Everlasting

Chapter 4

Wulfric

Edith died two days ago, and I was already stir-crazy.

Two days shut away in this house, waiting for time to pass me by when it never really would. If this worked, if I managed to avoid ever meeting my soulmate, I'd never get to stop waiting for it to happen. It would always pose a looming threat, waiting to take me and then to swallow my family up next.

How long before the boredom of it all swallowed me up?

Edmund came into the room and gave me a small smile. "Hungry?" he asked.

That was another thing. I was always hungry.

I couldn't go out to hunt for myself, and we didn't have easy access to bagged blood. Even if we did, I'd hesitate to take it. Taking from a stranger behind a bar was one thing. It didn't hurt anyone and you could make it very pleasurable for your donor. Taking from a medical facility, from stores of blood donated to help ailing humans, felt wrong.

That left me with only one real option: feeding from my brother. He had to hunt twice as much, and it didn't satisfy me as well as human blood would. Everything I took in was filtered through his vampiric body already, so it tasted and felt diluted. But it would keep me functional and sane, and that was what mattered.

In response to his offer, I grimaced. Edmund correctly interpreted that as an affirmative and sat down beside me, rolling up his sleeve and holding his arm out in front of my lips. Despite myself, my mouth filled with venom and my fangs ached. It was pure instinct to plunge them into my brother's flesh and suckle until the ache in my throat eased and my stomach stopped churning. When the haze of need cleared, I gently eased away, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. The wound in my brother's arm healed in seconds, and he rolled his sleeves back down heedless of the blood still smeared across his pale skin.

"Thanks," I murmured.

"Anytime," Edmund said.

The worst part was that I knew he meant it. I didn't like relying on him like this. I sighed and laid back against the couch, staring up at the ceiling. I didn't like how my resolve was already wavering. What quality of life was I offering myself and my brother like this? Me, stuck in this house and Edmund, not able to go far else he'd leave me to starve.

"Edmund?" I whispered.

"Wulf?"

"I'm doing the right thing. Right?"

Edmund shifted so he was sitting on his knees and leaned over me to block my view of the ceiling. "I can't answer that for you," he said.

Couldn't he? What was this for, if not him?

Because I knew the answer for myself after only a couple of days of living this way. I didn't want to be human again. I didn't want to age, or to die. I didn't want to lose the person I'd become in the past several hundred years, and I knew I would change if I accepted my destiny.

But all of that would still be better than living like this into eternity.

If it just affected me, the decision would be easy. It would hurt, and I could feel the burn of anger in my chest at my life being railroaded like this, but I could accept it if it weren't for the ramifications to Edmund.

He frowned down at me for a few more seconds before disappearing from my view. I sat up to find him studying me. "What?"

"Are you happy?" he asked.

I didn't need to answer. Surely, Edmund was asking rhetorically. But I played along. "Not particularly."

"Then it's probably not worth it," he concluded. As if it could be so simple.