The Vampire's Rival

Running from the past just to be defined by it

When I was a child, about six or seven years old, I was incapable of controlling the Venom in my blood. My human mother would lock me in my room with barred windows when she went out to run errands for a few hours, which was usually to find me blood because she couldn't feed me every day. The last time I saw my mother, she had left me in that room for six days, alone, blood starved, unaware of what was happening. That was the first time my Venom had taken over. I don't remember doing it, but in a haze of rage, I'd broken everything in that room in a bid to get out. Just as I was about to pull the bars off the window, my mother burst into the room.

She hadn't stood a chance.

I remember coming back to my senses and staring at all the blood in wonder, turning my bloodied hands around slowly and taking in how crimson they were. It was tempting to drink more, but I'd already had enough. Then I felt it. In awe, I felt the Venom simmering just beneath my consciousness. Like I could just close my eyes and meet it. Let it in. Be friends. But I could also feel the malevolence from it, and I was afraid of it.

Then I saw the body underneath mine.

The horror of what I had done drove me to surrender to the Venom, giving it control for several decades, unable to face the world. It was a long time before I broke through the surface and took control again as myself.

I never imagined that I would ever feel that out of control again.

That small.

As I had suspected, feeding on Hadley had sealed the massive chasm in my psyche that had slowly been turning me into a ghoul. What it hadn't done, couldn't do, was cure me of the Venom that ran in my veins. Unfortunately, the absence of the red haze left a vacuum behind that the Venom was only too happy to fill.

A war raged in my mind.

The Venom was no longer just simmering under my conscious mind, it was bubbling hard and fast and rising. And it was vengeful. Powerful. Eager to take the reins once more after almost three centuries of being repressed. That night at Mrs. Smith's, I'd called upon it to save me. But that night had been different from before. That night it had bled into another mind – Hadley's. It wanted more of that and was straining to reach out for her mind again. She still had my blood in her veins and, like a magnet, it pulled at my Venom. Called for it. I'd been fighting for control and fighting to hold it back ever since feeding off Hadley three nights ago.

I couldn't live like this!

Had to make it all stop!

Had to Turn her!

Turning her became a desperate need, swallowing every other feeling. But ever since our last conversation, she hadn't given me the time of day – avoiding me or giving me one syllable responses when I'd reach out to talk to her. It was becoming increasingly difficult to fight both her and the curse of my blood. I couldn't make her see me. See my plight. And it was killing me, in every sense of the word!

I was suddenly pulled out of my thoughts by a woman yelling at someone.

A voice I hadn't heard before!

"What the fuck are you doing!"

That I hadn't sensed the owner of that shriek minutes before the humans ran into her was concerning. This mental war was making it so that I was losing my senses. Becoming a liability. I looked up at the woman standing in front of Hadley and the others. She was simultaneously gorgeous and fear inspiring. Her long, dark, straight hair was tied back without a single strand out of place, and she held herself up with poise and grace. Her back was ramrod straight, shoulders down, feet shoulder width apart and right hand resting on the black leather scabbard of the sword by her side. Her dark brown eyes were lit with a fury that commanded attention as they bore into Hadley.