Page 30 of The Sanguine Selection
So fucking hungry.
The dripping is maddening, an exquisite torture in the darkness. I must get to it, get to the source. My fangs attempt to bare themselves, ready to engorge on this meal, this divine miracle coming to take me away from the hysteria, from the chaos in my mind.
My thoughts are unclear, primal…
Carnal…
As if everything I was, everything I could become awakens all at once. My nerves tingle, a slight buzz rippling through me from the ends of my fangs to the tips of my toes.
Hungry.
Starving.
Angry…
Who did this to me? I am more than this hunger. How did I become nothing but this one feeling? Who was I before nothing encapsulated me in the depths of its cold darkness for decades or more? What was I and how did I get here?
Drip…Drip…Drip…
So warm. So fucking warm. And sweet. Where is it coming from? I must find the source. Find it, and claim it. Drink from it. Consume it until it is as withered as I am now.
I try to move, to get to the source, to rip it apart and bury my face inside it.
Drinking.
Sucking.
Fucking.
Yessss. There’s an old feeling I quickly miss, other ways to stave hunger. My limbs refuse to respond, refuse to move. I’m so fucking weak. On the verge of true death for a vampire king.
A king… Yes… I still, a memory jolting me. Of another vampire king staring at me with golden eyes, our faces mirror images. My lord? No… My brother. My other half. The emptiness in my chest isn’t only from lack of blood. It’s from his absence.
“Marimekko…” My lips refused to shift, the jumbled sound more of a pig’s grunt than the name of my brother.
At once his presence slams into my mind, through our shared link. Projected images of his contorted body, feelings of his own unquenchable thirst. Of his rage. His madness matches my own.
Someone will pay for this. Pay for what we’ve become. The great kings of the Novikov line rendered something akin to ash and dust. To utter decay.
It’s blasphemous.
Mikhail…My name. That’s my name. Whispered by my brother right into my mind.
Marek…I shoot back, forgoing audible words for the ones echoing down our bond. So much easier this way.
His presence leaves me and I feel so alone. So weak. So damn tired, even after years of fitful slumber. The rage renews.
Drip…Drip…Drip.
A scream bellows around me. No.Aboveme. The cry awakens another memory, this one of a gorgeous woman—a human. Of the swell of her breasts, of her slick cunt clenched around my cock, of her blood, sweet and seductive, filling my mouth, bringing me back to life. An ache in my chest crumbles at the memory of what she was, who she was to me. Of the empty vacancy now left inside of me. Of the name whispered across my lips, one I will never utter again. Of what I let myself do, who I became when I lost myself in her.
And killed her.
Then it all comes crashing down, the madness pulling me under. A roar, loud and clear, expels from my lungs. It’s agonized and harrowing. Ominous and foreboding, drowning in sorrow and fury. Crazed and frenzied.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
I must get to the blood. Get to the source.
