Blood Vengeance [COMPLETED]

Chapter Thirty - Forgiveness

The weight of his body was only on her for a second, before he was ripped from her with a strength that shook her bones and caused the pain to sting anew.

She felt his fangs rip through the thin skin of her neck as his body was drawn from hers, leaving a terrifying wound that began to bleed profusely.

She curled herself up, mindlessly putting a hand to her neck, where blood immediately began to run through her delicate fingers, over her knuckles and down her upraised arm.

There was a pain between her legs, a rawness she couldn't compute, and there too there was blood, dampening the sheet on which she lay.

Small flashing lights swam in her peripheral vision, and black spots grew in the corners, impairing her view of the room, and she felt a panic that threw everything into a strange relief.

Virgil was at her side a moment later, his arms around her, wrapping the only article of clothing he could find about her nakedness; Arthur's jacket. She tried to struggle against it, the smell confusing; its residual warmth frightening.

The man who wore it had hurt her more than she had ever been hurt before. The pain was something new; a level of intensity she had never envisaged.

She lowered a trembling hand from her neck, flattening her reddened palm, slick with blood, and staring at it as though she couldn't understand whose it was or why it was there.

Virgil gasped, seeing the way the blood pumped from her body, spurting like a faulty fountain. He pressed his own hands to the wound, letting his gun slide around his torso, hanging by its strap.

"Xander!" he screamed, too frightened to loosen his grip on Selene's neck. "Get up! She's dying, for blood's sake move! She's going to die."

Xander was still dazed, his body refusing to move as it should, aching. He stumbled, and Selene, dizzy from the loss of blood, watched as he struggled to stand and approach the bed, gripping the chaise longue with one hand, propping himself up, his feet shuffling along the carpet like the slippered soles of an old man.

But even as everything began to swirl, a dizziness taking over, Selene noticed Arthur and Hector, wrapped in one another's arms, fighting like animals.

She couldn't tell which was which; their clothes were identical, their shirts torn and bloodied as they battled, roaring and growling like beasts. There was almost nothing human about them, aside from the physical form they inhabited.

One bit the other, digging his fangs into a shoulder, tearing flesh and leaving a bloody wound, spitting the skin and muscle to the floor in a gelatinous lump.

As she stared at them, Virgil knelt over her, pressing his slippery hands to her neck, his fingers touching the edge of the wound as though he sought to determine both its size and depth.

"They'll kill each other," she whispered.

Her words distracted him from his purpose, and his eyes flicked from her neck to her face.

"Do you think I give a shit?" he asked, shifting his weight on the bed to allow him better access to her neck.

She pressed her knees together, feeling blood seep from her groin, stinging the raw flesh. A lump rose in her throat and she willed death to sweep away her conscious mind, unable to endure the pain, the humiliation, and the knowledge that she had caused all of this.

Just then one of the brothers threw the other onto the table, his solid body flying through the air and landing with a crash, the wooden tabletop splitting in half, the pieces flying up around him like the dark wings of a damned angel.