by: Rebecca Ringer

Kara opened her amber eyes to see a starry sky above her. Her head was pounding, and her teeth ached. In fact, her whole body ached with pain.

 

“Finally. You are awake.” The words were spoken in a familiar British accent.

 

Kara turned to her left to see her boyfriend, Nikolas, staring down at her with furrowed eyebrows, his icy blue eyes were squinting at her through his brown bangs. Her head was resting in his lap and he had his arms around her. Her head felt fuzzy, and she couldn’t remember what had happened. She carefully turned her head to look to her right. There was an empty road lined with purple irises winding through a thick forest.

 

“What happened? Where am I?” Kara asked Nikolas, her voice cracking.

 

“We were in a bad car accident. But you don’t have to worry. You are okay now,” he said gently.

 

A car accident? Kara tried to remember what happened, but it felt like a bunch of clouds had made a home in her brain so much so that she couldn’t think straight. The pain coursing through her body made it hard to concentrate. She glanced down and saw that her black shirt and jeans were ripped and covered in splotches of dried blood, but her skin had no visible cuts or bruises.

 

“What do you mean ‘I’m okay?’ My whole body is aching. I do not feel okay.”

 

“I have something that will make you feel better.” Nikolas turned and grabbed a cup from the ground next to him.

 

Kara looked at him with narrowed eyes. “How is a drink supposed to make me feel better?”

 

“Trust me,” he said. “Aren’t you thirsty?”

 

She hadn’t noticed how dry her throat was. Maybe she would feel better if she drank something.

 

Kara carefully took the cup from him and looked down at the red liquid inside. The sweet smell made her teeth grow sharper. The thick texture had a striking resemblance to blood. Part of her urged her to put the cup down but the tempting, sugary aroma drowned out the voice in her head. She put the cup to her lips and hungrily drank every drop of it. The red juice was the sweetest thing she had ever tasted. It worked like medicine. All the pain in her body was gone. The fog in her head cleared, and all at once her memory came crashing back.

 

She pushed away from Nikolas and glared at him.

 

“I… I remember what happened now.” She looked down at the cup and then back up at him.

 

She remembered how Nikolas swerved his car across lanes to hit an oncoming car. What came next made her blood boil.

 

He had dragged her from the wreckage. She had been cut by glass and was bleeding everywhere. She had a deep gash on her neck where the seat belt had stopped her from flying out of the car. As soon as Nikolas’s teeth had grown sharper, she knew what he was. The pale skin made sense. The random blood on the collar of his shirt made sense. Deep down she had known what he was all along, but she had denied all of the warning signs.

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He had punctured the skin at his wrist and brought it to her mouth. She had tried to move her head away, but she was too weak to move. His blood had dripped into her mouth. It had a sharp metallic sting to it. Immediately, all of her injuries had healed and then she had blacked out.

 

She ran her tongue along her sharp canines, and she knew what he had done.

 

“Why!” Kara yelled. “Why would you do this to me?”

 

“Why not? You are my soul mate. I did not want you to die. I wanted to give you a gift. I wanted to make you like me so we could be together for eternity.”

 

Anger, betrayal, and disgust rose in Kara’s chest like a dark thunderstorm. The cup in her hand crunched as her fist balled up. She stood up quickly and backed away from Nikolas.

 

“You didn’t even ask for my permission! You never stopped to think about what I wanted. You only thought about what you wanted.” Venom dripped from her voice. She hurled the crumpled cup at Nikolas and hit him right between the eyes.

           

He recoiled, and his left eyebrow shot up. “I did not think that I needed your permission because why would you not want to be a vampire?”

             

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because they drink people’s blood! It’s disgusting!” Kara yelled at Nikolas. She was fuming. “You know I like having a choice in whatever I do! How did it not cross your mind that I would want a choice in this matter!”

           

“Do not cry, Kara.” In the blink of an eye, Nikolas was right in front of her. Hot tears of anger were rolling down her cheeks. Before she could back away from him, he reached up and tenderly wiped the tears from her cheeks. “Being a vampire should not upset you. It should excite you.”

           

“It excites you, not me. And now you’ve cursed me for all eternity,” Kara said, slapping his hand away. Her hands curled into fists, and her nails dug into her palms. She turned away from him and took several steps down the road. She didn’t make it far before she stopped in her tracks. 

 

“Nikolas, what have you done?” Kara asked softly, her right hand covering her mouth. She stumbled backwards in shock. She felt sick to her stomach.

 

Further down the road, there were two sedans with their fronts smashed in. But that’s not what had stopped Kara in her tracks. It was the body of a woman lying next to the cars. Her skin was pale, and her lips were blue.

 

“I needed a source of human blood.” He shrugged nonchalantly.

           

“Nikolas, you murdered someone!” His complete disregard for human life gave Kara chills.

           

“It is not murder.” He shook his head and crossed his arms over his chest. “We are vampires, Kara. We are at the top of the food chain. We need to drink blood in order to stay strong and healthy. Plus, the smell of it is irresistible when we are hungry. Do you not smell it?” He tilted his head to the side and raised both his eyebrows.

           

She sniffed the air. Nikolas was right. There was a sweet aroma permeating the air, and it was not the irises. She turned to look at the woman’s body. Her vision was sharper now than it had been. She could see a trickle of blood dripping onto the concrete from the woman’s neck even though she was several yards away from the body. She knew immediately that the sweet aroma was coming from the blood.

           

“You know you want it, Kara,” Nikolas said in a low voice.

           

She did want it. Her mouth was watering, and her stomach was growling. She tried to resist the temptation. She really did, but her self-control had never been strong.