Chapter Thirteen
1845 Words
I did this.
I brought it on myself.
Without warning, I feel the life being drained from me. It makes me wonder if all victims feel this overwhelming bliss as their blood is slowly sucked from their bodies.
While my initial plan was to lure a vampire from the cave and demand answers, I now feel a new plan forming through my body.
Give up the ghost.
I’m willing, right here and now, to give up my life for this man… this creature. He has me. He has all of me. There’s no denying how good it feels to be in his arms as he continues to suck the life from my veins.
“Stop!” I hear a male voice echoing in the distance, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Nothing matters but the man whose arms are wrapped so tightly around me, crushing me, draining me from the inside out. He is all that matters now. “William! Stop!”
As if a sledgehammer has hit my gut, teeth are torn from my throat. The pain doesn’t come from the fact that sharp, ivory fangs just ripped my skin, but from the separation of him.
Dark hands are now holding me.
My eyes flutter.
I want him back, but can’t find him in the darkness.
“How stupid are you, Tesla?” a familiar voice yells, his cool breath coating my face.
Semion.
“Do you have a death wish?” he asks, his tone softening a bit, even though it’s clear he’s still beyond angry.
I moan.
“She was giving herself to me, Semi,” another man says. I suddenly feel my body being drawn to him. It’s as if his voice, his core essence, calls to me. I need to follow.
My hands reach for him, yet Semion grabs hold, forcing me to open my eyes and look into his face.
“Tesla, look at me!”
I do as he says and marvel at the shine of his eyes in the moonlight. I feel myself being drawn to him too, to let him take me like the other had just moments before.
My body slumps against him.
“I can’t believe you’d be so foolish,” Semion snaps, shaking me and forcing me to stay upright as he holds me by my arms, his fierce grip bruising my biceps.
Another moan escapes me, and my knees quiver under the weight of my body. Even though he’s clearly angry with me, Semion holds me up.
His strength seeps into me, the fog in my mind lifting as I finally find my footing and hold my own weight.
His words, asking me how I can be so foolish, finally register in my mind.
“I’m not foolish. I just need some motherfucking answers,” I say, my voice hoarse as I grasp at the wound on my neck. I can feel it begin to heal beneath my touch. It’s odd, and something I’ll contemplate later. But for now, I need to voice my need for answers. “This was the only way I knew to reach you.” I stand tall, my hands on my hips, ignoring the tingling sensation at the curve of my neck. “So here I am. Tell me.”
“You seriously have a death wish,” Semion says at my demand, and the other man… what was his name? William? …William laughs at Semion’s words, which enrages me even more than I was mere seconds ago.
“Of course I don’t! I just want to live, and to live, I need answers from you and your lackeys.” I gesture to the William guy and try not to flinch at the look of death he flings back at me.
Semion looks pissed, his eyes darting between the other vampire and myself. “You want to live, yet you come out here to die?” He points to William. “He would have drained you completely if I didn’t come along. Is that how you want to live?”
I shake my head. “You know that’s not what I meant. So quit twisting my words.”
“Well, I don’t see it any other way, Tess!” he answers, his voice just below a shout.
“My name is not Tess!” I seethe. “And I do want to live. But I want to really live, not just exist.”
The look in his eyes tells me he gets it… he understands. He realizes that all I’ve ever known, the little I did know, has been taken from me. Now, even though I finally have a beating heart, I’m still nothing but a shell of a human.
I need to live.
Suddenly, his expression becomes hard as stone. Pointing his finger right in my face, he says, “The next time you do something stupid like this, I won’t be here to save you.”
Before I can respond, he turns and walks away, his pace faster than I expect from someone of his size.
I look around, needing to know what to do next, unsure of myself all over again.
William is now nowhere to be found.
“Well, are you coming or not?” Semion asks, startling me as he stops several yards away. My human eyes are barely able to make out where he is in the darkness of the night.
“Coming?” I question, hoping he’ll speak again and help guide me into whatever direction he went. I feel so blind, and the moon being shrouded behind clouds doesn’t really help the human.
“If you really want to live, you need to hurry up and follow me.”
I know as well as the next person that I am a stupid woman if I don’t follow through. So without another second of hesitation, I take a deep breath and start after him, following the sound of his footsteps and the direction of his voice more than anything else.
Christ knows I can’t see s**t in the dark woods.
Even though my strength has returned almost entirely, no doubt because of their intense healing powers, I still can’t shake the suspicious feeling that I’m the weakest being in this forest. I can’t exactly see where I’m going, relying mostly on the sounds of Semion’s footsteps in the distance.
Each and every sound that echoes from beside or behind me makes me jump, and I pick up my pace to make sure I don’t lose the vampire—who just so happens to be practically sprinting up a goddamn mountain.
He won’t talk to me, won’t tell me where we’re going, and I’m still following like a lost puppy.
Will he at least respond if I try to talk to him? Will I be putting myself at risk if I make some noise?
“You’re already louder than a f*****g elephant,” Semion says, his voice closer than I’d initially anticipated. “You might as well talk.”
Another heavy breath heaves from my lungs as I attempt to keep up with the man, his aloofness infuriating me with each step.
“Fine. I’ll talk. Where the hell are we going?” I ask, my voice filling the void of darkness around us.
He doesn’t answer.
Of course he doesn’t answer.
The only sounds I hear are from his boots crunching over the leaves and twigs beneath us, my chucks following, albeit much louder in volume.
“Okay, fine. You don’t want to talk to me, I’ll talk to you,” I continue, not faltering even while walking. I’m proud. Usually I can’t walk and talk at the same time without the risk of falling or tripping over something, whether it be a stick or my own words. “So what are we up to? Are we going to see others like William? I can’t wait to meet others of my kind. I have so many questions and no one to ask. It’s not like you bother to talk to me or explain anything to me, so meeting other vampires might really help me get a grasp on things… help get me some answers.”
Suddenly, I run into a wall of muscle, my face damn near slamming into Semion’s chest.
He’s annoyed. That much I can tell. I also don’t care how annoyed he is with me.
With very little self preservation, I slam my fingertip into the hard muscle of his chest and say, “You’re the one who found me, Semion! So until you can grow the f**k up and acknowledge me, I’ll continue to pester you. Regardless of how safe you say Kat is, I need to know that my friend is okay, and I need to know NOW,” I demand. “You blow me off one more time, I’ll start bothering you even more than you thought possible.”
It’s as if my fingernail gets even sharper as I continue to poke at him. “So get it through your thick skull that you can’t get rid of me. You can’t just shrug me off—”
Before I can get another word in, Semion shows aggression, pushing me up against a tree and covering my mouth. I try not to cry out in pain as the back of my head hits the bark causing agony to radiate through my skull and my vision to blur.
Regardless of his need to silence me, I moaned as my body slumped and my surroundings went completely dark.
* * *
I wake up to a kiss.
And not just any kiss, but a kiss equivalent to a touch from an angel. My lips are electrified. My spine tingles. My heart trips over itself, like it has woken up after over a decade of dormancy.
Semion.
Even though it’s too dark to see him, I seem to know exactly where he is and just how it looks to have his full lips pressed against mine.
Through my entire adolescence, I always craved intimacy, but no one has ever measured up to what I wanted in a man. And even though I don’t know Semion well, it’s as if he fits… he’s like the missing puzzle piece I’ve been searching for. So many years have come and gone and I’ve never felt the peace I feel with him.
Finally, he pulls away, and beneath my hooded gaze, my eyes barely registering his face, I see a single finger pressed to his lips, and then to mine.
He’s shushing me. He needs me quiet. And in this very moment, I don’t dare argue.
Even my breaths are too noisy as I hear footsteps nearby, and I try desperately to calm my heart. I don’t even fathom to push my limits in this moment. If this massive, holier-than-thou vampire is skittish, unwilling to give away our location, I have zero desire to negate his reasoning.
I won’t get any answers if we’re both dead.
And, clearly, we aren’t alone.
- Writer
