Page 32 of Love Bleeds
Crimson wished he had any clue what the two of them were talking about.
He also wished Luke would disappear, and this wish only intensified when Nicolai let go of his shoulder to approach the mortal instead.
Luke took a step back at the same time. It seemed he was finally coming to his senses.
"You should make a good meal," Nicolai said, reaching one hand out to Luke.
Luke's eyes widened in panic, but he didn't move. At the very least, he didn't move away. One of his hands pulled something out of his pocket, though. A stake. Crimson caught a glance of the object as Luke tried to ram it through his sire's chest.
Nicolai was too quick for him. He caught Luke's wrist and squeezed until he dropped the weapon with a yelp. Crimson wanted to jump forward to defend Luke--consequences be damned--but Nicolai held his other hand out to him, as if he could sense Crimson's rebellion. "Stay," he commanded.
Crimson's body froze in place.
His sire opened his mouth to show his fangs, and the next moment, they sank into Luke's neck.
Luke's body grew limp in Nicolai's hold. His eyes fell closed as the color drained from his skin. Crimson couldn't stop watching, both his sire’s command and his own horror keeping him in place. He'd seen this before. Often enough to know that if Nicolai didn't let go soon, he would suck all the life out of Luke. "You have to stop!"
His sire's gaze flickered to him, and then, he actually removed his lips from Luke's neck. Luke's eyes didn't open, though, and Nicolai didn't let go of him. Crimson held his breath as his sire's lips curved up in a cruel smile. "You know, I've said I need him alive, but that's such a loosely defined term, wouldn't you agree?"
A loosely defined term? Crimson stared at Nicolai in shock as he realized what his sire was about to do.
The same damn thing he'd done to Crimson.
Crimson had to stop it. He had to.
But still, he couldn't move.
He was powerless to do anything but watch as is his sire sank his teeth into Luke's neck again to make him one of them. "Luke!" he called out, as if that would do anything, but his voice was the one thing that hadn't been taken from him yet. Nicolai hadn't commanded him to be silent, and he wasn't going to be.
Luke didn't respond to his calls, though. He remained completely still as Nicolai drank his blood.
Had Crimson looked the same way? He knew that his victims sometimes did. His stomach turned, even though there was nothing in it for him to throw up.
Nicolai lowered Luke's still form to the ground.
"Get away from him, you sick bastard!"
Nicolai ignored Crimson's demands as he raised his wrist to his mouth and tore it open with his fangs. He pressed the bleeding wound to Luke's mouth.
Crimson wished he could tell Luke not to drink, but what was the alternative? If Luke didn't rise as a vampire now, he would die. It was already too late for him, the blood loss too great. Crimson knew all that, and still, he couldn't bear the thought of Luke walking the earth as a vampire, feeding off innocent people.
He couldn't bear the thought of seeing Luke under Nicolai's command.
He didn't know whether to be relieved or horrified when Nicolai cursed. Both of those emotions warred within him, overshadowed only by the steady drum of fear growing louder and louder in the back of his head. Because no matter how this was going to end, it wasn't going to end well.
"He won't drink," Nicolai said.
Crimson's heart dropped, his stomach clenched. "You killed him!" And there was another emotion, rising over the fear. Rage. Pure, unadulterated rage. At the man who'd turned him into a vampire, who was trying to do the same to Luke, and failing, leaving his friend to die on the cold ground as if he wasn't the brightest light in the solar system.
The brightest light in the solar system...
Crimson wasn't sure where that thought had come from, but he knew immediately that this was how he used to think of Luke. That it fit.
Only now his sun was fading out.
"I don't understand..." Nicolai straightened, his eyes never leaving Luke. "He didn't drink, but he grew fangs. How curious. It must be his genes."
Crimson bared his own fangs. He wasn't sure why. It wasn't like he could tear Nicolai's throat out the way he wanted to while he was still chained in place by his sire's command, but the need to do anything at all was too great to do nothing. His feet wouldn't move, but he managed to stretch his hand out to his sire. Just like that time Nicolai had shown him how to send small objects flying. His sire wasn't a small object, but Crimson wanted to fling him aside anyway. Smack him out of orbit and face-first into the nearest meteor.
