Hummingbird: Fourteen

Alexander slid into the Jaguar. It still stank of that cheap soap which had leaked into the locket and scented his prison. Alexander wound down the window, but the smell still invaded his senses, creating a scented path of where his enslaver had been recently.

He concentrated instead on the music - a fast folk song - and increased the music volume. This was his ex-captor, too. He remembered her pulse as music played, how it almost sung to the beat. He recalled the sounds of scuffling, the abrupt cut-off of the music, and the sound of shattering mixing with her cry out; his confusion as anger soared through him, wanting to cause harm to whatever had made her upset.

That was six years ago, and she hadn't cried since. It seemed an age ago that her crying had often comforted him - that his beholder suffered as he did. But he was often frustrated by it, too, wanting her to get over it. After all, when had he ever shed a tear in that prison? How could one so weak have the privilege of holding a powerful vampire?

But she had been broken the day her last tear dried and to his frustration, he wanted to kill something not for blood or fun or food, but to avenge the one who guarded his prison. He hadn't known who he was more angry with - Her, for making him feel like this, the man for making her lock up part of her humanity, or Anaria, for giving this curse to him.

That was before he himself had been broken. That damn locket had been hell, he'd been chained and not able to do anything to escape his bounds, despite being in his most powerful form. With no contact to anything save for his guard's heart - which constantly teased him - and the immediate sounds surrounding her. Anaria had always been there, and while Hale slept, she had put droplets of blood into the locket, but they were always stale and cold. He missed the sensations of the hunt, the fear in his prey, the point just before they died when their heart beat blood for him, not them. It was unbearable, and as the years wasted away, so did he. He had kept strong and determined and fierce, but suddenly he had no energy for it anymore. For the last couple of years, through the silence of his retreat, his lack of yelling and pulling at the chains, he had been forced to really listen and feel his guardian, and her heart became not a food source that was taunting him, but something sacred, soothing him to sleep through the nightmare that he would never escape here. He saw her presence as something to guard his prison until the time he was freed, not someone who kept him prisoner. For the first time, he had found a human heart that he didn't want to drink from, one that he wanted to keep beating, and would do anything to protect.

He rubbed his thumb and index finger together at the realisation that Anaria's plan had worked. He needed to find himself again. Just because he couldn't kill her, didn't mean he couldn't get that heart to beat more rapidly, to fear him as his prey did, until he became detached from it again. When the day came that he could kill her, he vowed to do the deed in front of Anaria. He would not lose himself, and he had to show Anaria that whatever she did, eventually, he would find his way back to himself. He smiled at the thought and accelerated the car out of Zaylia.

A couple of hours later, he came to a place where his ex-guard's scent drifted off the main road and into a small town called Talo. He followed the path. When they had come here, he had long since lost his grip on knowing reality from fiction, but there was one thing here that had made Hale's heart beat something which felt like an electric shock, breaking through his slumber of insanity. Something that had may well have been jealousy. Something that was close to Blake's own heart.

He entered the tavern. It was full of bawdy humans with no regard of themselves. Alexander sneered and headed towards a woman gathering glasses. She was pretty enough for jealous thoughts, but no vampire.

"Where's Sarah?" Alexander asked. The name had resonated in him from Hale. The barmaid jumped and looked up at him.

"Blake! I'll go get her." Alexander held in the flinch of hearing that name as she placed the glasses behind the bar and ran through a door.

When Sarah appeared, she seemed to bounce towards Alexander. But when she locked eyes with him, she halted and stated, "You'd best come upstairs."

They ascended upwards, the creaking of stairs and the banter of the tavern the only sounds. She led Alexander into what he assumed was her bedroom. It was colourful and warm. He guessed her a vampire who did not embrace her gift. The bed was decorated with pillows and incense burned, giving a heady haze to her room and blocking the soapy scent for the first time in ten years. Alexander breathed it in with relief, but was annoyed to find that his senses seemed to be missing something now. It was like that first moment when he couldn't feel her heart, he would get used to the cold.

"You're Alexander, aren't you?"

Alexander smiled and tilted his head.

"Have you come for me? Blake has told me of his rogue past, what you might do to me when you are freed. I don't fear the end, much has happened to me, and I have nothing to stay for."

Alexander had no intention of cremating her, but her confession gave him something to play with. "Then there's not point of promising it to you, is there? We'll have to think of something else to have fun with."

Alexander leapt onto the bed, but Sarah did not react.  

"Why have you come here, Alexander?"

"I was curious as to who Blake chose to lay with. I see we have good taste."

"You're here because Hale came here, aren't you?"

"Do not speak her name! She is nothing, a mere human."

"She means more to you than that. Blake certainly thought so."

"Blake is not me, and will never become part of me again. When that girl becomes my prey, things will be right once more."
"That's not what you want."

Alexander was losing patience with this adamant woman. "You're looking at me as if I were Blake, as if my emotions are Blake's, and they're not."

There was a heavy silence before Sarah replied, "You're just like him, you know. He repressed what he couldn't handle, too. Look where it's got you both. Embrace what you're frightened of."

Alexander's voice was a grating growl, controlled and venomous. "The only thing that discomforts me is her hindrance. But I'm planning on severing her soon."

"Love cannot be purged."

"You can't purge what you do not feel."

"So you prefer to be so feared that you end up being alone?"

Alexander smiled, intrigued by Sarah's lack of observation. "What do I care? I like my solitude, Anaria can't force me from that."

"You're an obstinate fool, just like Blake. Try seeing someone else's perspective for once. Hale doesn't want to be alone, she's been forced into that by you."

"I've been hearing her perspective for the past ten years! She started to change me, and I don't like that. When she becomes my prey, I'll be myself again and feel pride that I've put her through this." He dismissed the uncomfortable feeling he got from saying this.
"She's innocent, and deserves her nightmare to be over," Sarah retorted.

"Thus I'm ending it for her." His growl was softer this time. Sarah gave him a small smile and sat on the bed.

"Can you?" She kissed Alexander on the cheek, and he flinched from the electric sensation that came from those lips.

"You've never been fed from, have you?" Sarah laughed and leaned into him,  her fangs elongating. As they penetrated his skin and his blood flowed out of him, he pushed her away in defence. Sarah scowled at him.

"What I hold is mine alone," he retorted.

"Then feast from me," her invitation was mellow and sweet. In one ferocious movement, Alexander bit into her neck and sucked. He could tell that she had fed recently: the blood was thick and constant and made his heart beat strong. He never understood why one would let someone take this substance them.

"Slow down," Sarah said calmly. "Concentrate on the taste, on the texture. Enjoy it."

Alexander couldn't understand her, he had always found feasting exquisite, the line of life and death in his control. It was easy with humans. In vampires, it was a different type of thrill. He had always off-set their pleasure with the fear of death, taking that little bit too much as they cursed him, yet not enough to drain their vessel completely. So as he always did, he ignored her request to slow. Sarah tutted and took his hand. She rubbed her thumb on the back of his hand in a slow, circular motion. Soon enough, Alexander's feeding became that rhythm and he drew out of her.

"What are you doing?" he said.

"Showing you that fear is not the only pleasure."

Sarah took his hand and ran his fingers through her thick, blonde hair, and for a second he saw Hale staring back at him. But before he lingered on that thought, she drew her hand over her soft skin and curvy figure. She kissed him over and over, each time becoming more intense, letting her fangs scratch and penetrate and play with him, as he had always done with his victims. Yet this was different, this was not violent, it was teasing, and the sensations which shook him were none that he had felt before. All of a sudden, he wanted to be inside her, and he bit into her again, drawing out sweet blood and passion. Her perfumed taste this time was more than just nourishment, the texture of the liquid was like silk and spoke to his whole body to bring it alive not just for survival, but for pleasure. He could hear her heart beating with the use of his own blood, and Alexander thought of the way Hale's heart felt when it was pretending to be strong, resilient, and the rare times when it was happy. The sublime times when she listened to music. To his surprise, he realised he had found the most comfort in his prison when she was more content than afraid.

"Bite into me," Alexander heaved, and when she did, he let out a groan and wished for them to stay as they were for eternity. He had been with numerable women, both human and vampire, but he couldn't distinguish any of them.They were only a mix of perfume and colour and texture. Even now, with Sarah, all he could think about was Hale and, though their physical meeting had been brief, all he could see were her bright green eyes speckled with black, freckles on a sunburnt nose, blond hair that was dull and straw-like, clothes that were too big, caved-in cheeks. He drew out from Sarah and rubbed his left thumb and index finger together, feeling the same disquiet when he had first been released from Hale.

Then Sarah whispered, "I knew you loved me."

Alexander pushed her away. "I'm not Blake." But his voice wavered. With their embrace, that uncomfortable feeling had been torn, and something that felt as good as the hunt had replaced it. He wanted it back.

Sarah smiled at him, a trickle of scarlet running down her chin, and the blood Alexander had gained made his heart pound. He felt queasy, yet he liked the sensation.

"I'm sure what she can give you is a hundred times better," Sarah said.

There was a time when he was going insane from Hale's presence, when paradise would be anything away from her. But now he almost…missed her? His throat rumbled.

"Go to her, Alexander," Sarah said.

"I'll lose myself."

Sarah nipped him, sending something like an electric shock through his system. "No, you'll find yourself."