Blood Debt

Chapter 5

He felt giddy. Although pain still emanated from various parts of his body, he realized much of it had dulled. He knew his leg hardly hurt-though why it ought to hurt he didn't remember-and his hands hurt a lot less, too. He stared at his hands. Both his palms had puncture wounds clear through them but the wounds seemed to be rapidly healing. He wondered how'd he'd gotten the punctures but couldn't remember. Shackles and chains were on his wrists but that didn't seem odd to him. They'd always been there. But why were his hands slick with blood?

Blood.

He licked hungrily at the blood on his hands. The liquid was like ambrosia. After cleaning his hands of most of the red liquid he noticed that the front of his shirt was splattered with blood. He furrowed his brow, confused. In front of him was a woman laying on a tall wooden table, a very dead woman who looked like she'd been gnawed on by wild dogs. He moved closer to her, trying to remember something, anything about her. He gently touched her pretty face and was surprised to find it so very cold. Did he know her? He looked at his hands again. Fingers. Weren't his fingers broken? He slowly made a fist with his right hand, wincing as the wound in his palm complained. The fingers didn't quite work right, but he wasn't entirely certain they were broken, at least not anymore.

A cool hand ran across the back of his neck. "Feeling better, Dean?"

He turned and looked at her. She was stunningly beautiful and he wanted to make love to her. Forever.

"Yes," he said, his voice dreamy and distant, his eyes shining with happiness and adoration of the one before him.

"Do you know who I am?"

"Beautiful," Dean said, smiling dazedly at her. He admired her tight-fit black shirt and the silver cross that rested between her breasts. A faded denim miniskirt clutched her pleasant hips and had rivets that flashed like her dark eyes.

She laughed, showing her perfect, white teeth. "Dean, I'm Kate."

"Kate," Dean repeated. "Hello, Kate. You're beautiful."

The world suddenly swam before his eyes and he fell to his knees and onto the hard-packed earth of the barn. The giddiness faded just as suddenly and Dean snapped fully aware. He tasted the blood in his mouth, smelled it in the air, and felt the disgust and nausea twist his stomach. Oh, God, no. He'd killed that woman. He'd killed her by slicing her wrist and drinking in as much blood as he possibly could. The others had come and finished her off, but he should have found a way to protect her. She begged him to let her go, not to hurt her, and he'd just stared down at her, grabbed her wrist, cut it, and started to drink. Mercifully perhaps, she had passed out just as the rest of the vampires descended on her. Dean ran his tongue over his gums. No fangs. He didn't have fangs yet.

Small freaking consolation that. I didn't need fangs to drink that girl half dry, Dean thought, his fury equal to any bloodlust he'd felt. His lips curled into a snarl as he exploded from the ground and slammed his fist into Kate's face.

She fell back but kept her feet. Grinning, she danced further back from him, putting the dead woman between them. She flicked open a pocketknife and gashed her own arm with its blade. Dean feinted right, then dove left, around the corpse. He took another swing at Kate but barely clipped her chin. It was then that the smell assailed him, a smell of salt water and wine, of sweat-drenched passion and promise. His eyes went to her wound and he froze.

"Do you want it, Dean?" she asked, smug arrogance in her every word as she tensed her arm muscles and the blood flowed more freely. Three long rivulets dribbled down her forearm, their droplets falling to the ground in a slow, steady splatter.

Dean's mouth was slightly open. He tried to tear his eyes away from the ruby red blood dripping from her arm. No! He wanted to kill her! He'd behead her then cut the rest of her up into little tiny pieces, but none of it before he'd burn her. He'd listen to her screams and delight in them the way she had delighted in his. He'd kill her, he'd kill her...oh, the precious blood. So very delicious. He felt his body quiver with desire and need. No matter what she asked, he would serve her to get that crimson ambrosia.