Page 40 of How to Entice a Fiend

No, I didn’t particularlylikeMads, but… I didn’t mean to kill him…

Did I kill him? He was already so weak. There was barely any blood left in him and I attacked him. I consumed his blood even as he begged me to stop.

The warm blood is drawing life into my body, life it’s lacked for days. And it’s washing away the darkness in my mind, but when the darkness is gone… Abel is stronger than me.

“Ender, come here,” he snaps.

But that was years ago. That was when I wasyoung.

Even though the fresh blood has helped me, I still feel the effects of the drug coursing through my body. The weakness in my limbs tells me that there’s no way I’d win a fight against that man, not when he has so many others, not when I feel like all I’ve done is merely prolong death’s journey to me.

I can’t let him know I’m in my right mind again or he’ll attack. So I simply pick up the sword and stand up before seeing someone nervously hovering near the hallway I’d just come through. I rush him, knowing he’ll flee, and he does.

“Ender, dammit,” Abel snarls.

I need to leave. I need to get out of here. I need to get my strength back so I can kill him. But most of all, I need to get back to Rylee.

But what if Mads is still alive? What if I didn’t kill him? Do I even care?

I should just get out of here, but—maybe because Rylee is rubbing off on me—my mind is fixated on Mads.

The vampire I’m chasing rushes past the room we’d been held in, and I dart into it. Mads hangs from the chain, blood streaked down his throat from where I’d torn into his neck. In my fucked-up state, I hadn’t even bothered removing both swords so he could heal, just the one I wanted to kill the man in the doorway with. I grab Mads’s head, push it up, and press my fingers against him.

There’s the faintest warmth to his body that tells me that for now… he’s still alive. I pull the sword out of him before dropping it on the ground, along with the other to free my hands, and then grab the chain above him. Using all the strength I can muster from the blood I’d consumed, I tear it from the ceiling, but I can’t break the shackles around his wrists or ankles in this state, though it doesn’t matter. It’s not like he’s in any shape to bewalking. I toss him over my shoulder and swoop down to pick up the swords before hurrying toward the far doorway.

A group of vampires is moving toward me, but I slip out and run. Weakness is eating into my limbs, but thankfully, I have consumed enough blood to push it away for now. I see a window and slam into it, glass shattering as I rush through it, out into the night.

Three vampires come out of the darkness and try to stop me. One slams into me now that I’m weakening again, and I accidentally drop Mads. The vampire manages to cut me but I throw him off before driving the sword into a woman. I want to feast on them in an attempt to override the effects of this fucking drug, but I can’t hesitate. Abel will know I’m fleeing and the second he zeros in on me, I know this is all over.

I grab Mads and disappear into the night before weakness can totally consume me.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

ENDER

I don’t make it far before the exhaustion becomes too much. We’re going to get caught again, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do. I don’t even know where the fuck I am. All that surrounds me are trees and fields and mountains. Where the fuck are we?

I stumble as pain and exhaustion strike me and hit the ground on my knees. I try not to let Mads fall, but I can’t keep a hold of him as we both crash to the ground. He groans and tries to curl in on himself, but he turns still before he accomplishes anything.

On my hands and knees, I’m left in a state of exhaustion. How can being shot by that fucking thing still be causing me so many issues? I guess Mads was right; most vampires would have died from this by now. I’m not a true vampire. Just because I’m different from the rest doesn’t mean I’m invincible.

They’re following me. There’s no way they can’t follow our trail. Mads smells like blood, which is like an invitation leading straight to us. I tear his clothes off and check his stomach wherehe’s still not healed from his wounds. If he had some blood, I bet he’d heal… that is, if I could get him to swallow it. Bunching up his blood-soaked clothes in my hands, I dash into the darkness where I find a deer that I’ve startled awake. I wrestle it down and tie the clothes around its neck before letting it flee.

Terrified, it bolts into the darkness. It won’t give us much time, but maybe it’ll distract them momentarily. At least he can’t complain about his ass being breezy now that all of him is.

Not that he can complain at all in the state he’s in.

I find another deer and drag it back to Mads. The animal looks petrified, and I know Rylee would be horrified to know what I’ve done as I kill it quickly and try to drip the blood into Mads’s mouth. My blood would do nothing to help him as I’m not a true vampire and neither is Mads who is nothing like me—a being who has to consume vampire blood the way a regular vampire needs human blood—so the deer is all I have.

No, there’s no one like me.

It’s hard to hold the animal and get Mads to open his mouth. I’m pouring blood onto his face when he needs to drink it, but he’s not coherent enough to do so. I pull his mouth open but just getting it in there turns out to be the easy part when I can’t get him to swallow it. It merely pools in his mouth before running out. I nudge him and shake him but still nothing.

“Come on, dammit, wake up,” I snap as I smack his face in the hope of startling him awake, but it does nothing to help. “Mads, wake your annoying ass up.”

Fuck, fuck. I didn’t mean to drain him this badly. I didn’t mean to hurt him like this.

I’m barely getting any blood in him and end up draining the rest of the deer myself. That mouthful or two that he might have swallowed likely won’t do anything, but at this point do I really have any other choice? I can’t wait for him to rest. We have to keep moving because every second matters.

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