17
DRAYNOR
The doctor is the sweetest we’ve had in a long time, yet, I feel no desire to keep feeding. I feel her panic as a burning sensation in my guts, far stronger than my pleasure from the kill. For the last hour, I’ve felt nothing, but it’s as if her anxiety has forced my senses into overdrive.
I lift my head. Markula is already standing, his gaze on a spot in the distance well beyond the trees.
“What is it?” I say.
He shrugs one thick shoulder, the pale gray-white of his wrinkled flesh a crackling roadmap of black lines. We’ve been together for hundreds of years, and I know when he’s concerned, though I’ve never been able to feel him. I suspect it’s a function of being the leader of the hive, but he’s the only leader I’ve ever known — I can’t say for sure.
Markula finally drop
