Bloodrush (4 page)

“It’s Romanian.”

David nodded eagerly, as if no one had ever said anything so astonishing. “Wow. Romanian. That’s super fantastic.”

She relinquished her grip on his wrist. “Look at her, David. I selected her just for you. Are you pleased with my choice?”

David nodded again. “Pleased. Yeah. That’s one word for it.”

“Then take her. Drain the life from her. Complete your transformation.”

David didn’t need to be told twice, even as her choice of words carved a niggling slice of doubt in what little remained of his conscience. Was she saying he wouldn’t fully be a vampire until he consumed the blood of an innocent? It seemed an obvious conclusion, but the fierceness of the ache churning in his belly rendered the question irrelevant. He was no longer capable of holding back.

He snarled and leapt upon the bound woman. Her eyes fluttered open as he shoved her legs apart and shoved his rigid cock deep inside her. She moaned as he moved inside her, becoming helplessly aroused by the invasion. David knew she’d be screaming and flailing at him if he was still a normal man. But he wasn’t normal. He wasn’t even really a man anymore. She sighed and strained toward him. He leered at her and opened his mouth wide. He felt a popping of jawbones as his mouth distended, felt his gums bulge as his teeth grew sharper and longer. His cheeks felt strangely elastic as his jaw dropped lower than humanly possible. He kept staring into the woman’s eyes, expecting to see terror bloom there any moment. But she seemed numb to the reality of what was happening to her. She looked drugged. Perhaps the effect of some vampiric pheromone. He had no way of knowing.

He slapped her. Hard. “Look at me.”

Her pupils remained dilated. Her smile was beatific. She moaned. “Yes. Yes. I see you.”

He slapped her again, much harder than before. Her eyes began to focus more sharply on him. Good. That was what he wanted. “I’m going to kill you.”

There it was. The terror.

It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

He ejaculated deep inside her as he snarled again and ripped out her throat. A jet of hot blood hit his face. The feel of it against his flesh was wonderfully warm. The bone-deep cold began to leach from his body. He clamped his mouth around the ragged wound, perfectly sealing it, and drank deeply from her. She moaned and writhed slowly against him, still aroused despite what was happening to her. He drank greedily, his throat bulging as he quickly suctioned every drop of blood from her body.

He rolled away from the corpse and sat up, grinning at Narcisa, who stood nearby with her arms folded beneath her breasts. She wasn’t smiling now. The coldly appraising expression he remembered from the shopping mall was back.

“Enjoy yourself?”

The grin wouldn’t leave his face. “Yes. God, yes.”

“Feel any guilt for the life you’ve taken?”

“None.”

She nodded. “Good. It’s finished, then. There’s nothing human left in you.”

“Good fucking riddance.”

Another nod. “Do you feel satisfied, as if you couldn’t possibly drink another drop?”

He shook his head again. “Not even close.”

Now she allowed herself a smile, a small one that slightly dimpled the corners of her mouth. “Care to join me in a hunting expedition?”

He surged to his feet and approached to within inches of her. He felt her cool breath on his cheeks, an indicator that she hadn’t imbibed since partaking of the gray-skinned woman. And that had only been a taste. She was ravenous. He could smell the need on her. Sniffing it reignited his own thirst.

“I’ll follow you anywhere.”

Her smile broadened. “Good.”

She clasped hands with him. A white radiance began to fill the cavern as the tactile world started to fade. This he remembered from those last moments on the bench at the shopping mall. He felt a little twinge of nervous anticipation as he realized what would happen next. The moments of fading consciousness, that strange sensation of ceasing to exist. He experienced a moment of the starkest terror as the process began, then relaxed as it continued, a numbness overtaking him as the world and consciousness itself faded…

7: INITIATION

He came out of the light and into the dark. There was a jarring sense of displacement, followed by a wave of disorientation. For a long, heart-pounding moment, he wasn’t sure who he was or what he was. He was just a thing in the darkness, possessed of a rudimentary consciousness but no deeper sense of self. There was something oddly comforting in that. Then it came to him. His name was David Rucker. He was a man. Or formerly a man. He was something else now. Something stronger. Something better.

Something hungry.

Always fucking hungry.

The darkness puzzled him. It was dark and someone was screaming. There was an obvious conclusion. She had been toying with him. There would be no hunt. No rampaging exercise in wanton, unrestrained slaughter. He was still in Narcisa’s secret place. He’d wind up chained to that cold cavern wall again, where he’d spend the rest of his miserable existence, gasping and starving from lack of—

The paranoia deserted him as his newly sharpened senses began to detect distinct differences between this place and that filthy cavern. They were in a house. A bedroom. Two figures writhed atop a dimly visible bed, covered by a single silk sheet. One of the figures, a woman, was screaming, but it was a sound of intense pleasure rather than pain. The air in the room was rich with an array of pungent odors, chiefly sweat and the musky scent of sex. He listened for a while as the couple on the bed fucked with admirable enthusiasm, both of them perfectly oblivious to his presence, at least for the moment.

He felt something touch his elbow.

Narcisa.

She smiled. “Kill them.”

The woman on the bed made another high-pitched sound, but this time there was a note of surprise mingled with the passion. The man atop her grunted and chuckled softly, the smugly satisfied sound of a man who believes he has just taken his woman to previously unattained erotic heights.

David took a step toward the bed. He could see better in the dark now. There was no artificial light in the room and only the dimmest diffused moonlight filtered through the closed window shades. Seeing anything should have been next to impossible. Yet the shape of the bed was now crisply defined within the gloom, as were the shapes writhing on the bed. The man and woman were both young and athletic. The man’s upper torso was heavily muscled, yet lean, likely the result of a balanced mix of cardio and strength training. The knowledge should have given him pause, but he felt no fear. Not the slightest flicker. This man would be a formidable opponent for any human assailant. But because David was no longer human, all he felt was a sense of heightened anticipation. In life, he would have been no match at all for this man. Now, though…now he would revel in tearing the smug son of a bitch to pieces.

The woman made a sharper, even higher-pitched sound of surprise. She was staring straight at him now, straining to make out the shape moving toward her in the darkness. David kept coming closer. The woman started pounding on her man’s back when he reached the edge of the bed.

“STOP! STOP!”

She was screaming yet again, but this time in sheer terror. Her lover stopped in mid-thrust and craned his head around to squint at the darkness. He let out a startled gasp that made David smile. The shape of his body would be visible now against the faint backdrop of the moonglow seeping in at the edges of the large window directly behind him. The man disengaged himself from his woman and spun around on the bed, priming his body for attack. The woman scrambled away from him, going for a nightstand next to the bed.

A light snapped on. A lamp with a heavy brass base. The woman was still in motion. She was a tall blonde, maybe an inch or two shy of six feet, lean and muscled like her lover. She also had enormous tits. Real ones, too. He could tell from the way they moved and jiggled as she strained and reached for the handle of a nightstand drawer. The drawer came open and out came a handgun. Some kind of automatic. David didn’t know much about guns, but he knew that

The man glared at him. “You people need to get out of here before we call the police.”

Narcisa approached the bed, propped a bare knee on the edge of the mattress. “No one’s calling the police tonight, dear.”

The blonde waved the automatic at her. “Off the bed or I’ll fucking shoot you both.” Her lithe, toned body glimmered in a sheen of sweat, a result of the interrupted erotic exertions with her husband, boyfriend, whoever the fuck he was. The sight of her glistening skin stirred something in David, almost to the point of distraction. His eyes narrowed to slits as they traced the lines of her luscious curves. Drool collected at the corners of his mouth.

And now the woman was scowling at him, a mixture of alarm, disgust, and disdain flashing in her eyes.

David stroked his chin and continued to ogle the blonde woman. All he could think of was how much he’d love to feel those giant tits crushed against his chest. Only thing better would be the subsequent feel of her mangled flesh sliding down his gullet followed by the warm rush of her blood.

A blur passed before David’s eyes. He heard a loud snap, followed by an agonized cry. The gun went spinning across the room. It banged against a closet door and dropped to the carpeted floor with a quiet thump. And now the blonde woman’s right wrist was broken and hanging at an obscenely unnatural angle. She scooted backward in the bed, cradled her mangled limb against her chest, and screamed. The man tumbled sideways, falling prone on the far side of the bed. He gaped at the sight of his woman’s broken wrist. His gaze jumped from Narcisa to David and back again, his face a study in wide-eyed, uncomprehending horror. He was a classically handsome type, with a chiseled jaw, piercing blue eyes, and short, spiky hair. The good looks and the athletic physique made him the kind of guy David would normally envy and even kind of hate. David knew he was okay-looking enough in his own right, but nowhere near this dude’s league. This was the kind of guy who would always have whatever he wanted. Nice clothes, nice house, nice car, good job, and, of course, the hottest girl around. And he would certainly have more than enough scratch to buy that girl the flashiest, most expensive engagement ring possible, the kind David had been so desperate to give Janine.

Janine. Jesus
.

It was the first he’d thought of her since being released from the chains. Thinking of her was like a slap in the face. A hard one. The terrified man’s expression changed, became almost hopeful. Which was ridiculous. He was going to die. How could he not know that? But Janine’s abrupt intrusion into David’s thoughts must have caused his face to convey doubt about what he was doing. And, in fact, it did stir a mild flicker of conscience. He experienced a dizzying moment of surreality, during which it struck him as insanely absurd that he was a participant in an apparent torture-murder scenario. The sensation deepened as he imagined what Janine would think if she could see him now.

Mr. GQ slithered off the bed, stood erect, and backed up until he was against the wall. He glanced nervously to his left, where the bedroom door stood open. Any moment now he’d be making a dash for it.

David gave his head a hard shake, clearing it—at least temporarily—of thoughts of Janine. A nasty, smirking half-smile twisted one side of his face. “Not thinking of making a run for it, are you?”

The man was shaking. Tears leaked from his eyes. “Please. You don’t want to do this. I know it…I—”

“You don’t know shit.”

The man must have read something else in his expression now, because he dropped any further pleas for mercy and made an abrupt break for the door. David hurried after him, tackling him in the hallway. He was laughing as he took the man down, an evil, nasty madman’s cackle. He’d never moved so fast when he was alive. The man was screaming and thrashing, but David held him down easily, savoring the feel of the struggling thing beneath him. That’s what humans were to him now. Things. And this son of a bitch certainly wasn’t his superior in any way that counted at this point. His charmed life was over. No amount of money or charisma could save him from his fate.

David dragged the guy back through the open doorway and flung him across the bedroom. One problem. He’d held onto the guy’s wrist too tightly and his arm came off at the socket. A bright arc of blood spattered the bed, the ceiling, Narcisa, and the woman with the broken wrist as the man’s body flew through the air and smashed against the far wall. Narcisa was off the bed in an instant, eager to drink deeply from the man’s severed arteries before he could bleed out. Her mouth opened and elongated before clamping over the wound. The man’s head thumped back against the wall and his eyes glazed over as Narcisa fed, quickly draining the life from him.

The woman’s screaming was getting louder and shriller. She sounded like a goddamned air raid siren. Time to put a stop to that. David didn’t know where this house was or how close it was to its nearest neighbor, but it couldn’t be a good idea to let that continue. He jumped on the bed and pounced on her, slapping a hand over her mouth. Her eyes bulged from their sockets as she continued to scream against his palm, which effectively muffled the shrill sounds. He positioned himself comfortably atop her, utilizing his vampire’s strength to pin her in place, then he used his free hand to grip her broken wrist and twist it even further out of shape. He heard a grinding sound. Bones twisting and cracking. But he was careful not to use too much force. He wanted to hurt her, but he didn’t want her hand to snap off. He wasn’t ready to make her bleed out just yet. He wanted this to last.

An image of Janine’s face abruptly appeared in his head..

His body abruptly went rigid.

I’m a monster. Oh, Jesus, I’ve become a fucking monster
.

For a single flashing second, he felt like crying. But the pang of conscience was even shorter-lived this time. He made a mental note to quiz Narcisa later regarding how long he could expect to deal with these lingering traces of departed humanity. They were a serious drag as they were happening and were getting in the way of his fun. Just as her man had done, the woman detected the brief flicker of doubt by looking in his eyes. She stopped struggling.

Which was awfully considerate of her.

David’s mouth snapped open, jaw unhinging as his teeth sharpened and lengthened. The woman’s eyes went wide again. David tore a side of her slender throat open and clamped his mouth over the ragged hole. A hot gusher of blood filled his mouth and he drank deeply of it, greedily, as if he could never get enough. Which, come to think of it, was probably true. He drank and drank, keeping at it as the woman’s body went still beneath him, until after she was dead and he’d suctioned out the very last drop. Sated, he pushed himself away from her and sat back on the bed, resting his head against the headboard. He felt warmer than he’d felt since the change. There wasn’t the slightest trace of a chill. He smiled and savored the feeling, knowing it wouldn’t last nearly long enough.

Narcisa crawled onto the bed, slithered over to him and straddled him. Her voice was a husky, hot whisper against his ear as she leaned into him, brushing his chest with her erect nipples.

“Fuck me.”

David smiled. “Mmm…okay.”

She mounted him, guiding his rigid cock up inside her wet center. Within a few moments, there was screaming in the room again. More than once as their lovemaking continued, David snuck glances at the dead woman next to him.

Stared at her unmoving eyes.

It made it better.

* * *

They fucked another time before leaving the house, this time in the shower with the water cranked to its hottest temperature. The scalding water sluiced the blood from their bodies as they writhed against each other and hungrily clawed at one another. Sharpened nails opened gouges in their flesh that wept blood but healed instantly. It was the most intense sex David had ever experienced and as it was happening he wished it would never end. While it was happening, Janine didn’t exist. Nothing mattered but Narcisa and this incredible experience they were sharing.

But it did end and, inevitably, thoughts of Janine returned.

And this time they didn’t abate instantly.

They were back in the bedroom now, sifting through the dead couple’s respective wardrobes in search of suitable clothing. The blonde’s clothes were a little big for Narcisa, who was shorter and more slightly built, but the difference wasn’t so pronounced that she couldn’t wear them. David and the dead man were the same approximate height, but Mr. One Arm had been thinner and his clothes were a snug fit. However, they would do until he found more appropriate attire.

Narcisa watched him as he sat on the edge of the bed and tried on a selection of the dead man’s shoes. “You’re thinking about her.”

David grunted. “Huh. You can still read my thoughts, even though I’m like you now, but I can’t read yours.”

“I’m many hundreds of years older than you. It will be a long while before you are able to read anyone’s thoughts, let alone mine.” She pursed her lips. “And you’re evading the question.”

Another grunt. “I wasn’t aware there was a question. Sounded like a statement to me.” The athletic shoes he’d slipped on were too small. He tossed them aside and tried on a pair of hiking shoes, brown Timberlands. “But, yeah, you’re right. I can’t seem to keep her out of my head. She just keeps popping back in. It bugs the shit out of me.”

“Oh?”

Narcisa’s tone was neutral, but David knew he had to tread carefully here. She’d already made it abundantly clear there could be no room in his life for anyone other than her. Which, now that he was able to think about it with a clearer head, was sort of strange, considering she’d only set eyes on him for the first time less than a day ago.

Unless—

He frowned.

Unless that wasn’t the case at all. It really didn’t make sense that she’d focused on him so intently after chancing upon him randomly. Otherwise he’d be just another dead body piled atop a towering mountain of carcasses in her secret place.

“I’ve been watching you for months.”