Page 28 of Fated Blood

I need blood. I need to feed, and Mara’s right here. Mara with her sweet, rich blood. Mara, the only living being I’ve ever bitten. Mara, my friend, no, my best friend, offering me the sustenance I need so badly. My eyes are glued to the once blue veins under her skin that’s turned ashen. I can see her blood slugging through, slowly but surely, like a worm underground.

”Fayla, don’t!”

I lick my lips, barely registering the pleading call.

“Fayla, she’sdead!”

“She’s not dead…I hear her heart… So hungry…” I press my lips to the inside of her wrist, brushing her skin with a kiss of unfettered hunger.

“Fayla, you can’t do this!” Sebastian roars. I hear him pulling on the rocks again, tearing his own nails to pieces as he yanks fruitlessly.

“You want me dead anyway. What do you care?” I growl, letting my tongue slip out and lick the mound of soft flesh beneath her thumb. I shiver, tasting the rot but also tasting the salt and life she once possessed.

“Fayla, you have no idea what drinking the blood of a monster like that will do!” he pleads.

I hear a rock come loose and tumble onto my side of the wall. “Does it matter? I’m dying regardless…”

“Don’t be so cavalier! Dying of starvation is one thing, blood poisoning is a whole other realm of torture!”

“I don’t care…” I whisper, sucking her skin into my mouth but not biting, not yet.

“You will!” he snaps. His head and arm are through the hole now, his hand reaching for me, his eyes pleading.

“How do you know what it will do to me? You've never seen these monsters either!”

Silence is my answer, silence and a look of deep disgust.

“I know because I’ve done it… As torture…”

“What?” I ask, shocked. My mouth lifts away from Mara’s beckoning flesh and I stare at him.

He looks ashamed, as if he doesn’t want to tell me. “I captured one, as a kid.”

“A vampire?”

“Yes,” he sighs. “They were my first kill. A young vampire, only recently reached adulthood. I—I tied him to a tree with silver chains. Fed him the blood of a dead pig…”

“You call me the monster…” I hiss.

He winces. “I was trying to keep him alive, to get information out of him! How could I ever have known what would happen?”

“Shut up…” I beg, eyes turning back to Mara’s waiting wrist. She’s long since gone mad, reaching through the bars and startling like an animal. I can barely hear what Sebastian is saying over her roar. I wish she’d be louder, I don’t want to hear him at all.

My stomach tightens, twists, seems to rip and shred inside me. I’m not going to be able to stop myself. Maybe that’s why Angelica brought Mara here, another layer to my torture. Maybe she knew I’d get this desperate, maybe she was betting on it. Mara’s blood has sped up the more and more excited she got, it's almost thrumming at an exhausted pace now. My mind goes blank, my fangs extending. I barely hear the scream of denial from across the room over the roaring need in my own head.

I bite Mara’s wrist, hold her lovingly, and suck. Rancid blood fills my mouth, coating my tongue. I want to scream, to thrash against the burn as it settles into my throat, but I can’t stop. I can’t stop drinking. I need to feed!

Her blood sludges down my throat, falling into my stomach like a lead weight.

Stop, stop, STOP!

I’m screaming at myself internally, panicking as the burn begins to spread from my stomach like acid. It hurts, it hurts so much! Tears prick my eyes, and as I watch them fall down my nose, I see they’re black instead of clear, salty water. I cough, my mouth finally pulling free, and I realize black blood is pouring out of my nose now.

Stumbling, I step backwards. I’m staring at the blood on my hands, finding I have enough strength to scream. I thought I was in pain before, but this? It feels as if a caustic acid has replaced my own blood. Searing pain fills every inch of my being, sizzling like the crack of forked lightning.

“Sebastian!” I scream, spraying black tar-like substance from my lips and splattering the wall. I look over, searching for him, but he’s not there. He’s not in the hole. “Why aren’t you watching,Bane?Isn’t this what you wanted? For me to suffer? Watch me die, vampire hunter. Give me that, at least. Show me you have some shred of respect!”

The walls shudder, rocks falling from around the hole more and more often. I stumble to my knees, a flood of black spewing from my mouth. I cough, gag, wishing I could vomit everything back up. Wishing this black sludge wasn’t leaving my body through every hole in my face.

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