Sinjin, A Vampire Romance

Chapter Fourteen

Bryn

"How did you know it was me and not my sister, Jolie?" I ground out as Sinjin continued to drink my blood. In my attempt to ignore the pain, I decided to devote my attention to where I'd gone wrong in my escape plan. I figured it was most important that I learn from past mistakes. Well, that is, if Sinjin wasn't going to kill me, a subject that was still up for debate.

He pulled away from my neck and chuckled as he looked down at me. There was remarkable color in his cheeks now and his eyes seemed more alive than they were before he started drinking my blood ... physical responses to my blood, which still threw me. "I am a six-hundred-year-old vampire, Bête Noire," he responded loftily, "and not what some would describe as gullible."

He studied me for a moment or so before gripping my chin and tilting my head to the side. I closed my eyes, knowing all too well what was about to happen next. I could feel his breath on my neck, which instantly gave me goose bumps. When he sank his teeth into my flesh for the second time, I resisted and bucked beneath him. He wrapped his hands around my upper arms and pinned me to the bed underneath him, preventing me from moving. I felt his fangs withdrawing from me as he began sucking at the wounds. The pain was almost unbearable. My hands were fisting at my sides of their own accord and I clenched my eyes shut tightly, my jaw just as rigid. When I thought I couldn't take anymore, Sinjin pulled away.

"You must have thought I was Jolie because you called me 'poppet,'" I argued with him, my voice coming out much harsher than I intended. I tried to ignore the stinging from the various bite marks that now punctuated my neck. "So, clearly, that means you thought I was my sister at some point, which only proves you aren't quite as beyond gullibility as you may have thought."

"I will admit that your crafty disguise took me in for perhaps a brief moment," the vampire conceded as he glanced down at me with a blood-stained smile. "But there was one small problem with your approach ..."

"One small problem?" I repeated, eyeing him narrowly. "What was that?" I demanded, feeling irritation seething inside me. I was angry for failing to escape in the first place and it didn't make matters any easier that Sinjin was identifying all of the flaws in my attack. Nothing quite like being forced to eat humble pie after it's fresh from the oven.

"You failed to remember the vampire's chief sense, which is our sense of smell," he explained as his eyes continued to burn white while he stared down at me. His body was still pinning mine to the bed and the feel of him on top of me was arousing all sorts of strange reactions from me that I refused to indulge.

"You smelled me," I said, solving the riddle for myself. I closed my eyes and allowed my unvented anger to increase over the ridiculous oversight. How stupid was I? Of course I should have realized that Sinjin could smell me! It was a fatal error that never should have happened. Having dealt with enough vampires over the years, I should have known what their strengths and weaknesses were. How I'd managed to let that slip past me, I didn't know.

"Yes," Sinjin said with a smile before tracing his fingers in a line down my neck, and only pausing momentarily over his bite marks. "I scented you on the air as soon as you were downwind of me," he continued. He brought his index finger to his lips and, eyeing me pointedly, stuck his finger inside his mouth. He pulled it out again and rubbed the wet pad of his finger across the wounds on my neck. I felt my skin stitching itself back together, and, strangely enough, there wasn't any pain.

I looked up at him, wondering what would happen from here on out. Was he going to play with me first before he dealt the death blow? Or would he allow me to live? Of course, I didn't think my sister would be very happy if Sinjin killed me; but I also didn't know how deep my offenses actually were. I mean, I had tried to kill him, so it seemed only fair that he would return the favor. "Are you going to kill me, Sinjin?" I asked in a curious tone. I was surprised my voice came out as level and composed as it did, considering I wasn't sure whether or not I would live to see the next hour. But there was something inside of me that remained calm, accepting whatever fate had in store for me.