice whispers from behind me, moderated so low that it doesn’t bother me as much as my own voice did.
“Ameera,” I say without actual sound, only moving my lips for fear of more pain.
I open my eyes and wish I hadn’t. Even in the low light of Ameera’s bedroom, everything is too sharp, as if the contrast was turned up to a level that makes my eyes ache to focus on for too long.
I mouth the words, “Too much,” as I squeeze my eyes shut again.
And speaking of my mouth. Why does it feel as dry as a goddamn desert? That thought is followed by the awareness that I’m thirsty. Not like the normal need for water, but this fierce empty knot in my abdomen that fucking hurts. I moan at how overwhelming it is, and the sound sends another twinge of sharp pain jolting through my skull.
“You need to drink,” Ameera murmurs behind me.
Her fingertips glide along my shoulder in a light feathery caress that sends a bolt of pleasure through me, and it’s just as intense as the pain and thirst wracking my body. It feels good, but it’s still too damn much for my hyperactive senses to handle, and I flinch away from her touch.
“It’s alright, zem?r,” she whispers, thankfully without touching me again.
I hear the sloshing of liquid behind me and the knot of thirst in my belly twists even tighter. I breathe in and the strange metallic scent that reaches my nose is the most glorious thing I’ve ever smelled. My mouth waters and my teeth ache. Fuck. I don’t want to move or do anything, but the siren call of that drink is too much for me to resist. So I roll gingerly onto my back, keeping my eyes screwed shut, and force myself to sit up.
“Here,” Ameera murmurs as that wondrous scent gets stronger.
She presses the edge of a glass to my lips and I open my mouth as the most glorious taste I’ve ever experienced hits my tongue. I snatch at the glass, batting Ameera’s hands away as I grip it and guzzle the contents down as fast as I can with desperate gulping swallows. My God. It’s incredible. I feel downright giddy when I’ve drained the glass, but I’m still unbelievably thirsty. It’s not enough. I need more. What the fuck is this stuff?
I crack my eyes open to focus on the glass cradled in my hands and see the remnants of something red at the bottom. I take in a breath, then still when I recognize the coppery scent reaching my nose. It’s fucking blood. And that realization has the first inklings of fear sparking to life inside me.
I pull one hand away from the glass and study it. My skin seems paler, almost translucent, with the blue veins far more prominent than they should be. I reach up and touch my trembling fingertips to my teeth. My canines feel different, longer and sharper than they’ve ever been before.
No, no, no.
It can’t be true. It can’t be. Because that would mean… I can’t even finish the thought. Instead, I reach down inside myself for what’s been there since I came into my powers as a boy. But instead of the familiar and comforting bright spark of energy that should be there, that’s always been there, I find nothing but a gaping void. And that can only mean one thing. My magic is gone. It’s fucking gone. I turn to look at Ameera and see the sympathetic expression edged with guilt she’s giving me.
“What have you done?” I ask, heedless of the pain my rising voice causes me.
“I didn’t have a choice,” she says. “You were dead. I didn’t know what else to do.”
Dead? I was dead? And then the memories come flooding back to me in a rush. Vanessa with a gun in my face. Ameera appearing in the kitchen and my panic as Vanessa shot at her. Me writhing on the floor as I grappled with Vanessa, trying to get the gun away from her. The ringing gunshot and the fiery brand of pain as the bullet ripped through the side of my neck. The fear and agony as my blood pulsed out of my body so fucking fast and the horrified look on Ameera’s face just before I slipped away. I reach up and touch my neck to find the skin there whole and unblemished, as if the wound never existed. And then that inkling of fear I felt earlier explodes into full-blown panic. I look at the glass still in my hand again, then hurl it away in horror before flinging myself off the bed and away from Ameera as the glass shatters on the floor in an ear piercing explosion of sound.
Ameera follows me with that damn sympathetic expression I can’t fucking stand. I throw a hand out toward her and reach for my magic again, my instincts and training kicking in to ready a defensive spell. But nothing happens because once again, the well of magical energy that should’ve been inside me is nothing but an empty black hole.
A wave of crushing grief falls over me, wiping out the earlier panic, and I collapse to my knees beneath its weight. A loud keening noise pierces my ears and I slap my hands over them again with no relief because the sound is coming from my mouth. It doesn’t matter though, because the physical pain can’t even compete with the emotional pain that’s battering at me. I curl in on myself, rocking back and forth as the keening morphs into broken pathetic sobs. I don’t even give a fuck about being turned into a vampire yet. That’s the least of my problems. But losing my magic? It’s like losing a limb… all of my limbs. I’ve lost the very core of my identity, of what makes me… me. Without it, I feel like part of my soul was ripped out, leaving behind an empty husk, powerless, useless, broken. I can’t imagine spending another minute like this, let alone an eternity. If I wasn’t so crippled by my grief, I’d be begging Ameera to put me out of my misery right now.
“Anson,” Ameera murmurs from where she’s now kneeling beside me.
Her fingers dance lightly along the back of my head, but I swear it feels as if every individual hair follicle is being yanked on as she does it. Overstimulated again, I flinch away, then scurry backwards on the floor until my back hits the nearby wall, the smooth surface cool and soothing against my bare skin. That’s when I realize I’m naked. What the fuck? As if I wasn’t vulnerable enough right now? I reach down and cover myself to preserve some of my dignity.
“Your skin was so sensitive that you kept tearing at your clothes the first night, so I took them off,” she says.
First night? How long have I been here like this?
“Don’t worry,” she continues before I can dwell on those thoughts. “The hypersensitivity will lessen with time.”
That’s what she thinks I’m upset about? The burst of fury that follows scorches away my sorrow and I grasp onto it, eager for a reprieve from my overwhelming grief. I surge to my feet, snatching Ameera by the throat as I do, and lift her as if she weighs nothing. Then I spin and slam her against the wall, her eyes bulging with shock and fear. Holy shit, I’ve never felt so strong before. I’d be in awe of it if I wasn’t so fucking pissed off. My rage feels like this fierce and palpable thing searing me from the inside out and overshadowing every other thought or emotion in my head.
I snarl at her, something I would never do, then squeeze her throat tighter. “You took my magic from me,” I say between gritted teeth, then loosen my grip as I ask, “Why?”
Tears spring from her eyes, glittering in the low light from her bedside lamp, her face an agonized mask of grief and terror. “Because I love you,” she says, her voice choked and guttural with emotion. “And I… I didn’t want to live without you.”
I blink at her words, and the surge of love and tender affection that comes over me is so intense it shoves back the rage of just a second ago. My head swims from another abrupt change in my emotional state. It’s like I’m on a rollercoaster from hell, careening between one emotion and the next, and it’s giving me whiplash.
“Ameera,” I murmur as I soften my grip on her throat and fixate on her gorgeous full lips.
I don’t remember them being such a vibrant shade of red before, so vivid and tempting. My gaze slides down to her throat, and I stare at the flutter of her pulse, my thumb caressing over it. A surge of lust ignites inside me, along with the return of that empty knot in my belly I recognize now as the thirst for blood. The two needs twine together, one indistinguishable from the other. My dick is hard, pulsing with my desire. My teeth ache as my fangs extend. My vision grows even sharper and I swear I can see the blood moving through the now vivid blue veins just beneath her skin. I want my dick deep inside her, my fangs plunging into her soft skin to drink in every drop of her life’s essence. I tighten my grip on her neck again and lower my head as I pull her toward me, ready to feast on her body and her blood.
“Stop,” Ameera says.
That single harsh word is so loud it rings in my ears and sends a sharp stab of pain throbbing through my brain. I do as she says and freeze, the compulsion to obey her impossible to resist.
“I am your sire,” she says, her voice whip sharp as she grabs my hand and peels my fingers away from her neck with little effort, her eyes pure black and her fangs showing. “You will not feed from me unless I allow it. And we will not have sex when you’re out of control like this, either. Understood?”
I blink as my overstimulated mind struggles to keep up with her long string of words. Comprehension dawns on me a few seconds later. Shit. I was all over her, ready to slake my thirsts for blood and sex with no thought to her feelings about it. I gasp and jerk away from her as shame crushes down on me.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter as my eyes burn.
What kind of monster am I now that I would feel the compulsion to do such a thing? I can’t be trusted anywhere near Ameera right now. I glance around for a way to get away from her before I’m tempted again. My frantic and darting gaze lands on the door out of Ameera’s daytime resting place. I fly across the room in the blink of an eye and slap my palm down on the scanner, desperate to get out of here. But instead of the small beep and the sound of the lock disengaging, nothing happens at all, and a panicked urge to batter my way out of here hits me hard.
“I deleted your palm print from the system,” Ameera says, now standing at my side and placing a gentle hand on my forearm before I lose my shit. “It’s not safe for you to be out in the world until you learn to control your urges. You’re a danger to everyone right now, especially humans.”
Humans. Like the ones who are my employees at Haven Hall, or like Dre Selvaggio, the UPD detective and my friend, or like my father and my sister. All humans who are food to me now. That horrifying realization draws my attention to everything else I’ve lost besides my magic. My life as I’ve known it is over now. How can I run a business like this, or have friends, or ever be around my family again? My sister will be terrified of me now. The ward on my house will fade away without me to maintain it, and she’ll be alone and defenseless against the world outside again. My father doesn’t need the ward on the house he’s been living in anymore since the dementia spell Roman Durant used on him is gone, but he’ll hate me now, just like I once hated all vampire kind for what they did to Amber. I’ll just be a monster to everyone I care about. I’ve lost everything… every… thing.
I shake my head, the movement jerky as I back away from the door and Ameera. I stagger against the bed, dropping onto it and scuttling across it to the other side, then backing away until I’m pressed to yet another cool wall. I can’t catch my breath past the violent sobs bursting out of my chest as I slide down to the floor. I can’t control or make sense of the swirling tide of emotions flooding my brain: despair, rage, terror, and self-loathing. It’s too much for my mind to handle or contain. I start screaming, over and over again, my voice panicked and unrecognizable. I fall to my side and curl into the fetal position, still screaming on and on and on as I claw at the carpet, tearing it since I don’t know my own strength.
“Anson,” Ameera says between screams, her gentle fingers in my hair. “Look at me, zem?r.”
I don’t want to. I want to fucking die, cease to exist, just disappear. Maybe then this onslaught of emotion will leave me in peace.
“Look at me,” she repeats, her voice calm yet commanding. “I’ll make it better.”
Desperate, I do as she says this time and meet her black-eyed gaze, even as I keep screaming. They bore into mine and a sudden wave of comforting warm bliss flows into me, banishing the emotions battering at my psyche. I stop screaming and melt into the floor in relief.
“There,” she murmurs. “I’ve got you now.” She smiles despite the tears in her eyes and brushes my hair from my forehead as I stare up at her in a hazy stupor. “Close your eyes and rest now. You’re going to be alright.” And before I can register the utter absurdity of those words, my consciousness blessedly slips away.