Page 72 of Slayer Mom
His eyes were soft. Accepting. If I wished to kill him, he would take the blow and set me free.
I fell on his lap while my blood poured down from my wrist. I would not kill him, not for the Zombie Queen. I had to be freed from the Queen’s spell. I had to be stopped, but Hazen couldn’t move, and no one in that hall would touch me, even if I was killing Hazen.
Haze, you have to kill me.I thought it as hard as I could. He could hear my thoughts. He had to know what I wanted.
I put my head on his shoulder and with my right hand, slashed clumsily through my throat then dropped my knife and grabbed his hair, pulling his mouth down over my messy wound. Hazen didn’t move for agonizingly long heartbeats, but then his fangs came out, and he pulled out the dagger and wrapped my bleeding wrist in his strong fingers, cutting off the blood flow.
I’d saved him. Good. He’d kill me, like I’d asked him to, put the Queen’s marked human to rest for good.
It shouldn’t have felt so good to die, but as hepulled the blood out of me, pleasure bloomed everywhere his fangs touched, and he was biting me all over, taking bites out of my flesh that felt as good as the other bites he’d given me had hurt.
He was doing a very thorough job of killing me. He bit my left shoulder and I screamed as he sucked the Zombie Queen’s venom out of me. Why did he have to do that if he was going to kill me the way I’d wanted him to? He probably couldn’t help himself, since he liked torture so much. He took more and more of my blood until I was floating on bliss only impacted by opening my eyes and seeing his beautiful face. He had a halo, glowing energy that flickered and crackled like lightning. He wasn’t a monster as much as a natural disaster. He was a wonder, a beautiful act of nature, as untamable as a hurricane and as impossible to look away from.
He picked me up and wrapped me in flickering darkness and brought me to the bed. He lay me down and then bit his hand and pressed his palm to my unresponsive mouth. My heart wasn’t beating. I wasn’t blinking. I was empty of blood, but I could still see him, feel his energy, love his heart. Did dying usually take so long? I couldn’t taste his blood, couldn’t feel his touch. He was far away, but still right here. Maybe I was a ghost and would haunt him forever. Forever. For Ever.
I smiled. And died.
In a rush of agony, I tasted his blood. It was burning pain and agonizing need that multiplied with a swirling intensity of a million tornadoes. I was inside the storm, no, it was inside me, and it ripped me apart molecule by molecule, rearranging the order of my cells as my changed DNA rewrote the fibers of my flesh, creating something else, something that burned and ached and hungered for something that filled my nostrils like fresh roses after a rain.
I drank sweet nectar, burying into that dizzying liquid until something pried my jaws apart and another blooming bouquet pressed against my mouth. It was so sweet, almost painfully sweet, but I drank, drank and drank until again, something pride my jaws apart, and then the sweetest elixir of all spilled between my lips and I was in heaven, absolute pleasure cresting and breaking over me again and again. I drank until I could drink no more and then my lips relaxed and I fell into soft silk and satin that cocooned me into sweet darkness.
I woke up to the gentle pit pat of rain falling on the roof. A fire crackled in the fireplace and the scent of sweet smoke, maybe apple curled up the chimney while the scent of rain came in through the chimney and the windows.
A soft warm body was next to me in the exact shape of Wat, only taller than the last time he’d had a nightmare and needed me to help him fall asleep. I absently stroked his hair.
“She’s waking up.” Lock’s voice came from close, low, intense.
I cracked an eye open, and the world spun around until I focused with remarkable clarity on Lock’s handsome face. He really was stunning for a human. It made sense that he was a vampire. I raised my hand and brushed his cheek.
“Hey, handsome. How are you?”
He bit his bottom lip and looked almost like he was going to cry. “I’m good, mom. I’m really good. Are you hungry?”
Was I? No, I was extremely content with my two sweet sons. The only thing that I needed was Hazen. But of course, Hazen wasn’t the person I knew anymore.
“No, not hungry. Are you?”
He gave me a tremulous smile and then threw hisarms around me, almost knocking me back off the bed. I hugged him back as tight as I could.
“Thank you, mom,” he said, voice cracking.
“I don’t think you should have done it,” Wat said. “But how else were you going to get your hand reattached?”
My hand reattached? The flurry of memories came back, all the weird stuff, being taken over by the zombie queen and then Hazen killing me.
I released Lock and looked down at my left arm. It was as pale as snow, with a jagged line around my wrist where I’d chopped off my hand with the last reserves of my slayer instincts and love.
“What happened?” I looked searchingly from Lock to Wat. “Didn’t I die? I thought I died.”
“Only for a little while, but then dad brought you back. Everyone said that he did it perfectly.” Lock smiled, tremblingly.
I pressed my hand against my unbeating heart. “I’m undead. He turned me into a vampire?!” I stood up on the bed and was suddenly trembling and so furious that energy crackled around me strong enough to taste and see and smell.
“You asked him to turn you,” Wat said, frowning at me. “He promised that he wouldn’t turn you unless you asked.”
“I wanted him to kill me, not turn me! I was very clear when I thought to him. He can read my thoughts, right?”
“Not when you’re under the Zombie Queen’s thrall. Seriously, Mom,” Wat said, looking disgusted. “You have to realize that there’s no way dad was ever going to kill you. He wants to turn you. You cut yourself and put your neck in his fangs. That’s asking to be turned.”
