Blood, Fire and Vampire Slayers: Jasper Hale love story Book #2

19: The Joust

The wildlife near the fairgrounds seemed used to being left in peace. They didn't seem as alert as other prey. Jane watched four young bucks move through the trees in the predawn light and chose the healthiest looking one. Milo stood behind her and pretended to take aim with an invisible crossbow. He clicked his tongue like a trigger and she sprang out of the undergrowth. The buck scattered and the one Jane wanted ran exactly where she thought it would. She caught up and grabbed its leg. They both fell and she adjusted her grip as they rolled down the hillside. Clasping her hands around its windpipe she sank her fangs into its neck and growled as fresh blood flowed into her mouth and down her chin. The buck cried out and fought a moment longer, trying to stand with her latched on. It was on it's knees, tongue hanging out, and then its eyes dimmed and the body sank to the ground.

Milo casually made his way to where she'd downed it. Although the blood banks at the festival were well stocked, he insisted she keep her predatory instincts sharp by hunting animals. They didn't want to risk someone noticing a disappearance if Jane picked off one of the few humans present or another supernatural being. He enjoyed watching her hunt. Jane lifted her head as he crouched next to her. He took her by her chin and kissed the blood off her lips. He still had a taste for it, even after the death curse freed him from drinking it as a necessity to live.

Using a rope, he strung up the deer by it's back legs so that everything drained to its front, then he continued his hike up the trail while she ate. It was the little things that convinced Jane he cared for her. He saw her drink on the ground a few times, and decided it was inefficient and wasteful, so he bought rope. But he never gave her the rope, as she thought he would, he always tied the kill up for her. She wondered if he would hang a person up the same way and she smiled, knowing he would. And he would enjoy it.

Milo didn't call himself a sadist, but he knew he was one. Perhaps that was why he sometimes didn't tell Jane all the gory details of his exploits. He knew they were sick, as much as he loved them and as much as he trusted her, some small part of him feared that she might think some things were too far. She asked him once if he'd experimented on children before. He said yes, but he said no more than that. He left out details about some of the medical torture and murders... But when it came to Klaus, Jane felt like she'd seen the man naked.

She knew how often he needed a haircut and a shave, what he ate and how he ate while imprisoned in Milo's basement. She knew how much pressure it took to break his skin with a scalpel, each bone that he'd broken and healed. She knew where he had a large silvery scar, where his prison tattoo had been and what the number was before it was removed. She knew that Milo pulled two of his teeth out and kept them. Jane knew that Milo steralised him and then reversed the vasectomy, thinking it might be worth it to conduct a breeding experiment later. Milo even told Jane that he considered making his late wife, Marie, act as the female half to that endeavour. He told Jane all of this, but he never told her how Klaus Hoffman escaped him. It was this detail that made her start reading. She had to know how a weakened prisoner with no powers at the time could have got away from Milo.

The deer ran dry just as the blood was starting to become unpleasantly cool for her taste. She didn't understand the blood slushy trend that seemed popular at the festival. Jane wiped her mouth and looked around. The forest was silent, still tense with her presence, but then she heard footsteps. She smiled as Milo came into view. He untied the carcass and they left it lying on the forest floor as they made their way back down the hill. Early daylight was falling over the trees and the footpath between them.

"I was thinking of watching the joust," said Jane.

"Why?" Milo asked.

"It might give us insight into his physical condition before tomorrow," she said.