Free Thrall (A Vampire Romance) by Abigail Graham

saw her face.
    Andi.
    “What is she doing here?” I said. “You’ve got me. Let her go.”
    Vincent ran his hand up the back of my head.
    “Do not presume to order me, thrall. I will again indulge you, but only because this is your first feeding.”
    “What?”
    Oh.
    Oh no.
    Oh, God, no.
    Andi stirred. She sat up, clutching her head. She was still dressed in her outfit from earlier, for the show. She blinked a few times and looked at me.
    “Chris? What’s the matter with you? You’re all pale. Who’s that guy? Where are we? What… what’s happening?”
    Vincent looked at me. “Kill her and drink her blood.”
    He locked the door behind him.
    “No,” I said, backing away.
    I felt heat behind me. There was a fireplace in here, too.
    “I’ll give you one chance,” said Vincent. “Do as you are commanded or you will learn who is master.”
    I didn’t just say no. I threw myself at him, screaming. I moved so fast I could barely understand it. I went for his throat with both hands, and he caught my wrist with casual ease, his face flickering between contempt and annoyance. Andi came at him from the side, swinging a lamp. It cracked apart against the side of his head and he gave her a flick of his fist, hitting her right in her belly. She flew backwards and her head thumped against the nightstand by the bed.
    “I liked that lamp,” Vincent sighed.
    He picked me up off the floor by the neck and studied me for a moment with his lifeless rust-colored eyes.
    Then he threw me in the fire.
    My head hit the mantle but the pain came from the flames. When the fire touched me, I burst into flames with a hollow whump . The heat licked over my body in raw, scorching agony. I screamed, Andi screamed, and I felt ash in my mouth. I pushed away from the fireplace and rolled on the floor, batting out the flames, but the damage was done. I looked up at the ceiling and saw what happened to me, but something else was happening, too.
    My fingers were longer. My hair was brittle, like straw, falling out in scorched handfuls onto the floor. When I breathed it burned, like sucking fire into my lungs, and a throbbing, razor sharp agony sliced through my veins at a million miles an hour, like my blood turned to razor blades. I was aware of what was happening, but it was like I was standing behind myself, watching. I wasn’t sure if it was the mirror or if I could really see myself from outside, but my charred, smoking body heaved towards Andi.
    She shrieked in terror and kicked at me but her feeble blows did nothing. I wrenched her away from the bed and the nightstand and licked the blood off her forehead, where her skin split from hitting the edge, and when my tongue touched it, it was like dunking my body in ice water. There was a feeling to it, an immediacy that I’d never experienced before. Andi screamed and screamed and beat at me with her fists.
    “Chris, stop! Stop it! Christine!”
    Even though she was taller and outweighed me I pinned her to the floor, ignoring her attempts to push me away as I grasped her jaw in my hand and pushed her head back, and plunged towards her neck.
    “God, please don’t! I’m sorry!”
    She… she apologized to me.
    “Help! Help me! Daddy! ”
    Her words turned into choked gurgles as my teeth closed on her skin.
    I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. I wasn’t in charge anymore. All I could do was make my jaws tremble as I felt my teeth digging in, the pressure welling until I took a bite out of her throat and then the blood came, gushing hot into my mouth, and I gulped it down but there was too much. A red stain spread across the white carpet as I gnawed on her throat and gulped down the gouts of blood until she went still beneath me.
    When I pulled back, I was in control again, and when I fully saw what I had done I screamed and screamed until it hurt, until I was rattling the walls, and threw myself away from her.
    This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It was a nightmare. I was still on the