Page 64 of Taste of Fate

If this was a vampire, he—I could only assume it was male—was unlike any I’d ever seen.

He lunged toward my neck, and I crossed my arms in front of me in an automatic reflex. An animalistic scream erupted from my attacker, and then raindrops fell from my hands and forearms.

No, not rain. Blood.

I forgot that I had been clutching my silver dagger. The blade had sliced across his face and he scrambled away from me, his skin hissing from where the metal had burned him.

His screams must have alerted others because I spotted movement behind corners and obstacles. More creatures like him emerged, yellow eyes bright as lamplight in the darkness.

I scrambled to my feet, turning in circles to find myself surrounded by yellow-eyed demons. Porchlights threw long shadows, making it seem like there were twice as many as there really were.

I held my knife out as I spun, pausing when I saw the door to the community cellar in the distance. That was where Amy was, where I had to go. All I needed to do was get through this ever-shrinking circle of danger.

They were closing in on me quickly, saliva dripping down their massive lower fangs. Could they even be reasoned with?

“Let me through.” I held my dagger out in front of me, injecting as much strength into the demand as I could muster. Cyan always called me brave, but I felt moments away from curling into a ball from fear. “I don’t want to hurt any of you, so just let me get past you.”

One of them blinked, head cocking to the side. He was large and muscular, looking almost carved from stone with his gray skin.

“...Hurt…?” He mused on the word quietly, like it was familiar but he couldn’t remember what it meant.

“Right. This is silver. It’ll hurt you.” I kept turning in a circle, trying to watch my back at every angle. “I don’t want to do that.”

“Sill-verr,” another snarled before he lunged at me.

His sudden movement startled me so much that I nearly tripped, swinging the dagger wildly as I backed away. It wasn’t until my back crashed into something that I realized I lost track of my surroundings.

A fist grabbed my hair and yanked my head back, exposing my throat while pain shot through my scalp. I held my weapon up in front of my neck as Cyan had trained me, my only flimsy defense against these mindless monsters hellbent on tearing me apart.

What was once my worst fear came true, I realized. I thought this would be my fate when I met Cyan. Trapped and cornered while the bloodthirsty creatures dove in for the kill. Feeling everything as they drank my blood, rended my flesh from my bones, only dying when they got past my rib cage and tore out my heart.

Although not in the literal sense, Cyan had certainly done that.

I brandished the dagger as if I were going to cut my own throat, my eyes wide and darting around as the monsters grew closer. With my head pulled back so far, I couldn’t see the ground near my legs.

Which was where the immense pain began.

It burned at first, like two hot nails driving into the meat of my thigh muscle. The pain was so blinding and sudden that I couldn’t even scream. And then the nails pulled and twisted, trying to rip my flesh from my body.

The horrifying reality dawned on me then. I didn’t need my eyes to know that one of them had bitten my leg. My body jerked with the force of the pulling and tearing. The whole limb felt it would get ripped off if I didn’t do something.

I stabbed downward blindly with the dagger, realizing too late that the move left my throat exposed. They must have been waiting for me to lower my arm because multiple fanged mouths laughed, and dove in for my unprotected neck.

I was dead.

And I had failed to save Amy.

I squeezed my eyelids shut, afraid to face the gnashing teeth and ashamed of my wasted effort. I’d never even made it to the cellar, never got to be with Amy while she was injured and scared.

So much for being brave.

Someone yanked me so hard, I felt teeth rip through the bite on my leg. Oh fuck, they were going to fight over my corpse like a pride of lions over a gazelle. I was going to end up in pieces all over the ground like the debris when I first arrived.

My body jostled violently, my bad leg aching and dragging. Someone was running as they carried me away, trying to hoard my flesh and blood to themselves.

“I got you, Tavi. Gotta get you somewhere safe, then I’ll fix you up.”

…Cyan?

---