Hunter Wars

Chapter 5

I sit here looking at him in disbelief. Did he just ask me if I needed to take from him? Does he not know that the blood of a hunter is like crack to us? Their blood can allow us to go so much longer between feedings. How does he keep doing this swapping from caring to torturing me to caring again? He is giving me whiplash.

"Are you offering me your blood?" I raise my eyebrow at him not believing for a moment that he is actually about to willingly let me feed off him. "Doesn't that go against everything hunters stand for?"

"Well, if you don't want it, don't take it. You just don't look so hot right now" Johnathan tells me as he watches me as if I'm going to attack him at any moment. Granted if I had lost much more blood I probably would've attacked him by now. Kind of like how a human would attack a nice juicy steak after days of not eating. I should take from him if I would like to regain my strength, but how could I possibly trust him?

"I'd like to see how hot you look after bleeding for hours," I say through gritted teeth. He grins at me

"I've been here before. Not in the same capacity as you have but I have been there. However, I can't bleed for as long as you can before I die." I look at him as if he has two heads is he really trying to compare torture sessions with me?

"You really think that you can possibly compare yourself to anything like this?" I ask him in shock not believing this man. "You couldn't even imagine what it is like to be drained of the only thing that keeps you alive and how bad your veins hurt when there is nothing in them to lubricate them. Then you can feel your brain starting to turn against everything you know and only think about one thing and that is blood." I know I might be telling him too much here, but it is the truth. If he thinks he can even come close to comprehending the pain that is being drained, he is sorely mistaken.

Johnathan just looks at me with what seems to be pity in his eyes. "I never knew that was what it was like for vampires. And you're right. I don't understand what it is like for you, but I can understand being beaten and forgetting who you are until all you can focus on is the hunt. We don't really have a choice from the time we are born as to what we are going to become. I was never given a chance to be anything but a hunter."

I can't believe he is telling me this information. Does he really think I'm going to fall for this? "Do you want me to feel sorry for you? I didn't have a choice in becoming this!" I hop off the bed and begin to pace the floor. I can feel the burn of the loss of blood in my veins and my anger is not helping at all in this situation. "If you think for one moment I will begin to pity you for growing up on the wrong side of this war you can forget it. You're kind is the one hunting us! Not the other way around."

Johnathan stands from where he was perched on the side of the bed and crosses his arms over his muscular chest. "You do know your kind is not innocent in this war either! If there had never been vampires there would never have been the need for hunters to exist." His deep voice booms, if he is trying to make me feel intimidated with that voice and stance of his he is going to have to try harder. "We only came into existence two hundred years after the first vampire. So, honestly, can you really say that it is the fault of hunters that any of this war started?"

I stop my pacing and turn to face him, "I can say that the ongoing war is the hunter's fault. And if you haven't noticed, vampires have not been attacking villages since the 1800s." I tuck a strand of hair that has fallen from my ponytail behind my ear. Then it dawns on me that I must look like an absolute mess right now. I haven't had a change of clothes other than his shirt right now for days. I have blood dried to my stomach and all over my jeans. My hair must be a tangled mess in this ponytail as well. "Honestly, Cap, we could argue all day long until we are all out of breath, but I am gross and would really like a shower," I tell him, staring him down hoping he will agree to let me take a shower.

He looks me up and down and laughs a little, "I suppose you are a little gross. The bathroom is right through that door." He points at the door right next to his closet. I nod at him and step past him into the bathroom.

The bathroom is normal in size and has a brick walk-in shower with a waterfall shower head. I close the door and look for a lock on the door and I don't find one. "How do I lock this door!?" I shouted.

"You don't remember that only my hand works to get into this room? So there really isn't a reason to have a lock on the bathroom door. Don't worry Little Bloodsucker, I'm not going to try and spy on you in the shower."

I roll my eyes at him and make my way over to the shower. I turn on the water and let it start to heat up. I pull my hair out of its ponytail and shimmy out of my jeans. They are covered in dirt from being in that cell. I remove his t-shirt and lay it on the counter. I'm going to have to ask him for clothes when I get out of here. I take off my bra and panties and step under the steaming hot water. The water feels like heaven. I stand in the spray for a few moments just enjoying the way the water is washing off the past few days.

I reach and take the shampoo off of the shelf and squirt a little in my hand and it kind of smells like pine cones dipped in spices. I lather it into my hair. I can't believe he is still blaming vampires for his so-called sad story about how hunters don't have a choice in what they become. I didn't have a choice in being turned into this. I wanted to meet a man and have a family one day. If I could go back I would've never been walking home from that party alone.

Once I had washed and conditioned my hair, I reached for the body wash and started to scrub the blood off of my stomach. The faint pink lines are still there but once I feed they will completely vanish, and be as if they were never there. I wash down my leg and start to feel a little dizzy. If I don't feed soon I'm going to go into blood lust, and that is not something I can afford right now. I finish washing, turn off the water, and go to step out when I lose my balance and fall to the ground with a loud bang hitting my head on the shower wall.

The door slams open and Johnathan rushes in and looks at me sprawled on the floor of the shower. My soaked hair has fallen into my face and I am mortified that I lost my balance. So much for vampires always being graceful. I look up at him through my hair and he is just staring wide-eyed at me as if he has never seen a naked woman before. Well for all I know he hasn't. "Are you going to just keep standing there gaping at me like a fish out of water, or are you going to hand me a towel so I can cover up and get off this floor?"

He clears his throat and turns his head but the tips of his ears are turning red. Is he embarrassed for me or just embarrassed that he got caught staring at me?

He grabs a towel off of the countertop and fixes his violet eyes on mine and in a husky voice asks "Do you need help getting up?"

I slowly stand to my feet and wrap the towel around me and move my hair out of my face and give him a sly smile. "I think I can manage getting up, can you?' His whole face turns red and he steps back giving me space to walk past him and into the bedroom.

As I am walking past him I get another dizzy spell warning me again that I am going to have to feed soon if I want to keep the blood lust from coming. I stumble a little and I feel Johnathan's warm hand on my upper arm steadying me. "I am going to ask you again, do you need to take from me?" he asks it so gently it makes me want to believe that he would actually be offering it to me willingly and not just as a cruel joke. But I know no hunter would ever be willing to give it to a vampire.

"I'm fine. Anyways, there has to be a catch to you willingly offering your blood to me." I spit at him as he leads me to the bed and has me sit on it while he goes into his closet. When he reappears a small strand of black hair has fallen over his eye he tosses his head moving it out of his eye. He sets a pair of red plaid sleep pants and another black t-shirt next to me. "Here, you can wear these while I wash your other clothes for you."

The idea of this man washing clothes causes me to smile. He does not look like the kind of man that would do his own laundry. "What's so amusing?" he asks me as he takes his hair out of its ponytail and places the elastic around his wrist. Letting his hair fall around his shoulders. It is so black that it has a hint of blue in it.

"Oh, you know just the thought of you standing in front of a washing machine with an apron doing my laundry." I start to laugh as the picture in my mind shows him going from the laundry to the kitchen cooking. I must be going insane if I am thinking of him cooking for me. No way would that happen, but the thought of it keeps me giggling and he c***s his eyebrow at me.

"That is what you are laughing like a little school girl about?"

He reaches up and starts to probe my head. I swat his hand away. "What on earth are you trying to do?"

"I'm looking to see if you have a lump on your head because you seem to have lost your mind."

I look at him and just shake my head. "I'm okay, I didn't hit my head that hard," I tell him and go to stand up and wobble on my feet. My veins burn and my fangs start to descend. I can feel that the blood lust is not too far away now. He grabs my arm again and sits me back down on the bed, and kneels in front of me.

"You are not okay. You can barely stand. You really need blood don't you?" he asks me in a gentle voice like one would a scared child. I look into his violet eyes knowing that he is right, but I really don't want to admit it to him. I'm still not convinced that this is not a trick of theirs. I shake my head to tell him no that I don't need it and that I am ok. I'm not going to speak and show him how much I need it. If he sees my fangs he will instantly know something is going on.

"Cleo, you don't have to pretend that you are alright with me. I'm not going to judge you, blood is like food to y'all so if it is something that you need you can take from me." Johnathan extends his wrist to me again and I can see his vein pulsing and hear his heart start to quicken with the anticipation of my bite. I shake my head again and lean away from him. "Cleo, you are losing even more color in your face and that is saying something seeing as you are already pale being a vampire and all."

"Oh, for crying out loud my name isn't Cleo, it's Victoria!" I say and automatically clamp my hand over my mouth. Did I just really blurt out my real name? I hadn't meant to do that. He looks at me with a crooked eyebrow and smiles.

"So you lied about your name? What kind of person does that? " He asks me with a chuckle and I stare daggers at him. He wants to tick me off, doesn't he?

"Maybe someone who doesn't want her name to be used against her as a weapon. A name is a very personal thing. Knowing someone's true name, you can find out a lot about them and some people can hold power by just uttering that name."

I stand again and grab the clothes off of the bed that he has laid out for me. "Thank you for the clothes. Now, if you would excuse me I would like to change into them. Just because you saw me naked a moment ago doesn't mean you get a free show now." He stands up in front of me towering above me and crosses his arms over his chest again. I take a moment to admire the veins in his arms that are leading up under his shirt and go up and look at the vein at his neck.

"I'm not going to let you pass before you've had your supper. You can't stand on your own and you look like you will keel over at any moment." I try to shove past him and it is like trying to move a brick wall. He doesn't even budge and this annoys me.

"Cap, if you don't want me to hurt you I'd suggest you move now," I tell him trying to control my temper. At this point, he really needs to move if he knows what is best for him.

"I'm not going anywhere Victoria. What are you so afraid of? You couldn't hurt me even if you tried you're too weak right now without blood."

Something in me snaps at that. I will not be called weak by a hunter. "Alright Cap, you asked for it." I roar as I leap at him, taking him to the ground and I straddle him as I sink my fangs into his neck.