Allison

"That settles it then!"

The weight of what I agreed to barely has time to settle on my chest before Lazarus is on his feet and sauntering towards me. He strides past his fellow council members, past Hansen whose seething on the floor on his knees, and right up to me with his arms spread wide.

"Dear girl, speak. What is your name?" He asks me, a pale hand reaching below my chin to force my gaze with his.

"Allison." I breathe, the effort to speak almost costing me too much. I feel unbearably weak. My mind is racing through my life as if there's anything to revisit.

As if all of my memories aren't as broken and hallow as my attackers now lifeless body.

A thought flashes through my mind that causes a familiar heat to spread through my limbs. The kind of heat that always makes my body tingle and throat grow raw with bile. The inhuman reaction that always fills my limbs with fire in moments like these.

Anger.

I'm in this town because of Warner. I was at that damn club because of Warner.

And I'm losing my life as I know it because of that... that...

"Dog."

The world slips out before I have time to force it down, my feminine voice thick with hatred.

"What was that?" Loric's ears twitch and he perks up in his seat as though I've just called his name. My eyes dance back to Lazarus's and I can see him swallowing a grin, having enjoyed my vocal outburst.

"Nothing to concern yourself with, Loric," Lazarus explains, waving a lazy hand back towards whis cohort who seems the least bit amused.

"Ah Allison. You will do so well among us. I can see behind your beautifully broken eyes to your soul, sweet girl." Lazarus licks his lips, his fangs protruding every so slightly as he does.

"A fire burns there. Humanity doesn't suit you. You're special. I can feel it in my immortal blood." Lazarus eyes rake over my entire being now, and I shudder as I watch his brows furrow and linger just a moment on my swollen and slightly exposed chest through ripped cotton fabric.

"It's really such a shame that Hansen has to change you. I'd love to do it. You really do smell oh so delicious. Almost like a w-"

"Enough!" Lucinda's voice breaks Lazarus's lewd monologue and tears his attention away from me.

"Keep your perversions to yourself and lets be done with this." Lucinda seems rather put out as she regards the situation.

Sorry I'm not dying fast enough for you.

I think bitterly as I wait for Lazarus to go back to his marbled throne.

My eyes find Hansen whose staring at me with ferocious intent. He's livid. I don't need to know him well to understand the black inky haze filling his eyes, or recognize the way his brow is scrunched up and hooding his stare.

I've agreed to the only solution that allows us to both leave alive - or well, alive enough- and yet he seems to want no part of it.

This is my only option, can't he see that?

For the first time tears wet my eyes and slowly leak down my face.

Can't he see that I'm terrified?

None of this is supposed to exist. I was supposed to be headed towards the west coast by now, not on trial for almost being raped by a criminal and then saved by a vampire.

My head throbs. This has to be a joke. A morbid dream created by my own tormented psyche.

I'm still at the hotel asleep on that plush mattress. I must be.

"On your feet Hansen Bane." Loric growls, his patience wearing thin.

I pinch myself, but I don't wake up.

Hansen clambers to his feet, his deadpan expression glued to me. His fists are clenched at his sides, and his upper lip is twitching with regretful anticipation.

I pinch myself harder. I'm still here.

As much as I can tell he doesn't want to, Hansen complies and sets off towards me, the features of a predator over taking the once troubled handsome features of a man.

Hansen takes a rigid step towards me and it immediately causes me to take a reactionary step backwards, but there's no where to go. The pillar I had been caged to just moments ago is still behind me.

There's no where to run. This is my fate.

Every monster movie I have ever seen starts playing in my head and there's only one consensus that the writers seem to reach.

Vampire bites hurt. Sharp thick needles puncture your skin and suck your blood like a silly straw while you writhe and scream out in pain. Scream to be saved, for mercy.

But there will be no mercy for me.

Hansen closes the distance between us in long strides, no remorse or kindness anywhere to be found in his eyes. His shoulders are hunched forwards as if he's already given up. The fight has left his body and all that's left is the husk of a broken man.

Just how broken I wasn't sure yet.

What had he been begging Lucinda for? The salvation of his soul? To be reunited with her? Who is she? Perhaps one day I'll find out so long as I survive what fate has in store for me tonight.

He looks at me as though I'm the most vile thing he's ever laid eyes on. I'm not sure how long I stare into his pitch black gaze, but eventually he opens his mouth and chokes out one last bitter farewell.

"You'll wish you whould have just let me die."

I open my mouth to respond but what comes out can hardly be considered language, English or otherwise.

A gargled cry sticks in my throat and my body seizes. The murky sound of my scream reverberates through the deafening quiet of this granite prison like nails on a chalk board.

Seething, searing, unparalleled agony engulfs my senses, and I can just barely feel the burning wet tears as they stain my cheeks.

A wet and sticky sensation clings to my throat and rolls down to my shirt, pooling on my chest like a scarlet letter.

Blood.

A firm presence is latched to my front, cut muscles and thick biceps holding me in place. My heart beat is so violent that it's bruising the inside on my ribs, and I'm so certain that at any moment it will give up, and I'll suck in my very last wanton breath.

My eyes clamp shut as I whimper and moan from a pain the likes of which I've never experienced before. Like a thousand knives slicing open my body, I howl out my discomfort. Nothing could ever compare to the pitiful shell my body has been reduced to.

Then as suddenly as it had come it was gone. A wave of unrelenting calm now spreads through me like a numbing shot of novicane.

Like a vaccine targeted at my jugular vein, a bolt of icy liquid pumps into my wounded neck and sends me reeling through a series of mind shattering feelings.

My head feels instantly numb and wobbles and rolls around like a bobble head, my neck useless as Hansen devours the tender flesh.

Raw masculine grunts echo from his throat and his hands suddenly grip me tight at the waist, the pressure from his fingers causing a dull ache to linger on my hips.

Then my legs buckle and my mouth falls open.

"Oh god." I cry out as I grip Hansen's arms, pawing at anything that can keep me grounded. Every nerve in my body is firing. Every inch of my skin is tingling and alert.

Does he feel this too? The pulsating electricity reeking havoc on my body and my sanity?

My thighs clamp shut to release the tension building between them.

What is happening to me?

I've felt this feeling before, but those circumstances were so much different than these.

I was on my back on a lumpy twin mattress and riding out the high of prom night with a shot of tequila I'd stollen from my foster parents liquor cabinet, and a football player named Tony.

But this is somehow so much more intimate. I've never felt so vulnerable in all my nineteen years, so vulnerable and so desperately feminine.

Like endless waves of pleasure, Hansen steals my life with his lips and drinks in the essence of who I am, who I was, and anything I could ever be.

My mind slips into a half delirious half alert state. The line between dead and alive feels non existent as I grasp to these last fleeting moments of humanity.

Something animalistic has replaced Hansen's voice as he lets out serval profanities. His bloody mouth detaching from my sore neck, no doubt lingering in my mind that I've lost enough blood to die.

Hansen is coated in the vibrant red evidence that he's taken my humanity and torn it to shred. His eyes are swimming with drunken sin as he looks at me, a devilish scowl on his face as he licks the remnants of my blood off on his cherry stained lips.

My heart is beating so fast as I teeter on worthless legs.

Pounding pounding pounding out a frantic rhythm of survival until suddenly the pounding stops.

I barely have time to think my last conscious thought before my body does one last involuntary spasm and everything goes black.

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