Total pages in book: 209
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 196141 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 981(@200wpm)___ 785(@250wpm)___ 654(@300wpm)
“It is superb you did,” Salazo goes on, as if not hearing the protest or else ignoring it outright. “Had you not stopped my pet, he would certainly have fled all the way back home, out of my grasp forever, free … Oh, how so very heartbreaking that would have been!” Even with his eyes glued to Kyle’s, there is a distant terror in them, as if the idea of losing his pet is the worst thought he’s ever had. It passes quickly. “You smell of human.”
“Of human he is not,” responds Lazarus playfully, perhaps making light of Salazo’s stylistic language. “His name is Kyle. He is vampire, yet rarely drinks blood, starving himself.”
“Why on earth?”
“You will have to ask him yourself.”
Salazo spends hardly three seconds studying Kyle before losing interest and turning back to Lazarus. “Back to his cage, that is where I would be pleased to have my pet, of course. I left him some human food. He will be hungry after his run. Oh! I just remembered he shall taste ever so much sweeter now, with all of that adrenaline in his veins, sweat upon his tasty body …” He claps his hands with glee. “I hope he wakes soon. I thirst.”
Lazarus nods, then asks: “Has Drake returned?”
“Drake has not,” says Salazo absently, staring at his pet.
That concerns Lazarus. “It’s almost morning. Are you sure?”
“I shall take the boy myself.” Salazo drifts to Lazarus, takes the naked, muscular young man into his arms like he weighs nothing, says, “Oh, you adorable creature, you sweet, adorable creature … back to the cage with you, back where you belong.” Like a phantom, bald, beady-eyed Salazo nearly floats away.
Kyle stares, thinking on the young man whose escape he just ruined, the young man he just brought right back into the den of lions, whose nightmare he just aided in extending.
But could he have helped him anyway? Was the young man doomed whether Kyle had intercepted him in the desert or not?
“We have to go,” says Lazarus.
Kyle turns. “Already?”
“Either you come with me or you stay here.” Lazarus gives Kyle a subtle twist of his lips. “But you heard Salazo. He nearly mistook you for a human. Do you think it is above a vampire to consume the blood of another vampire? I was nearly tempted to drain you in your own bedroom myself, you and the tied-down human both. It would have been a satisfactory meal.” He pulls a woolen cloak off the top of an overturned crate, sweeps it over his shoulders, heads off. Kyle glances warily at the lone vampire still lounging by the campfire—who is staring him down like he hasn’t eaten in days—before hurrying off after Lazarus.
After cutting through the room a different way and passing the source of the drumming—a stoic male vampire wearing a kilt and a purple beret in the company of no less than six female vampires, two naked and massaging him, one fully dressed and cuddling his feet, eyes closed as if dreaming, the rest dancing—Kyle finds himself following Lazarus into another set of dark, twisting tunnels. A mere minute later, Lazarus sighs impatiently and says, “You’re holding me back, and if we have any hope of returning before the sun decides to have us for breakfast …”
Suddenly Kyle is pressed to the wall.
Lazarus bites his own palm, covers Kyle’s mouth yet again with it, just like in the bedroom. “Drink,” he commands.
Kyle tries to fight Lazarus off, but his efforts are laughable, his feeble protests muffled and quashed out by Lazarus’s power as the blood seeps into his opened mouth. Blood washes over his tongue like an exotic wine he wouldn’t dare confess he has craved since first tasting it days ago. After just one brief note of hesitation, he gives in to the frenzy. It’s with delirious need that Kyle holds Lazarus’s sliced hand to his face, sucking greedily, drinking with desperate satisfaction. Was he thirsty already and just didn’t know it? Or is this an ancient thirst he’s carried in him for decades, now awakened in full force? Through his veins surges an electric warmth that makes him feel powerful, huge, capable of anything at all. Whatever fog lived in his mind is at once swept away, every thought made vibrant and clear.
He has needed this blood. That is his first stroke of clarity. Why, indeed, has he starved himself all these years? This is the greatest feeling he has ever known. How could this be wrong?
The hand is gone from Kyle’s mouth, and at once, he wants it back, but Lazarus’s cold eyes find Kyle’s instead of the hand. “That is about three times as much as I fed you in a weakened state in your house. Now you shall keep up with little effort,” says Lazarus. “See this as part of what I wished to show you—how it feels to be a god among gods.”