The Queen Slayer {2}

Ten Thousand Times Before

The smell of charred flesh and the feeling of his skin going up in flames as waves of pure agony rushed through his body was the last thing Stefan remembered before the darkness.

For a moment, as light slowly flickered in invading his vision, he found himself contemplating if he had died again in that safe. Wondering if the memory of escaping was nothing more than just another hallucination, his mind playing tricks on him as water once again filled his lungs.

Letting his eyes flicker open, confusion instantly flooded him as he spotted the wooden ceiling above him. Not only was he resting on a soft couch, the feeling of harsh stone cold metal pressing into his back long gone, but there was nothing but light filling his vision.

No water suffocating him, caving his chest in under the weight as he was blinded in darkness, fists pounding against the safe he had been unable to see in clearly due to lack of light and oxygen inside.

He was free.

Despite the fact his body was desperate to finally relax for the first time in god knows how long, the echo of feet moving around the room he had been taken to had him tensing up.

Everything rushed back in a second, the man he had torn into when the safe had been opened, stumbling through unfamiliar woods drenched in a mixture of salt water and blood, then the feeling of his flesh burning as the rising sun touched his skin.

Someone had saved him and brought him here.

Letting his fingers softly move over his index finger, Stefan couldn't help but sigh. His daylight ring was gone and given he could spot peaks of light seeping in through the curtains of the window near the couch, curtains currently shielding him, it was made clear that he wouldn't be going anywhere any time soon.

Spotting an unfamiliar stunning dark-skinned woman with long dark curls moving toward him, Stefan shot up in his seat, his eyes narrowing dangerously a growl escaping him as the blood pumping through her body started to be all his mind could focus on.

He could hear the blood moving and it was taking everything in him not to tear into her neck until her head dropped off.

But he hadn't spent years working on control to lose it now.

He hadn't spent months refusing to turn it off only to slip up now.

He had already killed someone and hurt that innocent girl in the bar, he didn't want to hurt anyone else, however, realistically, if she got too close given his throat still felt like sandpaper he wasn't too sure if he would be able to control himself for long.

"I don't want to hurt you, so get away from me, before I rip your throat out."

His warning did not have the desired effect as the woman just stared at him blankly, clearly unimpressed with his first words following her saving his life from becoming nothing but vampire barbeque "Hello to you, too." She muttered with an eye roll before grabbing a blood bag out of the cooler and holding it out toward him "I brought dinner."

The sound of her blood pumping through her veins just grew louder in his ears as he eyed the bag of blood, his throat contracting painfully, grinding together like dust before finally... he snapped.

In the blink of an eye, he snatched the bag out of her hands ripping into it like a man dying of first.

As he devoured the bag, small growls escaping him, the woman tilted her head curiously, thinking back to how despite how starved he was, his instincts had him trying to keep from tearing into her throat. Trying to fight the hunger rippling through his body.

A vampire who would rather starve than hurt an innocent.

It was intriguing, to say the least.