When I inhale her scent, panic and anger and pride, pull my lips back and allow my teeth to trace the skin of her neck before breaking through, pulling her life away by the mouthful, I know what I'm doing is wrong. I'm reneging on a promise I made to Elise, to a woman I have placed in a cell, reducing her to an exhibit at a zoo; but I can't help myself. She needs to know who-- and what I am. I'm over a thousand years old, have seen history firsthand, watched human joy and pain, desperation and contentment. I tell myself I'm doing her a favor by keeping her alive. Many of my peers would not be above killing her for what she knows. She has to learn that her dignity is of no consequence here, with me, and she'll have to come around sometime.
So when I take her essence into me, letting it fill my mouth, pour down my throat in heavy streams, and she starts to relax into the motion, I think she's beginning to let down her guard, to enjoy to the sensations of my feeding from her. Her fingers twitch, though, quick, jerking movements that flow up her arms and chest until her body bucks underneath me, her back arching into positions that gymnasts only dream of. A gargling noise starts in her throat and gets louder until she's moaning, loud, painful screams that raise the hair on my arms. She's fighting me, fighting the lull of my bite, the pleasure I try to give her. I can't take her screams of pain, though. They take away any satisfaction I feel while drinking. I withdraw from her neck and her body relaxes immediately, tense muscles collapsing in my hands. A thin sheen of sweat covers her forehead; her eyes flutter, though she's still awake. I put her down on the bed, angry that she's won, impressed that she fought so hard, and oddly concerned with the amount of pain I put her through. She doesn't move, arms and legs splayed, decency the last thing on her mind.
The hand that had supported her neck is covered in blood, warm, sticky with her cells. I lick them, savoring the taste. When my hand is clean I step toward the bed, stand over her stationary body. Blood trickles down her neck and I want it, so I kneel on the fabric, one knee in the space between her legs, placing my weight on my hands and slide my tongue over the wounds until they're just two small, clean holes. Her ear is inches away, so I get close, whisper so she can feel my cool breath on her neck. I ask her if she's enjoying herself.
Her voice is weak but defiant; I didn't take much blood, so she must be affected by the pain. When she replies, she asks me what I mean. What infuriates me, though, is that though she can barely whisper, she shows no sign of fear, just a strange tranquility; my actions should have terrified.
So I taunt her.
"This weakness," I say, lifting her wrist, releasing it so it crumples like a doll's limb by her side. I tell her that this is what death feels like, this weakness, this feeling of slipping away. "Do you want it?" I ask, my words a hiss as I look into her heavy-lidded eyes.
"How would you know what death is like?" She asks, her words coming out as a sigh. "You only give it." Her voice gets stronger. "You evaded it, mock it now, and missed life's biggest lesson."
I smile, show her my teeth, place a hand under her shoulder and lift her with a finger before laying her back down. She's right, I did come back, changed, though what I am hardly seems to bother her.
"Want to learn my lesson for me?" I say around my elongated teeth. She doesn't answer, lifts her hand instead, moves it like it's made of stone, clumsy, slow, until her fingers brush the skin of my cheek, tracing back and forth across my jaw. Her fingers move back and forth across the skin there, and her eyes close, hiding the fierce blue behind pale lids and black lashes.
Her fingers continue their path, reaching my lips, igniting the cells under her touch, especially when she traces the top lip, the soft dip under my nose. I open my mouth, take her fingers between them and suck lightly until her hand jumps, shudders into one of my fangs. Her skin breaks easily and the cut fills with blood that flows freely. I draw it out, closing the space around her digits, close my eyes and take her by the wrist to steady the limb.
"You're just a predator," she murmurs. I open my eyes and listen as she tells me why she's not afraid of me: I offer death or captivity. "I know the options, though since I'm on my back, barely able to move, I'd say you broke your promise not to hurt me."
I release her hand from my mouth; it falls on the bed, fingers splayed.
"If you didn't fight it," I begin, but her tremulous murmurings interrupt me.
"All I have is my will. Don't you see?" Her eyes widen, but she's not pleading. She's telling.
"You'll drive yourself insane, then." She asks me why she should get Stockholm syndrome when I'm the one that's taking her life away.
"I'm not asking you to like me." Her lip curls at my words. "I don't care if you do or don't, but I am letting you live. Don't forget that."
She snorts, the harsh sounds puncturing the quiet of the air around us. "I'm alive, but without a life to speak of." She coughs once, twice, and it rattles in her chest, stealing the breath from her lungs.
"Why did you take me?"
I give her reasons, reasons that are valid, that make sense, so they should be true. But they're not, and I'm not sure why. She knows about vampires, I tell her. She jeopardizes everything .
"Do you think I'm stupid?" She's incredulous, and I hold my tongue, choosing not to answer the question. Most humans are stupid, tied up with the trivialities of their daily lives, not bothering to look outside themselves. Elise is not savvy to be fighting me so strongly, but she is intelligent. I give her that, raise an eyebrow as she continues on her rant, telling me that she's smart enough not to mention things that go bump in the night to anyone, especially not other cops.
"By telling me, by letting me see what you are, then reminding me of it, by giving me your name and asking for mine, you ensured my captivity. I'm here because you're lonely, because you want someone to amuse you. But I'm not going to bend to you--I never will."
I tell her it's a nice theory, but the slight of her insight touches something inside me, makes me defensive so I want to attack, a feeling that creeps into my voice
I move my face up until I'm inches away from hers, bathing in the feverish warmth that emanates from her weakened body. I want to wrap myself around her, absorb her warmth until it's mine. My hair falls out from behind my ear, hiding both of our faces from outside view. The contrast of my light hair is day to the dark brown night of hers; I'm sure our skin has the same effect. I stare into her eyes, look at her like she's my last meal; I'm a predator overtaking its prey, trying to scare it out of its wits before taking that last, fatal bite. But I get no reaction, just a brick wall stare, colored cobalt blue. She's analyzing every second of this exchange.
"That night you said I was interesting," she says. "What did you mean?"
"You're smart enough," I purr, staring into those infuriating eyes. I think of her blood, let my teeth lengthen again. She brings out the hunter in me, makes my hackles rise to the point where I just want to attack. I speak easily around the teeth, though showing her that they're a natural part of me, that I'm not human; I show her the animal I am, because she has to know. My blonde hair, my blue eyes are deceitful, but I can't let her forget what she's dealing with. "Figure it out."
Her mouth moves, but no words come out, at first. Then she clears her through, a wet, thick sound that brings back vague, shrouded memories of the winters experienced in my youth. When she does find the ability to speak, her words are razor sharp, low, accurate in a way that is uncommon for someone so young. There has to be a reason, a need for her to gauge the intentions, the emotions of others so quickly, so instinctually. It's made her a good cop, but something tells me she had this ability before she got her job.
She goes on, telling me, accurately, that I'm old, bored with life.
"You saw something new," she says, her pink tongue peeking out to slide over her dry lips. She swallows under me, her thirst as strong as my own. I want her, though I have no need to feed. I just want to consume her.
"You think you're God, so you took what you wanted."
"Are you done?" I find myself millimeters away from her lips. My legs are intertwined with hers, and the rest of her is pressed against me so her heart hammers like it's in my chest. The echo ignites a mechanical memory in my body; I find her heart calming.
She nods, a motion so weak a human would have found it hard to catch. I smile, and her eyes widen slightly, though she recovers quickly, cracks a joke about being a captive audience. She jokes in the face of danger. I can appreciate that, and the polarity of enjoying her personality whilst taking her down a notch troubles me slightly. I brush it off, though.
"You're what, all of 28?" I ask. She doesn't answer. I let my body weight sink into her slightly, grind my hips into hers. She stays motionless under me. I smile.
"And you're all about control. Even your looks—that's how you get to other people, especially this man you were trying to catch. And you hate it, because it goes against the fact that you're smart, and educated, and proud of it. And you like the hunt, just as much as I do—more, even. You hated that man, and the feeling rolled off your body, but so did excitement. You loved luring him in with your wiles, and you relished leading him into a trap. You're just like me, really."
My words hit the air between us, and the silence presses in for a moment, a deafening lack. Time suspends itself so she and I are staring at one another in an unbroken moment that lasts forever and is over before she can take a breath.
Then her eyes shut, her mouth stretches out in a false grin. Without making a noise, tears begin to fall, gliding off her lashes like bodies down a slide. She keeps her eyes shut, refusing to look up at me while she weeps. The smell of the wet salt coating her skin stirs something deep within me and I trace the tracks the tears have made with my tongue, their taste sliding into my mouth like drops of rain. I lick toward the corners, consuming her pain, but she just cries harder, her muscles tensing under me, like a spring, coiling tight before the inevitable release. I roll off of her, pick her up so she presses against my chest, wetting my t-shirt. She doesn't push away, instead pulls her knees up, hooks her arms around me; mine fine their way to her hair, then her back, rubbing in a compassionate way that's unfamiliar to me. I feel clumsy, like my hands are too big for her narrow back. I'm in uncharted territory, and I don't like it.
"Shhh," I whisper, and I murmur that she'll be alright, that she's ok, slipping back into Swedish without realizing. We stay like that, me comforting her, the one I'm inflicting pain onto, until her tears stop and she starts to breathe slowly, deeply against me. She's curled into me, fits with me like a puzzle piece.
"I can't glamour you," I find myself saying into her damp-from-crying hair. I let it go so easily, a secret no human should ever know. And then I went on to explain it to her.
"Glamour?" She slurs. She can barely keep her head up to look at me.
"Hypnotize, sort of. Control. I've never met anyone immune like you."
Her voice cools. "You took me away from everything I know and love because I can't be hypnotized?" She's monotone, dead in my arms. She doesn't understand that she's the first human, first anything that's made me feel in a very long time. It's important, it's something to keep living for. All I have is experience, and she undermines all of it.
I don't want to give her up.
But she's withdrawing from me, folding back into herself. To her, I'm a monster. It shouldn't matter to me what she thinks or feels, but somehow it does. She's a young, insolent little girl, but she's also strange, stubborn and so different that I've become entangled with her.
It makes me want to lay her down, taste her again, then suck her dry so whatever I find so intriguing about her, whatever power she has over me is gone. Instead, I lay her limp body down, tell her to get some rest. I look back at her as I leave the room, but she turns her head away, those silent tears running down her face again.
I lock the door behind me, head to the kitchen for no real reason other than to walk away from her room. Though I don't eat, it's fully stocked for Mary, and to keep up appearances. I open a random cabinet, take out a glass and hurl it against the opposing wall before I know what I'm doing. The glass shatters like a clap of thunder, sending shards in all directions. Not satisfied, I throw three more before Mary appears, a frown emphasizing her stern mouth.
"This is unusual, Eric," she says, her words mild.
"I'm not in the mood, Mary." My voice is sharper, more savage than I expect it to be.
She ignores me. "Then you shouldn't have taken her."
"I had no choice." It's a lie. I know it.
Mary stands squarely in front of me, looks into my eyes with her own intelligent, dark gaze.
"Yes, you did. You still do. Now make it." She walks away without another word.