"I am ready for the pact!" The moment the word left his cracked lips, her eyes sparkled darker.
Seraphina smiled like she had found what she was searching for an eternity. She stood, towering above his kneeling form like a goddess of moonlight and death.
"Then give me your wrist."
His hands trembled, bones clicking beneath torn skin. He raised one arm. She took it gently, almost reverently, lifting it like a priestess would a holy relic. Her cold touch made him flinch.
"From now on, your body and your soul, every drip of your blood.. " Her voice deepened into something that was no longer recognized yet, he felt it under every drop of his blood. "Offer them to me, and I shall give you rebirth."
Her fangs extended glimmering like ivory daggers. Elias did not flinch when she bit. He watched her intently.
Twin punctures bloomed just below his wrist. The pain was nothing more than a needle but heat poured out of him with his blood and she drank slowly and deliberately.. His Adam apple bobbed. For some reason, he felt it was too intimate. Perhaps it was the seductive look in her eyes that he felt hot all over his body.
The world shrank to her lips and his wrist, the pull of his essence, and a pain so sharp it became ecstasy.
She held his gaze arrested until she let go of his hand and his breath hitched as if he refused to have an orgasm at the last moment. He finally blinked and looked at his wrist.
"Now…" Her voice was lower now and something darker stirred in his body "you can drink mine."
She bit into her own finger, and thick, dark crimson welled there, too rich to be human blood. It shimmered like garnet and ink, smelling of iron and something rotten. She pressed it to his lips.
Elias hesitated. Humans did not drink blood. It was abhorrent. But he knew she was waiting, and that impatient look in her eyes didn't allow him time to think.
He inhaled a deep breath and sucked her finger making her chuckle. Her fingers were soft and cold and sucking them grew desires in him.
But his mind spinned when the first drop hit his tongue like wildfire. His back arched and his veins burned. His eyes widened as fire, real fire, roared through his limbs.
It wasn't painful. It was more as if someone had pulled every cell of his body apart. His muscles spasmed violently as his heartbeat stuttered, then stopped and then came back, pounding like a war drum.
His flesh knitted itself. His bones cracked, then snapped into place. The painful wounds on his body closed with sickening speed. His breathing rugged as if a strange power surged into him from something not of this world.
"Aaahhhh" He clutched his head and screamed. It was not just pain, but from the sheer expansion of himself. His vision blurred red, silver, black. When the fit passed he collapsed again, but not as the broken man he had been.
Slowly he sat up and felt…better. Much better. It was a feeling he usually has after eating a good meal and having seven hours of sleep.
His body was no longer aching. He could see properly…a little too properly.
The distant sound of carriage rolling, rats flipping in the garbage…even their heartbeats!
"Now you understand." He looked up at her, no longer like a beaten boy.
"Am I not a human anymore?" he asked with such a calm face, that she was not sure what he believed. But her crimson eyes gleamed.
"You are Bloodbound now, Elias," she said. "You are still a human but you have the power to call for my power. I will lend it to you when you need it." she leaned close, her breath cold against his cheek. "Do you want to try it?"
She did not wait for him to reply.
Seraphina's laugh was a soft hiss as she rose from the shadows, pulling from the folds of her dark cloak a single, pristine handkerchief. It was stitched at one corner with a delicate silver monogram. She offered it to Elias with a vicious smile on her face.
Elias stared at her, confusion flaring in his chest. He hesitated, then took the linen. Its threads were finer than any peasant's rag.
"You want me to wipe my face with it before testing my powers?" He looked at her with a face full of sarcasm.
But it actually made her laugh and he realized she was crazier than he thought. But before he could pass more comments, his eyes turned black and memories started to fill his mind like flashes. Memories that never belonged to him.
"Read it," Seraphina urged in a low voice. "Let me see what it holds."
He heard her voice but it felt too distant. Her touch hardly registered on his skin.
The dark alley vanished, replaced by candlelight and soft murmur of silk against polished wood. He saw Lady Caldria, sitting in her room. She looked beautiful as always, seated in her vanity. A single candle lit her face as she threaded silver silk through the corner of that very handkerchief, her brow furrowed in concentration.
Behind her stood a tall figure, shoulders broad in fine silk clothes. With his posture alone, Elias was sure he was a higher noble or better. Elias could not see his face, only the curve of his neck, the tilt of his head as Caldria leaned forward, pressing her lips to his in a kiss heavy with longing and desire.
"Please keep it with you always, it is a token of my love." she had whispered between the kisses. As their passion burned through the walls. Caldria's fingers lingered in his hair. And she put the handkerchief in his pockets.
Elias's eyes flew open. He staggered back, heart hammering so violently it seemed to shake the stones beneath his feet. The memory faded; he was once more in the alley, clutching the linen with ragged breath.
Seraphina watched him with those unblinking silver eyes. "Now you know, with this power, no one can ever deceive you."
But instead of looking at her with gratitude, he frowned.
"Beside peeping into others' past…is there anything else I can do?"
"You have more powers!" she nodded, "you can read any memory as long as the object is in your touch. Your senses are heightened, you can see what others can not, hear what others failed to and you can.." she hesitated, "you can seduce anyone you want now."