She breathes out, and the air sweeps across my neck like summer as it fades into fall. It halts, scuttling out in gusts, her alveoli releasing their last stores of air in a broken pattern that sends out an unbearable, choking rattle from her throat. I know what she's feeling as her body shuts itself down, though it happened to me over 1,000 years ago. I can still see death at my throat, feel its drowsy pull, and then the rumbling blackness that bled through me; it's pristine, untouched, unchanged, remembered perfectly after all this time.
Her head has fallen back, lolling on the muscles of her neck limply, allowing her hair to dance over the surface of the blood on the floor, creating paths and patterns with the curved tips. Her mouth is ringed blue, her skin and muscles pale, sallow, begging for air that's not coming. She had her arms around me, but now they're dead by her side, curled like sleeping animals. Her unseeing eyes are open, looking blankly at the ceiling, the light gone from her usually analytical gaze.
With the hand that isn't under her neck, I reach back to my own mouth and shove my teeth into my wrist, deep, so the skin is forced open, sending red streamers down my arm so I match Elise. But where she let allowed her blood to pour from her willingly, allowing her life to slip away, mine moves away from me in the hopes of giving life, of changing it so she becomes faster, hard as stone, a new creature with instincts like my own. I lay her down to make the angle less awkward; the disturbance sends a ripple through the blood around her, which has thickened to the consistency of jell-o. Her mouth is tight, lips clamped together so I have to wriggle my finger between her rigid lips and teeth before I can turn my wrist, let the trickling blood run over her teeth.
It slips around her mouth at first, dribbling down to her chin and off to the side into her hair where it's consumed, absorbed into her dark hair so it's invisible. Finally, my life trickles into her mouth, pools at the back of her throat, drowning her so I massage the skin of her throat until she swallows it down, reflexively.
And then, after she's had that first taste, something happens. A shockwave runs through her, a snap like a rubber band that snaps her head up, makes her arms and legs jerk straight out.
"Please," I whisper. Please come back to me. Take me into you, take me for what I am, what I have, what I'm trying to give. My fingers stay at her throat, massaging in small circles, making a tattoo pattern, helping the blood down when I feel her tongue snake out from her mouth and, lightly, delicately, trace my wound. Her hands, moving in a red white blur, encircle my arm and pull it closer to her mouth so it feels like I'm in a vice. She laps at the blood first, then bites with her omnivorous teeth, tearing skin and veins until she opens the artery and it sprays into her mouth, a fountain that she swallows greedily, with an intensity like my arm is the only anchor she has to stay attached to the ground. She looks into my eyes, scared, unable to control her own body, which is focused solely on draining the blood from my body.
"It's ok," I say, extending my legs out from under me so she can lay her head back on my arm. I smile down at her, watching the change happen, watching as she begins to fade away, blinking a few times, realizing she's getting weaker, that it's getting harder to see. Her eyelashes drift toward her cheek and I pull my hand away; she mews like a kitten, but I'm firm. She's had more than enough. I tell her I'll see her soon, and she goes still in my arms.
I stand, letting her lie on the floor, and take in the scene. She's gone, pale as I am, hair in a halo around her head, plastered to the floor. She's completely covered in blood that's clotting fast, making her hair and clothes stiff as the bristles of a broom. I pick her--peel her up off the floor and bring her into the bathroom, where I strip off her now red sweatpants and my own clothes. The steam of the shower is heavy on my skin; I climb in, carrying Elise bridal style, and let the water run over her body so when it drips off it's the color of rust at first, then bright red. I take her body in, excited for her to rise, to be with me as what I am. For now, though, I try not to touch her, other than running my hands up and down her arms, legs, face and hair, trying to get her suicide off her.
After the water is shut off, after she's dried and clothed and looking, for all intents and purposes, dead, I make a phone call.
"Did you have fun?" Adam asks, instead of a normal greeting.
"Doing what?"
"Gray," He says, simply. The events of the day we were together, the day I killed Gray seem to have happened forever ago, an eternity of yesterdays.
"Yeah," I murmured, distracted. "Listen, can you do me a favor?"
***
When he takes Elise in, her shining, still wet hair, her delicate features and the smell of change that has taken hold of her on a cellular level, transforming everything it touches, Aaron lets out a low, appreciative whistle.
"I can't believe you got the cop," he says, shaking his head at me.
"This wasn't what I had in mind, believe me." I tell him the story of her capture, her stubborn, unchangeable mind.
"She slit her wrists in front of you?" Aaron's eyes go wide. "Damn," he says, a tinge of interest creeping into his voice. "She's going to make one interesting vampire."
"Yeah, well, she's mine," I say, growling with protection.
"Loud and clear." His eyes are still on her. "So, Eric, tell me why I'm here."
I tell him to follow me, picking her up on my way out. She's light in my arms, a baby to a parent. When we get outside, I open the garage and point.
"Great," Eric mutters, going into the dark to emerge with an ornate wooden coffin. He drags it out and I hand him a shovel. When we get to a clear patch, I climb inside the coffin, arranging Elise so I'm wrapped around her.
"Night," Eric says, beginning to dig. Half an hour later, we're in the ground, the heavy sound of dirt hitting the top of the coffin.
***
When I open my eyes the next night, it's because a body is squirming next to mine. I tighten my grip around Elise and tell her not to move, to stay still for a few minutes. I breathe in her scent and smell myself on her skin. She's made from me, and a fierce instinct awakens; I am her maker, and she is mine.
"What happ--" she asks, not remembering the events of yesterday. I let a shhh noise slip from between my teeth to soothe her, and her muscles relax underneath me.
"We're in the ground." She tenses again when she realizes it's true, slams her hand into the side of the coffin and begins to rear up against me.
"Relax," I command, running my fingers up and down her arm. She shudders at my touch, sighs dreamily. But then she's distracted, by what I'm not sure; she gasps, though she has no reason to breathe, and tells me she needs to get out, to get into the air, away from this box. I tell her to wrap herself around me, to close her eyes and mouth before moving her up onto my hips so she can wrap her legs around me.
She nods, distracted by the movement. I open the coffin, push savagely out while a torrent of dirt filters through the space I've made. She nuzzles into my chest, though not before gaping at the feeling of the dirt against her.
I pull us out, stand up and she looks up to the sky while I examine her. She's beautiful, absorbing, and for once, not fighting me.
"Wow," she breathes, staring at the stars above us. I say her name gently, and she stares at me, eyes wide with understanding. She tells me that this is amazing, then slides off of me, steps back and I laugh at the dirt in her hair before raking my nails through it, sending dust flying. She smiles at my touch, closes her eyes and tells me she feels like she's on ecstasy, that there's too much going on and that it's all so beautiful.
"You've changed me." Her hand touches my face, and a delighted smile tugs at her lips. I tell her yes, take one of her fingers in my mouth and suck gently, enjoying the reaction that wreaks havoc on her balance.
"Why?"
"I couldn't let you die." It's simple. It's the truth. I just didn't expect it. I lean in to kiss her and she responds readily, excited. I kiss her jaw, lick down her neck and whisper that I couldn't kill her.
"So I could leave you if I wanted?"
Internally, I groan that she carried her rebellious nature over to the supernatural side. But I tell her no, I won't keep her here with me if she doesn't want my company. She tells me I'm not going anywhere, and I smile into her neck before licking it again, resuming my exploration. I kiss between her shoulder and neck; she draws a ragged breath and her hand covers her mouth. I push back her hair, kiss her again and watch as she explores her fangs with a finger. They're dainty, sharp; I move her hand away and our mouths connect, my teeth elongating so I cut her lip slightly, then lick the blood that wells there.
"You need to feed," I say, guiding her head gently down toward my neck. "From me, first." She hesitates a moment before testing my skin, latching on and releasing, sucking gently while my own eyes roll back in pleasure. She stops, after a few minutes, pulls back and watches the bite mark on my neck fade.
"Lets get out of here," I say, offering my hand. She takes it, then steps forward so we're walking together, without a leader.
"Always so stubborn," I say, and laugh. She joins with me, and the air carries the peals away, sharing them with everything around us.