The Hunter Chronicles

Chapter 15

Darius smoothed my hair with one hand as he pressed down on the wound on my neck with the other. Concern, anger, and regret danced in his eyes as he peered down at me, “Julie, are you ok?” He asked me. I tried to reply, but I couldn’t form words anymore. I could feel my body dancing close to the line between life and death. What was death like anyways? Would it be painful or would I simply go quietly? Darius seemed to be realizing that I was going to die. He removed his hand from my neck and backed away.

More hot tears began to spill down my face, I didn’t want to die in the first place, but now I was going to die alone. Maybe Darius was just trying to preserve my body instead of drinking all my blood while I lie helpless in the cool, dark forest. But then Darius was back and he was pouring some warm, coppery liquid into my mouth. I had no choice to other than swallowing it, so I did.

After that Darius withdrew again and reappeared to take a hold of my hand. We seemed to communicate by way of hand squeezes. He would ask a question and I would squeeze his hand once for yes, and twice for no. “Are you ok?” one squeeze.

“Are you in pain?” Two squeezes.

“Are you afraid?” One squeeze.

After a while it grew harder and harder to squeeze his hand. Soon it took all my strength to simply hold onto his hand. This was a peaceful place to die, here in the forest with one of my best friends beside me. At the start of this game, when I had first decided to go for Darius I had no idea what was in store. But Alice knew. She warned me to be careful and not get too involved in something that might be dangerous. I had scoffed at her, thinking she was just being paranoid. Now I knew that she must have felt something, something deep down that screamed danger. If only I could turn back the clock and start over again. I wouldn’t have tripped on that branch that had set off this catastrophe of events.

Darius had seemed so dark and alluring at the time when I first caught sight of him. But maybe that had been a part of being a vampire. It would make sense to be pleasing to the eye and attractive to the smell. Vampires were like those poisoned poppy’s in the Wizard of Oz. They looked so good from the outside, but once you got in their secret circle, they were nothing more than a whole bunch of cruel killers that would cut your throat if you turned away from them. And Darius was the most tempting poppy of all. I could’t keep my eyes off of him, even now that I am lying on the ground dying because of him I still can’t avert my gaze from his beautiful features, it’s almost like he was chiseled by an angel. His dark features sloped and curved at all the right places and he was able to look cool and collected even in the face of death, even though he was the face of death for some people.

Would Darius remember me at all? Or would I be another one of those tragic cases that happened every so often that a vampire tried to keep a human pet. And what would my parents think when I was found bloody and dead in the woods? Would they even care or would they feel relieved. I had a feeling that they wouldn’t even pursue the legal action if I turned up dead. They would only hold my funeral, say a few pretty words, and be done with it. Darius noticed that more tears were leaking from my eyes now and I closed them tightly. Death was hanging in the corner of my vision when I opened them again. Darius looked relieved when he saw me open my eyes again. Now that I was looking at him, it looked like Darius was going to miss me after all.

A strangled cry escaped my mouth as I began to choke. Tears welled up in Darius’s eyes and he leaned over me, saying something that I couldn’t hear. He smoothed my hair again and leaned down, brushing his lips against mine, before moving down to my neck. Now I was setting into a frighteningly numb phase. Slowly the pain that burned through me ebbed out as I looked up at the moon through the branches. Hopefully Darius would find a nice place to bury me.

DARIUS

I stared down at Julie’s lifeless body. And wiped her blood off of my mouth with the back of my hand. Just moments before she had stopped convulsing and then lay very still, staring up at the whole moon. The moonlight threw scary shadows across her face that made her look like too much of a monster. Images of James ripping her neck open tinged my vision red and an involuntary let out an infuriated growl. I had never wanted this to happen to Julie, but now she was lying more lifeless than the ice that dominated the vast ice fields of Antarctica. She would come back, but not the same person she had been. The thing that worried me the most was that she had drank and received both James’ and my blood. There had always been an unspoken rule that you didn’t offer up a victim your blood if there was already vampire blood in their system, it did weird things to the transformation process. I let go of her limp hand and quietly leapt into the branches of the tree that was above me.

It took several hours of waiting before I saw the first signs of life struggling within her. Her chest began to rise and fall again, and her eyes fluttered slightly. Already something was off. The wound on her neck had sealed completely, and much faster than I had ever seen wounds heal. She turned her head from side to side, flashing sharp teeth as she tried to ward off something I couldn’t see. But when she opened her eyes, the most shocking difference came. I could see all the colors of the rainbow, but if I looked for too long, they would settle into a deep gold. I swallowed as I realized what she had become.

**Hello my lovely readers! Well Christmas break is coming up so I should be uploading more often! I hope you enjoyed this, J Comment?? Vote?? Fan??