Free vampire for hire 10.5 - vampire requiem by J. R. Rain Page B

you shrug again, I’m going to remove your shoulder and feed it to my neighbor’s dog.”
    She shrugged again, and this one was defiant, snotty. It also came out with a surprising lack of concern for her own safety. She should have been very, very concerned for her own safety.
    Very.
    Maybe we weren’t comrades after all. Maybe it was impossible to put our past behind us and to forget the hurt, the jealousy, and the complete disruption of our lives.
    And this, a defiant shrug, coming from the woman who’d slept with my husband, back when he and I were still trying to work things out, back when I still loved him, back when I needed him most.
    I snapped.
    Literally. I knew the bitch within me helped me to snap. Gave me just the right amount of hate to fuel what I did next...and what I did next would horrify me later.
    But it didn’t horrify me now. Oh, no, what I did now felt just right.
    So very, very right.
     
    ***
     
    When I was done feeding from her neck, I was tempted to kill her. Tempted, of course, by the demon within me.
    Instead, through superhuman effort—or, perhaps, supernatural effort—I pulled away from her torn throat, wiping my mouth like the ghoul I am. Then I licked the back of my hand.
    Yeah, definitely a monster.
    Kill her, chanted a voice in my head, a voice way, way, way down deep. A voice I never, ever trusted. Until now, I had done such a damn good job of ignoring her, too. So good that I almost, almost ,thought I was normal. Especially with the two rings I now wore: one that helped me to eat normal food, and one that helped me to live in the light of day. Both rings, of course, were created and forged in an alchemical process that few on Earth would ever know.
    I had made a valiant attempt to not feed from humans over these past few months—or to even feast from anything living. My sole source of sustenance had been my bloody packets of filth delivered from a slaughterhouse.
    Now, as I sat back, I watched Nancy sort of come back to her senses. I had seen this before. Victims slipped into a catatonic state of shock, I assumed. Allison never had, though, when I’d fed from her each week. Perhaps a friendly bite to eat was much different than a full-fledged vampire attack.
    And I had attacked Nancy, too. Criminal charges could be pressed against me. Hell, I should be in jail for what I just did to her.
    Except that no jail could hold me.
    She blinked and I saw the tears roll down her cheeks. She came back to her senses slowly. Jesus, had I put her under a sort of spell? The way a dolphin stuns its prey with a sonic blast. She rolled her head in my direction. More tears streamed out. The wound in her neck had already coagulated, although it still seeped some blood.
    I tried to feel really bad about what I had done.
    The old me would have been mortified. The old me would have hated herself for attacking this woman. The old me would have feared that such an attack would prompt more such attacks, that it would, in fact, signal the end of my humanity.
    The old me was a wuss.
    Besides, humanity was overrated.
    Yes, I knew that was her talking, the demon within. But sometimes, she made sense. And sometimes, people just deserved what they got. And sometimes, I just needed to feed.
    All good points, I thought.
    I knew I was slipping. I knew the demon within me was gaining a stronger foothold, gaining more and more access to my thoughts...and to my actions. There was a war raging within me, and I was losing ground. The enemy was advancing.
    And I didn’t care.
     
    ***
     
    “Are you okay, Sam?”
    I had erased her memory of the attack, of course. Under the circumstances, it seemed the prudent thing to do. With a few well-placed words and a suggestion that the past few minutes had never happened, I was in the clear. There was some blood on her shirt, but I’d suggested to her that the blood was from an old scratch that had since healed.
    “Yes, I’m fine,” I said, my thoughts shielded deep behind an