Page 2 of Hell to Slay

My hunger drove me to chase her, but the sound of a rapid heartbeat behind me made me whirl. This food was coming toward me. I darted forward to meet him, happy to take what he was offering.

“Fox, watch out!”

He manifested a shield of light just as I reached him, but left his smooth, tempting neck exposed. I tried to sink my fangs into him, but my teeth grazed an impenetrable force that repelled me, throwing me off balance again. He lashed out, smashing me with the shield, and I lost my footing and fell, scraping my arms and palms against the stone of the containment wall.

A small creature made from molten lava and dark lava rock bounded toward me. Spikes rose from its back, and its cloudy tail flickered with lightning. It landed on my chest, then latched onto my injured arm, lapping at my blood.

I knocked it aside. The thing was bloodless, useless to me. Nothing mattered but sating my hunger.

“Help is on the way,”a soft voice whispered in my mind, but the words meant nothing. I needed no help. I would get my food and share none of it.

Heartbeats surrounded me, their numbers doubling. My hunger needed to be sated, and nothing could stop me from reaching my prey this time. Pure need drove me to my feet, all intention gone except to sink my fangs into something soft and bleed it dry.

I whirled to face the new heartbeats. Before me stood two identical humans, their bodies pulsing with blood and magic far greater than the ones I’d chased thus far. Both had pale skin and dark hair.

Some part of me recognized them as fellow vampires. But that didn’t matter to me right now. They wore armor, but their exposed necks were oh-so-inviting.

They looked… delicious.

One of them said something, his hands up. “Mel, it’s us.”

Again, those sounds meant nothing to me, and I lunged for him. But before I could reach him, a burst of flame from the other one set me back. I growled in frustration. I longed to sink my fangs into them both — the hunger was driving me insane. But my survival instincts were still stronger.

“He sees her,” the one with the fire said. “Are you sure this is a good—”

An inhuman scream tore through my hunger — the first thing to make me hesitate besides the fire. A taller, dark-skinned vampire stood beyond the two in front of me. He stared at me, his own fangs bared, his fingers curled in claws. His well-built, powerful body was coiled to fight, and his eyes were pitch black from lid to lid.

Something primal in him called to me. I ripped the pendants around my neck up over my head and threw them away, some part of knowing I needed them gone. I lunged toward him, but I didn’t only want to drink from his throat. I wanted him to drink from mine.

We were irresistibly drawn to one another, and the matching humans fell back as this new vampire charged at me. I wasn’t concerned about defending against him — I just needed the powerful blood pulsing beneath his skin.

I launched myself up his taller form, clawing his shoulders and wrapping my legs around his waist so I could reach his neck. Unlike my other prey, who’d tried to escape or keep me at bay, this one pulled me closer to him, fingertips digging into my back in his eagerness.

At last, my fangs finally found what they’d been seeking. When they pierced his flesh, pure pleasure poured into my mouth, coating my tongue with the sweetest flavor I’d ever tasted.

He groaned beneath me, stiffening and then shivering. If I thought the liquid coating my tongue was pleasure, then what came next was pure ecstasy as his fangs pierced my neck in return.

My world exploded beyond the bounds of my physical form. I had no eyes to see, nor ears to hear. I had no fangs to pierce, nor a tongue to taste. All that remained was endless, bodiless ecstasy.

An eternity of pleasure began, continued, and… ended.

The first thing I noticed was the way my nerve endings felt alive and sensitive. Then I felt the warm body clamped between my damp thighs. My core clenched on nothing and fluttered with the aftershocks of climax, making me want more. That part of me craved being filled almost as much as I’d craved blood a moment ago.

And that’s when I realized my fangs were still locked tight to someone’s throat with liquid ambrosia pouring into my mouth. I startled, coming back to myself in horror, pulling away even as his arms tightened around me.

I stared into Nico’s face, noticing the magenta color returning to his eyes, which fell to my lips. His red mouth dripped with blood, mesmerizing me.

Without thinking, I licked the blood from his chin and then claimed his mouth. My own blood mingled with his as our wet tongues united. He squeezed me tighter to him, kissing me deeply as if to steal back his blood from my mouth. I tightened my legs around him, delighting in the magical taste of us both.

I lost myself in the moment with him, reveling in the feeling of Nico finally kissing me, holding me tight like he never wanted to let me go. But as the last several minutes replayed in my head, I broke the kiss with a gasp.

The world was a cacophony of sound. I could hear Nico’s heartbeat. And the twins’. And the four other heartbeats not far away. All other sounds paled compared to the all-consuming pulsing of the blood through their veins.

Nico’s delicious scent filled my nostrils, and my enhanced eyesight spotted every hair follicle on his chin. It was like I now viewed the world through a microscope that I instinctively controlled. And the taste on my tongue was a flavor I’d never experienced as pleasurable before.

My eyes fell to the bite on his neck. Bloodless, because I hadn’t let a single drop go to waste… Because I wasn’t just a witch anymore.

I had become a vampire.

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