Taste was fantastic. Taste was beyond anything. It was a better experience than everything sense of mere humanity put together. He tasted so good. Feeling his tongue moving against my lips and inside my mouth was amazing. The way muscles and skin stretched and pulled against each other was divine now that I could truly feel them, but it paled in comparison to the way he tasted. That wonderful smooth scent had just been a precursor to this taste. He tasted like a thousand different things. The citrus was stronger, while the cinnamon had faded slightly. It was strong, sweet, yet somehow perfectly masculine. It was so overwhelming it made my other senses better. Every touch was warmer. Every scent sweeter. Every sound like music. Every color shimmered brighter. I didn't want it to end. We kissed for what seemed like hours, as the pain faded almost entirely from my body. The only thing left was the flaying in my throat, and for now he was enough to distract me. My James. My king.

I kissed him greedily, not wanting to let go. Never wanting to lose contact with every inch of him for even an instant. After doing this for minutes, I realized that I hadn't needed to breath the entire time. I was gasping, sure, gasping the air straight out of his lungs and offering my own right back, but we didn't need to come up for oxygen like some pitiful humans would have. The only problem was the burning in my throat. My body felt strong and perfect, but the burning got worse and worse with each passing moment. I kissed James harder, trying to get it to fade or pass. I tried to ignore it, but finally I couldn't take it. It felt like it had burned through the back of my throat and that it would start spreading down my spine any second. I ripped myself away from him. I'm sure that my eyes were panicked as I searched around frantically for something to make it stop! James was calm though. His eyes were sympathetic, but they were almost laughing too, from the glimpses that I saw as I twisted and turned, trying to find some way to save myself.

"Shhhh...." he said, soothing me and placing a finger to my lips as I realized that I had been whimpering in my terror. He stood us both up, and I found that my legs were strong. I felt like I could have stood rigid, straight at attention in the military for hours, or run a marathon.

James held my hand while I stood, in awe of my own strength. Then he took off, leading me at that impossible speed that he always had run at. I was able to keep up now though. The forest rushed by us. I could unfocus and just watch it fly by, a shimmer of brown and gray and green, or I could focus and see every detail in the instant that I was able to view it as we flashed past. I flew as fast as I could, trying to outrun the burning on the back of my neck.

We finally broke out of the forest into huge field. Tobacco plants stretched out towards a solitary farm house, and I could hear the sound of the family with in. The wind turned, and their scent drifted to me. I immediately recanted everything I had said about the perfectness of Jame's smell. His scent was nothing to this aroma. I left James in the dust as I ran, faster, faster than I knew I could, running into that home. The delicious smells of those humans permeated every part of the house, every part of the world, every part of me. They smelled like perfectly prepared meals, like lime and a hint of garlic and sizzling steak, and above all like relief! Their smell made the fire in my throat leap higher, but I could sense that if I could just get to them I would be safe, that it wouldn't consume me again.

The door too the house was large and white. I'm sure that it's oaken form had weathered man a storm, keeping out animals and cold and protecting the family that was it's charge, but it exploded into a shower of splinters as I ran through it. I didn't even slow down. Chunks of wood brushed against my skin, and I crashed into an off white wall as I skidded some what on a mat placed just inside the door. My arms punched holes into the wall where I had tried to catch myself, and I pulled them out, coated in dust and plaster. I heard a voice start to shout from the other side of the wall and I struck. Before the woman could even finish inhaling to scream about the hands that had just punched through the wall of her kitchen, I danced around the wall and was on her.

I'm sure it was a mark of my inexperience with life as a vampire that I didn't bite into her neck, as I had seen James do so cleanly so many times before. I lunged for where I could hear her pulse pounding, where I could smell and feel the largest concentration of blood. I bit into her chest, turning myself sideways as I flew into her. My teeth sliced straight through her skin, and crushed her bones and the muscle of her heart. I sucked greedily, and her blood slid down my throat, along with tiny chunks of gore. I choked a little on there, but I didn't let it slow me down from drinking that wonderful nectar. The most beautiful wonderful experience ever. Every person should experience the ecstasy that is a vampire's first taste of human blood. It is better than immortality. Better than any sight, any knowledge. Better than mind blowing sex with the love of your life, of your existence. It made me complete and stopped the pain in my throat. For the first instant since I woke up, I wasn't in agony. I was whole. I straightened up, spinning around and jumping back from the way I had came before James even came around the corner even though he moved so quietly I had no warning.

"That's quite a mess you've made," he offered, gesturing toward me. I was covered in blood chunks of plaster and human. I smiled up at him, offering up the remains of the woman that I was still clutching. He laughed, loud, boisterously.

"Don't worry," he said. "There's plenty for us both here."

Author's note: remember the note I put on last chapter? With swarms of locusts and divine vengeance and heavenly rewards and what not? Yeah, everything I said in it still holds true.