Blood Slave

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Memories in Blood

My body tenses up slightly as I look over at Dutch while he drives. "I've been bitten only once when I was nine-years -old."

His brows scrunch together. "How did it feel?"

I chew the inside of my cheek before answering. "It was actually very painful. I think because I was so young, it had something to do with it. I haven't been bitten since... That was the day Balius found me."

"Hm..." Dutch's eyes narrow slightly. "I'm glad it hurt. You don't want to know how it feels any other time."

"I know... I've seen it," I mumble quietly. "Everybody enjoys it..." I shift uncomfortably in my seat on this topic.

Dutch clears his throat slightly. "I've been bitten plenty of times. Back when I was very human, back before I knew what I really was, I was bitten a bunch of times. I was..." he pauses to scowl. "I was very addicted to it. When I became how I am today... When I became strong, I had a vamp bite me because I just... I wanted to feel it again, but when the vamp bit me..."

I lean over towards him with anticipation. "What happened?"

He glances over at me before looking back at the road to drive. "It hurt. It was very painful. It was then I realized that the vampire's saliva is only a way to paralyze their victim while it feeds. There's nothing 'romantic' about the vampire bite. It's a predatory advantage over the prey. It's to keep the prey down while the predator feeds..." he trails off slowly. "A person I loved very much thought her owner was being kind to her, but it was only the saliva."

I couldn't help but feel a ting of jealousy when he said that. What person? I didn't know Dutch- No. I didn't know Zuriel could love someone, but then again, he had human in him.

"Who was she?" I ask him quietly.

Dutch frowns deeply. "She was my sister."

Damn... Way to make me feel completely stupid. I feel really fucking stupid now. I wasn't sure who it might have been, and of course I wouldn't because I really don't know much about him.

TEGAN

It's been a couple of days just trying to track down Zuriel's movements. Helios has been acting strange lately. His little companion Nix is breaking down quickly for some reason. He can see Sebastian, and it's bothering him in some way, I guess.

We sit in Amaranth's dark, dank house with Angser, Helios, and Leah. Gadriel left and hasn't come back since he has his teacher job. Leah is here because Amaranth needed her to try and classify what Zuriel is, but the problem is, we don't know what all he can do. There's probably more about him that we still don't know. He may not even know some things about himself.

And Amaranth's house is just gross. There's jars of organs and all kinds of shit is sitting in this weird-smelling house. It reeks of dark magic like Amaranth.

Leah's brown eyes narrow as she leans over the desk I'm sitting at to get a closer look at Nix as he sits in a chair beside Helios. The boy's dark skin is flustered, paler, and his eyes have sunken in his sockets a bit like he's been drained.

"What's wrong with you?" Leah asks with concern as she tilts her head to the side slightly.

Nix shakes his head as he leans against Helios for support and looks over at him. "I'm not really sure," he admits quietly.

Amaranth clears her throat as she flips through a dusty, old book and paces behind Leah. "He can see ghosts. There's a floater in here. It's kind of hard for him to focus since he can sense the ghost." She frowns slightly. "Humans with those kind of gifts do not last very long. Most of the time, they commit suicide since it does become too much."