Page 17 of The Sanguine Selection
I know what a man looks like, the characteristics, but the man standing before me isn’t what I would expect. For one, he’s huge, towering over me by a foot at least. Long black hair hangs over his face which is hidden by a thick beard. A scar over his left eye still bleeds. Speaking of his eyes, they’re glowing. It’s subtle, a soft yellow. But maybe this is normal, having never met another person, how am I to possibly know.
Wearing a red, leather jacket, with nothing on under it, I wonder how the hell he’s not frozen. His body is all hard lines and a smattering of black curly hair graces his chest and again just above his belt buckle.
He pulls something out of his pocket. It’s white, narrow, and about four inches long. One end he slips between his lips, the other he ignites with a match. I watch, awe-struck, as he sucks on one end, inhaling a plume of smoke which he expels from his nostrils. “I asked you a question, girl. Are you deaf or just too stupid to answer?”
I gulp, instinctively reaching inside my jacket to grasp the necklace. The stranger watches the movement, his tongue darting out to lick his lips. “I uhh… Umm…”
Words? What are words? So many times I’ve imagined meeting someone else, considering what they might look like, what we might talk about. This interaction couldn’t be more different. I swallow hard. It’s not relief I feel upon having someone answer my calls for aid—it’s fear. “I need help,” I manage to get out, my voice wavering. “My—my father. He—he’s sick.”
The man cocks his head to the side and takes a step towards me, sucking on the white stick again. He pauses before me, blowing the smoke into my face and I choke on it, coughing it out of my lungs. He laughs at my struggle, reaching for me but I take a step back. His brows furrow. “I can help you out, you know.”
Father always said he could tell if a person was good or bad in the first moment of meeting them. My gut is telling me this man is a bad one. “Actually, now that I think about it, I’m sure he’ll be okay. I’m just over-reacting, father says I do that a lot.” The excuse sounds lame even to me. “I’ll just be on my way. You should too, the snow is falling harder.”
I ignore his blatant, unnerving stare and walk around the man, giving a wide berth before heading back the way I came. Father must have his own tonic somewhere in the house—I’ll find it and give it to him. Then everything will be back to normal.
“It’s rude not to accept help when it’s offered,” he calls as I reach the tree line. I turn back and find him gone, nothing but an empty courtyard. It’s like he was never there. The houses are still dark and quiet, the wooden tower still stretches high overhead.
Maybe I imagined the whole thing. A howl fractures the silence, and it sounds as if the origin is just beyond the houses. I step back, right into something hard and cold. Abruptly, I spin and come face to face with a second person. He’s smaller than the first, but no less intimidating. With skin paler than the moon itself and crimson lips looking as if painted with blood, he’s more unnatural. Moreinhuman.
His hair is also long, but pulled back away from his face and bound with a length of cord. Unlike his friend's burly appearance, this man is more proper, more put together. Wearing a long black coat and matching pants, his feet stuffed into elegant suede boots, he oozes superiority and something else I can’t quite put my finger on.
“Let us help you, little girl” he purrs, his words rolling off his tongue like liquid chocolate. I find myself focusing on those supple lips, wanting to taste them. He trails the back of his pointer finger down my check. “But our services will cost you.”
I shake my head, squashing my erratic thoughts and pull away from his touch. “Thank you but…I don’t have any money.”
Warmth presses against my backside, and I glance over my shoulder to find the bearded man there. He wraps one arm around my waist as the second one grips my chin and angles my head to face him. “It’s not money we seek,” he murmurs, shifting me so his lips can graze against my neck.
Hands dip inside my coat and fondle my breasts as a pair of cold lips suck on a tender spot on my throat. “Yes, little one,” the first man rumbles, his voice raspier, growly almost. “ I think you have just what we need.”
I’m frozen in fear, shaking in terror not knowing what these two plan on doing to me. This is wrong. My breaths saw in and out, my body quaking with tremors. “I really should be going,” I whisper.
I cry out as the man with the blood-red lips bites my skin then releases his hold on me, licking my blood off his teeth. Suddenly the man behind me captures my arms behind my back, my wrists bound in one of his large hands as he sneaks the other inside Papa’s jacket and across my dress, plucking at my nipple through a broken stitch in the fur. “You’re not going anywhere.” A cold hand encases my throat and a burlap sack is shoved down over my head. “Never have I been more excited about the fruits of a hunt as I am tonight, little girl. You have no idea what sort of trap you so willingly walked into.” Another bite on my neck has a new sensation igniting within me, but I can barely register what it is as a callused hand painfully chokes my breast. “But I promise, you’re about to find out.”
Something hard crashes against the back of my head and I fade into darkness, praying this is all just a dream.
Little did I know, I’d be soon waking up inside a nightmare.
9
Oxana
Something cold tickles my nose,and I blink my eyes open. They're heavy, and there's a dull ache on the back of my head. At first, nothing comes into focus, but when it does, I'm confused. I'm not staring at the ceiling of my bedroom, but rather the dark expanse of sky at night.
The coldness I feel is the snow falling down on me, melting when it hits the warmth of my skin.Why am I outside?Many more moments pass before I can form any kind of cognitive memory, but when I do, my heart stills.
Everything comes racing back to me in a flash—Papa, the howls, the sound of a gong, and two monstrous men chasing me, catching me.Hurting me.I raise a hand to my neck, to the bite throbbing there, and wince in recollection.
A million thoughts and worries tumble after one another.Where am I? Why am I alone? Is Papa okay?I think back to the creatures. One was covered in fur, more animal than human. While the other—the other was just like from my dream and even more monstrous than the beast that was with him.
I recall his mouth moving against me, and the strange feelings it induced. Reaching up, I touch my neck again, fingering the two puncture holes and knowing with a certainty thatthingdrank my blood.
A bubble of hysteria wells up inside of me as I wonder if they've intentionally left me in the snow like Papa does to carcasses in order to preserve the meat. Are they just waiting for me to freeze to death and then come back and cook me later?
A noise somewhere nearby snaps me to attention. I have mere seconds to make the critical decision whether to stay or run. If I stay, I'll inevitably die, becoming dinner or worse for one of these monsters. My only option for survival is to flee.
Sitting up swiftly, my vision swims, and nausea rolls through me at the onslaught of pain from my head. I choke on the gag that I'm trying to suppress, not wanting to make any noise. With supreme effort, I manage to stand up, but my legs are shaky, and practically numb.
I feel weak, weighed down by my mother’s unfamiliar dress and Papa's heavy coat, but I manage to move forward. My footsteps echo around me, my feet crunching through the top layer of ice that's crusted there, my toes have long since lost feeling.
