Chapter 14: Soul
Slowly, and with what felt like a heavy, ice-cold heart, I lowered my mouth to hers. Knowing that this was the last time I could do this, I kissed her slowly, deeply. I even let her tongue brush against mine for the tiniest second when she reached for it before withdrawing from her lips completely. Mentally shaking my head at how I was protecting her tongue from my venom when it would soon enter her entire system, I kissed the corner of her mouth, her jaw, under her chin, her throat and then moved to the side of her neck.
The instant my teeth punctured her skin, the venom fired into her body. I almost felt stung by the jerking movements her limbs made at the pain of being bitten and then poisoned.
Just as instantly, she went limp. The venom has an incapacitating effect at the same time that it burns your veins.
Because I was focusing on her reactions, I noticed the burning of my own lips a little too late. I should have just bitten her and removed my lips immediately. But they had remained in place. It felt like my lips were on fire. When I sunk my teeth into her, Ellie’s blood had gushed out and coated my lips. Some of it washed over my teeth and welled in the space around them.
“Aargh!” I growled at the pain and also the pleasure.
Her blood was like liquid fire and also like liquid bliss. It tasted so sweet. Sweeter than any human I’d ever fed on. I swallowed some of it and it incinerated my mouth and throat as it went.
But it tasted so good.
Almost as good as the feeling I got when I made love to Ellie.
Instinct took over and I began to drink.
Even though I knew it would kill me.
I couldn’t help myself; she was just too delicious to describe. I had only bitten her to save her from her end, but I was ending her to feed myself.
Saving her was the last thing on my priority list at that moment.
Far, far, far behind the top priority: drinking her.
The demon inside us takes over when we eat. The beast, the monster, controls our every thought and action. The animal, the predator within becomes us and we lose ourselves to the moment. The tastier the blood, the hungrier we become for more. If there are other humans nearby, we’ll take them too.
It’s like we’re possessed.
As I sucked the poison blood and let it burn it’s way down my throat, I thought it was so worth it. It was worth deciding not to kill her. Worth deciding to turn her into an immortal. Worth letting the vampire in me feast on her.
Her blood was worth dying for.
When I gave my all into furiously dragging the red nectar to my mouth, Ellie sighed. It was a content sound, similar to ones she’d let out when we slept together. That reminded me of how content I’d been in her arms. How wonderful it was when she curved her arms around me. How lovely her soft warm skin felt under my fingers. She was truly stunning.
I couldn’t get enough of her.
And now I’d never have anything of hers. She’d be gone. I’d be her killer. Her end, something I thought right down to my core I could never be.
Silly, I know, but for some reason I decided that the bright light that had filled me earlier was something close to my… soul? It had filtered right down to my chest and I imagined it melting my ice-cold heart, bringing it back to life. If it wasn’t my soul, it was definitely something and it was inside me, right where my heart is.
My heart didn’t want to destroy Ellie.
When she sighed again, I realised I was still feeding on her, my reflexes taking over while I was lost in thought. I wanted to see her face, the expression on it. I’d repeatedly fantasised about the look she’d wear on her baby-face while I drank her. Now though, I just couldn’t stop from sucking on her neck. The monster was controlling that side of me and as I thought about regaining control, pushing the beast aside, I moaned internally at having to give up such heavenly blood.
That’s when I hated myself for what I was doing to her, even though she seemed to be enjoying it. I knew she was still burning from my venom. Just like I was burning from her poison. I deserved it. Deserved to burn with her.
But if I kept drinking her, both of us would die.
If I stopped, she’d become the vampire I’d intended to make her and I would die.
She’d be the end of me.
Not necessarily, the strange voice in my mind informed me. I recalled what else it had said when I was drowning in the blinding light. Bite her once and cough out any blood that makes it down your throat, it had instructed. Yes, that was the plan but I wasn’t favouring it so much anymore. I wanted to die for taking away her humanity, her soul.
For taking her away from me.
When she became a vampire, she couldn’t stay with me, I couldn’t stay with her.
The next second, I growled in true agony. Survival instincts kicked in and I jerked away from her, rolling onto my side of the bed. The flames I had been happily enduring to savour the taste of her delightful blood exploded like a bomb inside me. Somehow, it felt like I had heartburn.
My chest was on fire.
My heart was on fire.
I pushed my cold hands to the spot where the heat was most acute but it didn’t lessen anything. Rolling off the bed, I landed on the floor and crawled into a ball, trying not to scream.
It was her blood. Poison Blood. It had made its way down to my ribcage and set alight my heart, wanting to turn it to ashes as it burned its way to the core. My core. My… soul. Or whatever that light was.
Ellie.
The name wasn’t uttered by that strange voice, or by me. It was more like a deep-rooted knowledge that flowed through all of me.
The light wasn’t my soul, it was Ellie. What I felt for her. Bright and pure and beautiful.
And if it was my soul then Ellie was it too.
But the poison was tainting the light. I couldn’t let that happen. As much as I wanted to punish myself, I still couldn’t entertain the idea of not being able to protect Ellie’s light. Writhing in pain and ablaze on the inside, as though I was a human bitten by a vampire, I crawled over to my jeans and T-shirt and put them on.
Without stealing a single glance at Ellie who was writhing in agony too, I darted out the door, locking it behind me. Remembering there was a small pond in the garden belonging to the house above this basement flat, I rushed over to it and began hurling out all the poison I’d consumed.
Unlike vampire venom which converts humans into vampires, healing any wounds and broken bones along the way, changing soft tissue and skin into marble-hard surfaces that sparkle in the sunlight, the Slayers’ poison blood literally burns vampires to ashes.
From the inside out.
Whereas the burning feeling is merely figurative for humans bitten by us, the poison blood acts as a solvent to my kind.
Shortly after I’d thrown up all the blood from my system, my head felt light, almost dizzy. Vampires do not feel this kind of dizziness! What was happening to me? Was I going to die anyway?
I was sure that I’d vomited out all the poison before it could do any serious damage and yet my chest felt a little hollow. Like a hole had been burned into my heart. The kind you’d see if someone extinguished their cigarette on your skin.
Collapsing onto the grass as my head turned completely weightless, I struggled to keep my eyes open.
The bright light was back again, glowing in my heart like a lamp nestled in the empty space Ellie’s poison had left behind.
And there she would remain for eternity.
A short eternity, because I knew this was the end of me.