DOFAB#3

Chapter Four

~ TRISTAN ~

Seventy-two hours earlier

What is the sum of our existence? To live and die or live and kill. Those are the two choices a god puts before their creation. Succumb to the order of nature's laws and enjoy your afterlife in the kingdom from which you hail or fight to hold off the inevitable conclusion that being born faces. It's the choice to choose to be ordinary or embrace the notion life and the gods give zero fucks about you. You have to make them notice, make them pay attention. Only then can you realize life isn't the friend you need on your side; it's death—the great equalizer of us all.

The color of open wounds saturates the stone floor. Translucent organs that were once beating litter the ground alongside empty flasks and gnawed-off-the-bone delightful, always juicy angel ribs.

"More," I demand.

Eight-hundred and twenty-three years, my blood is all I've had to sate my thirst. Bitter and euphoric. A vicious cycle of recycling one's power, never gaining, always losing. In a hellmouth, you'll do anything to calm the ache, quiet the hunger shredding you from the inside trying to claw its way out as there's nothing to satisfy that need that is a vampire's very bedrock.

Light brown hair bound in soft waves trundles down satin as moonlight, flawless skin reaches timidly into the crate branded with H57. "There are no more. That was the last one."

Guts and light spew from the angel waiting for me to deliver a merciful death as I stride his mangled body. I'll hand it to Zeura. She gifted her celestial children an iron spirit but failed to give them flesh that matched.

A lack of heat greets me, the rigid contours of my imposing frame pressing into soft curves. "I'm still starving."

One rack of angel ribs, seventy-five liters of blood, and a few hearts aren't enough to undo the isolation I sustained once the egret could no longer keep me company. Nineteen-hundred years of geysers and retina blistering sands while the skeletons of the souls I tore the life from feasted upon me if I stopped moving. My punishment a never-ending war against the misconduct of my bestial past.

"I-I can go see if there is any more to spare."

One would think warmth would accompany such a quiver.

"You could." Scarlet follows my fingers, streaking down the sunken hollows of cheeks denied proper nourishment. "Or, you could offer me something else."

"It's been so long."

If the magic that flows through us could bring the life force that silently moves through us to the surface, I'd be staring at the hue of my mother's favorite roses along with that downcast gaze.

"Have you paired with one who's claimed you all to themself?"

"No." Izzy's meek demeanor has withstood the test of time. Frail and faint-hearted, the life of a vampire born without a thirst.

"Then I don't see the problem. Stop quivering and offer up your vein."

If I can't sink my fangs where I need them, I'll quell my thirst with a high. Izzy's unique to our kind. Her life force doesn't produce aphrodisiac properties. Instead, it's one trippy ride that will have me back on the battlefields, bathed in so much red it will almost be like returning to the hellmouth. Except it won't be my victims feasting. It will be me.

"Rakasha will be returning soon."

"All the more reason not to deny me. You're the distraction my mother made sure caught my eye, so distract me."

I snatch Izzy's waist and pull her into me. It's not often I'm willing to settle for something else other than bloodshed.

"Tristan..." Izzy's uncertainty meets with the uptick of a pheromone release. "There's something I must tell you." Her mouth gapes, eyelashes fluttering close against my tongue massaging the underside of her jaw heading toward the hollow shallows of her lengthened neck.