by Maria Arnt
Seth seemed pretty happy with her progress, he kept telling her he was teaching her much faster than he was supposed to, but she didn’t really care. He kept fussing over her, and it was so endlessly irritating. Was it not enough that she had to jump at his every beck and call? Did she have to be cheerful about it too?
And all the while she dreaded the return of the thirst. She knew, eventually she would have to feed again. How long could she last? A few days? A week? Seth continually reminded her to stay aware of her hunger, so that she could feed before it became strong enough to make her desperate.
In the end, it turned out to be five days. Five days before she felt the first tickle in her throat, like the start of a cold. She found herself chewing on her bottom lip until it bled, and the taste of her own blood hit her with the force of revelation. She needed to feed again, already.
She was practicing a meditative stance at the time, arms extended in either direction. She let them drop, slowly, until she just stood there, staring at the paneled walls. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, until Seth came in to check on her.
He stopped in his tracks just inside the training room. “Is something wrong?” he asked, his voice full of the same concern and pity he had shown since their outing. She hated it.
“I...” her voice broke, her throat dry. Slowly, without meaning to, she began to shake, and then sob. Before she knew what was happening, she had dropped to crouch on the floor, her knees in tight against her chest.
Seth came to stand next to her awkwardly and then sat so he could run his hand up and down her back. “What’s wrong?” he crooned.
She sniffed. “Please don’t make me go out again,” she whined.
His hand paused briefly in its pattern. “You need to feed again.”
Shaking her head, she buried her face in her knees.
He let out a long, heavy sigh. They were silent a moment, except for the hitching of her breath as she struggled to stop crying. At last, he spoke quietly.
“There is... an alternative,” he said slowly.
She lifted her head to look at him, surprised. “To feeding?” she was confused.
“To feeding off humans,” he corrected. “I had planned, eventually, that you would largely be feeding off our own kind. But you’re not ready to fight yet.”
She wasn’t sure if she agreed with him on that. She thought about it a moment, though. “I suppose that wouldn’t be so bad,” she agreed.
He chuckled. When she glared at him, he shrugged. “Forgive me for finding it amusing that you are more comfortable with cannibalism than your natural predatory habits.”
The corner of her mouth twitched, and she took a deep, shuddering breath. “So what can I do until I’m ready for that?”
Seth licked his lips. She was coming to recognize that gesture as a sign of hesitation from him. It was usually followed by something she wouldn’t like. “You could, instead, drink from me.”
It took a moment for that to sink in. “What? If that was an option, why did we even go out?” she demanded, suddenly angry.
“Because,” he said quickly, “it has consequences.”
“What kind of consequences?” she asked, suspicious.
He sighed again. “It will strengthen the connection between us,” he explained. “It will draw us closer, emotionally. I thought you might object to that.”
“Oh.” She relaxed a little, stretching out her legs a bit. She considered her options carefully. Either she could risk killing someone, again and again, and know that every time some part of her wanted to kill, or she could get cozy with the monster who made her like this. Not a great choice.
“There is something else I should tell you,” he said quietly.
She turned to look at him again, listening.
“Have you been feeling... restless, or irritated lately?” he asked.
Tanya scowled in response.
“More so every day?”
“Yeah, well living with you has that effect on me,” she snapped.
He pressed his thin lips together, clearly not amused. “That is not the cause,” he told her. “Everything about you has been made stronger. Your body, your senses, your mind, reflexes, instincts...” he paused, “and your desires.”
It wasn’t hard to imagine where he was going with this. “So you’re saying I need to get laid?” she said, nonplussed.
“Or kill,” he nodded.
“What?”
“It’s very nearly the same sensation,” he explained.
She felt as if the floor had dropped out from beneath her. Oh, god, he was right. That... thing... she had been reaching for, that feeling she had sensed was near when she was feeding, it was like... it was like....
“If you deny yourself for too long, you may have difficulty controlling yourself while feeding,” he went on.
She could see where this conversation was leading, and she didn’t like it. “I am not sleeping with you!” she shouted.
“Suit yourself,” he said coldly. “Shall I bring in someone for you to kill, then?” His voice was laced with acid.
“No!” she got to her feet, glaring down at him. “I don’t believe you,” she hissed. “You’re such a... such a slimeball!”
He raised his eyebrows. “I have been called many things, but I think that’s the first I’ve had that particular epithet flung at me,” he mused.
“You’re saying that I have to pick between shacking up with you and being a serial killer,” she pointed out.
He actually laughed. “Technically you were already a serial killer before I changed you,” he said, “and if you’re going to feed from me, I guarantee you’ll change your tune about the other option. I thought it was only fair to let you know up front.”
“Why you... you stuck-up, self-involved, pretentious asshole!” she yelled.
“Those I am more familiar with.”
He still thinks this is funny! She let out an inarticulate cry of rage and disgust and stormed out of the room. She didn’t stop until she got to her bedroom, slamming the door.
Fine, she thought viciously. If all I need is to get off, I certainly don’t need him for that.
Seth watched her leave with a mix of irritation and satisfaction. He had intended to shake her out of her melancholy stupor, and he had succeeded. He wasn’t overly fond of this obstinate attitude she favored, but it was better than the alternative.
There was not much doubt in his mind what she would try to do now. He had very deliberately not told her precisely why intercourse and feeding were similar because he was coming to realize that the hard way was really the only way Tatiana learned. If she wasn’t allowed to discover something for herself, it held no validity in her opinion.
It had become clear, over the last several days, that allowing himself to feel sorry for her was doing her no good. She only grew irritated when he tried to console her, and disrespectful when he gave her the benefit of the doubt.
Ah, well, he thought. Spare the rod, spoil the child.
He got to his feet and relocated himself to the study. It was terribly tempting to go listen at Tatiana’s door, but it wouldn’t be worth it to upset her further. There were some boundaries a gentleman did not cross, after all.
Instead, he spent the time agonizing over which choice she would make. Objectively, either one was an acceptable option, but he was fairly certain that she would not choose murder. It went against her personal code of ethics, and if the change had altered her that much, it was concerning.
If only she had not needed to make the choice at all, he thought sourly. If only she had come to him naturally... he sighed. So much of this plan had not gone as he had expected, and he was not accustomed to that. He supposed he would just have to improvise.
Tanya lay, panting, staring at the ceiling. Well, that was disappointing, she thought. Since she’d never had much time for relationships, she’d long since learned how to take care of herself, so to speak, and she’d certainly never
had anything to complain about. Now, even though she had clearly achieved her goal, it just wasn’t... satisfying.
Even worse, as she sat up, she realized the sense of irritation she’d been trying to relieve had gotten worse. Great. She thought about trying again, rustling through her mental index of fantasies for something more visceral, but there were two things her mind kept coming back to, which had nearly ruined the first try.
The first was Seth, holding her gaze in the mirror at the head of his bed, as he made her scream.
Even worse was the second, the girl she had fed on, the feel of her body pressed against her own, and reaching, reaching for what she now realized was what Seth called a ka.
What she could do for herself came nowhere near either of those moments. One of these things is not like the other, an annoying sing-song voice in her head told her. No kidding. Seth had said that sex and feeding were alike, and she was starting to think that getting off was not, in fact, the connection.
She sighed and zipped her jeans back up. Maybe she would take a bath, or better yet, a shower. Hm. The shower had some possibilities....
When she opened the door to her room, though, she saw Seth lounging in the doorway to his study, apparently waiting for her to come out.
“What?” she snapped at him.
“How did your experiment go?” he asked snarkily.
Her face heated up instantly. He knew. “Fuck off,” she told him, opening the linen closet to get towels.
He spread his hands. “Foul language aside, that was my suggestion,” he teased.
She chucked one of the towels at him, but he snatched it out of the air.
“I’m taking a shower,” she told him.
He looked down at the towel in his hand. “Do you wish me to join you?” he raised an eyebrow.
“No!” she yelled and slammed the door. Through it, though, she could still hear his laughter.
“Good luck with that!” he called.
God, she hated him.
The shower, it turned out, was also a really bad idea. It was a new sensation Tanya had not yet experienced since the change, and the water beating on her skin was almost enough to give her a panic attack. By the time she was done, physically she was clean, but emotionally she was a mess. She was angry, hungry, sexually frustrated, and exhausted. It was not a good place to be.
Which is why, when she opened the bathroom door to find Seth standing in front of it, she pretty much slammed it in his face. She put her back to the wood and slid down until she crouched on the floor. After a moment, she heard Seth settle on the opposite side.
“Tatiana—”
“Tanya!” she shouted.
“Tanya, you are making this more difficult than it needs to be,” he chided softly. “It’s a simple question of the lesser of two evils,” he offered.
“I think you probably beat out just about any evil I can think of,” she shot back.
“Even murdering humans?” he reminded her.
She pressed the heels of her hands against her forehead. “God, I hate you!”
“I never asked you to love me,” he snapped.
Distantly, she recognized the hurt in his voice. She was too angry to care about his feelings at the moment, but she filed the thought away for future ammunition. “No, you just want me to fuck you,” she hissed.
His exasperated sigh let her know what he thought of her vocabulary. “You’re in no shape to feed now,” he pointed out. “What alternative do you suggest?”
“I just... won’t!” she argued. “I’m not going to sleep with you, I’m not going to kill anyone, and I’m never going to feed off a human again!”
There was a long pause at that. “You can’t starve yourself to death, Tatiana,” he told her.
Inside, she felt herself grow cold. “Just watch me,” she told him.
On the other side of the door, she heard Seth stand and put his hand on the doorknob. For a moment she thought he was going to try to open the door, but he didn’t. Instead, he said, “We shall see about that,” and left.
The next evening, Tanya woke up in her own bed. This was a little disorienting, as she had fallen asleep locked up in the bathroom. Worse yet, she was wearing her pajamas, when she had been wrapped in just a towel before.
At this point, she was past being surprised at Seth’s creepiness. It wasn’t worth expending the energy to make a fuss about it. She just got up, got dressed, and went downstairs to find Seth brewing a pot of tea in the kitchen.
“Oh, so you’ve decided to grace me with your presence,” he said without looking up.
“I want to learn to fight,” she told him. “The sooner I can fight other vampires the better.”
“I agree,” he murmured, and turned around, leaning against the counter and stirring his drink. “But what, exactly, do you think I’ve been teaching you these last two weeks?”
God, has it really only been two weeks? It feels like an eternity. “You’ve taught me some moves, yeah, but I want to learn how to use them. I know I’m not ready for a Master, but surely I can learn enough to take down a couple changelings.”
Seth took a sip of his tea. “Maybe. Before, you chiefly used the element of surprise to gain the upper hand in your fights. Most vampires are not in the habit of thinking of humans as anything more than a food source. If you had actually gone toe-to-toe with most of your kills, you likely wouldn’t have survived. Now you will not have that advantage.”
“That’s not my fault,” she sniffed.
He smiled, conceding the point. “Be that as it may, you will now be immediately recognized as a threat. Do you think your skills are up to that challenge yet?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. And I won’t know until we start actually sparring,” she argued.
“Fair enough.” He dumped the mug of tea down the drain, and set it in the sink. “Come along, then,” he said, as he made his way to the training room.
Tanya followed after, surprised it had been that easy to convince him. Once they had reached the familiar room, he immediately took up a fighting stance and beckoned to her with one hand.
“Wait, what’s to stop me from killing you?” she asked.
Seth spread his hands wide, smiling. “You have my permission to try.”
For a moment, she just stared at him, struck dumb once more by his incredible ego. She squinted at him. “Are you... You’re trying to do some kind of reverse-psychology on me, aren’t you?”
“I assure you I am completely sincere. I should warn you, though, that the likelihood of your success is extremely minimal. However, if you can kill me, then I have no business trying to train you. But still, it would very much surprise me,” he admitted.
She sighed. “Well, that almost takes the fun out of killing you,” she bitched.
He raised an eyebrow. “Almost?”
She gave him a deadly grin. “Not enough to stop me.”
She rushed him, feinting for his open left side, but slipping past his right at the last minute and aiming a strike at his back. He ducked it easily, though, and then swiped a leg at her feet. She saw the strike coming just in time to hop over it but missed the follow-up blow to her side.
She staggered away, clutching her ribs. Damn, but that hurt.
“Not a bad start,” he said patronizingly.
Nice try, she thought. She wasn’t going to let him get her worked up this time. She approached him slowly, circling as she looked for an opening in his defense. Once or twice she saw him slip, but she knew enough to recognize a trap when she saw one.
“Don’t dumb it down for me,” she complained.
He gave her a sarcastic look. “Shall I go on the offense then?”
Tanya took a deep breath. I know this is gonna suck, but how else am I going to learn? “Sure,” she said, hoping she sounded more confident than she felt.
Without warning, he began his attack. She managed to dodge the first two strikes and took the third as a glancing blow.
It
hurt like a bitch, but it gave her the opportunity to grab his arm and pull. It wasn’t the neat flip she had hoped for, and as soon as he hit the ground, he twisted, knocking her feet out from under her.
She lashed out with a kick and then made to get up, but he caught her ankle and pulled.
Forgoing fancy moves, she attacked with knees and elbows and nails. A soft “oof” from Seth let her know she’d landed a blow somewhere sensitive, but it wasn’t enough to faze him. Somehow he managed to get her turned over on her stomach, and pinned her arms between them.
“Get off!” she shouted, bucking her hips back into him. It was the only attack she could manage in that position.
“It’s going to take a little more work than that, darling,” he teased, his sly tone making it a double entendre.
“Ugh,” she complained, but felt her cheeks burn red as she realized precisely how intimately they were arranged. She continued trying to squirm out of his hold, but he just pressed himself against her harder, which made her brain go straight to the gutter.
Stilling, she tried to catch her breath. “Why am I so tired?” she whined.
“You need to feed,” Seth reminded her, releasing her arms and getting up.
She groaned and flopped onto her back, but that was about all she could manage. He held out a hand, but she chose to ignore it.
“The more energy you burn, the greater that need will become,” he explained.
“You could have told me that before we started sparring!” she shouted, and then closed her eyes, groaning. She felt like shit.
“But that would be counterintuitive to my purposes,” he stated. After a moment, he crouched down next to her. “Tanya,” he said softly.
The fact that he used her preferred name was enough to get her to open her eyes and listen.
His face was full of concern and frustration. “You will feed eventually, whether you will it or not. It’s only going to be worse the longer you put it off.”
She closed her eyes again, blocking out his words. She knew they were true, could feel her body slowly tightening, readying itself to mutiny her brain. She remembered the taste of the girl at the club, her hot blood pouring into her mouth, and swallowed reflexively. If she did that again, would she be able to stop?
