Page 9 of Can't Bite This Feeling
I keep my eyes closed, but the darkness is too much to bear. Everything is too much to bear. Too much sensation.
The rough press of linen against my skin, the cold bite of air, the dizzying pull in my veins like I’ve been unspooled and put back together all wrong. My heart thuds hard against my ribs—too hard, too human—and terror spikes through me.
I feel…fragile. Mortal. The word slices through me like a blade.
No. No, that can’t be.
I was changed. I remember fangs and shadows and freedom. I rememberhim.
Rapha.
Where is he?
I force my eyes open, bracing for the worst, and find only unfamiliar walls gilded by a faint light source and the soft whistle of a night breeze. I’m alone. I’m afraid. Fear keeps me silent, trapping my breath as a dull ache blooms in my chest. The sensation is like the memory of pain. Of being stabbed in the heart.
My body jerks. My fingertips twitch as the phantom pain flickers through my ribs. A scream, raw and unfinished, lodges in my throat. A memory or a dream?
I’m not in immediate danger, but still the fear remains. Why?
The shadows press in around me, unfamiliar and too still. Am I in the home I so desperately wanted to share with Rapha? Where is he?
I move on the bed beneath me, which is far softer than anything I’ve ever lain on before, and sit up. I can hear things now, and my eyes are becoming accustomed to the faint glow of moonlight seeping through a window.
I walk toward it. The floor beneath my feet is cold and smooth, not stone, not earth—something artificial. I tread carefully, like prey sensing a predator. My hand slips on the transparent material covering the window. I brush it aside and look through the… glass? Yes, that’s the word for it.
Fresh fear grips me. What is that faint humming sound? And why am I thinking in odd words?
Lights flicker and blink at me from buildings. More lights zoom past, illuminating the room. I gasp as they reveal the luxurious bed linens, the orbs fixed to the ceiling, and the strange pictures hanging on the walls. Words come easily as I scan the surrounding space: bed, chair, nightstand, closet. Yet everythinghere is foreign—elegant, modern, and magical. None of it makes sense. It feels like walking through someone else’s dream.
“What is going on?” I whisper to the universe, expecting to hear my own language. The words that leave my mouth are unfamiliar, yet I know them, just as I know the words for all the strange items around me.
They are…English?
What is that? It’s different from the words I knew.
The explanation comes to me as I hesitate in front of the gauzy fabric hanging from a rod over the window. I’m acquiring a new language. My old tongue was very different. Before I…died.
I blink, lost, as more comes to me. More language. More memories. I sink to the floor as the truth finally reveals itself. Those last days of love and splendor in Rapha’s arms, his beautiful gray eyes, his… bite.
He made me his lover, a vampire, but then my father… killed me.
The memory rushes in like a tide: my father’s face twisted in cold rage as he plunged the stake into my chest. The torment in Rapha’s eyes as he kneeled in my blood, holding me as I died.
My hand flutters to my chest, feeling the pain all over again, the betrayal, the devastation of those final moments with the man I loved
A sob starts, then becomes a wail of grief. Is this place heaven? Hell? I’m unsure, but I don’t care because tears flood my eyes and my breath lodges in my throat. I can’t see, I can’t breathe. Terror overwhelms me. I scream, but nobody is here to answer.
Where is my Rapha?
I move back to the bed. What is this place? Where am I?
“Rapha?” I call out, hoping he can explain all of this.
Is this another stage of being after death? Or has he used some kind of dark magic to transport me to a new world? Did he arrive in time to save me from my father, after all? Perhaps my memories of dying are false.
My mind races, and adrenaline courses through me in a flood that will not be contained.
“Rapha!” I call to him with my voice, mind, heart, and soul.
