LUCIAN
I let out ragged breaths as fear punched hard on my chest. My hands were still slick and crimson, and when Adrian knelt down next to me, his suit, usually so goddamn flawless, was also covered with it.
It was my blood all over him.
I felt my stomach turn as I placed the glass on the floor.
"Drink," he commanded, and hell, I dared not argue.
I picked up the glass again, trembling, and balanced it to my lips. What the fuck? It fell on my tongue like nothing I'd ever put in my mouth. It enveloped my mouth, warm and leaden, and I simply stopped, let it loiter, do its thing, and slink into my taste buds.
Damn. This shit is good… too fucking good.
I drank it all in one gulp before I even realized I'd taken a sip. The liquid filled my throat; it made me feel warm in my chest, everywhere in my goddamn body. It was strange, ecstatic, and it drove the ache out of the pit of my stomach.
I laughed, shaky and disbelieving. "Wow... this is... really good." For a brief moment, I forgot about whatever had happened with me. "I don't normally drink wine. What's it called?"
"You'll find out soon enough," Adrian said in a flat voice.
I frowned at him, and my smile dropped. His face wasn't right… drawn, frowning, like he was carrying some invisible burden.
"Fine, fine… so, what's up?" I passed him the empty glass, and my hands shook. "I remember… that red-haired bitch, and then… knife."
I raised my shirt again and peered down at my belly. Blood caked me, but the wounds, those ten ragged holes, had healed, shut in neat slits now, as though they had never opened. I touched them, traced my hand over the wounds. I even stuck my finger in, and my stomach muscles tensed beneath like crazy.
Considering the circumstances, if I had to die, getting stabbed by a hot chick in a dark alley wasn't the worst way to do it, right? But I wasn't dead.
"This can't be real, Adrian. What the fuck is..."
He stood, offering his hand. I accepted, and he pulled me onto a stool. Both of my legs were completely jelly by now. He poured me another glass of that red stuff like a psychic read my needs. "It is very real," he said, forcing the glass into my hand.
I didn't think. I drank, drinking that shit like that was the only thing fucking thing binding me to the earth. The taste hit me again, sweet and sinful, and I growled from the back of my throat, relishing it. But the questions didn't stop.
"So, what? What happened? I got stabbed, Adrian! A fuck-ton of times. I've seen enough to know what that kinda bleeding does."
"Yes. You were bleeding to death. You only had minutes left. Ummm, maybe seconds."
"Well, then what the fuck!"
Fear was gnawing at me, but there was the warmth of the drink, like some sort of medication, dulling things away for many things. The blood was fresh, all over my clothes and his... it was the same goddamn night.
"I should be dead right now, Adrian!" I snapped, but my voice cracked, "How the fuck are the stab marks gone too quickly? This is… I can't make sense of any of this shit!"
"Well, you're basically kinda dead." Adrian sighed, dropping down onto a stool behind the counter.
"I'm… I'm dead?" Something was wrong. I shook my head, trying to make sense of what he was saying.
"Check your pulse."
"What?"
"Check your pulse, Lucian."
I groaned. "Can't I take a shower first? Look at us, we're…"
"Check your fucking pulse." His voice was sharp as a blade, and in those steel eyes I was caught, pinned to the stool.
I had never seen him that way. My stomach dropped. I huffed and stabbed two fingers against my wrist. Nothing. I tried my neck, near my jaw. Nothing. My hand went to my chest, to my heart. Nothing.
"Adrian... where's my pulse?" I smiled a little, totally fake, but he just shook his head.
"I didn't think you'd remember. You were low on blood, and… most of us don't remember being turned. Well, not clearly."
"Most of us? Being turned? What the fuck are you talking about?" I panicked.
"What do you feel, Lucian? Inside, right now?" He looked at me so fixedly, his gaze nearly killed me.
"I feel... I don't know. Just... hunger." That pain, that desperate hunger, was still there, dimmer but lurking, it seemed, to pounce.
"Anything else?"
"I don't know what you mean, dude. I just…." I trailed off, trying to think.
It wasn't just in my gut… it was all over me, running through my arms, my legs, like a current. And something else, an adrenaline-charged cocktail of fear, anger, and… something new. Something that needed to run, to tear into something, to feed.
I'd always been a bit angry, a bit anxious, but this? This was different. My gaze darted to Adrian, and if anything, for the first time, I felt a prickle of fear.
A towel hit me in the face, snapping me out of it. "Wash up, get the blood off, and take a long look in the mirror," he said.
I stumbled to the bathroom, legs slipping from under me, and turned on the shower. Hot water stung my skin, and the blood drained down in vermilion rivers. I gazed down at myself, slenderer than I had remembered. I was an anxious wreck, my skin as white as a sheet.
My abs popped, solid and hard-won in five years' worth of Adrian's gym nagging, but these stab wounds, stitched up and eerie, seized me like a corpse.
How am I standing? Moving? I must have poured out the blood to fill a bucket, and yet here I am… not just fine, but better.
It was the need… it ached not just in my belly, but in my bones, like something lurking beneath the surface of my skin wanted to claw its way free. I shut off the water and reached for a towel, then wiped the steam from the mirror.
My face tightened, and my breath, whatever remained in it, caught. "Oh my god..." I pressed in, my hand holding me up on the wall. My skin was pale, my eyes dull, no spark, no life. I looked dead. Like a wax figure.
"...dead. Oh my god. Oh my gosh, oh my gosh, oh my gosh." Panic rose in me, and I reached for the clothes that Adrian left out. Boxers, pants… I fumbled, half-dressed, tripping over myself to get out.
I hit the hallway floor hard, arm and side screaming. Adrian peeked around the corner from his stool, calm as ever.
"Dead! I'm fucking dead, Adrian! What the fuck! I'm a zombie. I'm a goddamn zombie!" I didn't sit up, only lay there, half dressed, hands over my face, panicking. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my fucking god."
"Figured it out, did you?" His voice was dry.
"How can I be a zombie? The fuckity fucking fuck kinda shit is this, Adrian! Zombies aren't real."
"You're not a zombie." He sighed, came over, and extended a hand. The half-smile was back on his face as he hauled me to my feet, supporting me enough so I could help pull on my pants. "You are dead, though."
"I, I …" I was having trouble breathing. Hell, breathing hadn't even seemed like it was a thing that was relevant anymore. I fell down onto the stool, face in my hands, leaned over my shoulder against the counter, and let my head fall into my hands. "You..."
"I wasn't supposed to do it so soon." Adrian's tone was low. "I was going to gradually tell you about it. And I wanted to give you a choice. But you got sucked into this, and I had two choices… let you die, or turn you."
"Turn me?" I spluttered and tried to look up at him. "Turn me into what?"
"We're vampires, Lucian." He gave a thin smile, baring a fang, a real fucking fang, before hiding it again. He slid another red glass in my direction.
"Vampires. Fucking... vampires." I cast my gaze down to the glass, that deep, swirling red drawing me in. I'd been turning a blind eye to it, but now? I couldn't look away. It was blood. "That's blood, isn't it?"
He only nodded in agreement.
"You gave me blood." I shrieked, "Goddamn blood of some dead human?"
"I hate to break it to you like this," He coldly stated, "But yes, I did."
"I... how could. …" I averted my eyes, but it felt like being split in two. It looked so damn good. "Adrian, you turned me into a goddamn vampire! And you're one too! I'm freaking out, okay? I'm losing my shit here, man!"
As I bitched, I grabbed the glass and drank, feeling the sweet syrupy fluid course down, washing away my gnawing hunger.
"I know, I know. I'm sorry. It's never easy." Adrian flinched, fingering his blood-stained collar. "I couldn't let you die."
"But I am fucking dead!" I bit out, "I'm a fucking zombie, Adrian!
"Well, yeah." He turned away and emptied another bottle of blood from his refrigerator. Two glasses now. "But it's not the same as being dead. We're immortals."
"How come I never noticed?" I shrugged, "You don't look dead or pale, like I fucking do right now!"
"There's a trick that our kind do to blend in the human world." He told, pouring himself a drink. "Like how humans do make up."
"You've been a vampire this whole time?" I let out a shaky breath. "How long? How old are you?"
"I'm not a born Vampire. I was turned during the First World War."
"World War One? Holy shit, that's... old." I ran my fingers through my hair.
"Perks of being immortal. You don't age." He smirked.
"Wait a second…" A light bulb went on in my mind. "Immortal means you can't die. Does that…"
"Sort of…" He took a drink from his glass. "There are things that can harm us. But killing us is close to impossible."
I said nothing, trying to take it all in.
"I wouldn't have wanted to pressure you into it, you know. I was going to tell you first. The immorality, the bloodlust, the Beast, the Danse Macabre, the politics…"
"Dude, stop!" I covered my face with my hands. "I'm barely holding it together. I need to think. I need to... process." My elbows made contact with the counter, and I lowered my head. "You said my family, my friends… I'll have to leave my old life behind." I continued speaking, "They'll think I'm dead?"
He just nodded and looked into my eyes.
"Fuck you, Adrian." I groaned. "So my old life... it's not gone?"
"God, I'm glad, yeah …" he mocked a chuckle. "It was miserable. Being a vampire did one good thing for you."
I dove up, pacing, fingernails pulling through my scalp. Something inside my body wasn't right. I continued to press my feet a little further, the best I could, back to frantic, to anything that felt remotely like it used to feel.
"So I'm... immortal now?" My words were barely a harsh whisper.
"You will not grow old, but stay away from fire and the sun." He patted me on the shoulder. "Or you'll burn… and maybe die."
"Oh jeez…" I made my way to the couch.
"And that pain in your gut? That's the bloodlust, Lucian."
"Blood. I have to drink blood. I'm fucking Dracula." I shrugged and mocked. "How fucking awesome!"
"Never speak that name around the Prince if you value your neck." He stood and walked to where I was sitting. "Oh, and decapitation kills you, by the way. Bullets won't, though."
"Cool… sun, fire, and getting my head removed will kill me." I hissed under my breath and then faced Adrian. "Prince?"
"Yeah, the prince... you'll meet him very soon." He sat beside me, in his bloodstained suit. "Before that accident happened, the reason I decided to transform you was because I needed an ally, and you were my most trusted friend."
"Ah, that means we're not just two bloodsuckers hanging out for eternity?" I asked, half-joking, voice shaking. "We probably have work to do."
"There are over twenty thousand vampires around the world. We have our own societies, rules, cults."
Twenty fucking thousand vampires, and humans believed them to be a myth?
My head spun. "And why have I never heard of this?"
"Rule one: the Masquerade." He stated, "You talk about vampires to anyone, and you're gone… wiped off the map. But don't worry. You're my childe now, which means you're mine to protect… and my responsibility."
"Masquerade. Got it." I nodded. "There are more rules than one?" I looked over at him and could hardly meet his eyes.
"There's a lot to learn. It's a whole new world, and it'll take time for you to know everything." He rose from his chair and took off his jacket. "You're smart. I'm sure you'll do just fine."
"I… I hope you're right about this."
"I'm gonna go shower now. Meanwhile, get some rest. Your wounds are still healing." He winced. "When I'm out of the shower, I'll show you the clothes I got for you. Then we'll head out for a meeting with Corvin."
"Corvin?"
"My sire."