But I am not Nox.
I am something new.
And also something quite old, I suppose.
There’s a sluicing sound, the ripping of flesh and organs and sinew as I cleave the stake from my abdomen.
The pain threatens to flatten me, but I absorb it instead.
After all, I know exactly the sort of thing to assuage the pain.
I lock eyes with the man as he drags the girl toward the steps.
“You have to run. Blaise, listen to me. You have to run,” he says, as if he thinks it will help the girl’s survival chances.
“I can’t. My legs…” She half whines, half cries. Pitiful creature.
“There’s venom in his bite, a paralytic of sorts,” the male explains, but he shoves her up the stairs all the same. She stumbles to her hands and knees. “Crawl if you have to, while your limbs still work.”
The girl places a hand on the step above her, and one would think she’s lifting a boulder twice her size for how she grimaces, how she has to brace herself for the simple movement.
The male’s eyes go wide. He knows the girl is doomed to die.
I wait for him to run.
He doesn’t.
Instead, he gets on his hands and knees and cups the girl’s face. “The paralytic is psychosomatic, similar to lychaen venom. It only works because it makes your mind believe you’re paralyzed. Just like he made you believe you wanted to be bitten. But it’s all a lie. You can move.”
The girl is sobbing now. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t. Just run. Just go. You’ll die if you stay.”
The man looks back at me. He watches me stand and approach the bars. I let a smile curve at my lips.
I’ll catch up to him eventually when he runs, but I’d like to be alone with the girl.
He doesn’t take his eyes off me when he speaks to the girl again. “I’ll run when you make it to the top of the stairs.”
She sobs harder. “I can’t.”
“If you don’t, I die too.”
The girl lets out a howl so shrill, so pained, I’m shocked it doesn’t rip her vocal folds.
But she climbs.
On her bloodied hands and knees, but she climbs.
I can’t help but be impressed with her resilience.
Still, it’s all the same to me.
I don’t believe I’ve feasted on a stairwell yet.
Just for the thrill of it, I wait until I hear her labored breathing reach halfway up the staircase before I erupt.
In half a breath, the goblin iron bars are gone, brittle as burnt parchment in the wake of my bloodlust. In another, I’m striding across the threshold, eager to snap the male’s neck and get on with stalking my prey.
The fool steps in front of me like he thinks he can buy the girl time.
I can scent her now, her blood dripping down the staircase, like a carpet might mark the path of royalty during coronation.
I will take my time with this one.
My mouth waters as I take a step forward, as the thrill of the memory of my teeth digging into her flesh, sipping on the fine wine of her blood rushes through me.
I have not tasted a female so tender, so sweet.
My only regret is that I know I will not have the self-control to keep her. To chain her up and drink on her forever as her blood replenishes itself.
I will mourn her loss when the life fades from her eyes.
But I will erect a shrine to her tonight.
Already, my head is throbbing with desire, and it’s all I can do to maintain control of my limbs, to keep from rushing up the stairs and snapping her neck.
The blood will run cold too quickly if I do that.
I flash a grin at the man who believes he can stand in my way, believes he can fight me.
