The Vampire's Rival

When she becomes a part of you

It wasn't the feelings that exploded from Hadley that surprised me. I'd had a taste of that from biting her last night. What surprised me was... me. My emotions. Not that they existed and the intensity with which they burned, but that they poured out of me unhindered and that I couldn't stop it. I felt them flood down the link that connected us, filling Hadley and emptying me. Undressing every part of me. Laying me bare before her. I had kissed my fair share of people through the centuries, but I had never experienced this before. I hated and loved it in the same measure.

Hadley suddenly stopped the kiss and pulled away.

That shook me.

Was she rejecting what she'd just felt?

I didn't want to deal with the possibility that she might be.

"You can't avoid talking about this by kissing me every single time I try to talk about it," I said, hating how I couldn't hold back the emotion from my face or voice. "We have to discuss this. The ritual. I need to..."

Hadley cut me off with another kiss. It didn't last as long as the first, but I got lost in it just the same. She stopped again but didn't pull away this time.

"I think the kissing thing is working out pretty well," Hadley said, her voice barely audible and a tiny bit shaky.

"Hadley..." I insisted, equally as breathless. This couldn't keep going. I couldn't stay this vulnerable. Couldn't survive the anxiety it drowned me in. If anything happened to her... for the first time, I wasn't just worried about losing my mind and starting a zombie apocalypse to end the world as we know it. It was her. It hurt to think about her coming to any harm. "I won't stop trying to talk to you about this."

Hadley replied with a quick peck on my lips and smiled.

"Don't threaten me with a good time, Ruq." she said with a smirk.

I sighed, stretched too thin from the emotional strain. I wasn't going to get anywhere like this, and she knew it. I shook my head, stood up and walked away. I needed to figure out how to make her understand just how critical a situation we were both in and I couldn't let her keep kissing me in the hope that I wouldn't spontaneously combust, which felt like a threateningly close possibility.

Josal intercepted me.

"You're out of time, Ruqwik," he said, still wary of me after our last interaction - as he should be. "The Master bouts had already started when I left. I couldn't stop them, let alone try to stall them. It's only a matter of time before She comes, and you know that her champion is an impossible freak of nature."

I didn't have to ask who he was referring to.

Sleritu.

A part of my past that I had hoped I would never have to confront again.

"She won't win," I said. "Not while I'm still alive."

"You're not a Master yet." He replied. "Trisca is willing to help you change that. But it has a price."

This was it. The slimy Messenger finally delivering Trisca's message for me.

"And what did she offer you?" I asked. There was no way Josal had come all this way to confront me out of the good of his heart.

"Teroi." Josal replied.

I was right. Josal was strong enough to Sire a human, but not influential enough to reserve a Progeny. And even if he was, it would still mean waiting twenty five years until the Progeny was old enough to be turned. I'd known and dealt with Josal for a long time. Taking Teroi for himself now that Lujeo was dead was right on par with his sketchy behaviour.