Page 37 of Bloodstained
She cursed him and jerked her hand away.
“That’s all you’re good for, anyway.”
Her mouth flattened, and he grinned wider, smug in his cruelty. He had cheap bravado for what he deemed weaker prey.
I moved toward him; the crowd moving back like oil from water. Every step I took, silence pressed deeper into the room until it was only his voice left, loud and acrid.
He didn’t sense me until I pulled out the stool opposite him and sat down without speaking.
He looked at me, his gaze bleary as he blinked. “Who the fuck are you?”
Something in the shape of his face stopped me cold. The slant of his brow, the curve of his mouth… it was like staring through centuries into a memory I had tried to bury.
Torchlight. Stone walls. A mocking smile that once belonged to Raducel, my brother-in-arms, my betrayer. Laszlo was nowarrior. He was a drunk crawling through life, yet the echo was there. The echo of betrayal, of blood and kin turned to enemy.
My hand curled tighter on the counter, the recognition lancing through me. Fate had dragged that likeness back into my path dressed in a cheaper skin, and my hunger roared its agreement. This wasn’t only vengeance for Clara. This was history circling back to me, begging to be set right.
The room seemed to hold its breath. Chairs scraped, boots scuffed against the floorboards as men slipped toward the door. No one wanted to be here for what was about to happen.
I leaned forward, elbows on the sticky counter, my voice low, and deadly. “You once thought she was yours to hurt.”
His brows knitted, confusion flashing across his intoxicated face. “She? What the fuck are you?—”
I bent closer, letting him see the truth in my glowing eyes. The hunger. The darkness. My fangs pressed against my lower lip, slicing the flesh. “It doesn’t matter because you’ll never hurt her or anyone else again.”
I left him on the barstool with his drink, his mouth still running, his hands already unsteady. But I didn’t leave the hunt. Outside, the night pressed close. I leaned back into the shadows of the alley across the street and waited.
The thought of him in her home curdled my blood. He had lingered there, watching, breathing her air as though she were his to take again. The minutes dragged, the muffled noise of the bar bleeding into the street until, at last, he stumbled through the door. Drunk. Careless and muttering to himself.
He never noticed me. Never sensed the danger he was in.
I followed him, keeping to the shadows until I was fast and swift and got ahead of him. I stayed hidden. The moment he passed the mouth of the alley, I made my move. My hand shot out, clamping his throat, dragging him into the dark. His heelsscraped the cobblestones as I hauled him deeper between the buildings.
He sputtered, panic rising as the darkness swallowed us whole. “W-what’s going on?”
I hissed, slamming him hard into the wall until his head cracked against the stone. “Ai vatamat-o. Dragostea vietii mele. Si nu e prima data. Acum cinci veacuri mi-ai tradat sângele si mi-ai rapit-o. Fata de ce ti-am facut atunci, moartea ta de acum va fi milostiva. Numai pentru ca voiesc sa ma întorc la muierea mea. Sa-ti putrezeasca oasele sub soare, blestemat fii, si sângele tau sa fie baut de corbi.”You hurt her. The love of my life. And this is not the first time. Five centuries ago, you betrayed my blood and stole her from me. Compared to what I did to you then, your death now will be merciful. Only because I wish to return to my wife. May your bones rot beneath the sun, be accursed, and may your blood be drunk by crows.
“W-what are you?” He stuttered out, wheezed as I squeezed his neck harder.
“I am Death.” His hands clawed at my wrist, nails breaking against my skin. His eyes bulged wild with confusion, but it only stoked the beast gnawing inside me. I pressed my fingers into his throat, letting my nails break skin. I listened to the frantic thumping of his heart.
I twisted his neck to the side, and then I struck.
My fangs ripped into the side of his throat with a savage tear, splitting flesh and vein in one violent pull. Blood burst against my face in a hot, metallic flood, spraying down my jaw and chest, filling my mouth before sliding down my throat. His scream was drowned in the wet gurgle of his own lifeblood.
He convulsed violently as I drank deeply, boots scraping against the stones as I sank my fangs into him further. His body buckled from the savagery. Laszlo clawed at me weakly,nails raking any part of me he could reach, but I drank deeper, swallowing his life in gulps.
And then the memories attacked me from the inside out. His blood carried me back. I saw torchlight, the great hall filled with voices. Raducel handing a goblet to my wife, his smile laced with violence and betrayal. Moments later, the men around us dropped, poisoned foam spilling from their lips. My wife had staggered, the cup falling from her hand, red wine spreading like blood on her dress. And Raducel? He vanished into the shadows while she fell.
The vision shifted to the castle pits, damp and stinking, Raducel’s life in my hands as I took from him what he’d taken from me. I remembered the sound of his last breath and the way my rage had consumed every shred of mercy. His betrayal was carved into me. And now here he was again, a different man, different life, but the same face and cruelty in his blood.
His taste was foul, rank with fear, and raw and bitter from the liquor. Despite that, I took it all. I wrung him dry because blood was blood, and it was power. His frantic heartbeat slowed, faltered, then stuttered.
Laszlo’s pulse struggled beneath my fangs, his lifeblood spilling into me like poisoned wine. With it came a torrent ofhismemories, fragmented visions crashing into my mind. Faces of countless women, broken beneath his cruelty. Their cries tangled with his hunger and endless need to dominate. They morphed and swirled with what Raducel had been. One in the same.
My fury burned through centuries as I drained, erased, and ended him a second time.
Each image seared into me, branding themselves inside of me, until I felt as though I bore the weight of every wound he had ever inflicted. The vileness of his life flooded my veins. No part of him would ever touch this world again.
