My happiness instantly evaporated when he took his second step.
Pure prey-filled panic swept through me and I had the overwhelming desire to run. Every fundamental cell in my body was screaming at me to bolt for the stairs, screeching bloody murder the entire way, and plunge myself into the dark, barren landscape where our captor had taken us. I wasn't entirely an idiot though.
The part of my brain that, luckily, had firm control over my motor functions, knew that the surest way to get myself killed would be to act like the quarry I indeed was. Nothing would kick Teren's predatory nature into overdrive quite like me acting like a fleeing dinner. I instantly remembered Halina remarking how much she loved the hunt, and I knew that I couldn't do anything that a typical human would do in this situation. I couldn't run. I had to stand perfectly still and let him approach me. And let me tell you, fighting eons of pure instinct is difficult.
Teren straightened as he stiffly walked towards me; his blood-soaked jeans only emphasized the oddness of watching him walk in my direction. A small smile played at the corners of his wide open mouth and his extended fangs were so long they brushed against his lower lip. I imagined those teeth plunging into my neck. In my fear, I pictured them coming right out the other side.
A shudder passed through me and he paused, notating the movement with clear interest in his pale eyes. A stranger's eyes...not my Teren's. This was a creature of the night. This was hunger incarnate. This was a near-death, thirsty vampire and for the first time ever-I was terrified of him.
He resumed his stiff walk and when he had halved the distance between us, I knew I had to try to appeal to whatever human side was still in him right now, or else he'd kill me for sure.
"Teren...baby. It's me...Emma."
He cocked his head to the side and his brows scrunched, like he was hearing a language he ought to know but didn't currently understand. His shaky steps continued until he came to the unconscious man in front of me. Ignoring our captor lying on the ground, he walked around the still body, to come up to my shaking one.
Thinking my shivers were drawing him straight to me, I tried to control the tremors. But I couldn't control them anymore than I could stop my juicily pulsating heart from racing. I knew he would be able to hear my slushy, elevated beats. He could probably even sense the blood rushing throughout my veins in overdrive. Right now, I was irresistible to him and I couldn't do anything about it.
"Baby...please...it's me. You love me...remember?"
He stepped right beside me, his chest pressing against my arm. A low growl vibrated his ribcage and I felt it all the way up my body. I gritted my teeth to not move, to not scream. A tear rolled down my cheek, as the level of fear and concentration coursing through my body showed itself physically.
"Baby...you love me. Remember, Teren. Please remember."
He pressed harder into my side and a soft sob escaped me. Teren bent down and softly hissed in my ear. A huge shudder, which had nothing to do with how his body felt noticeably cooler, passed through my frame, and a pleased noise rumbled in his chest.
"Oh God, Teren...please. Baby, you promised...you promised. Please...please remember...you love me."
He ran his nose up my throat, inhaling the whole while. I bit my lip and mostly held back the scream. I couldn't stop how heavily I was breathing, though. I couldn't calm my heart. I couldn't ebb the terror in my veins. Teren shivered at my reaction and exhaled a cool breath across my skin. He lowered his head to the crook of my neck and I felt the brush of his rough stubble against my shoulder as he angled himself into position-for the last bite he would ever take from me. His cool lips caressed my skin as he pressed them against me. For a split second, my fear-soaked brain desperately wanted to believe that he was playing with me, teasing me, but I fully understood the situation, and I knew that nothing about this was a joke or an intimacy. He was going to kill me, because he couldn't help it, because the hunger was too strong.
I felt his mouth opening wider, taking my flesh inside. I felt his teeth grazing my skin. "Teren, please. I love you...I love you so much. Please don't do this. Please fight it...please. Ya tebya lyublyu."
I started repeating the Russian phrase over and over, like it was a lifeline and I was drowning. Teren hadn't clamped down on my skin, but his teeth were prickling my flesh like nails, waiting to be driven deep. Tears freely coursed down my cheeks as I mindlessly repeated the phrase. My body couldn't keep up this charade of pretending to not be food. I was losing the battle. I was losing my grip on my sanity. I was about to run. Even still, I knew the minute I moved, it would be my last.
That was when his black hair unexpectedly dropped from the edge of my vision. Confused, I took a stuttered breath and looked down. He was lying in a fetal position at my feet, clutching his stomach like it was an open wound and he needed to hold in his intestines to keep them from spilling out over the ground. He groaned and shifted to look up at me. My breath caught at the look in his pale eyes. I knew that look. That was my Teren returning my gaze.
"Emma..." The ache in his voice ripped me open...he was so hungry.
His eyes blazed with pain, a different kind of pain than before he'd died. His face was still a pale, sunken, unhealthy color and his fangs were still elongated. He closed his eyes and groaned again and I ignored every urge to kneel and comfort him. He'd resisted me once, twice was pretty much asking for it.
Suddenly, our captor moaned and moved. My terror-filled mind suddenly remembered that I wasn't the only meal bag in this room. Sickened by my idea, I whispered, "Teren, drain him." My tone was firm, sure, and showed none of the inner turmoil I felt over what I was asking my sweetheart to do.
Teren's eyes opened and flicked over to the man, who was now starting to rock his head slowly from side to side. Teren's hazy eyes returned to mine and he swallowed with great difficulty, like his throat was so dry he barely could.
"No." He croaked out, sounding like a man who'd been trudging through the desert for days with no water and could hardly still make speech.
I nudged the man's shoulder with my shoe; he groaned in response. "You will die unless you drink...so do it!" Heat entered my tone, as I began to realize that Teren might refuse all blood available to him.
His eyes steadily held mine. "No," he coarsely whispered.
Now I kicked the man, making him start to stir towards consciousness. "Drink, damn you! Don't you give up on me!" A different kind of panic seeped into my voice, giving it strength and volume.
With a resolved look in his pained eyes, Teren lightly shook his head. "No, Emma. I told you I'd never take a life. Not even his..." His eyes drifted back to the man, before returning to mine.
"Not even for me!" I yelled, nearly wanting to kick Teren now.
He gave me a soft, pained smile, and I instantly remembered that we'd had this conversation once before, back when we'd argued about him changing my sister. I knew exactly what his answer would be...what it had always been. "Not even for me, Emma," he whispered.
I shook my head in disbelief, when I realized what he was saying. "Please...I can't lose you."
He closed his eyes and slowly exhaled. A twinge of discomfort passed through his features, and I knew he was hiding how much he was really hurting from me, both emotionally and physically. When he reopened his eyes, it was with a visible effort, like they suddenly weighed a ton each. "I'm sorry, Emma...but no, I won't do it."
His hands loosened their death grip on his stomach, his face relaxed, then his eyes unfocused. They fluttered shut and with a long, shaky breath, his head dropped. Ignoring the maniac starting to revive next to us, and ignoring the instinct to stay away from Teren, I dropped to my knees at his side. He was dying...again, only this time he wouldn't wake back up.
"No! Please, Teren...please."
I shook his shoulders and he groaned. With a struggle, he reopened his eyes. His face was wan and anemic looking, and he couldn't entirely focus on me. The contrast was so different from the ferocious killer that had stalked me only moments before that it made it all the more terrifying. He was slipping so fast...
Smiling around his fangs, Teren repeated the Russian phrase that he'd said the first time he'd died, the phrase I'd used to eventually snap him out of his hunger-induced stupor. The way he said it this time, well, every syllable of it had the finality of goodbye.
I shook his shoulders even harder when his eyes started fluttering closed again. "No! You stupid, stubborn son of a bitch! No!" I started smacking his shoulders into the ground, but his eyes had successfully closed and he was no longer responding to me. "No...vampiric a**hole! Don't give up on me now! NO!"
He was silent. He was still. I was more scared than when he'd inhaled me.
Another moan on the other side of me reminded me, yet again, that I wasn't the only human down here. Once the man recovered from my attack, he was going to be pretty pissed. He might not relish killing humans, but I was pretty sure he'd do it anyway, especially with the headache I'd surely given him.
I dropped Teren's shoulders and noted his still, gaunt face. I had no idea if he was dead-dead or just at a point where he could no longer move. I didn't exactly have the typical vital signs to check. Was he breathing...no. Did he have a heartbeat...no. He could be sleeping for all I knew. But he wasn't, he was dying, if not already dead.
Anger shot through me. No...this was not how my fairytale was ending. The Prince did not die and leave the Princess alone to get beaten to death by the villain. Every thought I'd ever had about myself shifted. Every line I thought I'd never cross blurred. What would I do to save someone I loved? Reality started dulling from the crystal-clear black and white world I'd previously known, to the hazy realm of varying shades of gray. What wouldn't I do to save someone I loved?
Nothing. There was nothing I wouldn't do to save him, and I suddenly knew exactly what I had to do.
Standing, I grabbed the iron bar still resting by my feet. I calmly walked over to our kidnapper, the fanatic who'd put us in this horrid mess. He'd regained consciousness enough to open his eyes and he looked up at me with a hazy, unfocused gaze. I could see his mind trying to fill in the gaps of the last few moments of his life. I didn't give him much longer to worry about it.
"You were wrong. I told you he wouldn't kill me." I flicked a glance down his dirty body. "He won't even kill you." My eyes found his again; his seemed more alert and I knew I only had seconds left before he could fight me off. I leaned forward over his body. "He's too good a man to kill you."
I raised the bar, and with one hard push, I shoved it into the soft spot at the hollow of his throat. The man jerked in surprise as the iron ripped through his flesh and hit his spine.
"I'm not so good," I growled.
I pulled the rod out and a fountain of blood followed it. The man sputtered and choked on the hot fluid. I took a step back and tossed the bar down again. The man's frantic eyes found mine as he tried to cover the wound with his hands. "He's better than us both," I whispered to him.
The man's eyes widened as he struggled to breathe, his hands clasped at his throat, but the move was ineffectual; dark, deep-red blood oozed between his fingers. Suddenly, a strong set of hands ripped the man's fingers from his neck and held them at his sides. A dark-haired head attached itself to his throat, and the man dropped his mouth open in what I imagined was a silent scream. I forced myself to watch the terror flash through the man's eyes as Teren stole his life-force from him. I had done this. I wouldn't avert my eyes from my actions. I would watch...and remember.