The Bloodlust (16 page)

Perface

E
verything has changed. My body, my desires, my needs, my appetite.

My soul.

In seventeen short years, I’ve borne witness to more tragedy than anyone should—and been the cause of far too much of it. With me I carry the memory of my death, and that of my brother. The sound of our last breaths in the mossy woods of Mystic Falls, Virginia, haunts me. I see my father’s lifeless body on the floor of his study in our magnificent Veritas Estate. I still smell the charred church where the town’s vampires burned. And I can almost taste the blood I took and the lives I stole out of sheer hunger and indifference after my transformation. Most clearly I see the curious dreamer of a boy I once was, and if my heart could beat, it would break for the vile creature I’ve become.

But though the very molecules of my being have morphed beyond recognition, the world continues to turn. Children grow older, their plump faces thinning with the passage of time. Young lovers exchange secret smiles as they chat about the weather. Parents sleep while the moon keeps watch, wake when the sun’s rays nudge them out of slumber, eat, labor, love. And always, their hearts pump with rhythmic thuds, steady, loud, hypnotic, the blood as alluring to me as a snake charmer’s tune is to a cobra.

I once scoffed at the tediousness of human life, believing the Power I had made me more. Through her example, my maker, Katherine, taught me that since time holds no sway over vampires, I could become divorced from it, living from moment to moment, moving from one carnal pleasure to the next with no fear of consequences.

But now the strength I have is a burden, the constant thirst for blood a curse, the promise of immortality a terrible cross to bear.

Before I left New Orleans, I battled the monster my brother, Damon, had become—a monster I had a hand in creating. Now, as I remake myself up North, far from anyone who’s ever known me as either a human or a vampire, the only demon I have to battle is my own hunger.

Chapter 1

I
picked out a heartbeat, a single life, in the near distance.

The other noises of the city faded into the background as this one called to me. She had wandered from her friends and left the well-worn paths.

The sun had set over Central Park, where I’d exiled myself since arriving in New York seven long days ago. The colors in this expanse of wilderness were softening, sliding toward each other, shadows blurring with the things that made them. The oranges and deep blues of the sky morphed into an inky black, while the muddy ground dimmed to a velvety sienna.

Around me, most of the world was still, paused in the breath that comes at the end of the day when the watches change: Humans and their daylight companions lock their doors and the creatures of the night like myself come out to hunt.

The heartbeat I pursued now began to recede, its owner moving away. Desperate, I took off, forcing my body to move quickly, my feet to push off from the ground. I was weak from lack of feeding and needed every spare bit of energy for the hunt. I crashed through bushes and trees, my chase growing far louder than I intended. My hunting skills had weakened along with my strength.

The bearer of the heart I followed heard and knew her death was close behind her. Now she was entirely alone, cut off from her crowd, and aware of her plight. She began to run in earnest.

What a spectacle I must have made: dark hair askew, skin as pale as a corpse’s, eyes starting to redden as the vampire in me came out. Running and leaping through the woods like a wild man, still dressed in the finery Lexi, my friend in New Orleans, had given me, the white silk shirt now torn at the sleeves.

She picked up speed. But I wasn’t going to lose her.

My need for blood became an ache so strong that I could contain myself no longer. A sweet pain bloomed along my jaw and I felt my fangs come out. The blood in my face grew hot as I underwent the change. My senses expanded as my Power took over, sapping my last bit of vampiric strength.

I leaped, moving at a speed beyond human and animal. From rock to low branch I raced toward my prey, closing the distance between us in mere seconds. With that instinct all living creatures have, the poor thing felt death closing in and began to panic, scrambling for safety under the trees. Her heart pounded out of control: thump-
thump
thump-
thump
thump-
thump
.

The tiny part of me that was still human might have felt bad for what I was about to do, but the vampire in me needed the blood.

With a final jump, I caught my prey—a large, greedy squirrel who’d left her pack to scavenge for extra food. Time slowed down to a standstill as I descended, ripped her neck aside, and sank my teeth into her flesh, draining her life into me.

I’d eaten squirrels as a human, which lessened my guilt marginally. Back home in Mystic Falls, my brother and I used to hunt in the tangled woods that surrounded our estate. Though squirrels were poor eating for most of the year, they were fat and tasted like nuts in the fall. Squirrel blood, however, was no such feast; it was rank and seared my tongue. Still, I forced myself to keep drinking.

It was nourishment, nothing more—and barely that. It was a tease, a reminder of the fresh, thick sweet liquid that runs in a human’s veins.

It had only been one month since a vampire named Katherine had transformed me into a creature like her, but I’d crowded that time with too much horror and tragedy. Heady with my new Power, the limitless strength and speed of a vampire, I tore through humans as if their lives were meaningless. Every warm drop made me feel alive, strong, fearless and powerful.

Even concentrating, trying to send myself back mentally to see the faces of each of my victims, all of those people I killed, I couldn’t. Except for one:

Callie.

Her flame-red hair, her clear green eyes, the softness of her cheeks, the way she stood with her hands on her hips . . . every detail of her stood out in my memory with a painful clarity.

It had been Damon, my brother and former best friend, who had dealt Callie her final blow, but her death weighed heavily on my conscience. Callie had made me feel human again. She made me remember what it was to have a normal life, and what it meant to value that life. And she had died because of me, because Damon hated me for turning him into a vampire. I had taken his life, so he took from me the only thing he could: my new love.

From that moment on, I swore off humans forever. I would never kill another human, never feed from another human, and never love another human. I could only bring them pain and death, even if I didn’t mean to. That’s what life as a vampire meant. That’s what life with Damon as my brother meant.

An owl hooted in the elm that towered over my head. A chipmunk skittered past my feet. A branch broke somewhere nearby. My shoulders slumped. I had taken my fill this evening and ended one innocent life. Now it was time for me to move on.

I laid the poor squirrel down on the ground. So little blood remained in its body that the wound didn’t leak, the animal’s legs already growing stiff with rigor mortis. Then I wiped the traces of blood and fur from my face and headed deeper into the park, alone with my thoughts, while a city of nearly a million people buzzed around me.

Since I’d snuck off the train at Grand Central Depot a week earlier, I’d been sleeping in the middle of the park in what was essentially a cave. I’d taken to marking a concrete slab with the passing of each day. Otherwise moments blended together, meaningless, empty, and never, ever ending. Next to the cave was a fenced-in area where construction men had gathered the “useful” remains of a village they had razed to make Central Park, as well as the architectural bric-a-brac they intended to install: carved fountains, baseless statues, lintels, thresholds, and even gravestones.

Just as I pushed past a barren branch—November’s chill had robbed nearly every tree of its leaves—the teasing, cloying scent of rust and iron drifted past my nose.

Instantly I became the hunter again: balanced on my toes, fingers flexing, ready to claw. All my senses became even more aroused: eyes widened to capture every shadow, nostrils flared to gather in the smells. Even my skin prickled, ready to detect the slightest change in air movement, in heat, in the minute pulses that indicated
life
.

There it was again. A painful, metallic tang. The smell of blood.
Human
blood.

I stepped into the clearing, my breath coming rapidly. The thick stench of blood was everywhere, filling the hollow with an almost palpable fog. I scanned the area. There was the cave where I spent my tortured nights, tossing and turning and waiting for dawn. There was the spider’s jumble of beams and doors stolen from knocked-down houses and desecrated graves. There were the glowing white statues and fountains to be installed around the park.

And there, thrown at the base of a statue of a regal prince, was the body of a young woman, her white ball gown slowly turning a bloody red.

Chapter 2

M
y eyes narrowed, and I felt the veins in my face crackle with Power. My fangs came out quickly and violently, painfully ripping through my gums.

The girl was small, but not sickly or dainty. She looked to be about sixteen. Her flesh was firm and her bosom, barely moving as she grew weaker, was full. Her hair was dark, with curls highlighted in gold by the light of the rising moon. She had been wearing silk flowers and ribbons in her hair, but these, along with her tresses, had come undone, and trailed out behind her head like sea foam.

Her dress had a dark red slip underneath with frothy white cotton tulle that floated on top. Where her petticoats were torn, slashes of scarlet silk showed through, matching the blood that was seeping out of her chest and down her bodice. One of her doeskin gloves was white, the other nearly black with soaked blood, as if she had tried to stanch her wound before she’d passed out.

Thick, curly lashes fluttered as her eyes rolled beneath their lids. This was a girl who clung to life, who was fighting as hard as she could to stay awake and survive the violence that had befallen her.

My ears, finer tuned than the best hound’s, could easily make out her heartbeat. Despite the girl’s strength and will, it was slowing. I could count seconds between each beat.

Thud . . .

Thud . . .

Thud . . .

Thud . . .

The rest of the world was silent as a grave: just me, and the moon, and the racket of life this dying girl made. Her chest stopped rising. She would most likely be dead in mere moments, and not by my hands.

I had done my best. I had hunted down a squirrel—a
squirrel
—to sate my appetite. I was doing everything I could to resist the lure of the dark side, the hunger that had been slowly destroying me from within. I had refrained from using my Power.

But the smell . . .

Spicy, rusty, sweet. It made my head spin and caused the world to come together in a flash of red and pink.

It wasn’t my fault she had been attacked. It wasn’t I who had caused the pool of blood to form around her prone body. Just one little sip couldn’t hurt . . . I couldn’t hurt her any more than she already was . . .

I shivered, a delicious pain fluttering up my spine and down my body. My muscles flexed and relaxed of their own accord. There it was, the luscious liquid of life. I took a step closer, so close that I could reach out and touch the red substance.

Human blood would do far more than sustain me. It would fill me with warmth, with Power, with purpose. Nothing tasted like human blood, and nothing
felt
like it. Just a mouthful and I would be back to my old New Orleans self: invincible, lightning-fast, strong . . . powerful. I’d be able to compel humans to do my bidding. I’d be able to drink away my guilt and embrace my darkness. I’d be a real vampire again.

In that moment, I forgot everything: why I was in New York, what happened in New Orleans, why I left Mystic Falls. Callie, Katherine, Damon . . . all were lost, and I was drawn wordlessly, mindlessly, to the source.

I knelt down in the grass. My parched lips drew back from my mouth, fangs fully exposed.

One lick. One drop. One taste. I needed it so badly. And technically, I wouldn’t be killing her.
Technically
,
she would die because of someone else.

Her heart slowed even more. Narrow streams of blood ebbed and flowed down her chest, pulsing with her heart. I leaned over, my tongue reaching forward . . . One of her eyes fluttered open weakly, her thick lashes parting to reveal clear green eyes, eyes the color of clover and grass.

The same color eyes Callie had.

In my last memory of her, Callie was lying on the ground, dying, in the same helpless pose. Callie also died of a knife wound—but in her back. Damon didn’t even have the decency to let her defend herself. He stabbed her while she was distracted, telling me how much she loved me. And then, before I could feed her my own blood and save her, Damon threw me aside and drained her completely. He left her a dry, dead husk and then tried to kill me, too. Had it not been for Lexi, he would have succeeded.

With a scream of agony, I pulled my hands back from the girl and pounded the ground. I forced the bloodlust that was in my eyes and cheeks back down to the dark place from which they came. I resisted the Power, the night, and my hunger.

I took a moment longer to compose myself, then pulled the girl’s bodice aside to view her wound. She had been stabbed with a knife, or some other small and sharp blade. It had been shoved with near perfect precision between her breasts and into her rib cage—but had missed her heart. It was as though the attacker had
wanted
her to suffer, to slowly bleed out rather than die immediately.

I grabbed a sharp rock to slice open my wrist. It was difficult and not very effective, but I pushed hard. The pain helped to focus me, a good, clean pain compared to that of my fangs coming out.

With incredible effort I pushed my wrist to her mouth and squeezed my fist. I had so little blood to spare as it was—this would nearly kill me. I had no idea if it would even work, since my Powers had declined with feeding just on animals.

Thump-
thump
.

Pause.

Thump-
thump
.

Pause.

Her heart continued to slow.

“Come on,” I pleaded through teeth gritted in pain. “Come
on
.”

The first few drops of blood hit her lips. She winced, stirring slightly. Her mouth parted, desperate.

With all my strength, I squeezed my wrist, literally pushing the blood out of my vein and into her mouth. When it finally hit her tongue she almost gagged.

“Drink,” I ordered. “It will help.
Drink.
”

She turned her head. “No,” she mumbled.

Ignoring her feeble protests, I shoved my wrist against her mouth, forcing the blood into her.

She gave a little moan, still trying not to swallow.

And then she stopped fighting.

Her lips closed down on the wound in my wrist, and her soft tongue sought out the source of my blood. She began to suck.

Thump-
thump
.

Thump
thump
.

Thump thump thump.

Her heartbeat quickened.

Her hand, the one in the blood-soaked glove, came fluttering up weakly and grasped my arm, trying to draw it closer to her face. She wanted more. I understood, but I had no more to offer her.

“That’s enough,” I said, feeling faint myself. I gently disengaged my arm despite her mewling cries. Her heart was beating more regularly now.

“Who are you? Where do you live?” I asked.

She whimpered and clung to me.

“Open your eyes,” I ordered.

She did, once again revealing her Callie-green eyes.

“Tell me where you live,”
I compelled her, using the very last remaining drops of my Power.

“Fifth Avenue,” she answered dreamily.

I tried not to grow impatient.
“And what? Fifth Avenue and what?”

“Seventy-third Street . . . One East Seventy-third Street . . .” she whispered.

I scooped her up, a perfumed confection of silk and gauze and lace and warm, human flesh. Her curls brushed my face, tickling across my cheek and neck. Her eyes were still closed and she hung limply in my arms. Blood, either hers or mine, dripped down into the dust, threatening to drive me mad again.

I gritted my teeth and began to run.