The Vampire & the Rebel (Completed)

Part 1: Chapter 17

I was craving blood from the source. Rather than sending my guards to find me whoever was next in line, I decided to wander down and find one of my favourites.

The scent of cooked food hung heavy in the air, so it was clearly meal time for the humans. I would probably find the bulk of them in the dining areas. There were three, one for the female humans, another for the male humans, and then one small one for my guards, which was also where Jamie would be eating if he was not finished already.

I could pretend that I did not have him in mind as I walked there, but it would not be true. An awareness of him seemed to be ever mixed into my thoughts. I tried to remember if there had ever been a human who so intrigued me. I had seen so many, good, bad, likeable and unlikeable, humans who screamed in terror, and humans who had pleaded to be turned into a creature like me.

Maybe there was nothing special about Jamie. Perhaps I had been particularly bored and had simply built him up in my mind to be so very entertaining.

As soon as I entered the dining hall, my eyes instantly found him as if I had no control over their direction. The moment he realized I was there was obvious from the stiffening of his muscles and the clenching of his jaw.

No, it was not in my head, or maybe it was, but I rather thought I had little control over my obsession. It disturbed me. I had been in control of myself for a long time, but now my self-control seemed to have crumbled.

I should have left him where I had found him, chained to the wall beneath the council building, but it was far too late for that now.

There was a chorus of greetings as I entered and I smiled at the group surrounding me. There was an empty seat across from Marcel, so I sat down in it, next to Ian.

"Mistress," Ian said, his voice as respectful as ever. "Can we help you with something?"

"I am actually a bit hungry." I raised my voice and asked, "Any volunteers?"

Several of them spoke up, but of course Jamie was not one of them.

"Who was least recent?" I asked and they began working it out amongst themselves.

My feelings around Jamie were very conflicted. I wanted him to never give in, but at the same time I wanted him to.

Perhaps Leif was right and I should just stop the games and be plain about everything.

But I did not want to. I adored the heat of his hatred and I needed it just a little bit longer.

I sounded like an addict.

"Seems like it's Axel," Dean commented.

I glanced towards the lucky winner. "Finish your supper, it's no rush." I always kept myself well fed.

While I had never set out to test my resilience, once I had managed to go without blood for over three weeks during the human suppression wars. It had been like I had gone mad, with nothing but the red fluid of life consuming my mind until I had finally had the opportunity to sink my fangs into some poor human, then another, and then another until finally that hollow craving inside me was sated enough that my mind returned to me.

While my near starvation had been a result of the lack of availability of humans in the midst of the conflict, later starvation had become a strategy that had ultimately turned a losing war in our favour. If I allowed myself, I could still see the battlefields as if a film ran in my mind. The humans with their weapons, holding us back, rendering the vampire forces to immobility or ash, until we released our new weapons: the new starved fledglings that had been turned from the wounded and dying casualties of previous battles.