Page 6 of Taste of Death

“Oh, shit.” I covered my mouth with my hand, pulling back in horror. “I’m sorry, I don’t know why I?—”

The human nurse just gave me a knowing look. “I really wish you would have come to us sooner. You’re on the verge of starving.”

I wanted to stand up, get in her face and threaten her to move or she’d become my next meal. At the exact same time, I was horrified that I wanted to do that to her. My hands curled around the edges of my chair because of what I might do.

“Let me feed.” My voice was tinged with a growl. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you if you don’t.”

Rebecca, to her credit, did not look afraid in the slightest. She stood squarely in front of me, and it made me wonder how many threats she’d received from starving brusang and vampires while working here.

“I’m going to put a numbing gel on his wrist so that you don’t hurt him,” she said calmly. “And then I will let you. His vitals are being monitored on the other side, and if it seems like you’re taking too much, we will forcibly remove you if we must.” She let out a wobbly breath, betraying some of the nerves she was good at hiding. “Other than that, follow your instincts. They’ll tell you what to do.”

“Okay.” My teeth clenched with restraint, fangs practically stabbing into my lower lip. “Numbing gel first. Don’t kill him. Got it.”

Rebecca moved quickly, applying the gel and checking in with the donor to make sure he was comfortable before allowing me access to his wrist.

I was horrified and screaming internally at what I was doing, what I’d become. But the scent of his blood was too overwhelming, my hunger too great to stop. I took his forearm and brought my mouth to his wrist.

My lips were sensitive, moving over his skin to find where his pulse was the strongest. When I found it, I didn’t hesitate, and let my fangs sink in.

The first taste that hit me was the numbing gel. It was gross enough to turn my stomach, and the smell overpowering my nose didn’t help. I almost pulled away, but then that first mouthful of blood hit my tongue.

It was…fine. Not as bad as I was expecting. Slightly thicker than water but almost as tasteless. The aches in my stomach and throbbing in my fangs began to ease, a clear signal that this was what my body needed. Blood was the source of strength and vitality, the way to survive.

In a way, this felt natural and made sense. But I couldn’t ignore the part of me that was freaking the fuck out.

Oh God, I’m drinking blood. I’m drinking blood from a person, a fellow human! This is wrong, this is gross, I could kill him. This isn’t me. I don’t want this. I never wanted this. Oh fuck, I’m gonna be sick.

My stomach heaved just as I ripped away from the man’s wrist. I stood up and made it to the sink just in time to vomit everything I’d just swallowed. I had only taken a couple of mouthfuls, and still I dry-heaved after my stomach was empty. Hunger cramped my insides again, along with disgust and despair.

“You all right? Want to take a break?” I heard Rebecca’s voice, followed by the slight weight of her hand on my back.

Ignoring her, I turned on the faucet and rinsed my mouth with water in an attempt to rid myself of the taste of blood and numbing gel. I couldn’t get over how the blood tasted almost like water. It wasn’t supposed to taste like that. This was wrong, so wrong.

“Hey, why don’t we?—”

I shoved away the hands that tried to comfort me and tried to return me to sitting down, and pushed my way through the door. There were too many voices, too many heartbeats and too many walls. I needed space and fresh air.

Eventually I made it through the lobby and out the front door. The noise of Tavia’s voice filtered through my racing thoughts, but her words didn’t register. She was probably demanding to know what happened, what was wrong and where I was going. She was always hovering, always in my space. How did I never notice before?

I screamed, trying to drown out all the noise in my head, all the thudding heartbeats and smells. Why couldn’t I have just a moment of fucking peace?

Heading down the street, I turned into a narrow alley, which dumped out into another busy street filled with restaurants and clubs. Tons of people were out, mostly red-eyed vampires, but I saw a few brusang like me and even some humans.

That was the biggest shock, seeing humans out here enjoying themselves among the vampires like this was also their home, their neighborhood. In Sapien we didn’t have much contact with vampires, despite living in their territory. We prided ourselves on not assimilating to their culture, not becoming their food and pets. Sapien was the last stronghold of humanity, and I had once been proud to be a human surviving with other humans in a supernatural world.

Now I couldn’t keep from staring as a vampire woman with a purple tinge to her red eyes yanked on a human man’s shirt collar, smirked, and snapped her fangs in his face before kissing him. And he kissed her back like the air from her mouth was all he needed to breathe.

How did his mouth not get cut up by those fangs? The man’s expression was dreamy and blissed-out when the kiss ended. His tongue darted out to catch a speck of blood on his lip, and the vampire’s tongue soon joined his. Then the near-pornographic kissing started all over again.

I turned back the way I came, not ready to attempt navigating crowds. Not with all those heartbeats, all the noises and smells. It felt like the perfect storm for a panic attack.

While meandering the quieter streets and alleyways, I brought a hand to my chest to feel my own heartbeat. It was there. I definitely wasn’t undead, a walking corpse like the human-world portrayals of people turned by vampires.

The rhythmic thumping behind my sternum was strong, steady. I only felt my heartbeat elevate at my freak-out over having someone’s blood in my mouth. Never once since my turning did it ever feeltoofast, to the point of dizziness and breathlessness.

If becoming a brusang was what it took to fix my heart murmur and my asthma, well, that had to be a cruel joke, right?

“Shit.” I stopped walking and looked around me for the first time in several minutes. I’d been so eager to get away from Tavi and Bea, away from everyone, that I didn’t keep track of where I was going.

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