Hunting Death

Chapter 26

"But?"

"But you're right, I never gave them a choice either, and that's not how Lucas taught me to live."

"I'm glad to hear you say that, but I'm still a little confused, what does that have to do with vampires? I mean, you said so yourself, you're a hybrid, you can survive off of meat, you don't even need blood."

"That's not quite what I said. I said we were able to survive off of meat, it's not the same though. Vampires can survive off of animal blood as well, but it doesn't quench their thirst, in fact, it makes it worse. Only the blood of humans can truly quell that urge. I can't imagine that sensation being full-blown, the need to feed so strong that you'd kill a person for it. That's where vampires and hybrids differ."

"Control?"

"Yes, control. A vampire often can't control himself when he feeds, it takes years of practice, and as you can imagine, the body count they leave behind can be staggering. It makes for an easy target, that's why most of them haven't survived. They aren't afforded the time to learn restraint. Hybrids have more control."

"You'd assume it would be the other way around." Madison mused.

"Why, because wolves are fierce predators?" Keith smirked, finally breaking through Madison's cold exterior and sensing her mood towards him shift a little, even if she refused to smile back. "Call it the gypsy magic if you must, but hybrids learn control faster, as I said, I've never killed anyone, but that doesn't mean I don't have the urge. Whereas a vampire usually feeds once or twice a week, I can stave off the hunger longer. Drinking pigs blood and eating raw meat affords me the ability to feed once or twice a month depending on how stressed out I am."

"So you still have to?"

"I still have to. After Cybil left me, I told myself I didn't want to be like her, the stories I can tell you Madison, you'd call me a saint, so I fed strictly on animals for the first two years after being turned, and let me tell you, It made me sick as hell. Kind of like the flu on steroids."

The thought of that made Madison queasy. "For two years?" She asked, her empathy flooding Keith's senses.

He nodded. "Yes. I felt sick every day. And the urge to drink human blood became nearly overwhelming. I'd look at a person, and hear their blood pumping, like sheer torture. But I fought it, and every day it got worse. It got to the point where I was almost delusional. Thank God I met Lucas when I did, or I might have snapped and killed someone."

"So this Lucas guy turned you on to groupies?" Madison said with a slight chuckle, though still a little put off by the idea of Keith drinking blood from helpless victims, she trusted him when he said he didn't realize how bad it looked from the outside.

"Yeah. He taught me how to read people, how to tell which ones would be easiest to exploit, and how to approach them. He showed me how to feed without hurting anyone. Lucas and his pack were a Godsend."

"You keep saying pack, do vampires really travel in packs?"

Keith laughed. "If you're imaging a motorcycle gang right now, I'm going to throttle you."

Madison pressed her lips together and closed her eyes, stifling her laughter.

"Vampires tend to travel in groups of three or more, hunter's call them nests. With lycans and hybrids, we prefer the term pack, and it usually consists of at least four or five members."

"And yet, you're alone? Why is that? Are hybrids and lycans as rare these days as vampires?"

"I'm what you would call an omega."