Suffocate In Spirit - Shadows of the Night 4

Chapter 16

Hi!

Hope you're all doing ok. As promised: here's the second part of last week's scene! There were some questions about the 'nature' of Fabrice's and Andy's relationship and what kind of payment Fabrice wanted from Andy. Well, I guess you'll find out in this one. If not, let me know, I'm more than ready to talk about this one ;-)

PS: There won't be an update next week, I'll be out of town (holidays, finally!), so please please be patient until Sunday in two weeks. I promise to make the wait worthwhile!

Lara

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Chapter 16

This was insane.

If I'd known in advance where Andy wanted to go this night, I would have never agreed to it. I didn't know what was more shocking, the fact that he was letting Fabrice bite him to begin with, or that he'd come here, knowing the nature of the payment the vamp might demand.

Andy sat down beside Fabrice and held up his wrist. The vampire first looked at the wrist, then at Andy. The tips of his lips quivered as a silent laughter escaped them. Seconds tipped and turned, like a flipping coin in mid-air.

Then Fabrice's fangs were buried in Andy's neck.

I stared, kept waiting for Andy to struggle – do something. My eyes widened. Andy didn't move. He just let the vampire bite him.

The tips of my fingers vibrated, curled in on themselves. Vampires had haunted witches and shape shifters since the beginning of time. For power. For our blood. For vengeance.

I forced myself to look. Was Fabrice seeing something when he was drinking from Andy, just like Alexander had seen something in my blood?

I was too distracted by the thought, I almost didn't notice: Fabrice's fingers were buried in Andy's shirt.

I shot up from the couch. Andy's eyes tore open and caught my own like a bullet biting into flesh. The brown in his irises had darkened and widened, but the message in them was clear.

Let it go. Don't move.

Holding his stare while Fabrice was taking his blood, without doing anything against it – I don't know how I did it. I think it was something in Andy's gaze that gave me pause. A look I knew like my own.

The vampire finally drew away from Andy, staring at him for a long moment before he turned to me.

"Now her."

Andy put a hand on Fabrice's shoulder, knuckles white, his eyes ablaze. Blood was oozing down his neck like angry tears. He didn't even bother wiping it away.

"You don't need her blood. You already took enough."

I fisted my hands at my sides. "Andy, it's fine."

Fabrice shook Andy's hand off, as if it was nothing more than a pesky fly, and rose from the couch in a fluid, electrified motion. His steps were soundless, lost somewhere in the soft jazz notes drifting through the dark halls of the basement.

I stilled, held my ground. Didn't move. I'd been working myself up to this ever since he started feeding on Andy. I felt power hum in and through my veins like the biting sound of a drone circling in my system. My mind was my fortress and my own. Fabrice wasn't going to get a freebie for reading my thoughts.

The vampire came to a halt in front of me. The look he was giving me was bordering on complete apathy.

"Don't worry. Seeing as I already fed once tonight, I won't take much," he said.

"Just do it." I steeled myself for the impact of fangs on my skin, locking the mental doors to memories of my past and every piece of information worth obtaining. "We both know-"

I never finished the sentence. Fabrice moved with the speed of lighting, hitching a ride on the kind of speed sonic booms had. He was behind me, exposing my neck with one violent jerk. His fangs sank into my skin without resistance, breaking the skin like needles diving into warm chocolate.

The pain was the first sensation – fast and crushing, almost like a violent, physical warning to something bigger, even more painful. It was deep down inside my chest, and it felt eerily familiar. Almost like the time Andy –

Then all thoughts vanished. Nothing in existence; nothing but a cold storm of loneliness and darkness. I was a wanderer through a dark landscape of fog. Forlorn and empty inside. My blood was dancing to the low, off-key tunes of what once had to have been a piece of Jazz.

Then it was over. I felt warm wetness on my neck, but there was no faintness – not the kind of bloodlessness that made your knees turn into walking sticks of rubber, anyway. I opened my eyes, blinking.

Fabrice had stilled, folded in on himself and withdrawn, morphed into a shadow of life. The vampire was staring at me.

"The taste," he said slowly. "Your blood is ... deliciously sweet." His eyes fluttered and he took a deep breath before staring at me openly. "How curious. You wanted someone else to bite you. I wonder just who that is."

I froze, trying to think through the maze of thought and the blood rushing in my ears. I knew what happened without needing to think it over. It happened again: The bond flared to life in the same moment Fabrice's fangs touched my skin. Had Alexander felt it? And, more importantly, had Fabrice sensed it?

Fabrice shook his head. He closed his eyes moving his lips back and forward, as if he was wine taster performing a sensory examination of my blood; as if he could touch the range of perceived flavors, aromas and characteristics and peek behind an invisible veil to my emotions and thoughts. Which he absolutely couldn't! He couldn't know, just by tasting my blood, right?

His eyes opened, black mirrors like holes of darkness. "It can't be-" He fell silent abruptly, eyes darting to the right and left before settling on Andy. "You brought someone," he hissed.

My head whipped to Fabrice. We came alone. I was sure about that. "What?!"

The vampire's eyes never left Andy's. "Rogue witches."