Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106107 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 531(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 354(@300wpm)
“When did he leave?”
“Over a month ago,” he says in a quiet voice. He sighs softly. “He would be quite disappointed in me if he knew what I was doing.”
“And what are you doing?”
He glances at me out of the corner of his eye. “Keeping a woman as livestock.”
I swallow uneasily. That is what I am, isn’t it? First, he saw me as an animal, a creature, and now, even with legs, his view of me hasn’t changed.
“What would Abe tell you to do?” I ask, trying to appeal to this moral compass Priest has lost sight of. Would he tell you to let me go? I think hopefully.
“Abe would tell me to kill you,” he says plainly. “Alas, he isn’t one for sentiment. He’s a doctor. He would tell me to kill you and be done with it, then continue to hunt in the villages or in the native settlements for my prey, just as he would do for me.”
Alright. Perhaps Priest needs a new compass.
“And my blood allows you not to hunt.”
His mouth twists. “Your blood gives me more vitality than I thought possible. Beyond that, I can go for weeks without another drop. By keeping you, by feeding from you every now and then, you’re saving a lot of that humanity you learned about. Jorge would be proud.”
“Don’t bring his name into this, trying to justify what you’re doing.”
He shrugs. “Fine. But I can justify it. And if you cared about human life at all, you would appreciate it.”
“Well, I don’t care about human life,” I tell him. “If you’ve forgotten already, I eat humans.”
“You did,” he points out. “Would you have eaten Jorge?”
I jerk my chin back at the question. “Of course not.”
“Then there are some humans you care about, aren’t there?”
I ignore that. Jorge was the exception.
“So how many of your kind are there in the world?” I ask, switching the subject. “Are you all priests and doctors? Are you all trying to battle some monster inside?”
He gives me a measured look. “There are monsters inside everyone, Larimar. The only difference is we’re the only ones who know how to deal with them.” He pauses. “But no, most of us aren’t priests. Only the ones at the monastery. But we were a different…breed.”
“What does that mean?”
His sun-bright blue eyes stare at me for a moment, and I feel unsteady, like the room has started to spin. It’s hard to tell if it’s the wine or if he’s trying to do some sort of magic on me.
But then the sensation stops, and he looks away, letting out a long exhale, running his slender fingers over the shiny fabric of the dresses we’re sitting on.
“They say there is a name for us now,” he says in a low voice. “Vampyres. We’ve always called ourselves bloodsuckers, blood-drinkers. The fact that there is a name for us is troubling. It means the humans are starting to catch on.”
“I’m sure they’ve noticed people going missing, drained of blood with teeth marks in their neck,” I comment.
“We know to be careful,” he says quickly. “Or, should I say, most of us do. When I say I’m part of a different breed, I’m part of the ones who aren’t careful. You see, there are two ways Vampyres are created. The first and most common is that you are born to Vampyre parents. If you’re a female, you turn into a Vampyre at the age of twenty-one. If you’re a male, you turn at thirty-five. But you are born knowing what you are, and you are raised accordingly. You know how to hunt, you know how to blend in with humans. These are the ones who walk amongst everyone else.”
He pauses for a moment, eyes seeming lost. “Then there are…the beasts. The monsters. The ones who were born human and turned into a Vampyre by another bloodsucker. They are killed and brought back to life by drinking the blood of the Vampyre who slaughtered them. When this happens…you are born a creature of Hell. You have no mind, no conscience. You are pure power and bloodlust, and you don’t even look human anymore. It’s these creatures who kill indiscriminately, without mercy. They are hard to control, even harder to kill, and they become the subject of every frightening bedtime story told to children.”
Priest looks at me, his eyes taking on a red sheen I hadn’t seen before, his mouth opening into a gruesome, fanged smile. “Want to guess which one I am?”
Fear runs down my spine like an icy finger. For the first time, I actually fear him. For the first time, I realize his monster isn’t a figure of speech.
“But you’re…” I whisper.
“A priest,” he says matter-of-factly, the redness disappearing from his eyes. “The monastery was started by Abe and a few other Vampyres to take care of creatures like us. He figured it wasn’t our fault that we were turned. All Vampyres know the consequences, but not all Vampyres are good. Some only want chaos. I was turned by one called Kaleid, who led his band of bloodsuckers across the middle of Spain to create an army of killers. I suppose he succeeded. He just happened to pick a witch when he did it.”