Page 4 of Bite Me

“Yes, Jada. Take him. He is so delectable.” Leon crooned his own gratification.

He was more than delectable. He was life.

The man’s head lolled to the side, and still she drank. She wasn’t yet satisfied. He could give her more.

A squawking beep beep beep jumped into the room, invading her consciousness, making her cringe at its assault of her ears. Wisps of acrid smoke circled the air and the scent of burned sugar permeated the room.

The donuts. She’d forgotten the donuts.

Thank god.

She pulled her teeth from the neck of the man, and he slumped in her arms.

“Hey, hey. Buddy, uh, dude.” Shit, she didn’t even know his name. She slapped his cheek, trying to rouse him. He fell to the floor in a giant heap.

The muscles in Jada’s chest contracted, pulling tight around her heart.

No, no, no. She’d killed him. Killed another one.

Fuck. She should have known better. She’d never been able to control herself before. What made her think she would be able to stop this time? Donuts?

They might be manna from heaven, but she was from hell.

The man at her feet groaned.

Holy shit. He was still alive.

Jada dropped to the floor and patted his chest. His skin was clammy and much too pale. “Hey, guy, hey, wake up.”

“Don’t be stupid, Jada. It’s too late. Finish him.” Leon towered over her. His skin was flushed, in so much contrast to the man near death.

Leon stretched his arms wide and smiled like he’d woken from a long-needed nap. He’d enjoyed every minute of the act that made Jada now feel sick to her stomach.

Deeper than that. She felt sick to her soul.

She couldn’t do this, couldn’t keep on killing. It wasn’t right. She wasn’t right.

The revulsion bubbled up, burning the back of her throat, until she couldn’t hold it in any longer. She bolted to the sink and hurled into it.

Red blood splashed against the shiny steel.

Never again.

“Why do you insist on torturing yourself? This is who you are, little girl. This is what you are. Why are you always fighting it? After all these years, I’m growing tired of your antics.”

Three hundred years. Countless lives lost so that she could live.

There had to be something more out there. In the past few months, a change worked inside of her, tugging at her psyche, pushing away the banal existence she led. It made her want that something more from life, more than death.

The empty pit in her stomach widened. She could never have whatever it was.

Without responding to Leon, she rinsed the blood down the drain and walked to the kitchen door.

“Leave now, and the life you spared will be no more.” Her father’s tone darkened, the demon snarl dominating his statement.

If she left, Leon would kill the man. If she stayed, Leon would kill her. Not directly, not by force, but by an eternity of his twisted form of preservation.

Jada saw that now. She would never be able to resist the call of sex and blood, and Leon would never let her.

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