Torn Asunder

Chapter 7 Dante

I found my victim outside a bakery. I couldn't read the word on the shop sign, but the faded smells my heightened senses detected the unmistakable patina of warm dough and pastry that was a universal sign of fresh bread and pies. I was sad that the smell no longer made me feel hunger or reminded me of trying to bake cookies in home economics with Valentine and never watching them so they always came out slightly burnt. Now the smell just irritated my nose because I was trying to focus passed it to smell her pulse in the air.

I could tell when someone was sick, they had this distinct, almost sour smell. The scent of someone high was more sickly sweet smelling, and a drunk smelled like their liquor of choice. This woman smelled like blankets warm from the sun that had been hung to dry outside. She lacked the smell of milk that the mother of children bore around her and I saw no ring on her finger. No one would miss this woman. Not for long anyways.

So I followed her disctreetly, letting the gift of my Family line help me Hunt. I was supposed to have this enhanced intuition on what my prey was going to do next. I was expecting something flashy and distinct. Maybe some clue that would make me aware that my special vampire powers were working. Instead I seemed to cross the street before she even started across, I cut us through a series of blocks and we ended up waiting for her to pass us again and finally, I knew when I tapped on her shoulder that I could charm her into letting me into the apartment complex when she went inside.

"Hi... I'm really sorry to bother you like this. But I'm lost. I was supposed to meet my friends at a little restaurant and I got turned around...." I smiled as I spoke, willing my cheeks go be a little pinker, as if I would normally blush when I did something less than cool.

Somehow she trusted my aura of harmless nice guy and let me follow her up so I could use her phone and 'call my friend's cell phone to get directions'. The moment she had the door open, I came up behind her and covered her mouth with my hand, taking us inside. Isabeau, my beautiful Master waltzed in a few minutes later. I had bitten this sweet woman, tasting her contented life in my mouth as I drank her life away. I stopped when Isa arrived, feeling her try to compell my arousal.

"My love, don't fight me." She cooed at me, coming up and breathing against my face. "I need to show Lucretia that I have control of you despite your twin. If I control you, she'll believe we'll control her too. Means we'll be able to bring your sister into our Family. She'll always be at your side my love. You just need to obey me." I loved my twin enough to sacrifice my pride. I would do this for her.

I kissed Isabeau and let her undress me. Then I called my monster out.

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I never expected it to be hard to willingly drain someone to death. It wasn't a moral issue, which made me feel like a horrible person. I was going to have to accept that I was a blood drinking monster. No, the hard part turned out to be keeping it all down once the woman was dead.

Depending on your fortitude, you can swallow around a pint of blood before your stomach starts to freak out and try to throw up so you become aware that there's a problem. There are 5.6 liters of blood in the human body and I hand drained the woman to her last drop. It wasn't all at once or else I'd have gotten sick earlier. There was sex in there as well. And the most twisted part of my new monstrous self? Before I killed the woman, I seduced her. Made her beg for sex and the pleasure of Feeding. It's addictive to humans. Isa watched every moment, encouraging me in my maddness. I think this is one of those experiences that I'm thoroughly grateful that Valentine wasn't sharing with me.

I made it out onto the street before my body rebelled at what had happened up in there. I started to cough and gag and fough the urge to do both. Isa rubbed my back and tried to call my Hunger to help me handle this, but it was satiated and I threw up the red liquid. I was shaking and weak, feeling even more ill instead of better. Isabeau brought me back to the hotel and settled me into the bed, tone worried and hands cool against my feverish skin.

I felt tears burn down my cheeks as a mild seizure wracked my body and I cried out, mentally and physically. Isa comforted my body, but Valentine soothed my mind. She was asleep, unaware of even letting me in to help me.

I knew the location she was dreaming about. It was a lake we'd visited as children once. There were amazing climbing trails in the hills, cliffs that we could fall off of and kill ourselves with and the endless horizon of water. This was the summer our parents let us have before enrolling us in different activities after school and in different camps during the summers afterwards. We were maybe ten and getting to the age where girls hung out with other girls and boys thought girls were weird and had cooties. I had spent most of the vacation hanging out with a couple of boys from the next cabin up the shore, but Valentine had had no other girls to hang out with. So she followed us around.

I complained with the other guys but somehow my twin had known that I loved having her around. When one of the others started to bully me too much, she always did something to pull the attention off me and onto her. She had been my secret super hero that summer and I loved her for it.

Seeing her dream of that summer and remember it with as much fondness as I held for it made me want to hug her close and promise her that once she was like me we could have lifetimes with us always being that close.

Peripherally I was aware of someone stroking a hand along my side. At first I assumed it was Isabeau, my love and Master trying to comfort and sooth my sick body. I was wrong. Too deeply rooted in my twin's mind, I couldn't flee without altering her to my presence. So while her lover Caleb petted her body, I had no recourse but to bury myself deeper into her mind and hope I could survive this experience. And a part of me hated that man for touching my Valentine. Hated him for waking her up from the dream she was having about us so he could take her. She was MY TWIN.

The rage bounced me out of my twin, waking me up to my own body. I could only hope to god I had fled before the rage hit or else Valentine might have been burned by it too. As it was I had a very startled looking Isa staring at me from across the room, beautiful face painted with her own blood. I'd attacked her. What was wrong with me?