Page 15 of Forsworn By The Vampire
A scream began somewhere down in my gut, fighting its way up through the horror that froze my lungs. I smashed both hands over my mouth before it could escape, the dagger still gripped in my hand.
"This conversation isn't finished, witch."
The words came from directly behind me. I spun around, eyes wide and my hands still over my mouth, but we were alone in the graveyard.
The dagger fell to the ground as I dropped my arms to my sides and rushed over to Jamal, but I stopped just short of touching him. "Jamal?" His name was little more than a throaty whisper.
His only response was a sound somewhere between a groan and a growl, full of pain and...regret.
"I'll get you off of there," I swore. He would survive if I could just get him off of this damned fence. Right?
Right?
"He will," I told myself. "He's a goddamn fucking vampire. Nothing kills him."
"Leeloo..."
My eyes jerked up to his face. He didn't look so good. "Yeah?"
"Stop talking..." he took a shallow breath, "and get me down."
"Right." Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and felt for my magic. I was exhausted after fighting for my own life against the djinn, but it was still there. Just a smidgeon, but it was enough. Throwing a quick prayer to the gods, I drew it up from my core, feeling it tingle through my blood, flowing through my body, stretching toward the tips of my fingers and all the way down to my toes. I forced it outward until I found Jamal, and heard him curse as it touched him, surrounding his body. Carefully, I put some force into it as I tried to lift him off the spikes.
He cried out as I lifted him. I don't know how far I got before my muscles began to shake and I began to sweat with effort.
"Angel!"
My name was little more than a gasp and I opened my eyes. Jamal was still on the spikes, but the tips had disappeared somewhere inside of him. His head was raised, and his hands were gripped tight around the fence to either side of him as he tried to help me.
Holding him steady with my magic, I crouched down and got underneath him as close to the fence as I could, balancing him on my shoulder. Moisture seeped through layers of my clothes to wet my skin, and I knew from the coppery smell it was his blood. He was losing a lot of it. I needed to get him off this thing so he could heal himself. Using both physical strength and magic, I pushed up, my legs shaking with effort. Somehow, I managed to lift him up and off the spikes. With a grunt and a curse, he leaned forward, toppling over me and onto the ground.
As soon as he was off the fence, I fell forward and landed on my stomach on the ground, my entire body trembling with the effort it had taken me.
Jamal lay above my head, curled in on himself with his back up against the tomb across the path. A dark puddle formed beneath him, growing faster than the ground could absorb it.
I crawled closer to him, ignoring the moisture that seeped into the knees of my jeans, and peered at his face in the darkness. His eyes were closed and his dark skin ashen. "Jamal?"
His only response was a barely audible groan.
"What can I do?" I asked him.
He didn't answer.
Was it that he couldn't? Or he just didn't want to talk to me after he'd nearly gotten himself killed rushing to my rescue. "What the hell are you even doing here anyway? I didn't ask for your help, vampire."
There was no response.
Carefully, I reached toward him, checking his wrist for a pulse. I wasn't sure I felt anything, so I went for his neck. His nostrils flared as my hand got close to his face, and too late I remembered the gash in my palm made by the dagger when the djinn was throwing me around before suspending me in the air like a rag doll. The cut still burned from the magic the blade was infused with, and was still bleeding freely, though not nearly as bad as the vampire.
A low growl rumbled deep in his chest, and his eyes shot open. I stared into the dark orbs as they searched blindly for the food source he smelled, looking for the male I'd talked to before, but he wasn't there. There was no sign of anything human in those black depths. Only pain. Only hunger.
Ever so slowly, I started to inch my arm away from his mouth, afraid to move too quickly. Although we witches had lived with the vampires for many years now, I'd never seen one quite like this. I always thought they were more like the old Dracula movies when it came to seducing their prey to feed, not like this creature who was more animal than human.
His upper lip pulled back from his teeth, and long, white fangs lengthened before my eyes. An eerie hiss raised the little hairs all over my body and I froze. "Jamal?" I tried to talk to him, hoping maybe the sound of my voice would pull him out of this state he was in. "Hey! Jamal. Snap out of it, dude. I don't have the energy for this right now."
It was the truth. I was exhausted.
I started to set my arm down to rest on my thigh, and like a snake spotting a warm-blooded mouse, his eyes grabbed onto the movement and zeroed in on my hand.
