Blood & Honey #1

*Chapter Twenty-One*

I never knew silence could be so loud. It is though. Maybe it's because I have spent the past two weeks with a human, listening to her heart thump, thump in her chest day in and day out.

It's not beating anymore. It's silent as she lays there motionless on the floor where she dropped. My venom has reached her heart.

What have I done?

The smooth metal and glass in my hand pulls my attention away from the stillness that now inhabits Kinley. This syringe is my last hope of saving her. I jab the needle into one of my pulsating black veins, ignoring the way it feels like something is trying to rip me apart from the inside.

I pull the plunger back, the barrel of the syringe filling with pure black blood instead of red. I don't have time to keep taking draws to see if red will come. In a fraction of a second, I am kneeling over Kinley, my hand over where her silent heart should be. Nothing I do now can make it worse than it already is.

"If this works, it's going to hurt like hell, human."

I stop the needle right before it can even break skin, the distinctive sound of a raging heartbeat roaring back to life halting my hand. I've never heard a heart beat so fast before. It honestly sounds like it is about to explode in her chest.

"Kinley?" I lean over her, watching for other signs of life.

Her eyes fly open and blood goes everywhere-all over me, all over her, all over the floor. She's throwing up so hard, she's having a hard time dealing with the spasms it's causing. By the time she is done, she is a trembling, fatigued mess in my arms. She doesn't even care that a spawn of Haysha is the one who is holding her.

There is so much blood that came out of her, it's like her body expelled all the tainted blood in her system. How? How is that possible?

"What happened?" Kinley asks, her head resting on my chest as she has no strength to support it.

"I almost killed you," I answer, my vocal cords tightening.

I've always enjoyed killing humans, but this time I found no pleasure in it.

"Oh." Kinley closes her eyes, seemingly enjoying the coldness of my skin against her feverish body. "You sound upset about it," she mumbles her words, too tired to speak at a normal volume.

That's because I am.

I glance down at the black in my veins. It is receding for whatever reason. I don't understand why I care. I've slaughtered more humans than I can count. Why do I care that I almost killed this one?

What I do know for sure is these black veins are caused by Kinley. They react to her, as does the thing inside me.

My mouth pulls into a deep frown. A human shouldn't have the power to cause a dark being to react to them. The laws of predator and prey are not designed as a two-way street. A lion doesn't wake up one day and question why he hunts and eats lamb just as a wolf and snake don't question their innate need to kill their prey. It is survival. It's the law of nature and the creed of my kind.

"Let's get you cleaned up." I stand, taking Kinley with me as I head to the incinerator.

I can taste her cinnamon blood on my lips. It's laced with my venom. This human in my arms can expel vampire venom as if it were a bad case of food poisoning.

Setting Kinley down, she sways forward until she falls against me. "Is this where I die?" She turns her face in the direction of the massive machine that has disposed of many of her kind for me.

She must be assuming now that I have seen her immunity I have decided to get rid of her and "clean up" was code for, you're about to die.

"No." I bite out, tearing Kinley's shirt off her because it's the fastest way. Her eagerness to end her life irks me, and my reluctance to let her infuriates me.