Chapter 5: Choice is yours

"Stop…stop it", Leo faintly heard a meek voice say, "you're killing him!"

When Leo's body had gone into a complete limp stupor, Eric ripped his fangs out of his neck, and let him drop to the floor in an unnatural heap. Eric wiped his mouth lightly with the back of his hand, though he had just barely made an indent in the large amount of blood covering his lower face. This was, of course, the result of a less than gratuitous drinking.

Fern reacted quickly, fleeting to Leo's side in a millisecond and instantly putting an ear down to listen for the all-too-familiar sound of a pumping heart. His eyes remained closed, unmoving.

"He's alive…", she whispered, "but just barely. You must have almost completely drained him…."

"I'm ashamed that you would think me barbaric enough to kill a human in my own bar. I've only drained him half-way. It's not very often that I come across a human so insatiable" Eric retorted. He smiled and casually sat back in his chair.

"Half-way drained. Half-way…Eric! He's going to die if we do not take him to a hospital! And they will know when they see the atrocious state his neck is in that it was vampire kind that has done it", Fern exclaimed.

She inspected the rest of his body, growing angrier when she saw that his shoulders had been crushed to the point where one of the bones was jutting out at an awkward angle. His neck had been punctured in several places, reminding Fern that Eric was over 1,000 years old and he had gotten quite skilled at finding just the "right" arteries for maximum blood flow. But she did not know why she suddenly cared so much that Eric had brutalized a human; if it were any other fangbanger in the bar she would have shrugged her shoulders and joined in on the fun. Especially if it was someone who was being sucked against their will.

"Fern, this isn't like you." Eric stood and walked over to a cabinet next to his desk, grabbed a red insignia 'Fangtasia' towel, and began wiping the remaining blood off his face. He stopped for a moment, and looked inquisitively down at the unconscious Leo.

"What is that has made you feel so attached to this human? He is delicious, no doubt, but you haven't even gotten a taste yet" he teased.

"I can't remember the last time I felt anything. It's neither his looks…nor his smell…there's something familiar about him. And since you have so kindly recognized that I took a liking to him and, quite literally, turned him into mince meat I may never solve the mystery", fern said. She tried not to sound upset, or look Eric in the eyes. Upset. That was something new.

"It's going to take quite a large amount of peroxide to clean this jacket."

Fern bit the inside of her lip. "You don't even care. Why am I not surprised?"

Eric flung a malicious glare at her.

"You're right", he sneered, "but I've also opened a door for you that you would have been to cowardly to attempt before. You have to make a choice now. Give the human your blood so he can heal, or suck him the rest of the way dry and make him one of us."

It was the inevitable truth. Fern looked down at Leo, still bleeding profusely onto the carpet, and then back up at Eric's sequentially bloody appearance. She had never been a maker before. Mostly because she did not know if she would have the power to do so; she couldn't glamour humans, and she had never given her blood to a human. If she fed Leo her blood, she wouldn't be able to leave him alone for the rest of his life. She would feel his most private feelings…be able to sense where he was at all times. And, worst of all, he might develop those certain inappropriate "feelings" towards her. But if he was made vampire, he could do the things for Fern that she herself was handicapped in…her own personal, beautiful servant….

"I….I don't….." Fern stammered.

"Please be more hasty with your decision, the human is ruining my new carpet."

Fern closed her eyes. She bent down next to Leo's neck, and released that night's unbridled hunger.